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The current practice of data dissemination via data portals exhibits scalability limitations. Technically, the use of keywords and themes for the description of data semantics cannot keep up with the growing number and topical diversity of published datasets. At the same time, the publish-find-bind model of data dissemination decouples data discovery from data access which makes it increasingly difficult to find data that can be (re)used in combination with other data for the construction of tailored data products. However, data application developers increasingly need to see all the data not only from one provider but also from several providers as a whole in runtime. In this context, Linked Data (LD) as a technique for publishing structured semantically rich data on the Web is able to open up the data silos of the traditional data portals. Being based on well-known Web technologies (such as HTTP), interoperable semantic standards and graph data model, LD makes it possible to perform data discovery, access and integration in one step. Apart from that, LD creates a Web-scale semantic infrastructure that enables interoperability not only between separate databases but also between organisations. However, converting existing datasets into LD as is does not allow the realisation of these properties. In fact, original data sources were created with the closed world assumption in mind and, therefore, lacked connections between each other and the existing semantic infrastructure. For this reason, the realisation ofLDadvantages requires data to be semantically enriched, which is a knowledge and labour-demanding task. Additionally, data providers meet an organizational challenge. Investment in semantic enrichment (SE) of provider data to leverage LD requires evaluation of benefits that are difficult to quantify. A common and well-understood approach of use-case-driven development is too narrow to cover all business requirements and, therefore, is not adequate to demonstrate the added value of LD. Instead, this thesis proposes enabling exploratory search (ES) of data as an integrated approach towards developing LD in an organisation. This proposition is supported by two major research contributions presented in this work, namely (1) a business rationale for LD implementation and (2) technical requirements of SE instantiated by a number of developed data and software artefacts. Technical requirements of SE are framed as four data enrichment levels: (1) ontological, (2) conceptual, (3) instantial and (4) literal. Semantic enrichment design principles for each of these levels are created based on the analysis of the data-related requirements and functional limitations of existing ES systems. The analysed systems are grouped into nine categories according to the exploratory techniques they facilitate. This makes it possible to abstract from particular implementations and formulate requirements for each of the categories. The business rationale for LD implementation is based on the analysis of the roles that LD plays in the realisation of a business vision of a large public data provider. Deriving from the experience of the development of a data platform at the Netherlands’ Cadastre Land Registry and Mapping Agency (Kadaster), it is concluded that LD directly contributes to the operationalisation of three out of four business ambitions, namely, (1) enabling a use-case oriented vision, (2) increasing the data value, and (3) ensuring the certainty of the data and legitimacy of the organization. The remaining ambition of being a spatial data provider can be fulfilled by conventional technologies, however, LD indirectly contributes to reaching users outside of the GIS community. These findings are used to prioritise the previously identified technical requirements of SE to achieve alignment with the business vision. As a result of this prioritisation, two semantic enrichment scenarios that combine design principles into two groups according to their advancement level are formulated, implemented, and evaluated. The driving reason for the division of scenarios is to differentiate design principles that are easy to implement but that lead to high gains in terms of ES (the first scenario) from those that require greater efforts but at the same time lead to maximum possible results (the second scenario). The first scenario focuses on ES-enabling semantic enrichment of datasets that have thematically similar content but are curated by several independent data providers. The design principles covered in the first scenario allow to create and disseminate LD representation of existing data on top of existing spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) without altering already implemented data pipelines and structures. They are put to test during the development of the Open European Location Services (OpenELS) project, a collaborative effort aimed at the construction of European-level SDI for the provision of geospatial data within the Spatial Information in the Europe Community (INSPIRE) initiative. The second scenario, in contrast, covers the creation of explorable Knowledge Graphs, voluminous data sources that combine datasets with a wide range of topics from a multitude of knowledge domains. Apart from the topical diversity, the design principles of this scenario also cater for a large volume of spatio-temporal data by utilising topological relations for the creation of hierarchical spatial partitioning. Construction of the Kadaster Knowledge Graph (KKG) by combining 12 datasets curated by 8 organisations represented the evaluation of the second scenario design principles. The usability of the graph was assessed during the creation of three applications, namely data browsing, urban planning, and the development of a chatbot. There are several important characteristics of the research that influence the applicability of research contributions. The first limitation stems from the fact that a major part of the research is conducted in a governmental institution, namely Kadaster. Therefore, for for-profit organisations, the business rationale for LD implementation has relevance in parts related to revenue-focused business ambitions such as use case orientedness and data value increase. Another limitation is that the rationale is based on qualitative reasoning which implies that it does not provide an understanding of how much resources implementation of LD can take. For the data and software artefacts created as a part of this research, it is important to emphasise that their evaluation is based on providing semantic enrichment and exploratory search capabilities and does not include usability testing. However, in this respect, the design principles of both scenarios were discussed within a large group of specialists involved in their implementation, then taken into use within their organisations, and considered applicable and useful. The approach presented in this thesis is thought to be beneficial for the following application domains and target groups. First of all, the research contributes to the topics of data dissemination and data- and semantic- infrastructure development. Therefore, it is of interest to data owners, data custodians and data providers including but not limited to National Mapping and Cartographic Agencies (NMCAs), since the research is greatly concerned with the utilisation of spatial and temporal data components for linking and consolidating data assets into one virtual data source. This can be particularly appealing for data scientists and engineers who are confronted with tailored data product development as well as application developers who work with heterogeneous cross-domain data to create novel applications. From the viewpoint of software development companies, this work can be considered as a blueprint for semantic enrichment scenarios to be supported by data management tools, and as such, it can help in foreseeing market demands in terms of functional requirements. Apart from that, the research findings add to the business rationalisation of semantic enrichment in organisations. Therefore, managers who are responsible for data desilofication strategies and business developers who are concerned with the development and operationalisation of the business vision are among the target groups of this work. Exploratory search over big and distributed data is another application domain of the thesis, therefore the analysis of ES system requirements towards data quality is of particular interest to the community of ES researchers and software developers. Finally, elaboration on the topics of Knowledge Graphs development presented in this work contributes to the ongoing discussion in the Semantic Web and Linked Data communities and therefore, is of interest to them.

