Veröffentlichungen von Yannick Hildebrandt

Journal-Artikel (Peer Reviewed)

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2024)
Measuring the Digital Mindset: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Scale
ACM SIGMIS Database Volume 55, Issue 4, 80-116, https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3701613.3701618 (VHB-JOURQUAL 3 Rating: B)

View Abstract
IS researchers and practitioners frequently claim that the 'digital mindset' is essential to achieving high employee performance and satisfaction and to leveraging opportunities in the context of pervasive digital innovation. However, extant literature has yet to provide a scale to measure the digital mindset in quantitative research. This study fills this gap by addressing the question of how the digital mindset can be measured. We conduct three studies to answer the research question and develop and validate a measurement model. In Study 1, we take literature-based and Delphi study-based approaches to create two types of scales, which we pre-validate through experts and purify through pilot tests. Study 2 undertakes confirmatory factor analyses (N = 147 and 142) to test the scales and three multidimensional conceptualizations of the digital mindset. Finally, Study 3 validates the criteria by testing the predictive ability of the model of IT mindfulness (N = 147 and 142) and by comparing the scales to the results of an interview-based approach measuring the digital mindset in a panel study (N = 42). Our results provide two newly developed and validated 39-item survey scales to assess the digital mindset that reflect an overall model of digital mindset based on agile, digital, and creative cognition, each of which contains several thinking patterns.

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2023)
Making the Digital Mindset Measurable: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Scale
Forthcoming in: ACM SIGMIS Database (VHB-JOURQUAL 3 Rating: B)

View Abstract
IS researchers and practitioners frequently claim that the ‘digital mindset’ is essential to achieving high employee performance and satisfaction, and to leverage opportunities in the context of pervasive digital innovation. However, extant literature has yet to provide a scale to measure the digital mindset in quantitative research. This study fills this gap by addressing the question how the digital mindset can be measured. We conduct three studies to answer the research question and develop and validate a measurement model. In Study 1, we take literature-based and Delphi study-based approaches to create two types of scales, which we pre-validate through experts and purify through pilot tests. Study 2 undertakes confirmatory factor analyses (N = 147 and 142) to test the scales and three multidimensional conceptualizations of the digital mindset. Finally, Study 3 validates the criteria by testing the predictive ability of the model of IT mindfulness (N = 147 and 142) and by comparing the scales to the results of an interview-based approach measuring the digital mindset in a panel study (N = 42). Our results provide two newly developed and validated 41-item survey scales to assess the digital mindset that reflect an overall model of digital mindset based on agile, digital, and creative cognition, each of which contain several thinking patterns.

Konferenz-Artikel (Peer Reviewed)

Hildebrandt, Y., Zaza, S., Beimborn, D., and Armstrong, D. (2024)
IT Reinvention: A Configurational Perspective of IT Specific Traits
Proceedings of the ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research, Murfreesboro, TN, USA

Mittermeier, F., Hund, A., Beimborn, D., Frey, J., and Hildebrandt, Y. (2024)
Externalizing Digital Options Thinking: How Corporate Venture Builders Generate Opportunities to Invest in Digital Innovation
Proceedings of the 32nd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Paphos, Cyprus

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To avoid conflicts with the core business and the existing organizational identity, incumbents increasingly externalize their digital innovation activities by handing them over to separate innovation units. While IS research provides knowledge on how internally driven innovations are initiated and developed in such units, we do not yet understand how they capitalize on internal resources, combine them with external ones, and pursue competitive actions with digital technologies. To address this issue, we apply a digital options thinking lens to investigate how corporate venture builders (CVBs) generate digital options for incumbent firms, ie, opportunities to invest in digital innovations. Based on a case study with six CVBs, we find that such units bundle incumbents’ resources and digital innovation trends (novel technologies and digital business models) into digital options through four roles. Furthermore, we demonstrate the importance of adding a detailed preparation process to the digital options framework.

Finze, N., Hildebrandt, Y., and Wagner, H. (2023)
The Role of IT Identity and Paradoxes in Explaining Avoidance Strategies
Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Hyderabad, India

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The increasing use of technology in personal and professional environments has led to the development of an information technology (IT) identity, which describes the extent to which individuals view IT as integral to their sense of self. Further, technology paradoxes describe the contradictory nature of IT, which can lead to behavioral disengagement, causing significant disruptions in enterprise digitization. Thus, this study develops a theory-based model to explore the interplay between IT identity and technology paradoxes and their effects on behavioral disengagement. The findings reveal that IT identity mitigates the perception of technology paradoxes and impacts behavioral disengagement. We contribute to literature by quantifying and validating their effects and suggesting opportunities for future research. That way, practitioners can develop more effective strategies for promoting engagement and addressing disengagement among employees or users.

