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Purpose
As a response to the increased frequency of disruptive events and intense competition, organizational agility has become a key concept in organizational research. Fostering organizational agility requires leveraging knowledge that exists both outside (exploration) and inside (exploitation) the organization. This research tests the so-called ambidexterity hypothesis, which claims that a balance between exploration and exploitation leads to increased organizational outcomes, including the development of organizational agility. Complementing previously established measurement models on ambidexterity, this research proposes an alternative measurement model to analyze how ambidexterity can enhance organizational agility and, indirectly, performance, taking into consideration the moderating effect of environmental competitiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of existing measurement models for ambidexterity shows that tension, a crucial aspect of ambidexterity, is often neglected. The authors, therefore, develop a new measurement model of ambidexterity to incorporate ambidexterity-induced tension. Using this measurement model, they examine the effect of ambidexterity on the development of entrepreneurial and adaptive agility as well as performance.
Findings
Ambidexterity positively influences both entrepreneurial and adaptive agility, indicating that a balance between exploration and exploitation has superior organizational effects. This finding confirms the ambidexterity hypothesis with respect to organizational agility. Furthermore, both entrepreneurial and adaptive agility drive organizational performance. These two indirect effects via agility fully mediate the impact of ambidexterity on organizational performance. Finally, environmental competitiveness positively moderates the relationship between ambidexterity and adaptive agility.
Originality/value
The findings extend research on ambidexterity by showing its positive effects on organizational agility. Furthermore, the study proposes an alternative operationalization to capture the ambidexterity construct that may lay the groundwork for further applications of the ambidexterity concept.
Organizational agility may be an antidote against threats from volatile, uncertain, complex, or ambiguous corporate environments. While agility has been extensively examined in manufacturing enterprises, comparably less is known about agility in knowledge-intensive organizations. As results may not be transferable, there is still some confusion about how agility in knowledge-intensive organizations can be characterized, what factors facilitate its development, what its organizational effects are, and what environmental conditions favor these effects. This study closes these gaps by presenting a systematic literature review on agility in knowledge-intensive organizations. A systematic literature search led to a sample of 37 relevant papers for our review. Integrating the knowledge-based view and a dynamic capabilities perspective, we (1) present different relevant conceptualizations of organizational agility, (2) discuss relevant knowledge management-related as well as information technology-related capabilities that support the development of organizational agility, and (3) shed light on the moderating role of environmental conditions in enhancing organizational agility and its effect on organizational performance. This academic paper adds value to theory by synthesizing existing research on agility in knowledge-intensive organizations. It furthermore may serve as a map for closing research gaps by proposing an extensive agenda for future research. Our study expands existing literature reviews on agility with its specific focus on a knowledge-intensive context and its integration of the research streams of knowledge management capabilities as well as information technology capabilities. It integrates relevant organizational knowledge management practices and the use of knowledge management systems to ensure superior performance effects. Our study can serve as a base for future examinations of organizational agility by illustrating fruitful topics for further examination as well as open questions. It may also provide value to practitioners by showing what factors favor the development of agility in knowledge-intensive organizations and what organizational effects can be achieved under which conditions.
Knowledge-intensive organizations primarily rely on knowledge and expertise as key strategic resources. In light of economic, social, and health-related crises in recent years, such organizations increasingly need to operate in dynamic environments. However, examinations on dynamic capabilities specifically in knowledge-intensive organizations remain scarce. This is remarkable given the role that knowledge holds as an economic resource in developed countries. To provide an explanation of how knowledge-intensive organizations can prevail among competitors under dynamic conditions, the authors integrate two literature streams in a knowledge-intensive context: the knowledge-based view and the dynamic capabilities approach. The knowledge-based view focuses on the nature of organizational knowledge as a critical resource and illustrates specific properties of knowledge in contrast to traditional means of labor such as capital. The dynamic capabilities approach on the other hand is about a firm's ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external resources and can be drawn on to explain organizational success through adaptation to dynamic contexts. In this conceptual study, the authors propose a research model linking knowledge processes to organizational performance through two different paths: (1) Operational capabilities permit organizations to make their living in the present and refer to efficiency. (2) Dynamic capabilities allow organizations to change their resource base and, therefore, enable their long-term survival in dynamic environments by focusing on effectiveness. Additionally, the authors hypothesize a moderating effect of environmental dynamics on the relationship between dynamic capabilities and performance. The study offers a comprehensive overview on the interplay between dynamic capabilities and the knowledge-based view, offering valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners in the field.
In the last few years, business firms have substantially invested into the artificial intelligence (AI) technology. However, according to several studies, a significant percentage of AI projects fail or do not deliver business value. Due to the specific characteristics of AI projects, the existing body of knowledge about success and failure of information systems (IS) projects in general may not be transferrable to the context of AI. Therefore, the objective of our research has been to identify factors that can lead to AI project failure. Based on interviews with AI experts, this article identifies and discusses 12 factors that can lead to project failure. The factors can be further classified into five categories: unrealistic expectations, use case related issues, organizational constraints, lack of key resources, and, technological issues. This research contributes to knowledge by providing new empirical data and synthesizing the results with related findings from prior studies. Our results have important managerial implications for firms that aim to adopt AI by helping the organizations to anticipate and actively manage risks in order to increase the chances of project success.
