Information and communication technology is changing the way in which cities organise policymaking and urban growth. Smart Cities base their strategy on the use of information and communication ...technologies in several fields such as economy, environment, mobility and governance to transform the city infrastructure and services. This paper draws on the city of Barcelona and intends to analyse its transformation from a traditional agglomeration to a twenty-first century metropolis. The case of Barcelona is of special interest due to its apparent desire, reflected by its current policies regarding urban planning, to be considered as a leading metropolis in Europe. Hence, an assessment of the Smart City initiative will cast light on the current status of Barcelona’s urban policy and its urban policy of Barcelona and its future directions. This article analyses Barcelona’s transformation in the areas of Smart City management; drivers, bottlenecks, conditions and assets. First, it presents the existing literature on Barcelona’s Smart City initiative. Then, the case study analysis is presented with the Barcelona Smart City model. After describing this model, we further explore the main components of the Smart City strategy of Barcelona in terms of Smart districts, living labs, initiatives, e-Services, infrastructures and Open Data. This paper also reveals certain benefits and challenges related to this initiative and its future directions. The results of the case study analysis indicate that Barcelona has been effectively implementing the Smart City strategy with an aim to be a Smart City model for the world.
Technology platform strategies offer a novel way to orchestrate a rich portfolio of contributions made by the many independent actors who form an ecosystem of heterogeneous complementors around a ...stable platform core. This form of organising has been successfully used in smartphone, gaming, commercial software, and industrial sectors. Technology ecosystems require stability and homogeneity to leverage common investments in standard components, but they also need variability and heterogeneity to meet evolving market demand. Although the required balance between stability and evolvability in the ecosystem has been addressed conceptually in the literature, we have less understanding of its underlying mechanics or appropriate governance. Through an extensive case study of a business software ecosystem consisting of a major multinational manufacturer of enterprise resource planning software at the core and a heterogeneous system of independent implementation partners and solution developers on the periphery, our research identifies three salient tensions that characterize the ecosystem: standard–variety, control–autonomy, and collective–individual. We then highlight the specific ecosystem governance mechanisms designed to simultaneously manage desirable and undesirable variance across each tension. Paradoxical tensions may manifest as dualities, where tensions are framed as complementary and mutually enabling. Alternatively, they may manifest as dualisms, where actors are faced with contradictory and disabling “either…or” decisions. We identify conditions where latent, complementary tensions become manifest as salient, contradictory tensions. By identifying conditions in which complementary logics are overshadowed by contradictory logics, our study further contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of technology ecosystems, as well as the effective design of technology ecosystem governance that can explicitly embrace paradoxical tensions toward generative outcomes.
This paper guides the theoretical development of future research on interorganizational systems (IOS). We first assess past IOS research by reviewing and summarizing the findings of 51 empirical ...studies of IOS published in 11 IS journals between 1990 and 2003. This literature addresses three primary issues: (1) factors influencing organizational decisions to adopt IOS; (2) the impact of IOS on governance over economic transactions; and (3) the organizational consequences of IOS adoption. From our assessment of the findings and theoretical approaches taken in past research, we offer three recommendations for future research. First, the theoretical foundations of IOS research during this period are diverse, representing 17 different yet complementary theories. We recommend that researchers continue to diversify their theoretical approaches in order to address new research challenges. Second, we recommend that IOS researchers move beyond mere descriptions of IOS artifacts by engaging with IOS artifacts on theoretical grounds. Third, we identify and describe new theoretical directions for future IOS research in each of the main issue areas. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
In this study, three models were empirically compared, the DeLone and McLean model, the Seddon model and the Modified Seddon model, by measuring the impact of a business intelligence system (BIS) in ...companies in Peru. After that, the mediators and dependent constructs were analysed to determine if they were behaving properly (a good level of variance explanation and significant relations with others constructs). The study used a sample of 104 users of the BIS, from companies in several important economic sectors, in a quasi-voluntary context and with six constructs: information quality, system quality, service quality, system dependence (system use), user satisfaction and perceived usefulness (individual impact). Design/methodology/approach To interpret the results, the authors used structural equations. The idea was to look for the best fit and explanations for the outcomes. The main difference in these models is that the DeLone and McLean model considers system dependence (system use) as a part of information system success, but in the Seddon model, it is a consequence of it. Findings The Seddon model seems to show the best fit and explanation for the outcomes. After that, a review of the system use construct was realised, because of its limited variance explained and the few significant relations with other constructs, to improve its explanation power in future research. Research limitations/implications It is estimated that the sample includes more than 15 per cent of all the companies that use a BISs in Peru, so the size of the sample is adequate, but it is not entirely random and therefore limits the generalizability of outcomes. Besides that, a sample size that is bigger could be better for the sake of making a more detailed analysis, permitting the use of some items with less power, or the use of another statistical procedure for structural equations such as the Asymptotical Distribution Free, permitting a more detailed analysis (Hair et al., 2006). Originality/value Business intelligence (BI), one of the most important components of information systems (IS), is playing a very relevant role in business in this time of high competition, high amounts of data and new technology. Currently, companies feel pressured to respond quickly to change and complicated conditions in the market, needing to make the correct tactical, operational and strategic decisions (Chugh and Grandhi, 2013). BI is one of the most important drivers of the decade (Gartner, 2013). Big companies of IS are creating special units specialised in BI, helping companies become more efficient and effective in daily operations.
