Showing papers by "Thomas Hess published in 2020"

Digital innovations: Embedding in organizations

Abstract: In the digital era, organizations can use digital technologies to develop new digital products and services, business processes, or business models. These so-called digital innovations pose a serious challenge for both theory and practice. Accordingly, the last years have brought forward a multitude of research in this area. With this article we want to link existing research streams on digital innovations and, thus, pave the way for future research in this area. Therefore, we consolidate prevailing work on digital innovations into a technology-driven “linking” framework on digital innovations and their embedding in organizations. According to our framework, the realization and embedding of digital innovations into organizations manifests along three concentric rings: the technology-driven development and the different implementation categories of digital innovations at the core, the enablers of digital innovations in a second ring, and the governance of digital innovations in a third ring. Based on the proposed framework we point out promising areas for further research in this field.

More self-organization, more control—or even both? Inverse transparency as a digital leadership concept

Abstract: Digital innovations drive an organization’s digital transformation. While numerous studies focus on digital product and service innovation, digital process innovation and novel business models, management and leadership concepts are primarily investigated as enabling framing conditions in previous contributions. However, management and leadership concepts have changed dramatically in the digital era. The rise of digital technologies has led to companies acquiring large amounts of data. Moreover, novel technical solutions facilitate the analysis and processing of this data, leading to an increase in organizational transparency. Traditional leadership theories fail to explain the influence of digitalization and increasing transparency of leadership. In a digitized world, managers often face a trade-off when using data for management purposes. On the one hand, transparency leads to decreasing information asymmetries, allowing managers to monitor employees’ actions at low cost. On the other hand, employees demand self-organization and empowerment. In this context, new forms of control and employee engagement need to be designed. With our conceptual paper, we aim to provide a solution to the challenges of using transparency in leadership in a mutually beneficial way for managers and employees by introducing the concept of “inverse transparency.” We develop the concept building on the existing literature on transparency and leadership. We see inverse transparency as the basis for a new type of digital innovation, which we introduce as digital leadership innovation. Thus, we enhance current research on leadership approaches and digital innovation and create a theoretical basis for further research.

Why another customer channel? Consumers' perceived benefits and costs of voice commerce

Abstract: Owing to rapidly increasing adoption rates of voice assistants (VAs), integrating voice commerce as a new customer channel is among the top objectives of businesses’ current voice initiatives. However, customers are reluctant to use their VAs for shopping; a tendency not explained by extant literature. Therefore, this research aims to understand consumers’ perceived benefits and costs when using voice commerce, based on a theoretical framework derived from prior literature and the theory of reasoned action. We evaluated and extended this framework by analyzing 30 semi-structured interviews with smart speaker users. According to our results voice commerce consumers perceive benefits in terms of efficiency, convenience, and enjoyment, and criticize the perceived costs of limited transparency, lack of trust, lack of control, and low technical maturity. The resulting model sheds light on the promoters and inhibitors of voice commerce and provides guidelines that enable practitioners to design and improve voice commerce applications.

Towards a Characterization of Digitalization Projects in the Context of Organizational Transformation

Abstract: Background: The digital transformation (DT) disrupts companies across all industries, forcing them to rethink and adjust their value creation. The necessity to adapt to a digital future seems clear; however, many companies still struggle with “becoming digitally transformed”. While existing literature shows that projects can play a crucial role in realizing DT, we have a limited understanding of these projects. Therefore, we investigate these digitalization projects by asking: How are digitalization projects in the context of organizational transformation characterized and how do they contribute to organizations’ DT? With this study, we provide an initial characterization of these digitalization projects and advance the understanding of their importance for the overall DT process. Method: With our qualitative multiple-case study, we analyze five projects that were carried out in highly heterogenous contexts based on 27 semi-structured interviews. Subsequent to the individual analysis of each case, we draw insights from a cross-case comparison and identify common characteristics that distinguish digitalization projects in the context of DT. Results: Our analysis reveals that despite digitalization projects are manifesting in different forms, they are predominantly characterized by their embeddedness in and contribution to an overarching DT process, their derivation from a central DT strategy, the central role of digital innovation in these projects, the integration of technology and business perspectives on a project level, and the application of novel project methods. Conclusions: Digitalization projects in the context of DT can differ from traditional IT projects and thus need dedicated management approaches. We contribute to literature by elaborating an initial, theoretically sound characterization of these digitalization projects. In addition, we offer valuable insights to practitioners regarding how these digitalization projects can be recognized and managed successfully.

