Veröffentlichungen von Nikola Finze

Journal-Artikel (Peer Reviewed)

Finze, N., Jechle, D., Faußer, S., and Gewald, H. (2024)
How are We Doing Today? Using Natural Speech Analysis to Assess Older Adults’ Subjective Well-Being
Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE) , p. 321-334, https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1786&context=bise (VHB-JOURQUAL 3 Rating: B)

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The research presents the development and test of a machine learning (ML) model to assess the subjective well-being of older adults based solely on natural speech. The use of such technologies can have a positive impact on healthcare delivery: the proposed ML model is patientcentric and securely uses user-generated data to provide sustainable value not only in the healthcare context but also to address the global challenge of demographic change, especially with respect to healthy aging. The developed model unobtrusively analyzes the vocal characteristics of older adults by utilizing natural language processing but without using speech recognition capabilities and adhering to the highest privacy standards. It is based on theories of subjective well-being, acoustic phonetics, and prosodic theories. The ML models were trained with voice data from volunteer participants and calibrated through the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL), a widely accepted tool for assessing the subjective well-being of human beings. Using WHOQOL scores as a proxy, the developed model provides accurate numerical estimates of individuals’ subjective well-being. Different models were tested and compared. The regression model proves beneficial for detecting unexpected shifts in subjective well-being, whereas the support vector regression model performed best and achieved a mean absolute error of 10.90 with a standard deviation of 2.17. The results enhance the understanding of the subconscious information conveyed through natural speech. This offers multiple applications in healthcare and aging, as well as new ways to collect, analyze, and interpret selfreported user data. Practitioners can use these insights to develop a wealth of innovative products and services to help seniors maintain their independence longer, and physicians can gain much greater insight into changes in their patients’ subjective well-being.

Konferenz-Artikel (Peer Reviewed)

Finze, N., Frey, J., Beimborn, D., and Wagner, H. (2024)
We Are the Change: How Work-related Identities Influence Inertia during Digital Transformation
Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Bangkok, Thailand

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To maintain a competitive edge in the context of an ever-increasing range of digital ap-plications and services, incumbent firms initiate a process of digital transformation. Nev-ertheless, the tendency to adhere to established organizational forms and processes, even in the face of superior alternatives, has been observed to impede the pace of digital trans-formation. We thus answer the following question: How do work-related identities affect different inertia dimensions in digital transformation? By answering this research ques-tion, this study demonstrates the influence of different work-related identities, namely organizational identity, team identity, professional identity, and job identity. It contrib-utes to the theoretical understanding of the influence of work-related identities on differ-ent dimensions of inertia and provides practical insights toward a deeper understanding of the differential impact of digital transformation and to anticipate the potential for identity to arise inertia in the transformation process.

Haug, M., Finze, N., Gewald, H., and Salou, T. (2024)
Happiness and Sadness - Exploring the Role of Emotions in Continuous Use of Activity Trackers
Proceedings of the Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (itAIS), Piacenza, Italy

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Self-tracking through activity trackers has become increasingly popular, enabling individuals to monitor and assess their own health. These devices record physical activities such as step counts, distance covered, sleep patterns, and food intake, promoting healthy living and encouraging individuals to engage in more physical activity. With the rising global prevalence of obesity, activity trackers play a crucial role in combating this issue by motivating users to adopt healthier lifestyles and combat sedentary behaviors. Gamification elements integrated into activity trackers, such as rankings and reward systems, enhance motivation and user engagement. However, despite their potential benefits, many users discontinue their use of activity trackers shortly after adoption. The impact of emotions on sustained usage of activity trackers remains largely unexplored. This study addresses the research gap by investigating the influence of happiness and sadness on continued use of activity trackers. Understanding the role of emotions in this context can provide insights into designing effective interventions to promote longterm engagement with activity trackers and facilitate healthier behaviors.

Finze, N., Trapp, K., and Haug, M. (2024)
Losing Control! The Role of Sense of Agency in Using Highly Invasive AI Systems
Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Bangkok, Thailand

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This paper examines the impact of highly invasive artificial intelligence (AI) systems on the sense of agency (SoA) and the intention to use AI. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into everyday decision-making, its opacity and persuasive capabilities present challenges to user autonomy and transparency. This study examines the psychological effects of AI-induced loss of agency, utilizing a pilot study with scenarios designed to enhance awareness of AI’s nudging capabilities. By examining the relationship between the SoA, perceived usefulness, anxiety, and behavioral intentions towards AI, the research highlights the critical role of users’ SoA in technology adoption. The findings indicate that awareness of AI manipulation significantly diminishes SoA, which in turn affects user engagement negatively.