Although considered a relatively recent phenomenon of the past decade, open source hardware (OSH) is already influencing commercial hardware development. However, a common belief is that the greater ...economic cost and complexity of hybrid digital objects (i.e., digital objects with both hardware and software) precludes their development with open source methods traditionally used for software. We study a sophisticated OSH named White Rabbit initiated at CERN and developed through a vibrant and heterogenous open source community. Our findings show that the assumption that hardware and software require fundamentally distinctive development and production modes should be replaced with a more nuanced differentiation characterized by three main attributes describing an object’s composition: embodiment, modularity, and granularity. Taken together, these three attributes determine how a hybrid object is developed throughout its evolution in an open source community. Our research offers several contributions. First, we provide a more nuanced view of the consequences of the material embodiment of hardware. Once considered a simple deterrent to open source development, we describe how economic cost is subordinate to more influential aspects of an object’s physical layers: as the open source community modifies the object to accommodate the operating requirements of diverse physical instantiations, such modifications can be incorporated in the logical design covered by the open source license. Additionally, we show how embodiment, modularity, and granularity progress through the object’s evolution and how this maturation subsequently affects development modes. We trace the implications of our findings for hybrids and digital object conceptualizations in IS research, open source development and, more broadly, normative implications for OSH in scientific and commercial computing.
Internet auctions demonstrate that advances in information technologies can create more efficient venues of exchange between large numbers of traders. However, the growth of Internet auctions has ...been accompanied by a corresponding growth in Internet auction fraud. Much extant research on Internet auction fraud in the information systems literature is conducted at the individual level of analysis, thereby limiting its focus to the choices of individual traders or trading dyads. The criminology literature, in contrast, recognizes that social and community factors are equally important influences on the perpetration and prevention of crime. We employ social disorganization theory as a lens to explain how online auction communities address auction fraud and how those communities interact with formal authorities. We show how communities may defy, coexist, or cooperate with the formal authority of auction houses. These observations are supported by a qualitative analysis of three cases of online anticrime communities operating in different auction product categories. Our analysis extends aspects of social disorganization theory to online communities. We conclude that community-based clan control may operate in concert with authority-based formal control to manage the problem of Internet auction fraud more effectively.
Smart Cities at the Crossroads Almirall Esteve; Wareham, Jonathan; Ratti, Carlo ...
California management review,
11/2016, Volume:
59, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The Smart Cities movement has produced a large number of projects and experiments around the world. To understand the primary ones, as well as their underlying tensions and the insights emerging from ...them, the editors of this special issue of the California Management Review enlisted a panel of experts, academics, and practitioners from different nationalities, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. The panel focused its discussion on three main areas: new governance models for Smart Cities, how to spur growth and renewal, and the sharing economy—both commons and market based.
We perform a comparative case analysis of four working Living Labs to identify their common functions. Theoretically, we ground our analysis in terms of how they function, their processes of ...exploration and exploitation, where they work in the innovation strata and how new socially negotiated meanings are negotiated and diffused. Our research highlights four novel insights: first, Living Labs function at the low- and mid-level innovation strata; second, Living Labs are technologically agnostic; third, Living Labs use context based experience to surface new, socially constructed meanings for products and services; and finally, Living Labs are equally focused on exploration and exploitation.
A focal characteristic of Smart Business Networks (SBN) is their ability to adapt to the environment. We think that the capacity to adapt, or adaptability of Smart Business Networks, requires more ...attention and formalization in the managerial discourse since we consider that it is one core capability of SBN to be considered “Smart”. The purpose of this paper is to employ theories of learning from the educational and organizational literature to develop a framework for modes of network. These modes, which are a function of the organizational
awareness and the
resources employed, are: 1) automatic responses, 2) assimilation, 3) accommodation, and 4) environmental enactment. We show the applicability of the framework with a case study about a SBN in the home insurance claims and repairs industry. The paper highlights the need for SBN management to design process and technology infrastructures that appropriately allocate limited organizational awareness and resources to optimize the process of adaptation in Smart Business Networks. We consider that the theoretical propositions may serve to guide future research in Smart Business Networks.
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