Description

It is well known that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a catalyst of business change, from localized efficiency optimisations in processes and working procedures till innovation and radical change in operating models, business models, corporate strategy and entire industry sectors.

Recently it has been recognized that ICT can also be used as a tool to manage business change, i.e., the concept of second-order information systems that provide decision-support in making changes, guidance for the change processes, and change monitoring and control.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a detailed account of the state-of-the-art (both state-of-the-research and state-of-the-practice) in applications of ICT for managing business change: what theoretical or conceptual frameworks are used? What methods and techniques? What tools?

A starting point of the research is the toolkit that is being developed in the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Envision project, see http://www.envisionproject.eu​. This toolkit is specifically aimed at providing assistance to SME’s embarking on business model innovation trajectories.​

Research methods include systematic literature study (either Systematic Literature Mapping (if the thesis is taken by 1 student) or Systematic Literature Review (if the thesis is taken by 2 students) and survey research and (2 students) /or (1 student) case-study research.

The main difference between literature mapping and literature review is that a mapping study is limited to investigating what research has been performed, by means of which methods and by whom (often by just reading a paper’s abstract, introduction and conclusion), whereas a literature review looks into the actual research results (requiring reading the entire paper). For guidance on how to conduct systematic literature studies and report their results, see (Kitchenham & Charters 2007, Okoli 2015, vom Brocke et al. 2015). For general guidance on research methodology in Information Systems, see (Recker, 2013).

References

Kitchenham, B., and Charters, S. (2007) Guidelines for performing Systematic Litera- ture Reviews in Software Engineering. Technical Report EBSE-2007-01. Soft- ware Engineering Group of Keele University Durham UK.

Okoli, Chitu (2015) “A Guide to Conducting a Standalone Systematic Literature Review,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 37, Article 43.

Recker, J. 2013. Scientific Research in Information Systems: A Beginner’s Guide. Springer.

vom Brocke, J., Simons, A., Riemer, K., Niehaves, B., Plattfaut, R., & Cleven, A. (2015). Standing on the shoulders of giants: Challenges and recommendations of literature search in Information Systems research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 37(1), Article 9, 205-224.