The transition from hierarchical control structures to heterarchical control structures enables assets to become intelligent. Intelligent assets could include raw materials, components or products, as well as transit equipment (e.g., pallets, packages) and transportation systems (e.g., conveyers, trucks and cars). By delegating control to assets, we enable autonomous behaviour, i.e., decision-making without external or central control. Through cooperation with the environment and other assets, the system may be able to organise itself. That is, without external or central control or maybe even without a reference to the global objectives of the system. In other words, a self-organizing system consists of autonomous assets, each with their own goal. Through mutual cooperation they are able to achieve a common goal. In this thesis, we view self-organizing logistics as a way to cope with the complex, dynamic and stochastic nature of the logistics sector and the abovementioned challenges.

Business environments are now frequently described as VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. The COVID-19 pandemic breaking out in 2020 serves as a case in point. Therefore, strategies, business models, tactics, and plans set for the year were challenged. In this situation, executives worldwide did not suffer from insufficient general knowledge about strategizing, business modeling, or planning. This research project posits that what practitioners need to survive and thrive is practical wisdom. Executive education institutions play a crucial role in supporting them. Embarking on exploratory research, this study addresses the research question of how executive education course participants perceive the process of developing practical wisdom in business schools? Adopting a constructivist grounded theory design, 32 in-depth one-on-one interviews served as the basis for an emerging substantive theory. It portrays a three-act process and six concrete steps to explain how study participants grew their practical wisdom. The thesis contributes to several fields within the academic body of knowledge, e.g., rethinking practical wisdom, improving leadership development, and modernizing executive education and business schools overall. The research yields five suggestions for future research and adds ten testable hypotheses. Regarding practice, several stakeholders can benefit from new insights. Society at large, organizations as both value creators and employers, learners, and the learning architects in executive education providers could benefit from a better understanding and corresponding improvements. Thus, gained insights contribute to a better return on education (ROE). It also prepares the learner more aptly for this VUCA world.

Whereas real-time data nowadays is widely available and advanced data-driven approaches are emerging, organizations in the Dutch logistics industry, in particular Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), lack the expertise to effectively identify which data-driven logistics applications are suitable and which tools to use to subsequently adopt these approaches in their daily operations. Based on the design science research methodology, this PDEng thesis presents the results and findings related to the research, design, development, demonstration, and implementation of an industry platform for data-driven logistics based on the Open Trip Model (OTM), to create re-usable data-driven applications for SMEs in the Dutch logistics industry. The core contribution of this PDEng thesis is the architecture for an industry platform for data-driven logistics that is tailored to the need of SMEs. The industry platform architecture consists of the following components and interfaces: 1) a graphical user interface for SMEs to access platform services, 2) APIs for data exchange based on the OTM, 3) an OTM compliant database for unified storage of logistics data, 4) an agent repository for re-usable data-driven applications and development tool for testing various algorithms, and 5) a scalable infrastructure for provisioning computing resources to deploy, run, and monitor agents. The industry platform architecture is complemented with a design canvas, workshop materials, implementation guidelines, and adoption framework to transfer the industry platform functionality to SMEs as part of a learning community. The industry platform concept is verified by means of an expert panel consultation, deployed for testing, and its use is demonstrated and validated using case-based research at a Dutch logistics services provider. The results and findings are disseminated to the scientific community via peer-reviewed publications and presentations during international conferences and workshops. Additionally, the results and findings are communicated to the logistics community via professional reports, presentations and workshops at industry events, and articles in the media. The instantiated industry platform and case study support awareness building of potential data-driven logistics applications in the logistics industry and lowering the barriers for SMEs to start adopting data-driven approaches in their daily practice. The industry platform provides a foundation for further empirical research and a rich testbed for experimental development of data-driven logistics approaches in logistics. Future research will focus on comparing modern, traditional and hybrid data-driven approaches, experimenting with federated learning among SMEs, and incorporating data sharing concepts as part of the federated data sharing infrastructure that is currently being developed for the Dutch logistics industry.

