Contributions published at Information Management (Gerhard Schwabe)

Government as a Platform (GaaP) is a promising approach to the digital transformation of the public sector. In practice, GaaP is realized by platform-oriented infrastructures. However, despite successful examples, the transformation toward platform-oriented infrastructures remains challenging. A potential remedy is the analysis of existing public infrastructure regarding its platform orientation. Such an analysis can identify the gaps to an ideal platform-oriented infrastructure and, thus, support the transformation toward it. We follow the design science research methodology to develop a four-dimensional analysis method. We do so in three iterations, and, after each iteration, evaluate the method by its application to infrastructures in practice. With regard to theory, our results suggest extending GaaP conceptualizations with a specific emphasis on platform principles. With regard to practice, we contribute an analysis method that creates proposals for the improvement of infrastructures and, thus, supports the transformation toward GaaP.

The Metaverse has become a buzz-phrase among tech businesses. Facebook's rebranding to Meta is symptomatic of this. Many firms and other actors are trying to shape visions of the Metaverse, leading to confusion about the term's meaning. We use social construction of technology (SCOT) theory to disentangle the conflicting notions proposing that what the Metaverse is and will become relies on the collective sensemaking processes. We point out similarities and differences between various concepts presented in the public media and link them to individual actors' monetary, political, or social motives. We describe the tensions that occur because of the conflicting interests. As the Metaverse is an emerging phenomenon, opportunities exist to reorient it toward humanist values rather than singular interests. However, the complexity of the social processes that shape the Metaverse requires a considerate approach rather than premature conclusions about the Metaverse’s characteristics. The analysis presents the Metaverse as a new, continually evolving sociotechnical phenomenon, and calls for research that explores it as a dynamic, moving target.

Patient-centered care enables physicians to understand their patients as people with individual needs. It helps the patient to be informed, respected, and involved in decisions about their treatment. Thus, it should be the standard approach in the medical practice. However, with the current increase in people suffering from chronic diseases, the healthcare system reaches its limits and new forms of treatment have to be explored. Technology can pose a relief both for the physician and the patient. During a consultation, technological means can help recall knowledge and assist in the decision-making process. At home, it can support the patient to adhere to the treatment and provide motivation. Yet currently those two aspects are often disconnected from each other, and no exchange of data happens between the technologies used at home and the ones in the medical practice. Additionally, the provision of patient-centered care might suffer from the involvement of technology in the consultation and lead to the further scattering of information about the patient. The Digital Companion Project aims to close the loop between obesity consultations and improve the connection between physician and patient. The relevant data gathered by the patient at home can be accessed by the physician and the patient receives the information discussed during the consultation on their device. This bachelor thesis analyzes the use of the Digital Companion in a field study with twenty-seven patients and six physicians to figure out if proper patient-centered care was provided. Furthermore, emerging practices regarding patient-centered care and the influence of the device on the consultation were observed. The results show that the Digital Companion could improve the provision of patient-centered care in all aspects. It helped involve the patients in the decision-making and led to a formulation of a realistic treatment plan. Trust was established quickly, and the patients were openly sharing personal details about their lives. During the consultation, the Digital Companion worked as calm technology, did not disrupt the conversation, and did not attract unnecessary attention.

The war in Ukraine and the following refugee crisis have recently again highlighted the need for effective refugee management across European countries. Refugee management contemporarily mostly relies on top-down management approaches by governments. These often lead to suboptimal policies for refugees and highlight a need to better identify and integrate refugee needs into management. Here, we show that modern applications of Natural Language Processing (NLP) allow for the effective analysis of large text corpora linked to refugee needs, making it possible to complement top-down approaches with bottom-up knowledge centered around the current needs of the refugee population. By following a Design Science Research Methodology, we utilize 58 semi-structured stakeholder interviews within Switzerland to develop design requirements for NLP applications for refugee management. Based on the design requirements, we developed R2G – “Refugees to Government”, an application based on state-of-the-art topic modeling to identify refugee needs bottom-up through Telegram data. We evaluate R2G with a dedicated workshop held with stakeholders from the public sector and civil society. Thus, we contribute to the ongoing discourse on how to design refugee management applications and showcase how topic modeling can be utilized for data-driven governance during refugee crises.

