Stefan Klein

University of Münster | WWU · Department of Information Systems

The historic reflections [on academic publishing and academic ethos over a period of four decades] are obviously subjective and stylized, yet they try to capture the changing sentiments over the past decades as well as persistent issues like the role and ethos of science that are revisited and rearticulated over time. The disciplinary focus is on m...

We report on a study of high performing IT professionals in a global IT services company, whose exceptional performance in a highly demanding work environment raises the question of how they cope with their occupational demands. While literature has focused primarily on technology‐induced stressors and associated coping behaviours of IT users, our...

On the one hand, due to the relentless advancements in information technologies, IT consulting firms are under constant pressure to gain new knowledge and develop innovative offerings to satisfy their clients' needs in the long term. On the other hand, their business models hinge on the tyranny of billable hours, which emphasizes efficiency, scalab...

Although some scholars raise alarm about societal harm emerging from Big Data practices, critical social theory (CST) Information Systems research on the structures and dynamics driving Big Data practices is rare. In this research commentary, we interrogate how tech firms use social practices and platform design to strategically manipulate individu...

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lock-down, digital platforms like Zoom became essential for remote work. Yet at the same time, substantial security and privacy risks made the headlines. Using the lenses of Naturalistic Decision-making and the Theory of Multilevel Information Privacy, we find diverging responses to well-...

Connectivity has become the hallmark of modern work and has shaped the social life of many. Originating from a technical discourse, connectivity to work is reflected in numerous disciplinary discourses. While previous studies have identified negative effects on employees, the specific mechanisms which cause these effects are still poorly understood...

This paper explores the technology-induced transformation of work by examining two fields, robotic surgery and teaching from home via Zoom. We begin by examining the perspectives of individual surgeons and lecturers and the relational, organizational, and institutional settings in which they are embedded. Recognizing and emphasizing the idiosyncras...

Multi-sided platforms in healthcare often focus their business model on standardizing care for widespread, chronic diseases. However, there is a lack of knowledge surrounding platform business models enabling individualized care coordination for patients with rare diseases. This paper analyses the development of a complex platform business model ad...

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a severe neurological disease; as a result, patient care requires a complex network of specialists and equipment providers. Despite best intentions , the organizational and regulatory structures in Germany have not been geared towards efficient and effective coordination of care for patients and their caregive...

Workplace technologies are more central to working in organisations than ever before. These technologies began as instrumental aids to support office work of individuals but have since also become the basis for social interactions and community building in organisations and more recently become able to perform managerial roles with the use of advan...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP WG 8.2, 9.1, 9.4 Joint Working Conference on the Future of Digital Work: The Challenge of Inequality, IFIPJWC 2020, which was supposed to be held in Hyderabad, India, in December 2020, but was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This conference was organized for IFIP’s 60th anniver...

Digital healthcare information systems promise to improve care efficiency, to reduce complexity for patients, and to increase access to information and advance research efforts. A prominent example are multi-sided-platforms (MSP), which are essentially an information business, linking key healthcare stakeholders for individualized as well as aggreg...

Blockchain technology provides a distributed ledger and is based on a logic of peer to peer authentication. It gained prominence with the rise of cryptocurrencies but provides a much broader field of possible applications. While it has been originally closely linked to a libertarian agenda rejecting organizations, its developments have illustrated...

Blockchain technology provides a distributed ledger and is based on a logic of peer to peer authentication. It gained prominence with the rise of cryptocurrencies but provides a much broader field of possible applications. While it has been originally closely linked to a libertarian agenda rejecting organizations, its developments have illustrated...

With this paper we call attention to and animate the study of hidden human work, the unseen and taken for granted activities that have seeped into the performance of knowledge work in the face of increased technology use. We trace the increase of hidden work to (1) the transformation of individual work practices built upon personal work infrastruct...

Blockchain technology provides a distributed ledger and is based on a logic of peer to peer authentication. It gained prominence with the rise of cryptocurrencies but provides a much broader field of possible application, including – but not limited to – land and other registries, global trade systems. While it has been originally closely linked to...

