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The purpose of this paper is to focus on user innovation strategies and their stability in the video game industry. The main research questions addressed are whether a significant portion of video game companies employ user innovation, and how these strategies are showing signs of success and evolve over time.

From various online data sources, information was extracted for 2,003 video game companies and 3,923 video games and analyzed using quantitative statistical approaches.

The analysed data show that a significant proportion of video game companies rely on user innovation-related strategies. If user innovation possibilities are provided, user ratings also tend to be higher. Over time, this strategy of enabling user innovation becomes more prevalent, but companies do also abandon such strategies or use them selectively. Especially, never employing them is associated with decreased company lifespan.

This is the first paper providing a large-scale insight into the evolution of user innovation strategies in an industry.

In the last years the penetration of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems within small, medium and large organizations increased steadily. Organizations are forced to adapt their systems and perform ERP upgrades in order to react to rapidly changing business environments, technological enhancements and rising pressure of competition. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the critical success factors for such projects.

The paper is based on a literature review and qualitative interviews with CEOs, CIOs, ERP consultants and project managers who recently carried out ERP upgrade projects in their respective organizations.

This paper identifies 14 critical success factors for ERP upgrade projects. Amongst others, effective project management, external support, the composition of the ERP team and the usage of a multiple system landscape play a key role for the success of the ERP upgrade. Furthermore, a comparison to the critical success factors for ERP implementation projects was conducted, and even though there are many similarities between these types of projects, several differences emerged.

ERP upgrade projects have a huge impact on organizations, but their success and antecedents for it are currently under-researched.

This paper aims to analyze influences on the adoption of an application launched by some airlines and independent providers, called “social seating”, which is based on user profiles from or similar to social networks. These applications have not been widely successful, and therefore constitute an interesting exception within the area of social networking, warranting further investigation.

An empirical study based on the technology acceptance model and using survey methodology has been undertaken to understand antecedents of adoption and use of such applications.

Results show a consistent influence of perceived ease of use on perceived usefulness, as well as a strong role of privacy and data security.

Due to the limited adoption, the actual use could only be investigated using a small data set, while the majority of results rely on stated intentions.

This is one of a few studies that focuses on a social networking application that both crosses into the physical world, and that has been very limited in adoption and success.

In this paper we detail the results from an empirical study concerning differences in characteristics of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system selection process between small or medium and large sized organizations. In particular we address the fields of software packages considered and chosen, the weights assigned to different selection criteria, the size and structure of the team responsible for the decision, the methods employed and the effort expended.

This paper aims to report findings from an exploratory empirical study focusing on an application of mass customization in financial services. Based on the study of configurations and usage data, the authors evaluate a series of hypotheses relating to the interplay of adoption and usage by customers.

The study is based on quantitative analysis of data from a Turkish bank which offers customizable credit cards, encompassing both configurations as well as credit card usage.

The results confirm that trial-and-error learning will not end with product definition, but will continue afterwards and lead to changes in customization. Especially active usage length shows a significant positive effect on the number of changes. The effect of base category usage could only partly be confirmed for changes, but was significant for adoption. It was also found that a series of smaller changes in a limited number of attributes has a higher likelihood than a smaller number of changes in a large number of aspects.

The study uses data from a single financial service provider, from a specific country. In addition, anonymized data on adoption and usage were used, thus demographic data as well as subjective measures from customers were not available.

The results highlight the importance of specifying the correct solution space, as the authors could at least partially confirm the negative effect of both a large number of options, as well as basing on alternatives rather than attributes on several levels. Although overall mass customization seems less interesting than traditional credit cards, the authors discuss several positive implications for financial sector companies from offering this option.

The paper extends current literature in focusing for the first time on mass customization for financial services. In addition, this is the first study using longitudinal data on adoption and modification of mass-customized solutions to analyze the long-term behavior of usage.

The economic justification of investments in information technology (IT) is a basic issue for IT management in private and in public‐sector organisations. Usually, the expenses made for any investment are compared to the cost saved. While the costs for implementing a new system are uncertain, only a small percentage of the benefits accrues as cost savings given the type of IT systems used today and the particularities of the public‐sector. In this paper, we present a methodology for the monetary quantification of the benefits resulting from the introduction of a modern IT application and demonstrate its use on the basis of a case of prison administration.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of the Covid-19 crisis at the level of individual information behavior among citizens from the German-speaking countries, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

An online survey was conducted among 308 participants gathered through convenience sampling in April and May 2020, focusing on how citizens changed their mix and usage intensity of information sources and according to which criteria they chose them during the Covid-19 crisis. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for testing central tendencies. Effect sizes were considered to support the interpretation.

The results show first that the Covid-19 crisis has led to an increased demand for reliable information. This goes alongside a significant increased use of public broadcasting, newspapers and information provided by public organizations. Second, the majority (84%) of the participants reported being satisfied with the information supply during the Covid-19 crisis. Participants who were less satisfied with the information supply used reliable sources significantly less frequently, specifically public television, national newspapers and information provided by public organizations. Third, the amount of Covid-19-related information led some participants to a feeling of information overload, which resulted in a reduction of information seeking and media use.

This paper is one of the first to analyze changes of information behavior patterns of individuals during crises in the current information environment, considering the diversity of resources used by individuals.

When a crisis occurs, do corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities protect organizational reputation by buffering negative effects or do CSR activities intensify negative effects, potentially leading to a worse reputation compared to if the organization had no prior CSR engagement? The authors hypothesize that if a crisis emerges in a domain aligned with an organization’s CSR initiatives (crisis-congruent CSR) backfire effects would arise, adversely affecting the organization’s reputation. Conversely, in cases of incongruence, where the crisis emerges in a domain not aligned with an organization’s previous CSR involvement, a buffering effect would manifest, protecting the organization’s reputation.

The authors conducted an experiment with a 3 (crisis-congruent, crisis-incongruent, and no CSR activities) × 2 (repeated measures) mixed factorial design. In the first scenario, no information was provided concerning a company’s social commitment. Alternatively, participants were exposed to an article illustrating the company’s dedication either to healthcare (crisis-incongruent commitment) or to combating sexism (crisis-congruent commitment). Afterward, participants were presented with a newspaper article addressing allegations of sexism against the company’s CEO.

The findings demonstrate that prior CSR activities have the potential both to serve as a buffer and to cause backfire effects in times of crisis. Domain congruence is the decisive moderator of these effects: Crisis-incongruent CSR activities acted as a buffer, crisis-congruent CSR activities “backfired” and led to more negative perceptions of the company’s reputation.

The study directly contributes to the understanding of CSR effects in crisis communication, while also addressing the often paradoxical and contradictory findings of prior studies.

Volume 25 celebrates the 25th year of publication for the American Journal of Business (AJB). Launched by eight MAC schools of business in March 1986, the Journal has featured more than 700 authors who have contributed more than 330 research articles at the intersection of theory and practice. From accounting to marketing, management to finance, the Journal prominently covers the breadth of the business disciplines as a general business outlet intended for both practitioners and academics. As the Journal reaches out beyond the MAC in sponsorship, authorship, and readership, we assess the Journal’s first quarter century of impact.