The aim of this research was to develop a comprehensive IS evaluation model for IS success linked to organizational performance. A theoretically based, comprehensive set of IS evaluation measures was presented as well as a contingency theory for selecting appropriate measures such as for business-IS alignment practice. By complementing previous studies, this research offered a contribution by proving the contingency relationships between business strategy, IS strategy, IS investment, IS maturity and IS success. By understanding the differences in IS performances through such research processes, the intention was to provide an empirically proven evaluation model. Four detailed hypotheses were presented to test such a research model. In order to test the foregoing hypotheses, we conducted group surveys on a random sample of business executives in approximately 300 companies. The respondents came from both South Korean and Korean based EU & US foreign companies of similar size and operation characteristics. Responses were received from 273 individual executives (one person per firm). The models were tested using the appropriately selected analysis methodologies such as confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of variance, cluster analysis, ANOVA analysis, adjusted deviation score analysis and structural equation modelling. There are the conclusions of this research. Firstly, we empirically verified the relationships of mutual strategy alignment (matching types) among business strategy, organization structure, IS strategy and IS architecture based on the contingency theory. Secondly, in regards to the mediator effect of IS investment between business-IS strategic alignment and IS benefit, this research concluded that this strategic alignment affects to the goal of IS investment where it magnifies to same IS performance goal. Thirdly, this research found out that there is a moderator effect of IS maturity between IS investment and IS success generally. However, it was not guaranteed to have high IS success rate due to high IS maturity in case of ambiguous or directionless IS investment. Fourthly, we found the fact that there are significant mutual relationship and process natures among IS success measurements by performed a statistical verification. Finally, according to an additional analysis for which of IS maturity (consist of four - plan maturity, implementation maturity, operation maturity, evaluation maturity) can affect to the most of IS success two groups by size - Large enterprises vs. SMEs and by location –Korea based vs. EU/US based enterprises. In addition, these are practically consistent with the normative insistence or empirical results of previous research. By confirming the crucial role of IS investment, we could capture clues as to the indirect effects of Firm’s business growth, accompanied with appropriate strategic alignments of successful IS reputations in the global market.

‘A comparative study of corporate sustainability, strategic corporate social responsibility and market value creation among companies operating in India’ is an original research carried out in India. The study consists of two parts-qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative part includes practice-oriented study on corporate sustainability (CS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives undertaken by multinational companies, Indian private companies and public sector enterprises operating in India. The quantitative part includes study on five dimensions of strategic CSR (Burke & Logsdon 1996); the pyramid of CSR (Carroll 1991); three components of CSR, namely principles of charity, stewardship (Lawrence, Weber & Post 2005), and environmental friendliness for market value creation among enterprises operating in India. The research design is a mixed sequential exploratory model (Tashakkori & Teddlie 2003) wherein qualitative research followed by quantitative research for theory development and testing. The qualitative research involves information gathered through author’s own two decades of industry experience; gathering information and interacting with senior management professionals practicing CS and/or CSR in 43 companies (multinationals, Indian private and public sector enterprises) operating in India. The validity of data gathered through qualitative research is determined through triangulation, pattern matching and member checking. The analysis of qualitative data was undertaken using thematic analysis- coding, data reduction, categorization, and theme development. The themes derived from clusters of companies analyzed, compared in terms of CS and CSR initiatives. The qualitative study reflects relative performance of CS and CSR per company in descending order as: PSE (2.70), Indian private (2.18) and MNC (1.00).

For a long time, humanity has lived upon the paradigm that the amounts of natural resources are unlimited and that the environment has ample regenerative capacity. However, the notion to shift towards sustainability has resulted in a worldwide adoption of policies addressing resource efficiency and preservation of natural resources. One of the key environmental and economic sustainable operations that is currently promoted and enacted in the European Union policy is Industrial Symbiosis. In industrial symbiosis, firms aim to reduce the total material and energy footprint by circulating traditional secondary production process outputs of firms to become part of an input for the production process of other firms. This thesis directs attention to the design considerations for recommender systems in the highly dynamic domain of industrial symbiosis. Recommender systems are a promising technology that may facilitate in multiple facets of the industrial symbiosis creation as they reduce the complexity of decision making. This typical strength of recommender systems has been responsible for improved sales and a higher return of investments. That provides the prospect for industrial symbiosis recommenders to increase the number of synergistic transactions that reduce the total environmental impact of the process industry in particular.