The Beer Living Lab was the first of a series of living labs established to analyse and improve complex cross-border trade and logistics challenges using innovative information technology. Unlike stable inter-firm networks where roles are formal and explicit, role taking and role assigning in the Beer Living Lab was highly dynamic. Although project...

(accepted Nov 19, 2018: https://rdcu.be/bdoVh) Multi-sided platforms have become the hallmark of the digital economy. However, their impact varies profoundly across different markets. We have done a longitudinal case study on HSPC, a platform jointly provided by a consortium led by multiple U.S. health care providers. Our focus is on the developmen...

The scientific publishing industry has witnessed a plethora of innovations across the life cycle of writing, publishing and archiving of scientific journals. Open access is only the visible tip of an iceberg that contains new players and new services and modes of publishing—which span from new review processes, online citation indexes and social me...

Im Datenkapitalismus sind neue Kommunikationsunternehmen entstanden, deren Angebot als „umsonst“ erscheint. Ihr Geschäftsmodell basiert darauf, dass die Nutzer (Kunden) ihre Daten preisgeben und dafür entweder ein nachgefragtes Gut (Kommunikation, Medien, Waren und Dienstleistungen) ohne oder für geringere monetäre Zahlungen erhalten. Wie die Unter...

The proliferation of collaboration platforms in organisations has benefits for knowledge workers in terms of access to knowledge and social resources. However, negative effects, specifically collaborative overload, have only recently been acknowledged and are still rarely considered by companies. Collaborative overload is a multi-faceted construct,...

The embedding of information systems (IS) infrastructure into everyday social activity is creating intractable value conflicts for society. However, IS research largely focuses on: (1) episteme, explanatory and predictive theories; and (2) techné, theories of action for implementation and management of IS technologies. Consequently, we lack applica...

Academic publishing has been profoundly affected by a plethora of innovations that have shaped the way scientific knowledge is produced, evaluated and disseminated. The increase of awareness of issues related to both, the academic publishing process and the publishing market, calls for data supported evidence of current trends and for an open discu...

The electronic health card has become a synonym for the digital transformation of the German healthcare system. It envisions nothing less than a nationwide infrastructure for a growing number of applications that would replace existing communication processes by secure, digital pathways. Yet, despite governmental backing and funding, first applicat...

The online air travel market is a complex and dy-namic multi-channel environment in which consumers use a range of decision criteria to search for their best flight options. Online Travel Agents and Price Com-parison Engines have transformed the search process and enhanced market transparency. These Air Travel Intermediaries (ATIs) are sophisticate...

Mainstream discussions of research validity (truth, significance, objectivity) draw heavily on a certain “representational idiom” of science [1] that assumes a knowledge–reality correspondence. However, for research on practices, rather than nature, such a knowledge-reality distinction is neither feasible nor desirable, as it is at odds with the ve...

The scientific publishing industry has witnessed a plethora of innovations across the life cycle of writing, publishing and archiving of scientific journals. Open access is only the visible tip of an iceberg that contains new players and new services and modes of publishing-which span from new review processes, online citation indexes and social me...

The nature of work and the way it is organized continues to change profoundly. The continuing debate on flexible work arrangements reveals the perceived need of policy makers to react to these changes in a balanced manner. Despite the demand of organizations and employees alike, the negative implications of flexible work arrangements threaten to co...

What was meant as congratulation for his 85th birthday now has sadly become an obituary. Nobert Szyperski was an extraordinarily benign and resourceful person who put into action what he believed in: he was a gifted speaker and teacher with a rich repertoire of captivating stories, an always curious intellectual who consciously crossed disciplinary...

The paper examines how consumers search for airline tickets based on a comparative analysis of the US and German markets. Data from comScore is analysed using an innovative application of set theory. ComScore is a leading commercial provider of business intelligence and consumer analytics based on its worldwide panel of two million online users. Th...

Technology has afforded flexible and highly decentralized models of work and have built a performance based management culture around it. Typically, employees are well equipped with up to date devices and gadgets in order to facilitate a nomadic workstyle but also to enable communication whenever it may be needed. The organizational framework, the...

