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- Erixon, Cecilia
(författare)
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Information System Providers and Business Relationships : A Study on the Impact of Connections
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Information systems are integrated in the daily business of companies, to support the exchanges with its counterparts. To manage these information systems, companies often turn to third parties: information system providers (IS-providers). IS-providers have competences that the companies become dependent on and they are therefore important for maintaining the company’s business performance. The companies develop dependencies on their information systems and thereby also on their IS-providers. This thesis studies the connection between a company’s relationships with IS-providers and its other business relationships.A single case study of how a focal company’s IS-providers impact the company’s customer relationships is conducted. The applied analytical framework combines an information system’s perspective and a business relationship perspective. The analytical level is guided by the concept of connection, which has its origin in the business relationship perspective. The information system’s perspective illustrates the characteristics of the information systems that the IS-providers manage. The business relationship perspective studies each business relationship as unique, originating in different exchanges and behaviour.The single case study involves five customer relationships and four IS-provider relationships, creating twenty within-cases. The results show that IS-providers impact differently on the business relationships of companies. The impact on companies is contingent on the information exchanges with the IS-providers, which integrate the information systems in their customer business relationships. The impact is explained by the strength of the connection and the degree of continuity of the connection. The strength of the connection depends on how the information system is used and which of the IS-providers are connected. The impact from one IS-provider can be described as a homogenous impact on all the connected business relationships. However, different IS-providers have different types of impacts, meaning that when a company has several IS-providers, the impact is heterogeneous. The study shows that the impact is most commonly positive.The thesis is of interest for researchers who wish to understand the interconnectedness between business relationships, and of value for business professionals, who wish to increase their understanding of the complex situation of using IS-providers for management of their information systems and the impact they have on their other business relationships.
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| 5. |
- Dahlin, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Netquakes - Describing Effects of Ending Business Relationships on Business Networks
- 2005
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Ingår i: 21st Annual IMP Conference, Rotterdam, 2005.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Business network dynamics and change in business networks are most often discussed from the perspective of a focal business relationship and business relationships, for example customers and/or suppliers, connected to the focal dyad. This type of studies focus on how one relationship influences another directly connected relationship. Most often the indirectly connected business relationships, such as customers’ customers, are not considered. This means that we still know very little about how change spreads further in business networks.The purpose of this paper is to elaborate further on the spread of change in business networks by focusing on the process following the ending of a business relationship. For understanding this process of change in business networks we propose a framework that is inspired from the study of earthquakes in seismology, here called “netquakes” (Dahlin, Havila & Thilenius, 2004). When enough “stress” is involved in the relationship it needs to be released. In some situations this “stress” leads to termination of the business relationship. This, in turn, could start a netquake process in the surrounding business network.The strength of the netquake process can be observed through the effects of the ending business relationship in the connected relationships. The higher the effect in the business network the stronger the netquake. The ending of the business relationship, in turn, “releases energy” into the business network causing uncertainty that can be observed by the effects in the business network. The ending of some business relationships “shake the ground” far away from the ending business relationship, whereas some business relationships end without any effect on the surrounding business network. We illustrate our discussion on the different types of netquake processes by three empirical examples.
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- Dahlin, Peter, 1981-
(författare)
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Turbulence in Business Networks : A Longitudinal Study of Mergers, Acquisitions and Bankruptcies Involving Swedish IT-companies
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The end of the twentieth centry, and the beginning of the twenty-first, was a revolving period with many mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies among Swedish IT-companies. Such events are likely to affect more than just the companies directly involved, i.e. the bankrupt and consolidating parties, and this thesis considers the contextual embeddedness of mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies by studying them in a business network setting.The primary aim of this thesis is to further the understanding of business network change and its underlying dynamics. A business network is a conceptual description of the interrelatedness of companies, which makes them problematic to describe and understand. This thesis suggests a force-based approach to business network change, which focuses on the forces underlying the change rather than the actual alterations of the business network. The suggested approach emphasizes the change and enables an exploration and description of business network change based on its underlying forces, linked to form a change sequence. The events that occur and the forces they give rise to can be used to describe the character of such business network change sequences.To enable a study of a change sequence within the Swedish IT-related business network, this thesis will use a technique designed to gather information about events and parts of the business network structure by systematizing data from news items describing mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies involving Swedish IT-companies during the years 1994-2003. This data structuration technique enables a longitudinal and retrospective study of a business network change sequence. The analysis indicates a high possibility of inter-linkages between mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies involving Swedish IT-companies, and describes a business network change sequence with high intensity and wide extension, which is the type of business network change with the highest potential impact, here referred to as ‘turbulence in business networks’.
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- Ek, Peter, 1989-
(författare)
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Managing Digital Open Innovation with User Communities : A Study of Community Sensing and Product Openness Capabilities in the Video Game Industry
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Digital and open innovation has changed how product innovation occur and how it is managed by firms. Digital technology as an enabler of increasingly distributed innovation processes has in particular impacted firms’ abilities to draw on, and leverage, large numbers of external users and user communities to develop their offerings. In the video game industry, firms have developed and honed capabilities to utilize user communities as sources of information and modular user innovations. Empirical evidence of the performance effects in product innovation as well as conceptualizations of these capabilities is however lacking in extant research. Grounded in a dynamic capability perspective, this dissertation puts forward two capability concepts and tests their effects empirically in the context of the video game industry. First, the concept of a community sensing capability captures the firm’s ability to identify and internalize innovation-conducive information from user communities. This capability entails managing openness in the firm’s innovation processes. Second, the concept of a product openness capability relates to the firm’s ability to create and manage products functioning as platforms for continuous development and coupling of internal and external innovation. This, in turn, involves managing openness in individual products. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, these capabilities are examined at the project level of analysis in relation to the financial performance of products and the speed of development processes. The findings show the capabilities to be indirectly related to the financial performance of products. The application of community sensing capabilities in development of video games increases the amount of information about user needs, demand and product use possessed by the firm, which in turn positively impacts performance. Designing products open to external innovation by users in turn increases the development speed of products, which positively impact the financial performance of products. The two capabilities are also shown to be interlinked as community sensing has a positive impact on product openness. The dissertation contributes at the intersection of open and digital innovation in addition to previous work on sensing capabilities. The work also holds practical relevance by showing the potential of utilizing user communities for digital product innovation.
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- Ekman, Peter, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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Digital transformation of global business processes : the role of dual embeddedness
- 2020
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Ingår i: Business Process Management Journal. - 1463-7154 .- 1758-4116. ; 26:2, s. 570-592
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposeWhile much existing research on multinational corporation (MNC) digital transformation has followed a linear design and implementation logic using cross-sectional data, the multiple and divergent needs of headquarters (HQ) and subsidiaries suggest that MNC digital transformation actually involves a more iterative journey. The purpose of this paper is to apply the theoretical perspective of embeddedness to better define the complexities of MNC digital transformation, and identify how HQ and subsidiaries can navigate the complexities.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents a longitudinal multi-case study of five Forbes Global 2000 firms that are HQ in Europe with large subsidiaries in the USA. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 26 senior executives at HQ and subsidiaries over a 15-month period.FindingsThe process of digital transformation is significantly influenced by internal embeddedness (relationship of HQ with subsidiaries and across subsidiaries) and external embeddedness (relationship of subsidiaries with their local markets), and also by strategy, financial and technology considerations. While HQ and subsidiaries have different perspectives, an understanding of these influences can help HQ and subsidiaries navigate digital transformation.Research limitations/implicationsHQ and subsidiaries can apply insights from this research to navigate the complexities of digital transformation.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates that embeddedness is a useful theory to understand the complexities of MNC digital transformation.
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