This paper explores the public value outcomes generated by collaborative platforms in public services through a comparative case study of 25 privately-owned digital platforms across various public service areas in Italy. The study confirms that collaborative digitally-enabled endeavors can have both positive and negative effects on public value, highlighting the challenges associated with multi-actor dynamics and the delicate balance between public interest and private gain in public services. The findings reveal implications related to user-centric platforms, including concerns about inclusivity, autonomy, decision-making abilities, and privacy infringement. Additionally, the study suggests that collaborative platforms alone do not enhance collaboration in public services unless accompanied by strong public governance that promotes interoperability through standardized frameworks, common templates, and data reuse.

The number of people suffering from chronic diseases worldwide is rapidly increasing, leading to rising costs and decreased quality of life. Lifestyle changes are an effective measure in the treatment of chronic diseases such as obesity. However, treatment adherence is consistently low. This thesis aims to analyse how the initial phases of the Digital Companion influence patient empowerment as well as self-perceived and actual adherence to the treatment plan. We analyse 18 patient interviews conducted during the field study of the Digital Companion. The results indicate that the structural empowerment provided by the Health Care Professional (HCP) together with the app have a positive effect on patients’ psychological empowerment. Patients report high levels of self-perceived empowerment and predicted adherence to the treatment plan which they planned with their HCP. The evaluation of patient-generated data recorded in the app shows a very high average actual adherence of 80%.

Chatbots have experienced a significant surge in popularity in recent months, which can largely be attributed to the utilization of Large Language Models (LLMs). Among these platforms, ChatGPT has shown the fastest growth, amassing one million users within a only five days. This can be attributed to the inherent contextual understanding and impressive capabilities exhibited by LLMs, which continue to be explored. Recognizing the potential of chatbots, particularly their adaptability to custom interfaces, our aim is to develop a tailored assistant to help adults in corporate identity E-learning. Our pedagogical conversational agent serves as a supportive guide throughout the learning process. Given the current boom in chatbot usage, coupled with the dearth of prior research on chatbots in the field of corporate identity and limited exploration in the realm of adult learning, our study seeks to address the following questions: How do users interact with the assistant and what types of messages are exchanged? The findings of this thesis will shed light on the dynamics of user-agent interaction, the frequency of exchanged messages, and the intended functions of users. As our final product relies on an LLM, which serves as the backbone of the chatbot, we encountered various challenges, such as incorporating external functions and managing the LLM's knowledge limitations. To ensure optimal performance, this thesis includes a comprehensive prompt creation manual, which we utilized to refine our assistant and deliver the most effective learning experience for trainees.

Background: Gamification and storytelling have been implemented in slow breathing training apps, a proven effective way to reduce stress and improve mental wellbeing, with the goal of keeping users interested and engaged. However, it is widely acknowledged that users’ cultural background and socioeconomic status (SES) affect their perceptions of apps and therefore intentions to use it on a regular basis. Objective: Based on previous research on user engagement in digital health interventions, cross-cultural human-computer interaction (HCI) and technology acceptance theories, this thesis investigates the intention to use three distinct versions of a slow breathing training app (Stressless©: control group, Breeze©: with gamification, Tragic Kingdom©: with gamification and storytelling) between German and American users. Methods: Adult US and German nationals were recruited from online crowdsourcing platform Prolific. They were randomly assigned to one of the three condition groups and watched a 1-minute introduction video about the corresponding breathing apps in their preferred language. Afterwards, they reported intention to use in a survey, alongside with other attributes related to technology acceptance that are not evaluated in this thesis. As the dependent variable, aggregated intention to use were summed up based on four survey questions. Independent variables were participants’ nationality and app versions coded as categorical variables. Results: A total of 325 participants completed the study (153 German participants and 144 from US Americans). The results show that while national culture does not play a significant role in intention to use, the effect of app version is strong. Although not statistically significant, SES differences in intention to use is observed with no moderating effect of national culture. Conclusion: Even though most hypothesis cannot be rejected; this thesis still provides meaningful guidelines for future studies on cross-cultural and other demographic comparisons on digital health gamification design.