Finze, N. (2024)
Generative AI and Higher Education: Navigating Risks, Opportunities, and Changing Educator Identities
Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Würzburg, Germany

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The introduction of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), exemplified by ChatGPT, has sparked discussions in higher education about its implications. While GAI offers new ways of acquiring knowledge, concerns about plagiarism and changes in the role of educators have emerged. Using semi-structured interviews, we explore faculty perceptions of GAI and its impact on faculty professional identity. Findings reveal perceived opportunities for efficient knowledge acquisition and risks such as data quality and loss of personal development. Educators' roles are evolving toward critical guardianship, emphasizing the importance of guiding students in information acquisition and evaluation. Our study contributes to the understanding of the transformative effects of GAI in higher education and highlights the evolving professional identity of educators.

Frey, J., Finze, N., Hund, A., and Beimborn, D. (2024)
From Communication to Motivation: Leveraging Scaling Agility for IT-Business Alignment
Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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IT-business alignment is a crucial objective for organizations and is influenced by the structural changes brought about by digital transformation. One such structural change, Scaling Agility, has been identified as influential on IT-business alignment at the strategic level. However, its precise roles and concrete activities in this context, which contribute to a better alignment, have yet to be studied. We therefore seek to answer the question: What is the role of Scaling Agility in IT-business alignment? A qualitative case study series with four organizations over two years surfaces a total of twelve activities within the four activity categories: (1) Understanding and Appreciation, (2) Fostering Trust and Openness, (3) Propelling Togetherness, and (4) Achieving Self-Determination. These activities can be aggregated into three levels: communicator, mediator, and motivator. The study extends the literature on the beneficial role of Scaling Agility and concrete activities in IT-business alignment in the context of digital transformation.

Finze, N., Weeger, A., and Kudor, R. (2024)
Wind of Change The Impact of Music Generating AI Systems on the Identity of Music Producers
Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Bangkok, Thailand

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This paper examines how generative AI systems affect the professional identity of creative professionals, specifically in music production. Using qualitative interpretive research and semi-structured interviews with music producers, we explore the identity threats posed by AI and the diverse emotional and cognitive responses as well as behavioral intentions of music producers. Further, we highlight the role of self-esteem in reinforcing individual professional identity. The findings reveal three distinct response patterns—enthusiasts, cautious, and resistors—each varying in their perception of and adaptation to identity threats. This study contributes to our understanding of the professional identity dynamics in the face of advancing AI technologies and offers insights into how creative professionals navigate these changes.

Finze, N. and Gewald, H. (2024)
Redefining the White Coat: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Professional Identity of Physicians
Proceedings of the Conference on Health IT and Analytics (CHITA), Washington D.C., USA

Finze, N., Salou, T., Haug, M., and Gewald, H. (2024)
Exploring the Role of Emotions in Continuous Use of Activity Trackers
Proceedings of the Conference on Health IT and Analytics (CHITA), Washington D.C., USA

View Abstract
Self-tracking through activity trackers has become increasingly popular, enabling individuals to monitor and assess their own health. These devices record physical activities such as step counts, distance covered, sleep patterns, and food intake, promoting healthy living and encouraging individuals to engage in more physical activity. With the rising global prevalence of obesity, activity trackers play a crucial role in combating this issue by motivating users to adopt healthier lifestyles and combat sedentary behaviors. Gamification elements integrated into activity trackers, such as rankings and reward systems, enhance motivation and user engagement. However, despite their potential benefits, many users discontinue their use of activity trackers shortly after adoption. The impact of emotions on sustained usage of activity trackers remains largely unexplored. This study addresses the research gap by investigating the influence of happiness and sadness on continued use of activity trackers. Understanding the role of emotions in this context can provide insights into designing effective interventions to promote long-term engagement with activity trackers and facilitate healthier behaviors.

Finze, N., Zimmermann, S., Weeger, A., and Wagner, H. (2024)
Yes, but …: Unraveling Paradoxes in Implementing Artificial Intelligence
Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Honolulu, HI, USA

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Implementing artificial intelligence (AI) applications in firms promises great potential but poses complex challenges. Especially incumbent firms often struggle to use the full potential of AI, because of paradoxes that arise in the context of implementing AI solutions, such as concerns regarding data privacy but simultaneously sharing personal data excessively. To analyze what paradoxes are caused by the challenge to implement AI in incumbent firms, we draw on the literature on technological paradoxes and followed a qualitative research approach using semi-structured interviews in eight companies on the path to AI implementation. Our results unravel that various mismatches between strategic imperatives and tactical paradigms emerge from three AI paradoxes: the privacy paradox, the potential paradox, and the integration paradox. Our results contribute to the information systems literature on AI and technological paradoxes by providing novel empirical insights on AI paradoxes and practical implications to address these paradoxes in incumbent firms.