Purpose
Digital transformation of organizations has major implications for required skills and competencies of the workforce, both as a prerequisite for implementation, and, as a consequence of the transformation. The purpose of this study is to analyze required skills and competencies for digital transformation using the context of robotic process automation (RPA) as an example.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on an explorative, thematic coding analysis of 119 job advertisements related to RPA. The data was collected from major online job platforms, qualitatively coded and subsequently analyzed quantitatively.
Findings
The research highlights the general importance of specific skills and competencies for digital transformation and shows a gap between available skills and required skills. Moreover, it is concluded that reskilling the existing workforce might be difficult. Many emerging positions can be found in the consulting sector, which raises questions about the permanent vs temporary nature of the requirements, as well as the difficulty of acquiring the required knowledge.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to knowledge by providing new empirical findings and a novel perspective to the ongoing discussion of digital skills, employment effects and reskilling demands of the existing workforce owing to recent technological developments and automation in the overall context of digital transformation.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most promising technologies of the post-pandemic era. Cloud computing technology can simplify the process of developing AI applications by offering a variety of services, including ready-to-use tools to train machine learning (ML) algorithms. However, comparing the vast amount of services offered by different providers and selecting a suitable cloud service can be a major challenge for many firms. Also in academia, suitable criteria to evaluate this type of service remain largely unclear. Therefore, the overall aim of this work has been to develop a framework to evaluate cloud-based ML services. We use Design Science Research as our methodology and conduct a hermeneutic literature review, a vendor analysis, as well as, expert interviews. Based on our research, we present a novel framework for the evaluation of cloud-based ML services consisting of six categories and 22 criteria that are operationalized with the help of various metrics. We believe that our results will help organizations by providing specific guidance on how to compare and select service providers from the vast amount of potential suppliers.
Turning students into Industry 4.0 entrepreneurs: design and evaluation of a tailored study program
(2022)
Startups in the field of Industry 4.0 could be a huge driver of innovation for many industry sectors such as manufacturing. However, there is a lack of education programs to ensure a sufficient number of well-trained founders and thus a supply of such startups. Therefore, this study presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a university course tailored to the characteristics of Industry 4.0 entrepreneurship. Educational design-based research was applied with a focus on content and teaching concept. The study program was first implemented in 2021 at a German university of applied sciences with 25 students, of which 22 participated in the evaluation. The evaluation of the study program was conducted with a pretest–posttest-design targeting three areas: (1) knowledge about the application domain, (2) entrepreneurial intention and (3) psychological characteristics. The entrepreneurial intention was measured based on the theory of planned behavior. For measuring psychological characteristics, personality traits associated with entrepreneurship were used. Considering the study context and the limited external validity of the study, the following can be identified in particular: The results show that a university course can improve participants' knowledge of this particular area. In addition, perceived behavioral control of starting an Industry 4.0 startup was enhanced. However, the results showed no significant effects on psychological characteristics.
Since half a decade, there has been an increasing interest in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) by business firms. However, academic literature has been lacking attention to RPA, before adopting the topic to a larger extent. The aim of this study is to review and structure the latest state of scholarly research on RPA. This chapter is based on a systematic literature review that is used as a basis to develop a conceptual framework to structure the field. Our study shows that some areas of RPA have been extensively examined by many authors, e.g. potential benefits of RPA. Other categories, such as empirical studies on adoption of RPA or organisational readiness models, have remained research gaps.
Hybrid project management is an approach that combines traditional and agile project management techniques. The goal is to benefit from the strengths of each approach, and, at the same time avoid the weaknesses. However, due to the variety of hybrid methodologies that have been presented in the meantime, it is not easy to understand the differences or similarities of the methodologies, as well as, the advantages or disadvantages of the hybrid approach in general. Additionally, there is only fragmented knowledge about prerequisites and success factors for successfully implementing hybrid project management in organizations. Hence, the aim of this study is to provide a structured overview of the current state of research regarding the topic. To address this aim, we have conducted a systematic literature review focusing on a set of specific research questions. As a result, four different hybrid methodologies are discussed, as well as, the definition, benefits, challenges, suitability and prerequisites of hybrid project management. Our study contributes to knowledge by synthesizing and structuring prior work in this growing area of research, which serves as a basis for purposeful and targeted research in the future.
Context: Agile practices as well as UX methods are nowadays well-known and often adopted to develop complex software and products more efficiently and effectively. However, in the so called VUCA environment, which many companies are confronted with, the sole use of UX research is not sufficient to find the best solutions for customers. The implementation of Design Thinking can support this process. But many companies and their product owners don’t know how much resources they should spend for conducting Design Thinking.
Objective: This paper aims at suggesting a supportive tool, the “Discovery Effort Worthiness (DEW) Index”, for product owners and agile teams to determine a suitable amount of effort that should be spent for Design Thinking activities.
Method: A case study was conducted for the development of the DEW index. Design Thinking was introduced into the regular development cycle of an industry Scrum team. With the support of UX and Design Thinking experts, a formula was developed to determine the appropriate effort for Design Thinking.
Results: The developed “Discovery Effort Worthiness Index” provides an easy-to-use tool for companies and their product owners to determine how much effort they should spend on Design Thinking methods to discover and validate requirements. A company can map the corresponding Design Thinking methods to the results of the DEW Index calculation, and product owners can select the appropriate measures from this mapping. Therefore, they can optimize the effort spent for discovery and validation.