Amid the emergence of numerous new digital platforms for refugees in Switzerland developed by NGOs and the public administration, the question of refugee needs is becoming increasingly important. This research paper analyzes the significance of digital platforms in supporting refugees in Switzerland. In doing so, it applies and extends the Public Value concept by Faulkner and Kaufmann. The study is based on 15 interviews with primarily Syrian refugees, which were evaluated using qualitative content analysis. The results offer insights from the refugees' perspective and identify critical aspects in dealing with digital platforms. Building on this, an expanded Public Value concept has been developed. This new concept includes the newly added dimensions of "Information Value", "Community Engagement", and "Role of the Platform". The extension of the model offers a new approach to evaluating and optimizing the use of digital platforms targeted at refugees.

The growth of privately held digital platforms has had a significant impact on socioeconomic development and technical innovation. While most of these platforms are primarily focused on generating business value, there is a subset that operates as public service platforms, providing citizens with access to public services. However, it is essential to determine whether these privately held public service platforms contribute to or detract from public value. This research aims to address two primary research questions within the Swiss context. Firstly, it investigates how Swiss-based privately-owned digital platforms contribute to and destroy public value creation. Secondly, it explores citizens' expectations regarding public value creation through Swiss-based privately-owned digital platforms. A multiple case study approach was employed, analyzing three platforms: Coople, Homegate, and Ricardo. By employing the Public Value Scorecard framework, the analysis focused on assessing various dimensions of public value. The research involved conducting interviews and conducting a comprehensive analysis of grey literature, including Google Play reviews and newspaper articles sourced from the Swissdox database. The findings suggest that users highly value the efficiency aspect and the resulting transparency offered by these platforms. However, concerns arise regarding the quality of service, the level of personalization, as well as the platforms' responsibility and accountability.

Incorporating Pedagogical Conversational Agents (PCAs) into learning environments has shown promising benefits for learning. However, most of the research has been performed in the field of academia. Building on a previous paper, this study focuses on the application of PCAs for organisational workplace learning. Having a strong Corporate Identity (CI) has become a competitive advantage for companies. In sectors, like public administrations that have a distinct service side, training staff on CI can be beneficial for the organisation. This thesis is part of a bigger research project that designed and implemented a CI Training for two public administrations in Southern Germany. Using Action Design Research, this thesis focused on designing a learning platform and learning videos that aimed to train staff on external communication, based on existing theories about multimedia learning and practice-inspired research. The main role of this thesis in the project was to design the usability of the learning platform, the experience of the learners, as well as the learning videos. So far, no uniform guidelines for the design of learning platforms that include a Pedagogical Agent (PA) could be found. The aim of this thesis was therefore to investigate the interaction of the agent, the platform, and the learner, thus contributing towards answering the question how a successful workplace training environment, that is supported by a PCA, can be designed. The results showed that incorporating a PCA into the learning environment increased the overall usability of the platform, especially the perceived control that the learners have over the interactions with the platform. The agent initially motivated the participants, however, this motivation declined as the agent did not perform to their expectations. No effect of the PCA-supported learning treatments on self-efficacy or self-determination could be found, in comparison to traditional e-learning without a PCA. Based on the results and on the qualitative feedback from the participants, design principles for PCA-supported learning environments were formulated. The data and results of this thesis can be used for further iterations of the overarching research project. Simultaneously, it can serve as a source of information for the design of other PCA-supported learning environments.

The Ukrainian refugee crisis beginning in 2022 revealed challenges for both refugees and organisations in the Swiss asylum process. While refugees are faced with time-consuming and cumbersome administrative tasks and repetitive forms, the many involved authorities and organisations are overwhelmed with slow and paper-based processes, redundant work, and wrong data. In this thesis, I suggest a digital ID stored in a smartphone-based “wallet” applying the concept and technology of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) to mitigate these issues. Following a design science research approach, I iteratively developed a prototype and evaluated it with a total of 14 refugees and five experts from different organisations. The results show that a digital ID would ease the lives of refugees and possibly empower them. Concerning organisations, the potential for improved interoperability is limited, but experts agree that efficiency in processes would likely be increased. Ultimately, this thesis derives learnings from the results on how to design an SSI-based ID for refugees and discusses its potential.