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2023)
Affordance Perception Through a Digital Mindset: A Dual Process Theory Perspective
Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS)
Best Paper Nominee

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As digital technologies offer increasingly open and flexible affordances, organizations must understand how employees discover and utilize them to maximize their potential. While prior research has shown that technology-specific traits can impact affordance perception, we propose that affordance perception is affected by an individual’s general digital mindset, which in turn determines how individuals make sense of pervasive digital technologies. Drawing on the dual process theory of human cognition and established affordance categories (canonical and non-canonical), we conducted a four-phase online experiment involving 189 users of Microsoft PowerPoint. Our study, which used an implicit association tests, a sorting approach, and a survey, revealed that an individual’s digital mindset significantly influences unconscious and conscious perceptions of non-canonical affordances but not canonical ones. We contribute by extending the affordance theory in IS, indicating that affordance perception can be seen as dual processes dependent on individual traits.

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2023)
Digital Mindset Profiles for Innovating: The Relationship Between Digital Mindset and IT Reinvention
Proceedings of the 83rd Academy of Management Conference, Boston, Massachusets, US

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Employees’ reinventive usage of IT is crucial for companies to leverage IT investments and gain competitive advantages, making it necessary to understand what drives such behavior. We hypothesize that IT reinvention is affected by the digital mindset, as this dynamic IT-specific trait unconsciously alters how individuals act in the context of digitalization through malleable thinking patterns. Building on the dual processing theory of human cognition, we investigated the relationship by conducting an online survey with 154 full-time employees that use Microsoft Powerpoint for work purposes. Our analysis using a structual equation model (SEM) and fuzzy-set comparative analysis (fsQCA) revealed that the digital mindset substantially affects IT reinvention, and three combinations of thinking patterns, respectively digital mindset profiles, exist that lead to IT reinvention. We contribute to the theory of post-adoption innovative IT use behaviors and the digital mindset by proving the effects of un-conscious dynamic IT-specific traits on rather conscious system usages. For practitioners, we provide digital mindset profiles that can be used when composing teams to increase the alignment to project goals and team effectiveness.

Hildebrandt, Y., Finze, N., and Wagner, H. (2023)
The Interplay of IT Identity and Digital Mindset in the Workplace
Proceedings of the 29th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Panama
Best Paper Nominee

View Abstract
IT identity plays a significant role in individuals' IT adoption and use behaviors and can impact job satisfaction. However, other individual traits, like the digital mindset, previously showed to also affect the effects of the intertwining of IT and workplaces on job satisfaction. Therefore, we examine the role of a digital mindset in shaping IT and job identity and survey 167 employees. By analyzing the relationship between these concepts, the paper contributes to a better understanding of how identities are formed and how they affect job satisfaction in the digitally-enabled workplace. Our results demonstrate that IT identity’s effect on job satisfaction is fully mediated by job identity. We also reveal that a digital mindset moderates the relationship between IT and job identities. Further, we discuss the key challenges and opportunities associated with the adoption and use of IS in organizations and provide insights into the future directions of IS research. Overall, we contribute to the ongoing discourse on the role of IT identity and digital mindset in the workplace and provide valuable insights for researchers and practitioners.

Hildebrandt, Y. (2023)
Effects of the Digital Mindset on Affordance Perceptions
Proceedings of the 23rd ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research, Pomona, California, US

Valta, M., Hildebrandt, Y., and Maier, C. (2022)
Reducing Technostress: The Role of the Digital Mindset
Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Minneapolis, US

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Organizations invest lots of effort and costs in reducing technostress, as it harms their employees’ well[1]being and reduces their work performance. Therefore, it is imperative to mitigate technostress. We suppose each individual has a unique digital mindset, a malleable factor describing their specific ways of thinking and awareness, which guides how to react to techno-stressors. We build on the transactional model of stress and survey 151 employees to test the role of the digital mindset. Our results show that individuals with a strong digital mindset respond less strongly to techno-stressors with reduced job performance, reduced job satisfaction, and increased turnover intention. We contribute to research by carving out how individuals react to techno-stressors in line with their digital mindset, reflecting that digital mindset might buffer that techno-stressors have adverse impacts on individuals and organizations.

