Business Intelligence can bring critical capabilities to an organization, but the implementation of such capabilities is often plagued with problems and issues. Why is it that certain projects fail, while others succeed? The theoretical problem and the aim of this thesis is to identify the factors that are present in successful Business Intelligence projects and organize them into a framework of critical success factors. A survey was conducted during the spring of 2011 to collect primary data on Business Intelligence projects. It was directed to a number of different professionals operating in the Business Intelligence field in large enterprises, primarily located in Poland and primarily vendors, but given the similarity of Business Intelligence initiatives across countries and increasing globalization of large enterprises, the conclusions from this thesis may well have relevance and be applicable for projects conducted in other countries. Findings confirm that Business Intelligence projects are wrestling with both technological and nontechnological problems, but the non-technological problems are found to be harder to solve as well as more time consuming than their technological counterparts. The thesis also shows that critical success factors for Business Intelligence projects are different from success factors for IS projects in general and Business Intelligences projects have critical success factors that are unique to the subject matter. Major differences can be predominately found in the non-technological factors, such as the presence of a specific business need to be addressed by the project and a clear vision to guide the project. Results show that successful projects have specific factors present more frequently than nonsuccessful. Such factors with great differences are the type of project funding, business value provided by each iteration of the project and the alignment of the project to a strategic vision for Business Intelligence. Furthermore, the thesis provides a framework of critical success factors that, according to the results of the study, explains 61% of variability of success of projects. Given these findings, managers responsible for introducing Business Intelligence capabilities should focus on a number of non-technological factors to increase the likelihood of project success. Areas which should be given special attention are: making sure that the Business Intelligence solution is built with end users in mind, that the Business Intelligence solution is closely tied to company‟s strategic vision and that the project is properly scoped and prioritized to concentrate on best opportunities first. Keywords: Critical Success Factors, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Data Warehouse Projects, Success Factors Framework, Risk Management

An organizational level test strategy needs to incorporate metrics to make the testing activities visible and available to process improvements. The majority of testing measurements that are done are based on faults found in the test execution phase. In contrast, this paper investigates metrics to support software test planning and test design processes. We have assembled metrics in these two process types to support management in carrying out evidence-based test process improvements and to incorporate suitable metrics as part of an organization level test strategy. The study is composed of two steps. The first step creates a relevant context by analyzing key phases in the software testing lifecycle, while the second step identifies the attributes of software test planning and test design processes along with metric(s) support for each of the identified attributes.

Background: Services are without doubt the driving force in today’s economies in many countries. The increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies and its productivity rates are testified by the fact that the current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer manufacturing companies than in previous decades. Many products today are being transformed into services or have a higher service component than previously. In the development of this increasingly important bundling of services with products, outsourcing and offshoring play a key role. Companies have been outsourcing work for many years now appointing the latter a well-established phenomenon. Outsourcing to foreign countries, referred to as offshoring, has also been fuelled by ICT and globalization, where firms can capitalize on price and cost differentials between countries. Constant improvements in technology and global communications virtually guarantee that the future will bring much more outsourcing of services, and more specifically, outsourcing of IT services. While outsourcing and offshoring strategies play an important role in IT services, we would like to investigate the drivers that affect the successful outcome of an offshore outsourcing engagement. Purpose: The principle aim of the present study is therefore twofold: a) to identify key drivers for the successful outsourcing of IT services seen from the outsourcing partner’s perspective and b) to investigate how the outsourcing partner prioritizes these drivers.

Background

Open source is largely accepted as an important innovation driver in the technology industry. Even though inclusion and diversity is beneficial for the success of technology projects (including open source software projects), many statistics are pointing out that diversity in open source is even worse than in the technology sector in general. The unequal representation of minorities (in this limited scope study represented by women) has negative effects on the innovation potential of many tech-related companies and is a major cause of corporate companies’ concerns. To attract more women and increase their retention in open source software projects and communities, the understanding of reasons behind the decisions on why they leave/defect an open source project can be is essential for the development of the effective retention strategies in OSS. 

Objective

Based on the extensive literature review conducted by Trinkenreich, et al. (2021), only a few studies make a theoretical connection to why women leave (or avoid) open source software projects. This study aimed to explore the challenges faced by women in open source that may predict (or influence) their intention to leave/defect an open source software project/community. Thus, the following research question was formulated: What are the specific challenges faced by women in OS that may predict (or influence) their intention to leave an OSS project/community?

Methodology

The initial in-depth literature review discovered a list of socio-cultural challenges faced by women when contributing to open source projects. Trinkenreich, et al. (2021) have grouped these challenges conceptually as follows: (1) Lack of peer parity; (2) Non-inclusive communication; (3) Toxic culture; (4)  Impostor syndrome; (5) Community reception issues; (6) Stereotyping; (7) Work-life balance issues, (8) Gender-identified contributions. Additionally, one of the authors of this study found an existing dataset on the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion in open source as of 2021. The survey ‘2021 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Source’ was developed and distributed by the Linux Foundation. The data for this survey was gathered in 2021 from 2,350 individuals, particularly, from the Foundation’s subscribers and community members, on questions about their sense of inclusion and belongingness in OS communities. The authors of this study made the initial mapping of the questions from the Linux Foundation survey against challenge-clustering developed by Trinkenreich, et al. (2021). This helped to isolate the following groups of challenges for this study: (1) Non-Inclusive Communication & Community Reception Issues; (2) Toxic Culture; and (3) Gender-Identified Contributions & Stereotyping, that are likely to contribute to women leaving/defecting an OSS project/community. Altogether, this helped to formulate two hypotheses: null  (H0) and alternative  (HA) which highlight the relationships between different variables in the dataset. The hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis. To test the hypotheses and answer the research question, the authors of this study did not design the survey questions themselves but rather observed them directly through the questions of the Linux Foundation survey. In the context of this study (viz., a small-scale applied research project) capitalizing on the secondary data made sense as explained further in the study. A multiple regression was carried out to explore whether any of the challenges (e.g., lack of response to or rejection of contributions or questions; experience of conflict or interpersonal tension between you and another contributor; experience of written or spoken language that made a women feel unwelcome; experience of threats of violence, stalking; experience of unsolicited sexual advances or comments; experience of stereotyping based on perceived demographic characteristics; experience of impersonation or malicious publication of personal information; experience of background-based harassment) could significantly predict (or influence) women’s intention to leave/defect an open source software project/community.