This thesis addresses a significant gap in research and makes an original contribution to knowledge through a rigorous analysis and critical evaluation of the role of corporate board characteristics as a moderator in the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure and Corporate Firm Performance (CFP) in Nigeria. The literature review provides insights into CSR as well as the role of governance in fostering societal improvements. Key principles, theories, and models of both CSR and corporate governance, particularly the internal mechanisms associated with board structure and its committees were critically evaluated, including the importance of CSR disclosure, various reporting instruments, and priority issues for Nigeria. A methodology based on a positivist philosophy and a deductive approach was used to evaluate the implications of CSR disclosure and Board characteristics for CFP. In doing this, a descriptive analysis of all 175 listed firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2015 (final sample of 145) was carried out to determine attitudes toward CSR reporting. Subsequently, a robust regression analysis of 49 of the largest listed companies in Nigeria (2012 to 2015) was used to establish the impact of both CSR disclosure and Board characteristics on CFP, including the assessment of the role of Board characteristics as a moderator in this relationship. The findings from the descriptive analysis show that CSR disclosure is under-developed with less than 10% of Nigerian firms producing a separate CSR report, while the time-series analysis found that CSR related disclosure does not affect any of the three measures of firm performance used in this study. Within these models, a number of corporate board characteristics affect both Return on Sales and Return on Equity, while neither CSR related disclosure nor any corporate board characteristic affect Return on Assets. However, once the interactions between specific board characteristics and CSR related disclosure are tested, there is statistically significant relationships in a number cases although the vast majority of these had a reducing effect (net cost or reduced benefit) on firm performance for groups where the board characteristic is present/higher. Finally, this thesis has provided new methodology and insights which helps advance knowledge on studies pertaining to these issues, within the Nigerian context.

Multiagent Systems (MAS) research reached a maturity to be confidently applied to real-life complex problems. Successful application of MAS methods for behavior modeling, strategic reasoning, and decentralized governance, encouraged us to focus on applicability of MAS techniques in a class of industrial systems and to develop multiagent models, coordination methods, and decision support tools for this context. We direct attention towards a form of industrial practices called Industrial Symbiosis Systems (ISS) as a highly dynamic domain of application for MAS techniques. In ISS, firms aim to reduce their material and energy footprint by circulating reusable resources among the participants. To enable systematic reasoning about ISS behavior and support firms' (as well as ISS designers’) decisions, we saw the opportunity for marrying industrial engineering with multiagent systems research. This enabled the introduction of contextualized representation frameworks to reason about the dynamics of ISS, operational semantics to develop computational models for ISS, coordination mechanisms to enforce desirable ISS implementations, and transaction cost allocation methods that ensure fairness and stability properties in ISS. In practice, the contributions presented in this work are proved to aid firms and policy-makers for evaluating, coordinating, and allocating costs in industrial symbiosis. Our formal frameworks lead to practical tools with commercialization potentials and are validated through various sessions with industrial firms. We argue that this work is the first attempt—and can be a motivation for further approaches—on practical application of MAS technologies in the context of industrial symbiosis as it presents MAS-oriented methodological foundations for ISS development and elaborates on various open problems.

The adoption of urban smartness concept for the rural area is recently gaining attention, especially as a vehicle to improve the citizens' economic welfare. In this context, this paper presents ongoing research exploring the adoption effort through the development of e-government service platform that facilitates the entrepreneurial discovery as the key for rural area's economic growth. This research follows the design science research methodology (DSRM) as the guidance in defining, designing, and implementing the research artefacts. There are two main research artefacts will be delivered from this research that expected to fill in the gaps from the previous works. First, the theoretical model that describes the key features of urban smartness concept for the realisation of economic benefit for the citizens in a rural area. Second, the design of the e-government service platform customised to the rural context. These research artefacts will be demonstrated and validated using a case study in West Java province, Indonesia, as the region has a strong vision to improve the economic welfare of the people in their rural area through digital initiatives. As the preliminary result, this research proposes a conceptual framework that suggests the urban smartness technology, combined with the organisational and environmental capabilities, can lead to the improvement of the economic welfare of the citizens in rural area through a process that encourages innovation in the local communities.

We study anticipatory scheduling decisions for the transport of freight in a synchromodal network. In a synchromodal network, the choice of mode, the choice of transport path, and the timing of operations is not fixed up front, but decided upon various moments using the latest information about the status of the transport modes and about freight demand. This increased flexibility brings opportunities for consolidation and options for efficient transport, throughout the network and throughout time. However, to achieve such gains, transport decisions must consider their consequences in the entire network and anticipate on their effect in future decisions. We use four different perspectives for studying the decisions in a synchromodal network, based on traditional scheduling methods for multi-modal transport considered in the literature. For each perspective, we develop mathematical models and heuristic algorithms that support anticipatory scheduling decisions in synchromodal transport. Furthermore, for each perspective, we evaluate the output of our models and algorithms using simulation-based experiments, and provide insights into their efficiency gains over traditional scheduling methods, using different network characteristics. As an addition to the development of scheduling methods, we study how to increase the awareness about the trade-offs considered by our methods and how to facilitate the adoption of our algorithms through a serious game. Finally, we present a closing reflection about our anticipatory scheduling methods for freights in synchromodal transport, and provide an outlook for further research with respect to extensions of the models, improvements of the heuristics, and implementation aspects.