The advent of the digital economy and the increasingly important role of various types of elec- tronic market places provide unprecedented opportunity for suppliers of products and services to experiment with new pricing mechanisms and subsequent pricing models. Economic appropriate- ness, technical feasibility, and purposes of such pricing mechani...

Absract This entry provides an overview of the main characteristics of the phenomenon of business to business (B2B) electronic markets (EMs). After introducing this concept and discussing major effects related to the benefits and risks from an institutional viewpoint, the configuration options of EMs in the B2B domain are presented from a functiona...

Consumer search patterns in the airline industry are analysed using online panel data from ComScore, a world leader in the provision of consumer analytics data based on its worldwide panel of two million users. The search process is modelled in terms of direct research with the airline websites and the use of online travel agents. It is shown that...

The phenomenon of inter-organizational information systems (IOIS) evolution has not yet been adequately researched and understood. We present and analyse empirical data from a case in which electronic ordering in the Australian pharmaceutical industry evolved over a 30-year period from closed to quasi-open systems. We analyse this revelatory case u...

This research report presents the results of a Delphi study on Real-time Communication (RTC), a recently emerging genre of communication and collaboration technology. So far, only a few empirically informed attempts have been made to conceptualize the technology and predict future trends in the young and dynamic RTC market. Therefore, a Delphi stud...

In response to the increasing influence of practice theory perspectives for studying organisational and inter-organisational information systems, we demonstrate that an important dilemma from this perspective for data collection methods is between authentic access to practices and the ability to thematize knowledge of practices. We propose a promis...

The development of national healthcare information infrastructures, specifically of shared electronic medical records, has received considerable attention by academics and practitioners for some time now. In reviewing information infrastructure development cases, a project management lens is typically applied which evaluates such cases in terms of...

The healthcare sector in general and hospitals in particular are often portrayed as lagging behind in terms of organizational efficiency. Management is facing the challenge to introduce economic principles to guide the care giving processes of their organization. Yet, the internal structures of hospitals seldom follow exclusively an economic ration...

The proliferation of information and communication technology (ICT) throughout workplace and home life is thought to increase feelings of being overloaded, drained, and/or burned out. This phenomenon is termed "technostress." In this relatively new line of research, scholars have employed predominantly questionnaire surveys and experiments to inves...

The healthcare sector is regarded as a potential benefactor of information infrastructures (II), because of its information intensity. Public and private initiatives push towards integrating heterogeneous information and communication systems. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the emergence of II by tracing the evolution of a set...

Moderne Kommunikationsmittel haben Arbeitsprozesse tiefgreifend verändert, Qualifikationsanforderungen nachhaltig verschoben und neue Beschäftigungsformen gefördert. Die Funktionsmechanismen des Arbeitsmarktes, aber auch die Jobsuche, wurden durch sie transparenter und effizienter. Die Internetökonomie begründet eine ganz neue Generation von techni...

Innovation in the eCustoms domain happens in complex constellations of heterogeneous stakeholders. Understanding and shaping the dynamics of these stakeholder constellations is critical for the success in terms of achieving collective action and precarious in terms of power struggles among stakeholders. This chapter aims at sensitizing the reader t...

The concept of living labs is presented as a framework for studying and acting in living settings such as organizations, work places, public spaces and the wider environment. Living labs have been suggested and indeed promoted as promising infrastructures for innovation. Yet, at the same time, the notion of a living lab has been criticized as being...

Supply chain security and control are key issues for the life sci ences or pharmaceutical industry. Counterfeit drugs have been recognised as a serious public health risk1. The Drug Living Lab has been designed as a pilot project to study the feasibility of innovative technologies for securing supply chains of medication from the manufacturer to th...

Over the past 20years the field of electronic markets has seen a considerable proliferation and differentiation. This position paper takes the opportunity of the 21st volume of “Electronic Markets” to look back at important developments and insights, suggesting a framework that captures the multiple facets and indeed empirical breadth and depths of...

The role of standards in inter-organizational information systems has been widely acknowledged. In particular in the health sector there is a growing gap between the need for standard-based national and international information infrastructures and the ability of the business partners for collective initiatives. This paper provides a theory-led com...