Hildebrandt, Y., Valta, M., and Beimborn, D. (2022)
Quantifying the Digital Mindset: Development of a Measurement Instrument
Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research, Atlanta, Georgia USA

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The ‘digital mindset’ is frequently raised by both researchers and practitioners to be an essential factor of the human side of digitalization to successfully cope with the arising challenges of digitalization. Despite existing conceptualizations of the construct, the literature provides no operationalization for quantitative research, so far. Our research pursues the goal to address the question of how the digital mindset can be measured. Literature- and Delphi study-based approaches were used to develop various types of scales which were pre-validated by experts and statistically validated. For contentual validation, 35 participants were interviewed and subsequently completed the developed scales in a panel study. The resulting interview statements were rated by two independent raters and the results compared with the scale results. The correlations of the answers from using the different measures indicate that the developed survey scales can serve as proxies for the qualitative approach, which is assumed to measure the ‘true’ level of the digital mindset. In the future, researchers can choose from different scales based on their requirements for precision and efficiency (i.e., time needed to complete the survey items).

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2022)
Assessing the Digital Mindset - Using Explicit Scales to Measure an Implicit Phenomenon
Proceedings of the 82. Academy of Management Conference, Seattle, US

Hildebrandt, Y. (2022)
Hunting Darwins Counterpart: Tracing the Exaptation Phenomenon in IS Research
Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Nürnberg, Germany

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The repurposing of problem-solving artifacts is an efficient way to innovate. Originating in evolutional theory, exaptation – the repurposing of an existing trait – gained recently attention in IS research due to the generative and malleable characteristics of digital technologies. Notwithstanding, research on this theoretical construct in IS research is scarce, while the innovation and economics literature already adapted the theory to, e.g., explain and predict disruptive market behaviors. With a scoping literature review, this paper pursues to draw a comprehensive picture of the current state of research of exaptation in IS research. Through an analysis of 46 publications, we could structure the field, derive three valuable contributions for the general exaptation theory and outline a future research agenda provide orientation and inspiration for further exaptation research in the digital and organizational context.

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2022)
A Cognitive Conveyor for Digital Innovation - Definition and Conceptualization of the Digital Mindset
Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Nürnberg, Germany

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Notwithstanding the ubiquitous notion of the ‘digital mindset’ as a central way of thinking in digitalization, the literature lacks an unambiguous and integrative definition that allows further conceptualization of the phenomenon in a detailed manner. This paper defines and conceptualizes the digital mindset in a digital innovation context by an integration of different psychological perspectives and systematic analysis of digital innovation literature, cross-validated through an inductive expert survey (n=50). As a result, a coherent definition and conceptualization with 11 thinking patterns contribute to the research of the human side of digitalization and pave the way for future research avenues. Concluding our work, we highlight overlaps and draw parallels to related theoretical IS concepts and link our results to extant findings of IS research.

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2021)
Ambiguous, Misinterpreted, But Essential: Conceptualization of the "Digital Mindset"
Proceedings of the 81 Academy of Management Conference, Virtual Event

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2021)
The Intangible Key for Digitalization: Conceptualizing and Measuring the "Digital Mindset"
Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research, Virtual Event, Germany

Buchkapitel

Beimborn, D. and Hildebrandt, Y. (2022)
Defining and Measuring Digital Competence
Digital competence and future skills : how companies prepare themselves for the digital future, Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH Co. KG, S. 3-23

View Abstract
Digital competence is a diffuse term that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. In order to build digital literacy among people, we must first understand how to make the term tangible. In particular, under the concept of digital participation, it is important to integrate as many people as possible into this discourse. Therefore, we need to understand what the status quo looks like today. To this end, this section includes current study results around digital literacy among companies and also among the general population. The chapters in this section of the book revolve around the following guiding questions: - What is digital competence? - How can digital competence be analyzed and measured? - What are suitable dimensions for digital competence in the population? - What does digital literacy look like in different countries in Europe? - What is the state of digital transformation in general? - How far are companies in building digital competence? What differences are apparent?

Hildebrandt, Y. and Beimborn, D. (2021)
Wissenschaftliche Ansätze zur Identifikation und Messung digitaler Kompetenzen
Handbuch Digitale Kompetenzentwicklung: Wie sich Unternehmen auf die digitale Zukunft vorbereiten, Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH Co KG, S. 65-88