The goal of the research in this thesis is to determine how the IT governance (ITG) of an organisation can grow in maturity to become more effective. ITG are “the structures, process, cultures and systems that engender the successful operation of the IT of the (complete) organization”. ITG is thus not restricted to the IT organisation. The research presented here follows the stream in which ITG is considered an integral part of corporate governance, focusing on the performance perspective. The proposition is that improving “ITG maturity” results in improving ITG. Given that ITG is an integral part of corporate governance, the assumption is that improving ITG results in improving corporate governance and thus, improving organisational performance. The research methodology is based on design science and a combination of systematic literature studies, Delphi workshops and case studies. Organisations can be defined as social units of people that are structured and managed to pursue collective goals. ITG can be seen from two perspectives: - An organisational perspective referred to as “hard governance”; - A social perspective referred to as “soft governance”. This research is grounded in the assumption that in order to advance in maturity, organisations should pay attention to both the hard and soft sides of ITG. In order to improve ITG, a maturity model for hard and soft ITG was designed. The end result was a model consisting of three parts: soft governance, hard governance and the context. The thesis provides a detailed description of the design process between 2014 and 2017. Another literature review demonstrated that all 12 focus areas of the MIG model are also covered by the corporate governance literature. The assessment instrument was used in case studies conducted by students and the researchers. Between 2015 and 2017, 28 case studies were conducted using three versions of the instrument. The evaluations revealed that combining the instrument with semi-structured interviews results in an enhanced and usable instrument for determining the current level of hard and soft ITG of an organisation.

Without doubt the renewable energy (RE) sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is currently booming exponentially. More often than not, these projects are designed as just “projects” thus leading to their failure in the shortest possible time. This can be easily seen from numerous already failed projects. Given that energy is the backbone of the economy in the region, the continuous use of unsustainable methods of energy generation coupled with the epileptic power supply and infrastructure, such circumstances cannot continue to prevail. The long-term sustainability characteristics of these so-called projects are rarely considered during their planning and implementation. Despite the existence and buzz created by the annotation of sustainable development, in the region of SSA, it does seem like these definitions are nonexistent. This thesis develops and presents integrated sustainability mechanisms that should be considered by stakeholders participating in the development and implementation of RE projects in SSA. A bottom-up approach is utilized that investigates the failures of existing projects while presenting the current state of affairs. Multiple sustainability characteristics – that include location analysis, sustainable management, protection of infrastructure and societal benefits – are presented and their application in the region is further executed. For any RE project implemented in the region of SSA to be successful, the integrated sustainability mechanisms presented in this thesis “must” be adopted.

The environment of organisations is changing more rapidly in the recent years, which makes it increasingly more difficult to stay competitive. Organisations need to ensure that when they make transformations, they focus on maintaining or improving their strategic alignment. However, the current research is not sufficient for addressing these needs, mainly due to a lack of cross-disciplinary knowledge. The Enterprise Strategic Alignment Method (ESAM) is designed to help organisations improve their strategic alignment by combining information from four different disciplines, namely Strategic Management, Capability-based planning, Enterprise Architecture, and Portfolio Management. The focus of the ESAM is on the collaboration between different stakeholders within an organisation, with an emphasis on improving communication, facilitating better partnerships, supporting improved governance, promoting an integrated architecture, and ensuring an alignment between the different types of organisational measurements. The ESAM has been validated and evaluated with the help of three very distinct case studies, in terms of organisation type and scope of the case study. The results indicate that the method has had a positive influence on aspects relating to communication, which are identified by literature as enablers of strategic alignment, while other aspects have proven to be situational. The ESAM is also supported by a software tool (a management dashboard template, several canvases, and a strategy design tool) and by two serious games (one board game and one computer game).

Current architectures for online retail do not provide the right level of flexibility in adopting new services to achieve continuous customer satisfaction and to optimize e-commerce performance. Retailers who rely on pre-packaged or custom-built software are struggling to keep the pace with new trends like cross-border or omni-channel commerce. A promising approach to overcome many software adoption obstacles and to improve pluggability in service-oriented architectures are cloud services. This thesis introduced a novel quality model that allows to assess the pluggability of those services in common platform architectures for e-commerce. Following a design science methodology, a state of the art architectural model is instantiated by means of a platform prototype to which the quality model is applied in order to measure the prototype’s service pluggability and gradually enhance the architectural model. A number of pluggable services for cross-selling, sales forecasting, and trade compliance are presented that reflect the recent trends in online retail. The covered services permit to demonstrate the functionality of the platform prototype and to evaluate the architecture’s capability to improve service pluggability.