Results

The results of multiple regression analysis reject the null hypothesis. The following predictors (i.e., independent variables): Q17_04_violence_stalking_experience, Q17_06_stereotyping_experience, and Q18_background_based_harassment are statistically significant and thus contribute to the regression models because their statistical significance (i.e., the p-value) is less than 0.05. Based on the findings of the study, the challenges that may predict (or influence) women’s intention to leave/defect an open source software project/community can be formulated as follows:

o   For the sample ‘North America (Unites States, Canada, Mexico)’

§  [Model 1] experience of threats of violence, stalking directed at women in the context of an open source project 

§  [Model 2] experience of threats of violence, stalking and of harassment connected to their background directed at women in the context of an open source project 

o   For the sample ‘Europe’

§  [Model 1] experience of stereotyping based on perceived demographic characteristics directed at women in the context of an open source project 

§  [Model 2] experience of stereotyping based on perceived demographic characteristics and threats of violence, stalking directed at women in the context of an open source project 

Conclusions

Women’s intention to leave/defect an OSS project/community can be explained by the following prediction models (i.e., regression equations):

o   For the sample ‘North America (Unites States, Canada, Mexico)’

§  [Model 1]  Y = 0.892 – (0.413 * Q17_04_violence_stalking_experience)

§  [Model 2]  Y = 0.991 – (0.328 * Q17_04_violence_stalking_experience) – (0.228 * Q18_background_based_harassment)

o   For the sample ‘Europe’

§  [Model 1]  Y = 0.938 – (0.345 * Q17_06_stereotyping_experience)

§  [Model 2]  Y = 0.953 – (0.285 * Q17_06_stereotyping_experience) – (0.242 * Q17_04_violence_stalking_experience)

The results of the study also indicate that the models were a significant predictor of women’s intention to leave/defect an OSS project/community:

o   For the sample ‘North America (Unites States, Canada, Mexico)’

§  [Model 1]  F(1,134) = 31.671, p = <0.001

§  [Model 2]  F(2,133) = 20.342, p = <0.001

o   For the sample ‘Europe’

§  [Model 1]  F(1,104) = 19.874, p = <0.001

§  [Model 2]  F(2,103) = 13.118, p = <0.001

Contribution to theory and practice

Academic value: The findings of this study extend the knowledge about specific challenges faced by women in OS that may predict (or influence) their intention to leave an OSS project/community. Insights for adopting ‘Innovation by All’ workplace culture: The findings of this study provide OSS projects/communities with insights into the hindrances and determinants associated with women’s participation in OS. These insights, in their turn, can be valuable to understand and be aware of when an OSS team/community aims to adopt an ‘Innovation by All’ workplace culture and by doing so  - attain greater team productivity, more innovative and more revolutionary ideas, greater agility, and higher rates of ideas’ implementation, decision-making, and innovation. Internal analysis: The results of this study can be used to inform OSS teams/communities about the most critical aspects they need to address in order to attract more and retain existing female talent. Thus, the findings of this study can serve as an internal analysis for an OSS team/ community to take further actions on including and diversifying their project teams and ensuring that all members stay and keep on contributing to OSS projects.

Recommendations for future research

The following research proposals are suggested: (1) An extensive quantitative study amongst female contributors of various OSS projects/communities and a comparative analysis of these communities based on different parameters. (2) A replication of this study that examines/explores the specific challenges faced by the representatives of other minority groups in OS that may predict (or influence) their intention to leave an OSS project/community. (3) A comparative study (e.g., women versus men; women versus binary/no-gender participants; and so on) about challenges faced by them in OS that may predict (or influence) the intention to leave an OSS project/community.

The rise of ICT and the shift toward jobs with more flexibility in working hours and places of work sparked popular debates about potential for a ‘rural renaissance’. A key argument was that there are increasing possibilities to live in the countryside while being employed in large cities. This paper uses data spanning two decades to examine trends in and characteristics of employee–employer ties between rural and urban areas in Sweden. Our main results suggest that rural-to-urban long-distance commuting is rapidly increasing, but not as fast as commuting flows elsewhere. Compared to the rural population at large, rural residents working in large cities constitute a strongly selected group of workers who are well paid, have long educations, are young and also have advanced knowledge-intensive occupations. Only about 30 percent of those who become rural-to-urban long-distance commuters have moved from urban areas; the vast majority constitute those who already lived in rural areas before starting to commute to urban areas. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd

Abstract ------------- Background ---------------- Like other businesses, the failures and problems faced by the software development industry over the time have motivated experts to look for software process improvement to create quality software rapidly, repeatedly, and reliably. Objective ------------ The purpose of this study is to evaluate if and how Lean thinking and principles primarily associated with auto manufacturing industry can be applied to software development lifecycle for Software Process Improvement (SPI). The secondary aim is to analyze how BPR can be integrated with Lean software development for process improvement. Method ---------- A derived Lean-BPR adoption pattern model is used as a theoretical framework for this thesis. The seven Lean software development principles along with four-step BPR process are selected as process improvement patterns, which effects the KPIs of a software organization. This research study incorporates both Qualitative and Quantitative methods and data to analyze the objectives of this study. The methodological framework of Plan-Do-Check-Act is used in the case study to implement process re-engineering incorporating Lean and BPR principles. The impact of adopting the Lean and BPR principles is assessed in terms of cost, productivity, quality of products and resource management. Results ---------- Application of Lean and BPR principles for software process improvement in the organization under study resulted in 79% improvement in test coverage, 60% reduction in time for test execution and analysis and 44% reduction in cost for fixing defects that were being passed to customer in past. Conclusion ------------- Based on case study results, it can be concluded that Lean, a bottom up approach, characterized by empowerment of employees to analyze and improve their own working process can be effectively combined with IT centric traditionally top down BPR approach for improving KPI’s and software processes.

Business process integration (BPI) is a crucial technique for supporting inter-organizational business interoperability. BPI allows automation of business processes and the integration of systems across numerous organizations. The integration of organizations' process models is one of the most addressed and used approach to achieve BPI. However, this model integration is complex and requires that designers have extensive experience in particular when organizations' business processes are incompatible. This paper considers the issue of modeling cross-organization processes out of a collection of organizations' private process models. To this end, we propose six adaptation patterns to resolve incompatibilities when combining organizations' processes. Each pattern is formalized with workflow net. © 2017 IEEE.

We consider the problems of explaining and forecasting the penetration and the traffic in cellular mobile networks. To this end, we create two regression models, viz. one to predict the penetration from service charges and network effects and another one to predict the traffic from service charges and diffusion and adoption effects. The results of the models can also be combined to compute the likely evolutions of essential characteristics such as Minutes of Use (MoU), Average Revenue per User (ARPU) and total revenue. Applying the models to 26 markets throughout the world we show that they perform very well. Noting the significant qualitative differences between these markets, we conclude that the model has some universality in that the results are comparable for all of them.

