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In January of 2018, AMAZON.COM Inc. (Amazon) opened its first self-service Amazon Go convenience store in Seattle, Washington. Armed only with a smartphone app tied to a credit card, a customer could enter the store, select merchandise from the aisles and refrigeration cases, and just walk out—no lines, no waiting, no cashier. A can of coke, chocolate bar, or chicken sandwich placed in a shopper's bag, is identified, accounted for, and charged to a payment card, all facilitated by computer vision, deep learning, and sensor-based information technologies (IT). Based on extensive public sources, the Amazon Go case provides a rich opportunity to explore an IT-enabled startup that potentially threatens three industries: convenience stores, grocery stores, and fast food outlets. In the future, the technology, either by licensing or expansion by Amazon, arguably could disrupt the broader retail industry and its millions of employees. Students have an opportunity to explore the boundary between IT and business strategy, while seeing the potential economic implications of fixed cost investments in IT. They will see how one company, Amazon, strategically develops, deploys, and extends its growing arsenal of IT weapons. The case also catalyzes discussions of social issues, including the impact of technology on employment and the tradeoffs between personal privacy and customer service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees' personal devices are increasingly evident in the workplace; the use of non‐enterprise sanctioned hardware and software is now commonplace. This phenomenon, frequently referred to as IT consumerization, is gaining momentum. Employees increasingly are using their own devices and choosing their own software (eg, Google Apps, Skype or Dropbox) in addition to—or instead of—enterprise IT. Employees are turning from consumers of enterprise IT to IT deciders, bypassing the IS department to use what critics call "rogue IT." While discouraged in some contexts, the influx of consumer IT into the workplace has been suggested to influence innovative behaviours among employees. Although the phenomenon is very prevalent, research lags in the operationalization of an IT consumerization model. In this paper, we take a close look at the antecedents and consequences of consumerization behaviours. We examine to what extent an individual's level of satisfaction with enterprise IT in juxtaposition with the level of perceived relative advantage of consumer IT over enterprise IT influences an individual's usage of consumer IT in the workplace; we also examine how organizational mandates and IT empowerment influences IT consumerization behaviours. Finally, we investigate the influence of IT consumerization on innovative behaviours at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key information processing building blocks for yesterday's organizations were typewriters, carbon paper, filing cabinets, and a government mail service. The constraints of these crude information processing technologies often required workers to be located under one roof and organizations to arrange themselves as efficient, but relatively change-resistant, management hierarchies. Those legacy organization designs have persisted despite fundamental changes in information processing technology. Tomorrow's successful organizations will be designed around the building blocks of advanced computer and communications technology. The success of these organizations will come from the ability to couple to, and decouple from, the networks of knowledge nodes. These networked organizations will link, on an as-needed basis, teams of empowered employees, consultants, suppliers, and customers. These ad hoc teams will solve one-time problems, provide personalized customer service, and then, as lubricant for subsequent interactions, evaluate one another's performance. In the network organization, structure will dominate strategy, credentials will give way to performance and knowledge, and human resources will be the only sustainable advantage. Despite the promise, networked organizations present difficult information management challenges. Among these are developing a flexible and efficient information architecture, establishing new values, attitudes, and behaviors concerning information sharing, building databases that can provide integrated customer support on a worldwide basis, and protecting personal freedoms and privacy. Here, we explore the opportunities and challenges that networked organizations will present for information technology management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have raised executive management's awareness, and expectations of the strategic role of information systems technology. Teams of managers are commonly involved in workshops or planning processes designed to identify such applications. Conceptual frameworks to assist in such "idea-generation" sessions are widely cited in the literature and used in practice. Less well understood is the process used to evaluate the sustainability of proposed applications. We present a framework for evaluating sustainability based on the competitor's anticipated response time, differences among competitors, and the potential of the application to preempt competitive responses. Such an analysis is proposed as an evaluation tool for intended strategic applications of information technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2014, the CEO of the renowned U.S. discount retailer Target wrote an open letter to its customers apologizing for the massive data breach the company experienced during the 2013 holiday season. Attackers were able to steal credit card data of 40 million customers and more were probably at risk. Share prices, profits, but above all reputation were all now at stake. How did it happen? What was really stolen? What happened to the data? How could Target win consumer confidence back? While the company managed the consequences of the attack, and operations were slowly back to normal, in the aftermath the data breach costs hundreds of million dollars. Customers, banks, and all the major payment card companies took legal action against Target. Some of these litigations remained unsettled 3 years later. The importance of the breach lays in its far broader consequences, rippling through the U.S. Congress, and raising consumer and industry awareness on cyber security. The case provides substantial data and information, allowing students to step into the shoes of Target executives as they seek answers to the above questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, employees are innovating with their own consumer technologies (such as smartphones and tablets), rather than looking to their companies' IT departments to lead technical innovation. This can give rise to tension between employees and IT departments, and this tension is particularly pronounced in the US military, where long systems development times run headlong into young, technology-savvy soldiers arriving in camp with smartphones, sophisticated applications, and high expectations. In this case study, this phenomenon plays out in the person of a US Army Captain who, using resources obtained via the Internet and while on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, develops and sells an inexpensive iPhone application - Tactical NAV - that provides soldiers with a sophisticated navigation tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual worlds or three-dimensional computer-based simulated environments have received considerable attention as platforms for entertainment, education and commerce. In contrast to a web site, for example, where a user interacts with a two-dimensional site, virtual worlds provide a platform in which users can interact with other individuals, sometimes including strangers, within three-dimensional environments. Virtual worlds afford a form of 'socialness' unlike many other technologies, often motivating a user - by virtue of these social experiences - to return. Drawing on the Spatial Model of Interaction and Awareness-Attention Theory, we demonstrate that besides social aspects, which include social awareness and social perception, flow experience, which is the mental state of being fully absorbed and somewhat lost in time, is an essential ingredient in an individual's decision to return to a virtual world. We also demonstrate how characteristics of the technology are linked to the social aspects experienced in virtual worlds. A laboratory study conducted in a virtual world, Second Life, supports our assertions and identifies state predictors of flow that influence individuals' intentions to return to the virtual world environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]