Developing prediction instruments requires understanding the specific domain they are developed for. The more complex the domain is, the more factors affect the prediction outcome. For a complex domain, there is some consensus that it is important that the analysis is specific to that domain. The complexity of the domain implies that there are likely to be factors at play in the domain that are unique to that domain. A literature review of similar domains is therefore unlikely to uncover all important variables. We have developed a method for prediction instrument development that captures the 'soft' aspects that are specific to the domain. This method, Prediction Instrument Development for Complex Domains (PID-CD) starts with asking those directly involved with the domain to brainstorm on what affects what is to be predicted. Combined with observations from a field study, this leads to a set of testable hypotheses. These are combined with a set of constraints, which determine the conditions under which a predictive model is actionable. The hypotheses are converted to data selection and cleaning strategies, that determine which variables to use in a predictive model, and how noise should be removed from these variables. The constraints determine which strategies are converted to predictive models, and which predictive models have sufficient predictive performance. The domain experts and decision makers finally determine which predictive model will be used as the basis for a prediction instrument. The main contribution of this thesis is a rigorous and transparent method for domain analysis as part of prediction instrument development. We have demonstrated that this method of soft-inclusive domain analysis leads to better predictive power than would be achieved with soft-exclusive domain analysis, through having a more complete view of what factors in the domain affect the prediction outcome. Furthermore, this method allows one to directly relate predictive power with the hypotheses, contributing to better domain understanding.

Organisational culture change is a long and complex process that typically takes years to complete and has a very low success rate. This Action Design Research Study in an educational setting, addresses the problem by the proposed use of an Action Design Research Methodology to build and deploy an IT artifact named Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument-Spilter (OCAI-Spilter) to speed up cultural change while reducing failure rate. OCAI-Spilter should be able to fast-track culture change by addressing the problem of scalability and process losses encountered in most change projects involving large numbers of people. We deploy an iterative prototyping process using Component Base Software Development to continuously refine the tool in use. We also reviewed the design principles in Action Research Design to improve the usability of the tool. New design principles and learning were derived from this process. Finally, we showed the effectiveness of the artifact by measuring the results of the tool in use through culture surveys and alignment, as well as idea generation that was administered through the tool. Change initiatives and change projects that arise as a result of the OCAI-Spilter artifact were introduced in the organization to start and effect the journey of culture change.

This thesis is motivated by the practical conundrums encountered when making information systems and technology (IS/IT) project continuation decisions and by the dearth of research pertaining to the causes of equivocality in IS/IT project evaluations. Despite the paucity of studies dealing with this theme, there is great concern among both practitioners and academics that continuation decisions and the evaluations need to be improved. To enrich our conceptual understanding of equivocality in IS/IT projects, this thesis identifies typical characteristics and causes of equivocal situations. It delineates the development and assessment of an instrument to measure an equivocal situation and its causes, providing insights into the emergence of this situation. This thesis endeavors to unravel the phenomenon of equivocality and to set a preliminary foundation of equivocality in IS/IT projects. It enlightens both practitioners and academics by suggesting how problems in project evaluations can be forestalled and by advancing the knowledge on equivocality, evaluations, and decisions.

Social media could help nonprofit communities to organize their communication with their members in new and innovative ways. This could contribute to sustaining or improving the participation of members within these communities. Yet little is known of how to measure and understand the offline community effects of social media use. Therefore, the main question of this study is: “How does the use of social media by members of nonprofit communities affect their offline participation?” The Social Media Participation Framework was developed to address this question. It is an initial theoretical framework that aims to contribute to discovering the effects of Social Media Participation on Offline Community Participation. A new measure was created to capture social media participation levels: The Social Media Indicator (SMI) which divides the intensity of use of social media into two aspects: Contribution (e-enabling) and Interaction (e-engagement), following the e-participation theory of Macintosh. In order to test the theoretical framework, it was employed in three longitudinal, multi-method, case studies. The 1st case study was regarding a City Council and its elected political party members in Enschede, The Netherlands. The 2nd case was a Roman Catholic Church community around Oldenzaal in The Netherlands. The 3rd case was based on the Apostolic Society in Enschede, the Netherlands. The church communities who had defined social media strategies were experiencing added value from social media. However, in the case of the council, members who had higher scores for Social Media Use showed significantly lower scores for their Sense of Community. The evidence in this study does not support the idea that social media is ‘the cure’ for the decline in member participation in nonprofit communities. Based on the experiences of the framework in these case studies a revised framework is proposed which addresses the limitations of its predecessor. This study contributed to reducing the void of theories and frameworks for studying social media and its effects on communities.