Business process improvement for increased product quality is of continuous importance in the software industry. Quality managers in this sector need effective, hands-on tools for decision-making in engineering projects and for rapidly spotting key improvement areas. Measurement programs are a widespread approach for introducing quality improvement in software processes, yet employing all-embracing state-of-the art quality assurance models is labor intensive. Unfortunately, these do not primarily focus on measures, revealing a need for an instant and straightforward technique for identifying and defining measures in projects without resources or need for entire measurement programs. This thesis explores and compares prevailing quality assurance models using measures, rendering the Measurement Discovery Process constructed from selected parts of the PSM and GQM techniques. The composed process is applied to an industrial project with the given prerequisites, providing a set of measures that are subsequently evaluated. In addition, the application gives foundation for analysis of the Measurement Discovery Process. The application and analysis of the process show its general applicability to projects with similar constraints as well as the importance of formal target processes and exhaustive project domain knowledge among measurement implementers. Even though the Measurement Discovery Process is subject to future refinement, it is clearly a step towards rapid delivery of tangible business performance indicators for process improvement.

Many large and distributed companies run agile projects in development environments that are inconsistent with the original agile ideas. Problems that result from these inconsistencies can affect the productivity of development projects and the timeliness of releases. To be effective in such contexts, the agile ideas need to be adapted. We take an inductive approach for reaching this aim by basing the design of the development process on observations of how context, practices, challenges, and impacts interact. This paper reports the results of an interview study of five agile development projects in an environment that was unfavorable for agile principles. Grounded theory was used to identify the challenges of these projects and how these challenges affected productivity and delays according to the involved project roles. Productivity and delay-influencing factors were discovered that related to requirements creation and use, collaboration, knowledge management, and the application domain. The practitioners’ explanations about the factors' impacts are, on one hand, a rich empirical source for avoiding and mitigating productivity and delay problems and, on the other hand, a good starting point for further research on flexible large-scale development.

The ongoing economic crisis world around has asked for a theoretical understanding and deep analysis of what have been wrong in our economic system in specific and social system as whole. Discussions in many forums and mass media have mostly focused on a level of first order casual-effects such as bank and credit system in relation to house loans and car industries, and where and how much the stimulating packages should be distributed, etc. This is what I called a liveability level problem. A second order understanding of fundamental systems structure and social subsystems relationships however, have not been much addressed properly. This is what I called the sustainability problem. This paper will propose an epistemological model based on cybernetic feedback principle and the Activity Theory to interpret the second order problems that deeply embed in our social-economic system structure. So the liveability and sustainability are coherently discussed within a socio-cybernetic system. The first part of the paper introduces shortly principles of feedbacks from cybernetics, especially understanding the behaviours of positive and negative feedbacks. Then, the Activity Theory and related concepts from social autopoietic theory are introduced. The aim of introducing those concepts is to provide the basic elements/components to the construction of a double-loops feedback model in the second part. In the last, the current economic crisis is interpreted based on the constructed model, to verify the usability of the proposed model.

By integrating system thinking and social psychology, this paper presents an Activity System Theory (AST) approach to the platform design of e-service systems in general, and e-healthcare systems in specific. In the first part, some important principles of AST and a sustainable model of human activity system are introduced. Then a project ‘Integrated Mobile Information System for Healthcare (IMIS)’ is presented to demonstrate how to construct a comprehensive platform for various complex e-service systems based on the sustainable model of AST. Our research focused on the complex e-healthcare system in Sweden, and the results showed that the model of AST can provide the designers of e-service system with a comprehensive and sustainable platform for designing various kinds of e-service system

Healthcare information system is a very complex system and has to be approached from systematic perspectives. This paper presents an Activity System Theory (ATS) approach by integrating system thinking and social psychology. First part of the paper, the activity system theory is presented, especially a recursive model of human activity system is introduced. A project ‘Integrated Mobile Information System for Diabetic Healthcare (IMIS)’ is then used to demonstrate a practical application of the Activity System Theory especially in constructing healthcare information system. Our conclusion is that the activity system model can provide the service system designers with a comprehensive and integrated framework for designing healthcare information system in specific, and for designing various kinds of service systems in general.

As the organiser of the workshop 'IT-stöd för vård och omsorg i hemmet', the author presents a general picture of the subject, and call for one day's discussion with around 30 participants from all around Sweden.

Based on some identified problems and challenges to the current healthcare system, this paper proposes architecture for developing e-health system to meet the challenges and resolve some problems. The architecture is based on a solid theoretical model of human activity, and it has properties such as sustainability, generality, and expandability. We demonstrate the properties of the architecture through an ongoing research project. We concluded that this architecture can be widely used to integrate various small scale applications of e-health systems and to resolve some current design problems such as interoperability and knowledge sharing.

This report shows the result of the work of IANIS+ eHealth work group (WG). The WG has collected regional eHealth experiences from around Europe through a number of activities: • Regional eHealth case studies of which 17 (from 15 regions) are shown in this report • Four joint meetings of the group of which one was a policy seminar with invited guests from the EU Commission, relevant organisations in the field of eHealth and regional authorities • A meeting with the European Commission DG Information Society & Media, Unit H1 eHealth • Collaboration with the eHealth network within the organisation Assembly of European Regions (AER) • Attendance in recent major eHealth conferences: · Personal Health Systems arranged by the European Commission when launching the eHealth part of the 7th Framework Programme, 11-12 February 2007 · The EU-US eHealth Policy Workshop, 10 May 2007 · The final conference of the INTERREG IIIB project Baltic eHealth, 21-22 May 2007 • eHealth seminars at IANIS+ annual conferences in Blekinge 2006 and Bilbao 2007 The innovation perspective of eHealth in the regions has been the focus for the IANIS+ eHealth WG. Regional diversity regarding strategies, policies, and action plans for eHealth can act as a driving factor for successful eHealth projects, but leads also to challenges for interoperability, standardisation, integrity and security. It is important to learn from others. It may be about how to choose the right technology or what methods to use for implementation. Depending on what area of eHealth, there are numerous projects and up-and-running services from which we can learn. Not to forget there are also many experiences from unsuccessful trials. Even if an eHealth solution has failed in one setting, it can be a success under different circumstances. The aim of the IANIS+ eHealth Working Group was to share experience between regions belonging to the network, and bring up some issues of good practice for regional eHealth implementation. Projects brought up in the IANIS+ working group are projects in there own rights, with pros and cons. The projects cover different perspectives and types of eHealth. Some were difficult to evaluate while others are valuable comparable experiences from different settings and circumstances. In any case, we can learn something from all the cases as examples from reality and as a complement to formal evaluations and scientific studies of eHealth. We would rather use the term good practice than best practice. There is always something good to learn from others while there is hardly any best practice that works under every circumstance.