Age-Related Attributions of Experienced Changes in Life: Origins and Implications.

Abstract: Objectives Attributing life changes to age represents a core marker of the subjective experience of aging. The aims of our study were to investigate views on aging (VA) as origins of age-related attributions of life changes and to investigate the implications of these age-related attributions for personal control (PC) and life satisfaction (LS). Methods Life changes and the attribution of life changes to age were independently assessed on a large international sample of older adults (N = 2,900; age range 40-90 years) from the Ageing as Future project. The valence of VA, PC, and LS were also assessed to investigate possible determinants (VA) and consequences (PC and LS) of age-related attributions of life changes. Results Attributions to age were shown to depend on the valence of experienced life changes, with more negative changes being linked to more age-related attributions. This relation was moderated by the valence of personally held VA, with more negative VA amplifying the relation between negative life changes and age-related attributions. Age-related attributions predicted reduced PC and lower LS and were found to exacerbate the effects of negative life changes on LS, especially for the older cohorts of our sample. Discussion Our findings help to better understand what determines age-related attributions of life changes and highlight the negative consequences of attributing them to aging. Age-related attributions of change are a major factor that worsens the subjective aging experience. Methodologically, our study emphasizes the necessity to separately assess changes and their attributions to age.

Differential focus on probability and losses between young and older adults in risky decision-making

Abstract: We examined young and older adults' use of descriptive information about risk (i.e., probability and expected value) in financial decision-making. In Experiment 1, participants chose between lotteries in pairs of bets that offered either two risky gains or one risky gain and one sure gain. Whereas they showed a strong and indiscriminate preference for high-probability gambles in risky-risky pairs, they selected sure options at high rates and risky options at low rates in risky-sure pairs, with slightly stronger effects in older relative to young adults due to age differences in ability. Experiment 2 involved the same task but in terms of losses. Participants, especially older adults, preferred low-probability gambles not accounted for by age differences in ability. Results suggest minimal consideration of expected value and a strong focus on probabilities in decision-making. They also suggest that cognitive ability and chronic goals differentially influence age effects depending on risk context.

Monetizing Online Content: Digital Paywall Design and Configuration

Abstract: The media industry was among the first affected by digitization, because digital technologies have changed content production, distribution, and consumption profoundly. Most media companies have suffered revenue losses, being unable to adapt their monetization strategies to the rapidly changing media consumption patterns of their recipients. Additionally, advertising revenues have proven to be a less reliable revenue source in online than in offline media markets. Consequently, a major obstacle to the content providers’ successful digital transformation is the establishment of sustainable revenue streams (Chyi 2012). The market for music and video content reveals a trend toward direct monetization, with subscription-based streaming services such as Spotify or Netflix showing increasing revenues. However, other media markets, including the market for news content, still struggle to monetize their content online (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2019). After extensive experimentation with various monetization approaches and several failed attempts, more and more news content providers adopt digital paywalls to counter the impending market trends. While the term digital paywall is commonly used in the context of news content, the functionality of this instrument to govern consumers’ access to online content is also important for other media products such as music, videos, or games. However, a standard digital paywall does not exist. Owing to the wide range of and new developments in configuration options, the limited experience with digital paywalls in practice, and a lack of research on this topic, it is still unclear which factors determine the optimal design of a digital paywall. The process of establishing a viable business model for online content is complex and remains a challenge for media companies. Content providers seek to maximize direct revenue by selling content and indirect revenue through advertising (i.e., a two-sided market), while simultaneously considering cannibalization and spillover effects on their traditional formats. Whereas news content providers usually rely on both revenue sources for their printed editions, most of them initially offered their online editions free of charge and only monetized them indirectly through advertising. Although online advertising revenue has been growing steadily, this growth has not been sufficient to compensate for the revenue losses from offline sources such as print subscriptions or advertising. The small margins in online advertising are mainly due to the intensified competition in the digital channel, driven by Accepted after two revisions by Ulrich Frank.