The Indian diamond industry is composed of tens of thousands of firms engaged in cutting and polishing of diamonds and resides in the so-called un-organized sector. However, together, these firms produce 11 out of 12 diamonds set in jewelery worldwide. In absence of formal systems of governance, how are firms in this industry organized? We conduct a firm and industry level of analysis of the intangible aspects of organizing, i.e. organizational culture. Using competing values framework, we collect data from hundreds of artisans and workers of the Indian diamond industry. Results suggest that such informal firms may be more organized than originally thought. We then propose initial theory of an informal firm.

Despite the enormous progress that is made, many healthcare professionals still experience problems regarding patient information and patient records. For a long time the expectation is that an electronic patient record (EPR) will solve these problems. In this research the factors determining the adoption (i.e. acceptance and user satisfaction) of EPR’s by care providers are investigated. For this purpose the USE IT-model is constructed, which describes four determinants for the success or failure of ICT-innovations: relevance, requirements, resources and resistance. The four determinants are measured at the macro-level (organizational level) and at the micro-level (individual level). In this research a pre-evaluation is conducted for MS-care and stroke care. Also an EPR in a nursing home, and a Nursing Information System in a hospital are evaluated. The research revealed the micro-relevance is the decisive determinant for adoption of EPR’s by care providers. Resistance against an EPR is the result of lack of relevance, not meeting requirements, and insufficient resources. Complete, correct and accurate information, which is available anywhere and anytime, is the most relevant requirement of an EPR. However, care providers do not always experience the necessity to enter data immediately, correctly and completely. In order to implement an integrated care information system successfully, the integrated care must be based upon a national care standard and financed by integral funding. The results of the research are used to update the USE IT-model. The USE IT-model includes an interview-model and questionnaire to measure the four determinants.

The business case (BC) is an artifact that is used to justify an investment in terms of its expected costs, benefits and risks. In the field of IT it is commonly used to justify an investment into an IT project in order to get the investment approval from upper management. Decision makers also may use the business case to compare different projects within a portfolio and decide into which they want to invest money. While the general role of business cases in single organizations is rather clear and subject to most BC research, its role and importance in an inter-organizational setting are less articulated and researched. The inter-organizational setting in this PhD research refers to multiple profit and loss responsible units that are working together in a project to jointly implement an IT system. Such profit and loss responsible units can either be different business units within one multinational or different companies within a business network. The fact that the role of the BC is rather clear in single organizations, however, does not mean that everything goes as planned and the expected benefits are achieved in time and within budget. Uncertainties related to both the cost and the benefit estimations included in the BC, may interfere greatly with the realization of the BC itself. While the estimation of the costs is a well-understood problem in a mature research domain, the specification of the benefits is often more challenging and less well understood and researched. In line with previous research we find that current knowledge and practices on benefits estimation are not satisfactory and many projects fail to realize their anticipated benefits. In this thesis we provide a better understanding of the problem of BC development in general, and in inter-organizational settings in particular. The research yields the following outputs/deliverables: Based on literature we develop a conceptual model that helps to identify and understand the mechanisms in place in such a setting. Following design science as main research paradigm we develop our business case for inter-organizational projects (BC4IOP) methodology specifically for this problem domain. Our methodology supports stakeholders in inter-organizational projects with the assessment and management of the benefits as well as the distribution of costs of a joint investment. It provides participants with a platform and process that initiates and supports discussion. The methodology consists of the following three independent but complementary components: -BM4IOP: a comprehensive benefits management method; -VM4IOP: a method that explores how a network creates value and what the impact is on business case development; -SID4IOP: a method that supports stakeholders to achieve agreement on the cost distribution of a shared project, by structurally disclosing more information. We follow a multi-method research approach where we use a variety of techniques, such as interviews, surveys, iterative design cycles and focus groups with experts to design the components underlying the BC4IOP methodology and the methodology itself. We validate our methodology by conducting (i) five case studies in different multinationals and (ii) four experiments with experts from academy and industry. Our empirical results confirm that developing a shared BC in an inter-organizational setting is more complex than in intra-organizational settings. The BC4IOP methodology is found to be feasible and useful in inter-organizational settings. It helps to overcome challenges typically found during the BCD process when stakeholders have different goals and no centralized decision-making power. The methodology is able to overcome these challenges by, among others, providing structure and a way to handle sensitive stakeholder information and encouraging in-depth discussion among project participants. We conclude that it is the combination of: the identification and specification of costs and benefits for an individual BC and the decision about the cost and benefit distribution in a shared BC, that make BC4IOP a strong and unique methodology.

