Track Description
Information and communication technologies (ICT) have become an increasingly important driver of novel and often disruptive innovations. Digital innovations are changing products, services, and entire business models.
Thereby, various technological developments like the Internet of Things (IoT) or Artificial Intelligence (AI) have the potential to sustainably change how value is created. These developments affect all sectors, as they are not limited to IT-related industries anymore, but by now touch traditional product- and service industries both within the business-to-business and the business-to-consumer sector.
For example, the mechanical engineering company Bosch becomes a platform provider by launching a digital platform called the “Bosch IoT Suite”. On this platform, Bosch, its customers, and its partners can build a broad range of IoT solutions that connect more than 10 million sensors, devices, and machines. Other platform operators such as Apple (mobile apps), Steam (online gaming) or Mozilla (browser) deliberately open up their ecosystems and enable external, third-party entrepreneurs to add functionality (e.g., apps, games, add-ons or campaigns) to the core product of the platform, hereby offering entrepreneurs and innovative ideas unprecedented access to a global market.
Netflix, originally being a video rental shop shipping its movies by post, is now just the tip of the iceberg when investigating entrepreneurship and digital innovations driven by Artificial Intelligence. Thereby, Netflix does not only optimize its recommendation systems by using AI. Instead, the teams use machine learning for multiple phases of value generation:
● During the pre-production to enhance the location scouting (i.e., help decide on where and when best to shoot a movie set),
● In the post-production to predict when a manual check is most beneficial,
● And when delivering content to its customers to predict bandwidth usage which helps Netflix to decide when to cache regional servers for faster load times during peak demand.
Due to new and emerging ecosystems and new technological opportunities, traditional companies need to regularly question and possibly adapt their business models or build new business branches to survive. Corporate Entrepreneurship and the possibility to foster digital innovation within traditional companies receive growing attention. At the same time, digital innovations also offer the opportunity to develop new solutions as a foundation of new companies and to challenge existing companies and business norms. For example, the Otto Group has 2 founded Otto Group Digital Solutions with the aim of identifying, building and establishing new and attractive business models in the retail-related services sector.
Possible Topics
This track will therefore examine the impact of digital innovations on the design and behaviour of existing and new businesses. The following list of topics is neither exclusive nor exhaustive. We are open towards different research methodologies, as analytical, conceptual, constructivist, empirical and theoretical approaches are welcome.
● New Businesses based on ICT
● Management of business model innovations
● Novel ways of funding innovations (e.g. crowdfunding)
● Digital entrepreneurship in general
● Organization of digital start-ups
● Start-ups within organizations
● Digital entrepreneurial culture, change in dynamics of start-ups based on digital business models
● Responses of companies to emerging technologies
● Behaviour of Start-Ups, established firms, and consumers in newly created digital platform ecosystems
● Influence of entrepreneurial and innovative activities on government policy or regulation
Track Chairs
Peter Buxmann
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Peter Buxmann is university professor for Business Informatics | Software & Digital Business at the Technical University of Darmstadt. He is also spokesman for the mission “Future Data Economy and Society” at the national research center ATHENE and is also a member of numerous management and supervisory committees, including the advisory board of the Weizenbaum Institute for the networked society – The German Internet Institute in Berlin. His research focuses on the digitization of economy and society, methods and applications of artificial intelligence and the tension between data economy and privacy. He is the author of more than 300 publications which have appeared in international journals (e.g. Information Systems Research, Journal of Information Technology, European Journal on Information Systems, Information Systems Journal) and conference proceedings (e.g. International Conference on Information Systems and European Conference on Information Systems).
Ferdinand Thies
Universität Liechtenstein
Ferdinand Thies is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Entrepreneurship at the University of Liechtenstein. He holds a PhD in Information Systems from the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. His research interests include software platforms, crowdfunding, and entrepreneurship. His work has been published in international journals such as Journal of Small Business Management, Information Systems Journal, Journal of Information Technology, Journal of Management Information Systems and Decision Support Systems.
Associate Editors
Dr. Annika Baumann Universität Potsdam
Dr. Dennis Steininger Universität Augsburg
Dr. Jin Gerlach Technische Universität Darmstadt
Prof. Dr. Alfred Taudes WU Wien
Prof. Dr. Dennis Kundisch Universität Paderborn
Prof. Dr. Felix Wortmann Universität St. Gallen, Schweiz
Prof. Dr. Frank Teuteberg Universität Osnabrück
Prof. Dr. Georg Herzwurm Universität Stuttgart
Prof. Dr. Johann Kranz Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München
Prof. Dr. Katrin Möslein Universität Erlangen
Prof. Dr. Paul Alpar Universität Marburg
Prof. Dr. Peter Loos Universität des Saarlandes
Prof. Dr. Sabine Baumann Jade Hochschule
Prof. Dr. Thomas Widjaja Universität Passau
Prof. Dr. Jan Recker Universität zu Köln
Prof. Dr. Frédéric Thiesse Universität Würzburg