Media analysis reflects the most important facts about public opinion and the actors involved in the most current topics. It is beneficial for the government and the public administration to identify the information gaps in the public media to intervene and assist in specific areas concerning the reception and acclimatization process of Ukrainian refugees in Switzerland. This study aims to explore the potential of combining the three Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, Named Entity Recognition (NER), Sentiment Analysis (SA), and Topic Modeling (TM), with Machine Learning (ML) models to facilitate decision-making by the authorities. The data used for this study consist of German- and English-speaking articles retrieved from Swiss news media related to the Russian-Ukrainian war. The data includes articles between February 2022 and January 2023. The research approach is split into three main parts, data exploration, the modeling phase, and the evaluation of the models. During data exploration, the data was preprocessed and filtered in relation to Ukrainian refugees. In the modeling phase, the used ML models were introduced, fine-tuned, and applied to the data, leading to the final results. Using the three abovementioned NLP techniques, the most common topics, the article's sentiment over time, and the most common entities in the data could be identified. SA reveals a change of 5% from positive to negative articles regarding the total sum. TM presents the most common topics related to the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Switzerland. NER uncovers the most affected actors, locations, and organizations impacted by the crisis. In the evaluation phase, the model's performances were analyzed, which resulted in a remarkable accuracy score of 96.5% for the NER model, an average accuracy score of 62.5% for the SA model, and a coherence score of 0.65 for BERTopic, the TM model. To conclude, the research shows the potential of using ML-based NLP techniques on news media data to extract beneficial facts from a huge amount of data regarding the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) constitutes a crucial part of the European legislative framework addressing the dominance of 'Big Tech'. It intends to foster fairness and competition in Europe's digital platform economy by imposing obligations on 'gatekeepers' to share end-user-related information with business users. Yet, this may involve the processing of personal data subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The obligation to provide access to personal data in a GDPR-compliant manner poses a regulatory and technical challenge and can serve as a justification for gatekeepers to refrain from data sharing. In this research-in-progress paper, we analyze key tensions between the DMA and the GDPR through the paradox perspective. We argue through a task-technology fit approach how privacy-enhancing technologies-particularly anonymization techniques-and portability could help mediate tensions between data sharing and privacy. Our contribution provides theoretical and practical insights to facilitate legal compliance.

Community-based healthcare is a promising approach to tackling workforce shortage in healthcare, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Community health workers (CHWs) are lay cadres that bridge healthcare disparities by living in the community where they should provide basic health services, mainly through education. However, high attrition rates and underperformance of these health workers limit the scope of such programs. In addition, mobile health is not the hoped-for silver bullet to solve the two challenges. This paper examines two pilot projects using mobile health for non-communicable disease care from an empowerment perspective. We propose design knowledge of mobile health for the structural empowerment of CHWs. Furthermore, we evaluate their psychological empowerment by analyzing mobile health's intended and unintended consequences. Finally, our study demonstrates how the empowerment of CHWs could help overcome the persisting challenges and lead to a sustainable and resilient health system.

Algorithms take decisions that affect humans, and have been shown to perpetuate biases and discrimination. Decisions by algorithms are subject to different interpretations. Algorithms’ behaviors are basis for the construal of moral assessment and standards. Yet we lack an understanding of how algorithms impact on social construction processes, and vice versa. Without such understanding, social construction processes may be disrupted and, eventually, may impede moral progress in society. We analyze the public discourse that emerged after a significant (five-fold) price-surge following the Brooklyn Subway Shooting on April 12 2022, in New York City. There was much controversy around the two ride-hailing firms’ algorithms’ decisions. The discussions evolved around various notions of fairness and the algorithms’ decisions’ justifiability. Our results indicate that algorithms, even if not explicitly addressed in the discourse, strongly impact on constructing fairness assessments and notions. They initiate the exchange, form people’s expectations, evoke people’s solidarity with specific groups, and are a vehicle for moral crusading. However, they are also subject to adjustments based on social forces. We claim that the process of constructing notions of fairness is no longer just social; it has become a socio-algorithmic process. We propose a theory of socio-algorithmic construction as a mechanism for establishing notions of fairness and other ethical constructs.