Professional service organizations are organizations predominantly employed with professionals; employees with specific and dedicated expertise in an area. IT support of the primary operations in this type of organizations is suboptimal. Methodological support of development and implementation of information systems in professional service organizations is not producing expected results, as for instance can be observed by alacking business-IT alignment. This research brings together ideas from situational method engineering and action design research to address this issue. From the field of situational method engineering, the concept of method chunk is introduced as a made-to-measure IS development methodology element.In this research method chunks (atomic methodology elements) are developed that address hiatus in the ISD methodology in two distinct organizational cases. Action design research combines insight from design science and action research to not only design a technology component, but also embed the designed artifact in the conditions of use. The situational method engineering -action design research based approach produces five key contributions: (1) an analysis of information systems development in the professional service organizations domain; (2) custom tailored method chunks that address specific needs in an ISD process, (3) an method to develop method chunks in the professional service-organisations domain (4) an adaptation of situation method engineering based on the action design research approach; and (5) an real-life application of the action design reserach approach.

Little scientific literature addresses the issue of quality of semantic standards, albeit a problem with high economic and social impact. Our problem survey, including 34 semantic Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs), gives evidence that quality of standards can be improved, but for improvement a quality measurement instrument is needed. 81% of the survey respondents is interested in using such instrument. It can be expected that improved quality of semantic standards will lead to improved interoperability and improved economic welfare and social life. Our main research question is: What are the characteristics of an instrument to measure quality of semantic standards that will aid standard developers in improving their standards? Based on design science methodology this research developed such an instrument, called iQMSS (instrument for Quality Model of Semantic Standards). The iQMSS involves three types of artifacts: artifacts related to the Quality Model of Semantic Standards (QMSS), the Semantic Standard Model (SSM), and the instrumentalization. On the highest abstraction level SMO (Software Measurement Ontology) from the software engineering domain was selected and used for the creation of both QMSS and SSM with consistent concepts and definitions. The extensive research process included coverage of both scientific studies and practical experiences, and led to the highly customizable final version of the iQMSS, in line with the gathered requirements. The main artifact QMSS consists of in total 100 quality aspects structured within three hierarchical trees; product quality (intrinsic), process quality (the organization of the standard), and quality in practice (application of the standard). The SSM is applied upfront to gather knowledge about the standard, create overview and understanding about what we are able to measure in practice for a specific standard. The main concepts within the model are the standards’ context, its content, its development and maintenance processes, and its application. On the lowest level it contains 33 aspects of a semantic standard. The glue between the artifacts is the usage model, which describes how the iQMSS should be applied including four roles. !e end result after each application is the analysis report which provides the basis for a standards’ improvement project. But does the iQMSS aid standard developers in improving their standards? Our validation cases, in the temporary staffing and education domains, suggest that the iQMSS identifies improvement suggestions. Based on the validation workshops we held in both the United States and the Netherlands, we believe that the iQMSS will be used in practice as aid for standards developers.

Today’s dynamic and distributed development environment brings significant challenges for software project management. In distributed project settings, “management by walking around” is no longer an option, and project managers may miss out on key project insights. At the same time, the high coordination requirements caused by the dynamic distributed environment can cause many coordination difficulties and can even lead to coordination breakdowns. In response to some of these problems, researchers have developed detailed patterns for describing the preferred relationships between the team communication structure (the social network) and the technical software architecture. We call such patterns Socio-Technical Patterns. As they capture a wide variety of knowledge and experience Socio, Technical and Socio-Technical Patterns (or Socio/Technical Patterns in short) are potentially very useful for the project manager in planning and monitoring complex development projects. However, these patterns are hard to implement and monitor in practice. The reason behind this is that it is difficult to find coordination problems in order to apply the solutions provided by the Socio/Technical Patterns, as purely manual techniques are labour intensive. Especially within dynamic and iterative distributed environments, the use of Socio/Technical Patterns is challenging. But, even in small companies, employing between 20 and 50 developers (ref Chapter 5 and 6), the social network and the relation to the software tasks can get quite complicated for the software manager to track. As part of the TESNA (TEchnical Social Network Analysis) project, we have developed a method and a tool that a project manager can use in order to identify specific coordination problems that we call Socio/Technical Structure Clashes (STSCs). We have evaluated the TESNA method and tool in two commercial case studies (Chapters 5 and 6) and multiple case studies in the Open Source development environment (Chapter 7).

Enterprise Information Systems or just Enterprise Systems (ES) have become increasingly popular since the last decade of the previous century. Many organizations have deployed an ES implementation and the current adoption rate of these systems is still rising. The implementation of an ES, especially when driven by a BPR rationale, has a large impact on the adopting organization. Extensive research has shown that the resulting organizational change process requires profound support, which most implementations currently lack, causing a substantial number of implementation failures. A literature overview in chapter 1 focuses on the diverse contributions dealing with this organizational change problem in the domain of ES implementations. The ES implementation process is researched from various perspectives, which leads to fragmented knowledge and mostly explorative or descriptive research results. Prescriptive research is carried out less often. This kind of research leads to conceptual change frameworks or guidelines. On the other hand, consistent creation of a profound and applicable ES specific change approach is lacking. This dissertation focuses on this omission and designs an organizational change approach, which it will then deploy in a longitudinal case study.