The design and management ofthe roll-out of new it in an organization comprises several managerial decisions, one of which is whether it adoption should be mandatory. Voluntariness to adopt has mainly been researched as a variable in explaining individual iT acceptance, however with contradicting results. By drawing on a case study of a financial s...

This chapter considers the living lab concept and reflects on its use in ITAIDE. The idea of living labs is presented as a framework for studying and acting in living settings such as organisations, work places, public spaces and the wider environment. Living labs are also suggested as promising infrastructures for developing innovation. KeywordsL...

This chapter highlights a procedure for assessing the value of business-togovernment (B2G) IT innovations for both private and public stakeholders. Due to the different backgrounds of inhomogeneous stakeholders, potential adopters of B2G systems have varying requirements; in particular, they attach different value to the implementation and the usag...

One of the major challenges for European governments is to solve the dilemma of increasing the security and reducing fraud in international trade, while at the same time reducing the administrative burden for commercial as well as public administration organisations. To address these conflicting demands, the ITAIDE project has developed a large set...

Inter-Organizational Information Systems (IOIS) are computer-based systems shared by, or connecting, several organizations. The on-going use and evolution on long timescales of these large-scale socio-technical systems so far cannot be satisfactorily explained on the basis of existing theories of IS adoption, implementation, and use. In this chapte...

There is no question that globalisation and increased international trade are the two most important drivers of economic growth. Accordingly, most countries are actively promoting international trade. As a result, cross-border trade has become global and imported products form part of every aspect of daily life in European societies.

One of the major challenges for European governments is to solve the dilemma of increasing the security and reducing fraud in international trade, while at the same time reducing the administrative burden for commercial as well as public administration organisations. To address these conflicting demands, the ITAIDE project has developed a large set...

We argue that certain theoretical commitments that underpin much existing Inter-organisational Information Systems (IOIS) research at small scales become untenable when IOIS are studied at the scale of whole industries and over time periods greater than individual implementation projects. We make this argument by a detailed analysis of the problems...

Observing that existing models of inter-organisational information systems IOIS have not been developed to explain IOIS variance, in this paper the authors develop three criteria a new theoretical framework should meet: 1 It should support identification of and distinction between essential properties of IOIS; 2 it should explain the resilience of...

The Human imbedded Grid (HiGrid) uses Grid Computing as a metaphor for the management of distributed work or distributed teams. While the services and capacity a computing resource can provide, are subject to standardized descriptions, representing the state of computing equipment, it is magnitudes more difficult to determine the overall state of h...

This paper reports on a series of panels and workshops held at the Bled eConference since 2004. It aims at reconstructing the developing understanding of Inter-organizational Information Systems (IOIS) over the years as evidenced by these workshops, which have been designed to provide a forum to discuss emerging topics, fields, and strategies for I...

Observing that existing models of inter-organisational information systems (IOIS) have not been developed to explain IOIS variance, in this paper the authors develop three criteria a new theoretical framework should meet: 1) It should support identification of and distinction between essential properties of IOIS; 2) it should explain the resilience...

We have recently undertaken a five year international comparative study of Inter- organizational Information Systems (IOIS) in the pharmaceutical supply chain in four countries, with the initial aim of investigating the relationship between differences at the industry and national level and the structure of the IOIS in these countries. We found bec...

We analyse an empirical case study of an inter-organizational information system (IOIS) in the Australian pharmaceutical distribution industry, using a theoretical data coding approach, to provide a concise grounded account of changes in the material, normative and ideational structures within the participating practices over a 25 year period as th...

What are the infrastructural possibilities for introducing novel ICT based services in the international multi-modal logistics environment? The specific case of nascent real-time reporting potentials for cold chain transport and handling in a hybrid data carrier environment is explored and an infrastructural analysis indicates the technical suitabi...

ICT-enabled virtual organisations (VOs) are regarded as the appropriate organisational response to turbulent markets. Although much has been written about the structural characteristics and propositions of VOs, their inherent limitations and structural shortcomings remain largely unaddressed. Based on the structural properties of VOs, most frequent...