Adherence to therapy is a significant issue when treating patients who suffer from adiposity. To improve therapy success, modern technology can be used to assist in increasing patients' adherence to therapy. One such technology is the Digital Companion application, which includes a mobile app for patients to track their therapy progress and a web interface for doctors to access further analytics on their patients' ongoing therapy outcomes. This bachelor thesis investigates how we can contribute to the Digital Companion application by developing a Natural Language Processing engine that analyzes the journal entries written by patients in the Digital Companion mobile application. The analysis we provide consists of a topic-based sentiment analysis-oriented algorithm. Through this approach, our aim is to identify which aspects of the therapy are going well for the patient and which are not. This may not always be apparent to the doctor due to their limited time and resources when preparing for a specific patient's consultation and their lack of oversight of what occurs between consultations. With our proposed model, we achieved better precision and recall scores than other industry-leading models when evaluating the patients' data, demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach for the task at hand.

The importance of fairness in algorithmic decisions and artificial intelligence has grown continuously over the last years and the research on it has expanded to include the study of fairness perception. At the same time, the influence of cultural background on perception of fairness in algorithmic decisions remains largely unexplored in the do¬mains of cross-cultural fairness studies and fairness in artificial intelligence. The purpose of this thesis is to conduct a 3 (country, independent) x 2 (scenario, independent) x 3 (strategy, dependent) factorial design preliminary experiment to find out whether the perception of fairness in contexts of algorithmic decisions differs across cultures. To assess this, a survey was developed, detailing the use of an algorithm for decision making in a school admission and in a loan approval scenario, and how the employment of different fairness notions (independence, separation, and sufficiency) would influence those decisions. The survey was distributed online to 300 participants, 100 each per country (Germany, South Africa, and the United States of America), who were asked to rank the three fairness notions from fairest to least fair per scenario. The resulting data was analysed based on mean rank per strategy and rank frequency. Statistical tests employed to prove significance were not applicable to the data type at hand – neither ordinal, nor ranked. For further analysis, the 3 x 2 x 3 matrix was extended by the independent variables gender, age, and openness towards AI. The more independent variables were introduced to make specific statements, the more diverse the observed tendencies were. Nevertheless, results show a clear overall preference for one strategy as the fairest: separation. Except for scenario 1 in South Africa, where independence was ranked as fairest. The required insights on fairness perception in South African culture to explain this divergent tendency are not present in current literature on cross-cultural fairness.

Chronic diseases are a worldwide problem. However, many cases could be prevented or treated by lifestyle changes. The use of mobile health technologies like health apps offers new opportunities to support treatments. This thesis examines how the journal of such a health app affects the patient-doctor collaboration. The patients and doctors make treatment agreements about the behavior of patients in the phase between consultations. The patients have the agreements stored on the health app and can make notes about their execution. The doctors can review the notes in the journal before the consultation. They then discuss the journal with the patient in the consultation. In this thesis the interviews conducted after the follow-up consultation are analyzed. The patients report predominantly positive effects on the patient-doctor collaboration. For example, patients report that the journal had positive effects on the patient-doctor relationship and that they could collaboratively create a treatment plan that they believe to be sustainable. They also report that the doctor’s influence affected the motivation of the patients positively through the journal in the phase in between consultations. The insights about the importance of the patient-doctor relationship were used to extend an existing theoretical model.

Recent regulatory changes have enabled NCAA student-athletes to proft from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), departing from previous policies requiring those athletes to maintain their amateur status. However, despite the changes, it is unlikely that all the approximately 500,000 NCAA student-athletes will proft from NIL contracts. Within this context, we study how to design a fair and inclusive solution that may help all student-athletes se- cure NIL fnancial resources. Following a design science approach, we defne design requirements after interviewing student-athletes. Subsequently, we derive three design principles: inclusiveness, fairness, and transparency. Thereafter, we suggest a blockchain-based artifact that satisfes all design principles. Our idea lies in designing collectibles as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that pay diferent roy- alties whenever a transaction (purchase or exchange) happens in diferent markets (primary or secondary). Finally, we evaluate our solution by discussing its features with current student-athletes.