This paper deals with the design problems in healthcare information systems on how to adapt to dynamic factors and diversities so as to reach the interoperability between healthcare actors. Those dynamic factors and diversities are caused by, for example, constant suggestions from users, changes in the applied technologies, and after-learning related stepwise progresses. We suggest applying Web services technology, especially the idea of Semantic Web to tackle the problem of diversity in healthcare branch. In order to tackle the problem of dynamic changes during the design process, we suggest an evolutionary design methodology based upon an organic development metaphor – embryonic prototyping approach (EmA). We demonstrate our idea by the project IMIS that is to design a semantic Web service for the diabetic healthcare.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate potential synergies between an electronic waybill (e-Waybill) and other Intelligent Transport System (ITS) services. An e-Waybill service, as presented in this thesis, should be able to perform the functions of a paper waybill (which is an important transport document and contains essential information about a consignment) and it should contain at least the information specified in a paper waybill. To investigate synergies between the e-Waybill solutions and ITS services, we present 5 conceptual e-Waybill solutions that differ in where the e-Waybill information is stored, read, and written. These solutions are further investigated for functional and technical requirements (non-functional requirements), which can potentially impose constraints on a potential system that should implement the e-Waybill service. A set of 20 ITS services are considered for synergy analysis in this thesis. These services are mainly for road transport, however most of them are relevant to be considered for utilization in other modes of transport as well. For information synergy analysis, the e-Waybill solutions are assessed based on their synergies with ITS services. For different ITS services, the required input information entities are identified; and if at least one information entity can be provided by an e-Waybill at the right location we regard it to be a synergy. The result from our synergy analysis may support the choice of practical e-Waybill systems, which has the possibility to provide high synergy with ITS services. This may lead to a higher utilization of ITS services and more sustainable transport, e.g., in terms of reduced congestion and emissions. Additionally, a service design method has been proposed for supporting the process of designing new ITS services, which primarily utilizes on functional synergies with already existing ITS services. In order to illustrate the usage of the suggested method, we have applied it for designing a new ITS service, i.e., the Liability Intelligent Transport System (LITS) service. The purpose of the LITS service is to support the process of identifying when, where, and by whom a consignment has been damaged and who was responsible when the consignment was damaged.

In this paper, we propose a method for supporting the process of designing Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) services, which utilizes on primarily functional synergies with already existing services. Using synergies between services will enable sharing of resources, such as, information entities, functions and technical resources, which in turn may lead to reduced costs for implementing services. The method is built around an existing service description framework, which is used to describe both existing services and the service to be designed. In order to illustrate the usage of the suggested method, we have applied it for designing a new ITS service, i.e., the Liability Intelligent Transport System (LITS) service. The purpose of the LITS service is to support the process of identifying when, where and why freight has been damaged, and which actor was responsible when the freight was damaged. The LITS service may lead to better quality control of consignments and may also facilitate the identification of which actor was responsible for the freight damage, which is of particular interest in multi-modal transport. By applying our service design method we were able to identify that three out of four functions of the LITS service already exist in other existing ITS services. Therefore, the LITS service can be designed based on synergies with these services.

In this master thesis two different worldviews are compared: a mechanistic, and an organic worldview. The way we think the world and the nature work reflects on how we think organizations work, or how they ought to work. The mechanistic worldview has dominated our way of thinking since the seventeenth century, and it compares the world with a machine. The organic worldview could use a number of different metaphors, but the one addressed in this thesis is complexity theory. Complexity theory is related to chaos theory and is concerned with complex adaptive systems (cas). Complex adaptive systems exist everywhere and are systems such as the human immune system, economies, and ecosystems. What complexity theory tries to do is to understand these systems—how they arise, how they function and how order emerge in them. When looking at complex adaptive systems you can’t just look at the different parts. You must take a more holistic view and look at the whole and the interaction of the parts. If you just look at the parts you will miss the emergent properties that have emerged as the system has self-organized. One prominent aspect of these systems is that they don’t have any central authority, but somehow order do arise. In relation to organizations, complexity theory has something to say about almost all aspects of organizations: from what kind of leadership is needed, and how teams should be organized to the physical structure of the organization. To understand what complexity theory is and how to relate that to (software developing) organizations is the main focus of this thesis. Scrum is an agile and lightweight process which can be applied on development projects in general, but have been used in such diverse examples as software development projects, marketing programs, and business process reengineering (BPR) initiatives. In this thesis Scrum is used as an example of how to apply complexity theory to organizations. The result of the thesis showed that Scrum is highly influenced and compatible with complexity theory, which implies that complexity theory is of some use in software development. However, there are more work to be done to determine how effective it is, how to introduce it into organizations, and to explore more specific implementations. This master thesis should give the reader a good understanding of what complexity theory is, some specific issues to consider when applying complexity theory on organizations, and some specific examples of how to apply complexity theory on organizations.

Customer satisfaction is an important aspect for any corporations customer support process. One important factor keeping the time customers’ wait for a reply at acceptable levels. By utilizing learning models based on the Random Forest Algorithm, the extent to which it is possible to predict e-Mail time-to-respond is investigated. This is investigated both for customers, but also for customer support agents. The former focusing on how long until customers reply, and the latter focusing on how long until a customer receives an answer. The models are trained on a data set consisting of 51, 682 customer support e-Mails. The e-Mails covers various topics from a large telecom operator. The models are able to predict the time-to-respond for customer support agents with an AUC of 0.90, and for customers with an AUC of 0.85. These results indicate that it is possible to predict the TTR for both groups. The approach were also implemented in an initial trial in a live environment. How the predictions can be applied to improve communication efficiency, e.g. by anticipating the staff needs in customer support, is discussed in more detail in the paper. Further, insights gained from an initial implementation are provided. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Maintaining high degree of customer satisfaction is important for any corporation, which involves the customer support process. One important factor in this work is to keep customers' wait time for a reply at levels that are acceptable to them. In this study we investigate to what extent models trained by the Random Forest learning algorithm can be used to predict e-mail time-to-respond time for both customer support agents as well as customers. The data set includes 51,682 customer support e-mails of various topics from a large telecom operator. The results indicate that it is possible to predict the time-to-respond for both customer support agents (AUC of 0.90) as well as for customers (AUC of 0.85). These results indicate that the approach can be used to improve communication efficiency, e.g. by anticipating the staff needs in customer support, but also indicating when a response is expected to take a longer time than usual. Copyright © 2020 by SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.

In an increasingly connected and interdependent world, the global sustainability challenge needs to be addressed by organizational networks from a whole-systems perspective. This study explores organizations through the lens of network theory and the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, with a special focus on networks already considering sustainability issues. The purpose of the research was to identify key factors critical to the success of an organizational network in the sustainability field, as well as define specific barriers to success for these networks. These specific factors and barriers to success are identified and explored across: Academic, Business, and Non-Profit sectors, with the ultimate objective of increasing the performance of Emerging Sustainability Networks (ESNs), removing barriers in the field, and planning strategically to achieve success in the sustainability movement.