Seerig, K., Finze, N., Yang, C., and Gewald, H. (2023)
Digital Follow-up after Surgery – A Randomized Controlled Trial and its Effects on Patients’ Adherence and Doctor-Patient Relationship
Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Paderborn, Germany

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The increasing digitalization of healthcare fosters the use of digital applications for patient treatment, especially regarding rehabilitation and aftercare. This study focuses on patients’ adherence to aftercare via a mobile health application and the role of the altered doctor-patient relationship. In a randomized controlled trial at a German university hospital, digital follow-up after surgery is compared to conventional outpatient aftercare. Qualitative interviews with medical personnel and patients in the intervention and the control group will be conducted after one year of implementation to investigate if digital aftercare could replace outpatient follow-up. Preliminary findings indicate the benefits of digital follow-up, like immediate contact with medical staff and higher patient involvement. Doctor-patient communication remains crucial even in the digital space.

Finze, N., Büscher, M., Wagner, H., and Gewald, H. (2023)
IT Governance Mechanisms, Employees’ Digital Mindset, and Behavioral Outcomes
Proceedings of the 27th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS), Nanchang, China

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The disruptive nature of digitalization and the complexity and ambiguity of their technical properties require many new skills from employees today. Recent research emphasizes that the employees’ digital mindset plays an essential role in digital transformation by leveraging employee engagement. This paper aims to advance the understanding of how the behavioral outcomes of digital mindset, which encompasses interpersonal interaction, focus of attention, enthusiasm for development, perspective on setbacks, and construal of effort, can be positively influenced during digital initiatives. We develop a novel research model integrating two literature streams: information technology and mindset. We conceptually link back to the behavioral outcomes of digital mindset by looking at the influence of IT governance mechanisms as potential antecedents. Our model explains how IT governance mechanisms influence the behavioral outcomes of digital mindset and helps future researchers by providing propositions on the impact of IT governance mechanisms toward more employee engagement.

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.

Finze, N., Frey, J., Hund, A., Beimborn, D., and Wagner, H. (2023)
“Who Am I When Everything has Changed?” The Impact of Scaled-agile Organizations on Professional Role Identity
Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Hyderabad, India

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As digital technology continues to advance, organizations require more flexibility to meet the needs of their customers and remain competitive. To do so, many incumbent organizations fundamentally change their established structures and processes to implement scaled-agile organizations (SAO), emulating digital organizations and leveraging development speed and customer focus. However, when everything changes, there are significant effects on the employees’ identities. Thus, we explore how implementing an SAO affects employees’ professional role identities (PRI). The paper follows a case study approach analyzing two cases with 21 interviews, observational, and secondary data collected over a period of 18 months. We contribute to the literature by identifying three effects of an SAO implementation on PRI (threat, empowerment, and extension) and describing how individuals react based on the effect on their PRI. We inform practitioners on the overall SAO implementation process and consequences for professionals, offering a new perspective on organizational transformation challenges.

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

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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.

Oberste, L., Finze, N., Hoffmann, P., and Heinzl, A. (2022)
Supporting the Billing Process in Outpatient Medical Care: Automated Medical Coding Through Machine Learning
Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Timișoara, Romania

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Reimbursement in medical care implies significant administrative effort for medical staff. To bill the treatments or services provided, diagnosis and treatment codes must be assigned to patient records using standardized healthcare classification systems, which is a time-consuming and error-prone task. In contrast to ICD diagnosis codes used in most countries for inpatient care reimbursement, outpatient medical care often involves different reimbursement schemes. Following the Action Design Research methodology, we developed an NLP-based machine learning artifact in close collaboration with a general practitioner’s office in Germany, leveraging a dataset of over 5,600 patients with more than 63,000 billing codes. For the code prediction of most problematic treatments as well as a complete code prediction task, we achieved F1-scores of 93.60 % and 78.22 %, respectively. Throughout three iterations, we derived five meta requirements leading to three design principles for an automated coding system to support the reimbursement of outpatient medical care.

Finze, N., Frey, J., Hund, A., Beimborn, D., and Gewald, H. (2022)
Cross-functional Identity? The Impact of Scaled-agile Organizations’ Transformation Processes on Professional Role Identity.
Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Adoption and Diffusion of Information Technology (DIGIT) (Pre-ICIS Workshop), Copenhagen, Denmark

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Within the ever-faster changing digitalized world, organizational work models constantly evolve towards increased agility to ensure innovation and competitive performance. Initially, agile methods were designed for small teams to develop software products. However, the focus has shifted towards combining and strategically expanding agile teams into scaled-agile organizations (SAOs). Traditionally, individuals’ role perception was highly dependent on hierarchical structures. However, when a new organizational model is implemented, hierarchical roles and structures change. To understand how the transformation into SAOs affects individuals’ professional role identity (PRI) and how they reconstruct their PRI in SAOs, we conduct a qualitative case study with employees holding various positions in SAOs. Our work contributes to the literature by providing insights into individuals’ opportunities and challenges within SAO transformation processes. Our preliminary findings indicate PRI changes from team-based to product-based PRIs as a reaction to the (novel) cross-functional SAO structure. However, if the transformation is involuntary we see inherent role conflicts, identity losses, and the occurrence of agile silos as employees try to retain their previous PRIs.