Digital Business 

Abstract: This study aims at investigating the determinants of digital banking adoption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The study is based on data from the 2017 Global Financial Inclusion Survey covering 1009 respondents, which has been analysed using simple analytical tools such as the chi-square test and logistics regression. About 51.5% of respondents reported adoption of digital banking in Saudi Arabia. The factor of trust in digital banking has been added to extend the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in predicting digital banking technology adoption. The two constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) i.e. perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU), show a significant and positive marginal effect on the adoption of digital banking, whereas trust indicates a negative and significant marginal impact with controlling effect of age and education of the consumers. This study provides valuable insights for financial institutions, consumers, business entities and researchers in promoting the digital banking system in Saudi Arabia.

Abstract: The so-called “Fourth Industrial revolution”, also termed as “Industry 4.0” in the wider literature, is associated with several cutting-edge technologies. Indicative examples in this category are advanced applications like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data Analytics (BDA), Cloud Computing and Internet of Things (IoT), which are already influencing the maritime industry. It is indicative of the fact that there are several construction projects of autonomous ships, such as the Yara Birkeland and the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS), which are heavily reliant on technologies associated with the Industry 4.0 concept. The maritime transport industry is already transitioning into a new operations paradigm, often termed as “shipping in the era of digitalization”. Shipping companies promote digitalization as the future of the maritime industry and their efforts to set up strategies are already in progress. Examining those visions and strategies in relation to digitalization would be beneficial to better understand the way towards which the maritime industry is heading. This paper is aiming to identify the characteristics of that pool of future plans via a qualitative review and with a particular focus on major maritime commercial actors, based on shipping companies' relevant action plans that were gathered online. A conclusion standing out is that major shipping companies have embraced digitalization to increase cost-efficiency, raise competitiveness and meet the needs of their customers.

Abstract: Digital business model transformation (DBMT) necessitates new managerial capabilities, yet the existing literature lacks an empirical understanding of managerial capabilities as antecedents to strategic change and firm performance. This paper builds on dynamic managerial capabilities theory to argue that managerial human capital—composed of leadership and entrepreneurial skills—is a critical facilitator of DBMT and resultant firm performance. Further, the research model proposes that managers' social capital and cognition positively moderate the relationship between human capital and DBMT. The study's findings from a sample of German Industry 4.0 firms provide new insights into the significance of managerial capabilities in a digital economy. This study advances management literature by demonstrating that the benefits of managers' human capital for DBMT are contingent on its form: entrepreneurial skills facilitate digital transformation integral for firm performance, while leadership skills have no impact on firm performance—neither directly nor indirectly through DBMT. Thus, this study provides strong evidence of the importance of entrepreneurial skills in driving DBMT to increase firm performance. Further, the findings offer a nuanced account of the interrelationships between dynamic managerial capabilities, revealing that higher levels of social capital and lower levels of cognition increase the positive effect of entrepreneurial skills on DBMT. This study altogether reaffirms the significance of managers' dynamic capabilities for strategic change enabled by DBMT and their performance benefits, yet it reveals that the effect mechanisms differ from those found in nondigital research settings.

Abstract: Digital ecosystems like Airbnb or Uber have fundamentally changed their respective domains, and an increasing number of organizations are now considering how they can benefit from the underlying concepts. While several examples of systems that are generally accepted as digital ecosystems exist in practice, there is no common understanding yet of what exactly constitutes a digital ecosystem. This lack of a clear definition and understanding substantially impedes any well-founded discussion, analysis, design, and establishment of digital ecosystems. Digital ecosystems are strongly driven by practice, and research is following in a descriptive and analytical role. In search of a precise definition that matches the examples we see in practice, we analyzed the state of the art of digital ecosystems and closely related terms, such as {platform, business, software} ecosystems as well as the {platform, sharing} economy. While we found several common key properties in the literature, we identified a lack of a clear definition and a common understanding of the term. To address this problem, we propose a definition of digital ecosystems based on a set of well-defined criteria. Our definition builds upon the traditional understanding of an economic service and extends it successively with digital and ecosystem characteristics. The resulting model is precise and consistent, and matches the general conception of digital ecosystems in practice. It allows clearly classifying systems as digital ecosystems as well as reasoning about their core service and assets, which we demonstrate using Uber as a prominent example. With this, our proposed model lays the foundation for the systematic development of specific digital ecosystem engineering approaches.