Context and motivation: Finding a balance between commercial (customer specific, market pull and external quality requirements) and internal quality requirements is a recognized challenge in market driven software product development (MDSPD). In order to address this challenge it is important to understand the preferences and biases influencing decision makers selecting requirements for software releases. Question/problem: Prospect theory has been successfully applied to many disciplines. Applying it to MDSPD suggests decision makers will avoid risk when selecting between commercial requirements, take risk with internal quality requirements, and prefer commercial requirements over internal quality requirements in order to maximize their perceived value. This paper seeks to investigate this claim. Principal ideas/results: This paper presents an experiment investigating whether the biases proposed by prospect theory can be seen operating in MDSPD requirements engineering (RE). The results indicate risk avoidance when dealing commercial requirements, while greater risk is taken when dealing with internal quality requirements. Contribution: As this is the first paper to use prospect theory to explain requirements selection decisions, it presents opportunity to educate people in the biases they bring to the RE process, and facilitate the creation of strategies for balancing the different requirements types.

Companies need to constantly innovate and improve in order to remain profitable and keep up with competition. But innovation can be costly and knowledge and new ideas hard to find. Therefore companies outsource innovation and do so increasingly even though it is difficult to successfully decide when and how. When should companies try to come up with new ideas themselves, and when should they give the job to outside experts? Does outsourcing of innovation work in established markets, new markets, for incremental or disruptive innovations, for product or process types of innovations? Research involving small companies and outsourcing of innovation has not been widely addressed in the literature, this thesis intend to give a better understanding of this area. After conducting a literature review we went looking for specific answers to the questions what effect does the business newness and size of a company have on the success of outsourcing and is there a difference in the outcome of outsourcing of innovation regarding the areas product, process, market and organization. A survey among decision makers and decision influencers showed: 1. Outsourcing of product and market innovation in new business compared to established business was considered equally successful. 2. Outsourcing of process and organisation innovation in new business was considered significantly less successful compared to established business. 3. The perceived benefit from outsourcing product innovation is higher than perceived benefit from outsourcing of processes, markets or organizations innovation. 4. Market leaders (including those who were runner up) believes that outsourcing of organization innovation in established business is more successful compared to none market leaders same goes for outsourcing of process innovation. This thesis tries to explain these and other findings concerning outsourcing of innovation.

Contemporary cases of crowdsourcing (CS) and open source development (OS) related to drug development have been selected and studied. Contemporary examples of CS/OS from within and outside of the pharmaceutical industries have been presented to give a background and suggest possible benefits and problems. The main criteria for selection have been that the case must seek to advance drug development and must use crowdsourcing or open source as a mechanism. The cases found in our search show a large diversity in terms of application, usage, and possible implications for the pharmaceutical industry. We found that crowdsourcing within a scientific problem context produced good results, but that open source initiatives were either poorly financed and not successful or focused on neglected diseases made possible through strong backing by non-profit organizations. An analysis of which the pharmaceutical companies where that showed activity on the platforms identified R&D-intensive and biotech companies as the most active. Contract research organizations (CROs) and generics manufacturers (GMs) showed almost complete absence. We argue that GMs are not likely to be interested in this kind of R&D, but CROs are an untapped resource. Finally we propose a hypothetical model that takes into account all the findings from our study and the literature. This model is based on a limited type of open source with a limited number of partners making use of the untapped CRO resource through crowdsourcing.

Quality requirements, an important class of non functional requirements, are inherently difficult to elicit. Particularly challenging is the definition of good-enough quality. The problem cannot be avoided though, because hitting the right quality level is critical. Too little quality leads to churn for the software product. Excessive quality generates unnecessary cost and drains the resources of the operating platform. To address this problem, we propose to elicit the specific relationships between software quality levels and their impacts for given quality attributes and stakeholders. An understanding of each such relationship can then be used to specify the right level of quality by deciding about acceptable impacts. The quality-impact relationships can be used to design and dimension a software system appropriately and, in a second step, to develop service level agreements that allow re-use of the obtained knowledge of good-enough quality. This paper describes an approach to elicit such quality-impact relationships and to use them for specifying quality requirements. The approach has been applied with user representatives in requirements workshops and used for determining Quality of Service (QoS) requirements based the involved users’ Quality of Experience (QoE). The paper describes the approach in detail and reports early experiences from applying the approach. Index Terms-Requirement elicitation, quality attributes, non-functional requirements, quality of experience (QoE), quality of service (QoS).

SaaS cloud computing, in contrast to packaged products, enables permanent contact between users of a software product and the product-owning company. When planning the development and evolution of a software product, a product manager depends on reliable information about feature attractiveness. So far, planning decisions were based on stakeholder opinion and the customer's willingness to buy. Whether or not a feature actually is used was out of consideration. Analytics that measure the interaction between users and the SaaS gives product managers unprecedented access to information about product usage. To understand whether and how SaaS analytics can be used for product planning decision, we performed 17 in-depth interviews with experienced managers of SaaS products and analyzed the results analyzed with a mixed-method strategy. The empirical results characterize the relevance of a broad range of analytics for product planning decisions, and the strengths and limitations of an analytics-based product planning approach.

Software organizations evolve and maintain software solutions with more than a single development project. The delta specifications and artefacts that result from each project make reuse difficult and challenge a company’s ability to innovate. Software product management is a growing discipline for understanding how to productise and align software with company strategy, how to evolve software, and how to coordinate product stakeholders. With product focus, in addition to project focus, planning accuracy can be improved, time-to-market reduced, product quality enhanced, and economic success sustained. This chapter provides an overview on software product management and discusses what today is known about this discipline.

Software product management (SPM) as a discipline includes many practices like product and release planning, market analysis, roadmapping, and product lifecycle management. Product management frameworks prescribe these practices but companies seldom adopt all of them. We conducted a state-of-practice survey with the aim to investigate how companies adopt SPM practices and how this practical experience fits together with the framework suggested by International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA). The results of this study showed that ISPMA SPM Framework describes core product management practices well but the impact of product management practices to the final product success remains ambiguous.

Many reference models were developed for software process improvement. Each model, however, is an idealized prescription that is applicable in a lim-ited set of situation only. This paper has investigated how an existing refer-ence model can be tailored to a domain it has not been designed for initially. The tailoring approach is based on translating the reference model to the new domain and on inductive interviews for evaluating the translated model. The approach has been applied for assessing and improving strategic require-ments engineering practice in a healthcare organization with a framework for software product management.

