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- Kurti, Erdelina
(författare)
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Institutional Tensions and Complexity in the Digital Innovation of Incumbent Business Models
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Digitalization has influenced all areas of our lives, including businesses. It has provided numerous opportunities to organisations; at the same time, it has significantly challenged established business models in many sectors that were traditionally proven to be stable and successful, thus a need to innovate was called for. In this research the focus is on the newspaper industry, representing one of the contexts which has been highly affected by digitalization. Digital technologies enable new ways of operating which in turn challenge prevailing business assumptions and cause complexities. This leads to the aim of this research which is to explore institutional complexity in digital business model innovation in a newspaper organization.This research builds on business model theory, conceptualized as an activity system. It adds literature from digital innovation and finally utilizes institutional logics to explore the complexity emerging in the avenue of digital business model innovation. A case study design has been undertaken drawing on several data sources such as: interviews, observations and the study of documents.The outcome of this research illustrates that digitalization has a profound impact on business models of newspaper organizations. Innovation brought by digitalization entailed challenges but also enabled complementarities in value offering, activities, and competences, including new actors entering the market. The complementarities caused complexity based on different institutional logics, each with its own rationality, which needed to be governed. Research outcomes also include institutional mechanisms that were applied to govern the digital business model innovation, such as strategies leading to a hybrid of print and digital mode of operation; and also more concrete purposive actions and activities in the form of e.g. education and learning, theorization and top management commitment.This research contributes to the theoretical frameworks of business model innovation, digital business model innovation and institutional logics, both separately and in combination. Further, the research provides some recommendations to practice for managing the complexity that digitalization of incumbents entails.
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| 2. |
- Rönkkö, Kari, et al.
(författare)
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Inside Information 2 − Usability and User Research : Eight years of research and method development cooperation
- 2009
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report is a follow up to the Inside Information – Usability and User Research at UIQ Technology report that was made available in October 2006. The initial report was written from an industrial point of view aimed to market UIQ Technology through the demonstration of the UIQ usability and user research philosophy. UIQ Technology Usability Metrics (UTUM) was important result here. UTUM was considered an extremely cost-effective method for keeping in focus what is important for users and handset makers. It was a tool for guiding development decisions as well as for validating the worthiness of design concepts. The two parts in UTUM was perceived by the company as an innovation in their software development practice. The first part was the relationship to users and attitude to their participation in the design process. The second part was how the company immediately and directly incorporated this usability understanding into the software development process. UTUM, together with other usability methods and results presented in this report, have been produced in an action research manner. Due to the closure of the company, the main author of the 2006 report, and the same researchers who also supported the writing of the initial report, decided to produce a follow-up and closure version of the initial report; as a way to summarize the results from the academic and industrial cooperation. In this updated version, eight years of joint action research and cooperative method development surrounding usability and user research is concluded.
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| 3. |
- Winter, Jeff
(författare)
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Measuring usability - balancing agility and formality : for stakeholders’ needs in software development
- 2009
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main focus of the research presented in this thesis is a usability evaluation framework for mass market mobile devices, allowing measurement, comparison and presentation of the usability of hand held devices. The research has been a cooperation between an academic and an industrial partner, based on an action research approach, following the processes of Cooperative Method Development (CMD). It has used a case study approach, where the data has been analysed using techniques taken from grounded theory. Ethnography and participatory design have been central to both the research and the cooperation. With its basis in the evaluation framework, and its use of quantitative measurements and qualitative judgments framed by a focus on usability testing, this thesis contributes to aspects related to capturing real world usage in a continuously changing society, and supporting information needs in the process of building software. The evaluation framework can be used as a quality assurance tool in a wide perspective. It measures usability and the user experience, quickly and flexibly, and in so doing measures aspects of quality in use. It has been tested in a complex industrial development project and is a valuable and flexible tool that is easy for a usability expert to learn and use, to measure and help build quality on the customer’s terms. The results we have arrived at are of practical and theoretical interest within software engineering and the industrial telecom sphere. Several features and aspects of the evaluation framework are new and challenging. These are: its mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, allowing it to target many different stakeholders; experience in applying these methods in the technology-focused and rapidly changing mobile phone area; the challenge of addressing end users in a mass market; the challenge of finding presentation models for the many different stakeholders; the challenge of making sure the framework can be used in different stages in the industrial software development process. The framework is related to three areas of software engineering, Market Driven Requirements Engineering, Statistical Usage Testing, and Organisation and Product Together. Our work includes a discussion of the need for agility, which has not so far been focused upon and discussed within the area of software engineering and usability. The combination of factors included in the framework means that is unique in solving a number of the problems that are found in these different areas within software engineering, especially in a rapidly changing marketplace. We also contribute to the field, through the qualitative element of the evaluation framework, which is inspired by ethnography and participatory design. It thereby makes a contribution that can improve practice in the field of software engineering, and that contributes to the theoretical work that is being performed within these different research areas.
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| 4. |
- Winter, Jeff
(författare)
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The Rocky Road : Why Usability Work is so Difficult
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Achieving product and process quality are among the central themes of software engineering, and quality is an important factor in the marketplace. Usability and user experience (UX) are two important aspects of quality, particularly for interactive products. To achieve usability means producing products that let users do things in a satisfactory, efficient and effective way. To develop products with good UX, means going beyond usability, in ways that are still not clear to us. Achieving good usability and UX is hard. This thesis is concerned with organizations which work towards these goals. This research is concerned with understanding and improving the processes by which technology is designed and developed, and understanding the demands and expectations users have. It is about how companies can and actually develop products with good usability and UX, and what stops them from working towards this as efficiently as they could. We have viewed the usability and UX challenge from the viewpoints of Quality, Organizations, and Institutions, with a focus on participatory design, user-centred design and wicked problems. The research can be characterised as empirical research performed over a period of seven years, in close cooperation with industrial partners. The research was performed using multiple data collection methods to create constructs and shape theory. The field methods have ranged from being a participant observer, to performing interviews and holding workshops with members of the participating organisations. A case study approach was initially used, but focus soon moved from case study methodology to a closer focus on grounded theory, and finally the focus shifted to constructivist grounded theory. The thesis contributes to the field of software engineering in several ways. Usability has a long history within software engineering, human computer interaction, and design science, but the different discourses within the fields have meant that communication between the fields was problematic. The research in this thesis has moved between the different fields, contributing to bridging the gap between the areas. It gives an illustration of how usability work actually takes place in different types of companies, from a developer of operating systems for smartphones, to a global engineering company, which knows that it must find ways of working with, and measuring, usability and user experience. It gives concrete knowledge about the way in which companies can work with usability testing, and how they can provide information to satisfy the information needs of different stakeholders. It provides a discussion of the state of UX today, taking up the problems that stop industry making use of the definitions and theories of UX that exist. Thus, it gives an illustration of the different factors in product design, development and sales, from dealing with organizational factors to satisfying user needs, that all make usability work such a rocky road to navigate.
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