Inter-organisational Information Systems (IOIS) are computer-based systems shared by, or connecting, several organisations. The on-going use and evolution on long time scales of these large scale socio-technical systems challenges naive theories that give causal primacy to the material constraints and affordance of the technology, or to social forc...

In this paper, we discuss a unique case of industry-wide standardisation, i.e. the proliferation of an elec- tronic ordering protocol across wholesalers and community pharmacies in the Republic of Ireland. The exis- tence of multiple parties involved in the standardisation process and the nature of the standard lead us to study the case from a coll...

Communication technology is a field of significant innovation: at a fast pace new systems are being introduced in the market. At the same time, advances in ICT drive the emergence of new organisational forms such as the virtual organisation (VO). The VO is regarded a concept that provides firms with the necessary flexibility in changing markets. Mo...

Inter-organizational Information Systems (IOIS) are computer-based systems shared by, or connecting, several organizations. The on-going use and evolution on long timescales of these large scale socio-technical systems so far cannot be satisfactorily explained on the basis of existing theories of IS adoption, implementation and use. In this paper,...

Interorganizational Information Systems (IOIS) which are based on common message standards regularly show a high level of stability over time in an environment of frequent technical changes. Path dependency theory has been applied to explain technical stability and hence might be useful to explain the stability of IOIS. While we have used path depe...

SkypeTM has become a prominent and successful example of a new genre of computer-mediated com- munication environments called Real Time Communication (RTC). A limited set of integrated features enable instantaneous text, voice and video communication across the globe for free. However, an analysis of the features or affordances of the technology do...

The paper analyses the initiation and management of inter-organisational networks, spanning both the public and private domain. Specifically, bracketing the institutional level and combining literature on communities-of-practice and network management, we turn our attention to managerial activities which are no longer de-contextualized but understo...

Springer-Verlag 2005 Abstract Extensive integration of online and offline channels is often de- scribed as the most preferable strategy for multi channel retailing. However, empirical findings challenge this assumption by showing that retailers choose a variety of disparate multi channel strategies. Given this variety, we con- jecture that there is...

A major challenge for European governments is solving the dilemma of increasing security and control of international trade, while at the same time reducing the administrative overhead carried by commercial and public administration organisations. Electronic Customs, the transformation of paper-based trade documents to electronic ones, and the corr...

This paper addresses the multi-channel strategies deployed in the European retail grocery industry. It classifies the strategies based on an analysis of the on-line activities of 25 European retail grocers and further investigates the diversity captured in the classification in terms of two factors that are assumed to influence multi-channel strate...

The chapter identifies and highlights network specific management issues. It does so by presenting a walk-through of the DOMINO network management framework. The different views and building blocks are introduced and respective management challenges are elaborated.

Based on a critical reflection of transaction cost economics, the chapter elaborates the notion of institutional design and distinguishes different layers of design. Moreover the notion of governance structures - and subsequently the design framework - is expanded to reflect the specifics of multilevel forms of coordination, in particular mixed-mod...

In which way does network management display the characteristics of networked modes of organising? Based on a brief digest of the history, motives and alleged benefits of network arrangements, the chapter elaborates on modes of managing networks. It does so by reflecting in particular the role of information and communication technology for and in...

Collaboration of organizations reshapes traditional managerial practices and creates new inter-organizational contexts for strategy, coordination and control, information and knowledge management. Heralded as organizational forms of the future, networks are at the same time fragile and precarious organizational arrangements, which regularly fail. I...

Virtual Organisations (VO) are regarded as the appropriate organisational form to facilitate innovation. Much has been written about the structural characteristics and propositions of virtual organisations, but their inherent limitations remain largely unaddressed. Hence, there is a significant gap between the propositions in the literature and the...

In the early years of e-Commerce, the tourism sector had high expectations for online booking. All the major airlines invested huge sums of money, not only to make booking features available, but also to integrate them into attractive, easy-to-use Web offerings. Nevertheless, even after years of investment and improvements, the booking ratio for al...