This paper tries to identify and understand the human social obstacles for developing quality software. These include lip-service, cutting corners, deception and effects of internal politics. These obstacles can undermine the good intentions behind the software methodologies. The paper draws from the literature in different disciplines and uses an ethnographic research methodology to create a rich picture of the concerning aspects in the framework of one software development company in India. What stands out among the findings are that internal audits has mainly focused on finding errors in documentation procedures but study of the actual practices has often been shallow. In addition the understanding of business risks by the internal auditors have often been weak. Context. The human based obstacles affecting Software Development Methodology analysed in the context of an ISO 9000 quality system in an Indian Software Development company working mainly with Swedish companies. Objectives. Identifying and increasing the understanding of intrinsic negative social aspects such as lip service, cheating and politics which are affecting the results of Software Development Methodologies and if possible suggest some means to mitigate them. In particular to create a deeper understanding of why people cheat and pay lip service to methodologies and to try to understand the political aspects of methodology and quality systems. There are other positive social aspects, but they are not considered since the objective is about understanding the negative aspects and possibly mitigate them. Methods. Ethnographic research using analysis of ISO 9000 and design artefacts, semi-structured interviews, participation in internal audits, Results. Most focus in audits was on documentation and very less focus on underlying methodologies, some indications of lip-service to process and processes were also mainly managed on a higher level in the organization while the understanding and practices were less well established on lower level. It was hard to get a grip on the internal political aspects since the perception of the subject in the informants view was that it is mainly malicious and therefore embarrassing to speak about. Some conflicts between internal quality goals and customers’ needs were also identified. Conclusions. An ethnographic research methodology gives a rich picture. The analysis gives deeper understanding of the problem areas, but not necessary solutions. The author suggests that at the heart of the problem is a difference in world view. Software professionals generally tend to resolve [technical] problems using a reductionist approach, while these intricate challenges cannot easily be resolved by this approach. A more holistic systemic approach is required and while the software methodology is useful to structure the development it does not resolve these dysfunctions. They have to be resolved on another level. It was also found that further studies is required in particular to better understand Internal politics, the effect of Positive and Negative Incentives, the effect of software metrics on quality performance and subjectivity in customers’ perception and expectation.

I use identity theory to conceptually develop board identities that help us explore and understand board behavior. I develop two specific board identities, which I label board’s organizational identity and board’s contextual identity and develop assertions about board behavior that can be expected based on these identities. A key contention is that each type of identity helps board conceptualize its role holistically and develop appropriate behavior routines, and a lack of a coherent and strong identity leads to poor discharge of board’s duties.

Research findings in requirements engineering (RE) report that software organizations still struggle in establishing processes that lead to proper requirements handling. This leads to the acknowledgement that the adoption of good requirements engineering practices by industry is still not common. Although some initiatives have been made to spread the use of good practices of bespoke RE, the area of market-driven requirements engineering (MDRE) still lacks a contribution in that direction. MDRE is characterized by strong market and strategic orientation, which contrasts with the customer/development organization relationship of bespoke RE. This poses several challenges to software product organizations, such as the need for aligning development activities with organizational and product strategies. In an attempt to help these organizations to realize the benefits of MDRE, this Master Thesis presents the Market-Driven Requirements Engineering Process Model (MDREPM). MDREPM is both a collection of good practices in MDRE, and an assessment tool for organizations to get a snapshot of the current state of their MDRE practices. The assessment intends to reveal problem areas of organization’s requirements process, which can then be worked upon by introducing good practices described in the model. The thesis describes the motivation for creating MDREPM, both from an academia and industry perspectives. In addition, it describes the process of developing the model, from its creation through to its validation within academia and industry. As the series of three case studies conducted indicate, the MDREPM has been shown to be useful for industry practitioners. A unanimous opinion has been found as to the good coverage it provides of issues related to MDRE, and as to its usefulness for driving improvement efforts in requirements engineering.

Future Smart Grids involve new kinds of stakeholders, such as Aggregators and empowered Users to enable new kinds of energy-based business cases. Those services are based on vast amounts of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and Renewable Energy Sources (RES). Furthermore classical SCADA systems have to be complemented by new ICT systems providing necessary distributed information management. A goal of Smart Grids is to increase Energy Efficiency by, e.g., empowering end users. However, Smart Meters to that end also open up possibilities for tempering and access to critical infrastructures by adversaries. The paper addresses some challenges related to sustainavle future energy systems

For many years, the tight bureaucratic and task centered approaches of civil service institutions of Ethiopia led to fragmentation, overlap and duplications of efforts than being responsive, flexible and customer focus. To this end, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) has been considered as a government sector technique to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, become responsive, flexible and customer focus. BPR has great potential for increasing productivity through reduced process time and cost, improved quality, and greater customer satisfaction, but it often requires a fundamental organizational change. Despite the numerous advantages of BPR in terms of responsiveness, flexibility and customer focus, its implementation is perceived to be a difficult task and also many unsuccessful experiences have been reported in the literature. In fact, there are very few survey researches that attempt to highlight the kinds of activities that the organizations should pursue to ensure a reasonable transition to the new process; manage the human and technical issues surrounding implementation of the new process; and assess the results of its reengineering efforts. But these researchers saw the issues from private cooperative organizational perspectives and contexts. Besides, most of the discussions and findings were stretched up to showing that successful BPR implementations process are mainly associated with the organizations capability in managing changes. The researches paid no attention to other factors, like the issues of enabler, tools and techniques which can be utilized to build momentum. Hence, the present research investigated the factors associated with successful implementations of BPR projects in the contexts of public institutions. Based on a case study conducted in Ethiopian Ministry of Health and Gambella Regional Health Bureau; this research attempted to provide guidelines and best practices in public service providing institutions that will help them to achieve dramatic performance gains while implementing BPR projects. A cross sectional, qualitative and quantitative study was conducted taking 90 respondents and 20 interviewees as study subjects. Data were collected from June 1 to July 31 2010. A structured questionnaire was filled by 90 respondents where 43.3 % of them from Gambella Peoples’ National Regional State Health Bureau and 56.7% of them were from Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health. The questionnaire was employed to collect data on change management and factors associated with the attainment of performance goals whereas in-depth interviews were utilized to substantiate the findings of questionnaire and investigate the use of information technology as enabler. The in-depth interviews included planners, core process owners and directors. Cross tabulation results imply that there is significant associations between attainment of performance goals and availability of written comprehensive plan for pilot test, refinement and implementation of change management plan, availability of communication strategy, placement of performance measures, motivation to take new roles and responsibilities, Use of information technology as enabler and pilot testing to evaluate new process. Hence, the findings of this research suggest that reengineering project implementation is complex, involving many factors. To succeed, it is essential that change be managed and that balanced attention be paid to all identified factors, including those that are more contextual (e.g., management support and technological competence), performance management, availability of comprehensive implementation plan, communication strategies, refinement and implementation of change management plan, use of pilot testing to evaluate new process, motivation to take new roles and responsibilities and usage information technology as enabler.