It's Not Just About the Product: How Persuasive Communication Affects the Disclosure of Personal Health Information

Abstract: Individuals' disclosure of personal health information (PHI) can hold substantial benefits for both users and providers, but users are often reluctant to disclose, even if they gain benefits such as better personalization. While previous research has dealt with message framing and information quality in a health-related context, these factors have been observed separately. To our best knowledge, we are among the first to have examined both factors (attribute framing and argument strength) and their interactions concerning PHI disclosure. Thus, we conducted a web-based experiment with 529 participants to examine the impacts of two persuasive message techniques (attribute framing and argument strength) on individuals' PHI disclosure. We reveal that individuals tend to disclose more PHI when they experience persuasive messages with more positively framed health wearable (HW) attributes or messages with higher argument strength based on the reasons for the data collection. We enable researchers to uncover the impacts of persuasive messages in highly sensitive data environments and provide practitioners with workable suggestions on how to affect individuals' PHI disclosure behaviors.

Turning Data into Value – Exploring the Role of Synergy in Leveraging Value among Data

Abstract: Organizations sit on a treasure trove of data. Combining data from a plurality of sources is challenging but comes with enormous potential. Although this phenomenon is crucial for generating value,...

The effects of personality and aging attitudes on well-being in different life domains.

Abstract: Personality plays a major role in determining the way people adjust to life experiences, ultimately affecting life satisfaction. Aging attitudes also impact well-being, but there is little research...

The Impact of Perceived Control and Future-Self Views on Preparing for the Old Age: Moderating Influences of Age, Culture, and Context.

Abstract: Objectives Preparation for age-related changes has been shown to be beneficial to adjustment in later life. However, an understanding of the factors that influence such preparations is rather limited. This study examines whether perceived control and future-self views (FSV) influence preparations for old age, and if this influence varies across ages, domains of functioning, and cultures. Methods Assessments of perceived control, FSV, and preparations for old age in each of four different life domains (social relationships, finances, work, and health) were obtained from 1,813 adults (ages 35-85) from Germany, Hong Kong, and the United States. Results Future-self views partially mediated the relationship between perceived control and preparation for old age across both domains of functioning and cultures. With one exception, the association between perceived control and preparations increased with advancing age across contexts. Evidence for similar age-related moderation of the indirect effect of control through FSV was more limited. Discussion These results suggest that perceived control that is not necessarily related to aging affect FSV, which in turn influence preparing for old age. Further, our results indicate that such relationships are context- and age-specific, highlighting the importance of considering the salience and diversity of life domains and cultures.

Perceived Benefits and Costs Contribute to Young and Older Adults' Selectivity in Social Relationships.

Abstract: . This article explores the influence of perceived benefits and costs on willingness to engage in social interactions in 32 young adults aged 20 to 40 years and 38 older adults aged 65 to 8...

Towards an Understanding of Data's Influence on Leadership.

Abstract: In an increasingly digital world, companies collect a growing amount of data on their customers, processes and employees. While many contributions focus on the integration of data in new business models and processes, little attention is paid to the use of new insights for leadership. Therefore, we investigate the influence of employees’ data on the leadership functions of “interpersonal”, “information processing” and “decision-making”. We apply a qualitative, explorative research approach and conduct two case studies with companies, one being advanced in the use of data for leadership and the other just starting its transformation process. Combining the insights from both case studies with previous findings from literature, we provide three propositions on how employees’ data affect the different facets of leadership.

Digital Value-Added Services: Recommendations for Early Development

Abstract: Digital value-added services (DVAS) represent a major opportunity for firms to create additional value for customers and differentiate themselves from competitors. However, many firms are struggling with how to develop DVAS. They often hire specialized innovation consulting firms to do this job but we know little about their secrets of success. To shed more light on the topic, we collected best practices along the critical first steps of DVAS development and derived six recommendations that can help firms increase their success rates. We provide insights, particularly concerning underlying organizational processes, the conception of ideas and the integration of customers.