Requirement engineering is the most important phase within the software development phases since it is used to extract requirements from the customers which are used by the next phases for designing and implementation of the system. Because of its importance, this thesis focuses on the term aspect oriented requirement engineering, which is the first phase in aspect oriented software development used for the identification and representation of requirements gathered in the form of concerns. Besides the overall explanation of aspect oriented requirement engineering phase, detail attention is given to a specific activity within AORE phase called conflict resolution. Several techniques proposed for conflict resolution between aspects is discussed along with an attempt to give a new idea in the form of an extension of the already proposed model for conflict resolution. The need for extension to the already proposed model is justified by the use of a case study which is applied on both the models i.e. on the original model and on the extended model to compare the results.

Software industry is growing day by day and software is going more complex and diverse with increase in cost and rate of failure. This increase in size and complexity of software projects has negative impact on the software productivity, schedule and effort. Organizations are demanding high quality products to increase their productivity and profits. It is common that they are facing some serious problems even after spending a large sum of money. So, its alarming situation and the concerned parties should take effective steps to resolve software project failure problem. Above all this, we are facing a high rate of software failure putting software industry on stake. This study revolves around the core issue of finding the root causes of software project failure with respect to organizational factors. In this, I have tried to find the organizational factors contributing towards the failure of software projects. I have done this study with the help of literature review and questionnaire survey. There could be one or several factors responsible for the software projects failure, which are mentioned in chapter two. I have slightly touched the Information Technology for digging deep into the failure and for understanding this phenomenon. Software failure is the biggest challenge faced by IT as well as business people. There is strong need to find the root causes of software project failure and mitigate them. For controlling this failure problem management can perform its role and I have discussed the role of management in defining, measuring, controlling and implementation of software projects. A project is considered failure when it is not able to show the anticipated results and it is happened when team is not able to fulfill the requirements of the project e.g. overruns time, overruns resources, lack of conformance with initial requirements specifications. I have tried to find out the answers of my research questions through literature review and empirical study. Root causes of software project failure are presented and validated through literature review, data analysis, discussion, and findings. A comprehensive analysis of empirical data and discussion will give you the insight into the problem and my effort to sort out them in a precise way. For the purpose of knowing the solution of this study, I will refer you towards the conclusion and recommendation. The concerned or interested people can get benefit from this research study and definitely it will help them to avoid software project failure. The contribution of the research is twofold. First, it will be helpful for the software making professionals/companies and secondly, it will be helpful for decision makers/users (Organizations), when they are going to buy or implement a software project for enhancing their productivity.

Many IT-systems are when created not designed to be flexible and dynamic resulting in old and complex systems hard to maintain. Systems usually build their functionality and capability on the data contained in their databases. The database underlines such system, and when data do not correspond between different and synchronizing systems, it is a troublesome debugging process. This is because systems are complex and the software architecture is not always easy to understand. Due to increasing complexity in systems over time, making systems harder to debug and understand, there is a need for a system that decreases debugging costs. Furthermore, result in better transaction costs. This study proposes a system based on blockchain technology to accomplish this.

An ERP system based on blockchain with encrypted transactions was constructed to determine if the proposed system can contribute in better transaction costs. A case study at multiple IT-companies and comparison to an existing ERP system module validated the system. A successful simulation showed that multiple parts could read and append data to an immutable storage system for one truth of data. By all counts, and with proven results, the constructed blockchain solution based on encrypted transactions for an ERP system can reduce debugging costs.

It is also shown that a centralized database structure where external and internal systems can get one truth of data, decreases transaction costs. However, it is the decision makers in companies that need to be convinced for the constructed system to be implemented. A problem is also when modifications to the object type, then historical transactions cannot be changed in an immutable storage solution. Blockchain is still a new technology, and the knowledge of the technology and the evolution of the system determines if the proposed software architecture will result in better transaction costs.

Coordinating processes in future Smart Grids poses several challenges. In order to cope with coordination between different stakeholders involved in business processes involving information management at different levels we propose a solution based on Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Context. Software Reuse is considered as silver-bullet for software development. However, measuring bene ts of software reuse is difficult and cumbersome task because of varying number of factors involved in it. Di erent reuse cost models already exist in literature which measure var- ious di erent attributes of software reuse. Mainly these models are used for calculating return over investment or cost-bene t analysis. Objectives.We have investigated that very few cost eco- nomic models have been proposed for measuring costs avoidance,degree of empirical validation, assumptions, types ofartifacts they can measure and whether they provide guide- lines on collection of metrics for measuring reuse bene ts. Methods.In this research, a systematic review was con- ducted. Based on the results of systematic review, a model was proposed which can measure cost avoided by reuse of every kind of artifact. In a systematic all major article sources were used. Studies were selected after reading titles and abstracts. Three cost avoidance models were found and an analysis of these models was performed. Based on the analysis, a new model was proposed to ll the gap left by these studies. Results. New model measures every kind of reuse artifact and provides guidelines on how and what to measure in order to calculate reuse bene ts. This model was then validated in the industry and technology was transferred to the industry for future usage. Guidelines for improved savings were developed. Conclusions. We conclude that many models are related to each other and use similar techniques to measure the cost avoidance however they can not measure all kinds of reuse artifacts. New model performed well in industry. However, we found that the new model should accommodate maintenance costs since these are major savings by software reuse. Moreover, we conclude that there is a need for further validation of guidelines and model in industry.

Credit Decisions are extremely vital for any type of financial institution because it can stimulate huge financial losses generated from defaulters. A number of banks use judgmental decisions, means credit analysts go through every application separately and other banks use credit scoring system or combination of both. Credit scoring system uses many types of statistical models. But recently, professionals started looking for alternative algorithms that can provide better accuracy regarding classification. Neural network can be a suitable alternative. It is apparent from the classification outcomes of this study that neural network gives slightly better results than discriminant analysis and logistic regression. It should be noted that it is not possible to draw a general conclusion that neural network holds better predictive ability than logistic regression and discriminant analysis, because this study covers only one dataset. Moreover, it is comprehensible that a “Bad Accepted” generates much higher costs than a “Good Rejected” and neural network acquires less amount of “Bad Accepted” than discriminant analysis and logistic regression. So, neural network achieves less cost of misclassification for the dataset used in this study. Furthermore, in the final section of this study, an optimization algorithm (Genetic Algorithm) is proposed in order to obtain better classification accuracy through the configurations of the neural network architecture. On the contrary, it is vital to note that the success of any predictive model largely depends on the predictor variables that are selected to use as the model inputs. But it is important to consider some points regarding predictor variables selection, for example, some specific variables are prohibited in some countries, variables all together should provide the highest predictive strength and variables may be judged through statistical analysis etc. This study also covers those concepts about input variables selection standards.

Extensive efforts are being conducted in the area of integrating and merging together applications and systems in public administration, including healthcare. One approach against integrating applications is to introduce a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This could be conducted by modifying the previously stand-alone systems and make them act as services or components, communicating through some sort of common services or directly interoperate. This thesis describes several standards and best practices addressing integration currently present in healthcare. Additionally, a number of business key aspects connected to Service Oriented Architectures are described and also how customers and contractors could benefit from these. By conducting an industrial case study of an integration project, standards and business aspects could be applied and used to analyze the project. Both software engineering issues and business aspects are identified, important to the study.

The commercial mobile phone industry is a relatively new one. Starting out in the 1980s, it has proliferated in both numbers and in terms of technology. The last decade saw a sharp increase in both the number of subscribers and the amount of services which was offered by mobile devices. In order to keep up with this fast evolution of the industry, phones have started to get much more complicated and ‘smarter’ due to the software which is used to run these phones. Multi touch screen menus, High Definition video playback, multi megapixel cameras and a plethora of connectivity options are just some of the features a consumer takes for granted in his/her new mobile device. In order to provide these services to the user the software inside the phone has gotten complex to the scale of becoming its own Operating System much akin to the Operating Systems used on personal computers. These mobile operating systems contain millions of lines of software code and cost a lot of money to maintain and develop. Moreover having a popular operating system benefits the organization as it draws in many developers who can write applications which run on this operating system and also develop services which are specific to the operating systems. Having these services generate revenue for the network operators who get to bill the consumers for using the services or for the data which has been transferred to and from these mobile phones via the operator’s network. Nokia’s dominant market share in the smartphone market entails that it holds a near 40% share with its smartphone operating systems. Gradually the company has been moving towards opening up its previously proprietary operating systems to the public in the form of Open Source Software, where everyone is able to view, share, distribute and contribute to the software code. This strategy change has been taking place over the last couple of years and continues under an overall change of direction and focus which is taking place in the company. This thesis work relates as to what exactly is the current placement of Nokia in the economic and mobile devices market and how the company has been adapting to the challenges it has been facing at the hands of both old and new rivals who have been coming with innovative ideas in order to topple over Nokia from its throne of being the biggest mobile phone maker in the world. The thesis first looks at exactly what is Open Source Software. From there it gradually moves to do comparisons between closed and Open Source Software in order to give the reader an idea as to what are the pros and cons of each. In the second half of the thesis a snapshot of the current market situation and competitors is given in order to understand the environment in which Nokia has been working and developing its strategy in. Later on the thesis goes in depth about the decisions, their triggers and their implications with regards to Nokia and the use of Open Source Software as a strategy in this changing environment.

Context: New products create significant opportunities for differentiation and competitive advantage. To increase the chances of new product success, a universal set of critical activities and determinants have been recommended. Some researchers believe, however, that these factors are not universal, but are contextual. Objective: This paper reports innovation processes followed to develop three software intensive products for understanding how and why innovation practice is dependent on innovation context. Method: This paper reports innovation processes and practices with an in-depth multi-case study of three software product innovations from Ericsson, IBM, and Rorotika. It describes the actual innovation processes followed in the three cases and discusses the observed innovation practice and relates it to state-of-the-art. Results: The cases point to a set of contextual factors that influence the choice of innovation activities and determinants for developing successful product innovations. The cases provide evidence that innovation practice cannot be standardized, but is contextual in nature. Conclusion: The rich description of the interaction between context and innovation practice enables future investigations into contextual elements that influence innovation practice, and calls for the creation of frameworks enabling activity and determinant selection for a given context – since one size does not fit all.

This book gives a comprehensive overview on Software Product Management (SPM) for beginners as well as best practices, methodology and in-depth discussions for experienced product managers. This includes product strategy, product planning, participation in strategic management activities and orchestration of the functional units of the company. The book is based on the results of the International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA) which is led by a group of SPM experts from industry and research with the goal to foster software product management excellence across industries. This book can be used as textbook for ISPMA-based education and as guide for anybody interested in SPM as one of the most exciting and challenging disciplines in the business of software.

This dissertation explores the relationship between digital technologies and firm performance. It draws on recent research in the fields of innovation and digitalisation and studies the relationship between software development and firms' capabilities to innovate, internationalise, and develop growth aspirations. The main aim is to go beyond the indicators of digital technology use and instead study the development of software and the intentions behind developing it. The thesis studies the link between software development and firm characteristics. The dissertation consists of four distinct yet interrelated papers, each addressing the different aspects of this relationship. 

Paper I provides an insight into the role of software in digital transformation, comparing it to Research and Development (R&D) investments and highlighting software development as a critical component of innovation that contributes to firms’ competitive advantage in the economy. Paper II finds evidence in favour of a ‘software-biased’ shift in innovation and empirically shows the link between software development and the propensity to introduce innovations and have higher innovation sales. Paper III studies the link between growth aspirations and software development, showing that software development is essential for developing growth aspirations and aspiring for international growth. The final paper examines the determinants of internationalisation, revealing a positive relationship between software development and firms' propensity to engage in export and import activities. This finding suggests a complementarity of software development when navigating the complexities of global markets. 

The dissertation contributes to the understanding of software development’s role across firms. It highlights the strategic value of software not just as an operational tool but as an input for building competitive advantage and prospects for innovation, internationalisation, and growth aspirations.

Individual purchasing behavior has substantial impact on the environment and our society. To encourage sustainable consumption, this paper explores the application of clustering analysis techniques for modelling customer preference for sustainability information. This study has analyzed sales data provided by a furniture company that covers a one-year period and 7602 customer accounts. The analysis focused on the purchases of office chairs. Clustering analysis was applied to build preference models of the customers. This study has identified 3 typical customer behavior signatures w.r.t. the sustainability categories used in a sustainability index. We have shown how these models can be used to predict new customers’ sustainability preferences. The stability of the proposed solutions has been studied by comparing the preference models generated on different product groups. The results can provide insights for designing sustainability communication strategies to attract potential customers. 

The complexity of knowledge plays an important role in the success of any types of knowledge acquisition algorithms performing on large-scale database. LERS (Learning from examples based on rough sets) system is a rule based knowledge acquisition system that is characterized by excellent accuracy, but the complexity of generated rule set is not taken into account. This may cause interpretation problems for human and the classification knowledge may overfit training data. In this paper, CompactLEM2 is proposed as a scalable knowledge acquisition method that extracts rule set with easily understood rule forms, i.e., small size of rule set and short rule forms, without sacrificing classification accuracy. The main advantage of CompactLEM2 is its high efficiency. It can also produce compact rule set that fully or approximately describes classifications of given examples. We theoretically and experimentally show that CompactLEM2 exhibits log-linear asymptotic complexity with the number of training examples in most cases. We also present an example to illustrate characteristics of this algorithm. Finally, the capabilities of our method are demonstrated on eleven datasets. Experimental results are encouraging, and show that the length of extracted rule forms are short, and size of rule set is small, keeping the same level of classification accuracy of other rule acquisition methods in LERS system.