دانلود رایگان مقاله توسعه محصولات و خدمات دیجیتال

Abstract

Recent expansion in availability of data and of technological resources, as well as the ease of generating, reproducing and adapting digital products and services (DPS), has greatly expanded our ability to quickly generate a wide range of digital offerings. This increased capacity and complexity in turn demands greater operational and managerial effectiveness of organizations regarding the management of DPS versions and of versioning practices. Although versioning has been the subject of study in many disciplines, there is yet little theory development that explicitly seeks to understand the impact and dynamics of versioning actions. Using grounded theory as a research method, we develop a broad framework for conceptualizing versioning actions with the aim of obtaining better understanding of different versioning strategies and of the impact of versioning actions on DPS quality, taken from the interference analysis of the dimensions of information quality related to the DPS. Our framework encompasses actions directed to the three principal components of the DPS architecture, namely the content, technological and process platform, as well as their subcomponents. The framework aims to help researchers and managers reflect on and select the most effective versioning actions, thus reducing the incidence of unexpected events arising from interdependence among the dimensions of information quality that may otherwise be missed during the planning and definition of the versioning actions.

6. Conclusions

The contributions of this study are the result of the presentation and description of three artefacts: Typologies of DPS content-based versioning actions, Fig. 2; Framework of versioning actions for DPS, Fig. 3; and the Gear for Analyzing Information Quality (www. informationqualitygear.com). These artefacts focus on the analyses of possible alterations to the DPS to support communication between the different professionals involved in the planning, selection and execution of versioning actions. Thus, it is hoped that analytic capacity can be improved in addition to the understanding of the different risks and the care that needs to be taken with some possible actions for altering the DPS that are under consideration by the professionals in the team responsible for the new version of the DPS. The utility of these artefacts can be seen through the difficulties involved in maintaining the alignment of the commercial and technical demands of the DPS with every alteration that is made for technological reasons (technological platform), operational issues (process platform) or even strategic issues (content platform). For better proof and understanding of the strategic dimension within the alteration process associated with the DPS life cycle, Typologies of DPS content-based versioning actions (Fig. 2) have been developed, whose content (types) help to compose and explain one of the three platforms (Content Platform) described in the Framework of versioning actions for DPS (Fig. 3). The evidence of the risks involved in possible actions in any one of the three DPS platforms can be seen using the same knowledge and artefacts proposed to aid their mitigation. Irrespective of the aspect or which of the three platforms of the Framework of versioning actions for DPS (Fig. 3) is altered, the perception of the end user of the DPS can be understood by analyzing the dimensions of information quality, which have a high level of interdependence and are very sensitive to alterations to any of the three platforms. These interdependencies between the dimensions of information quality were shown in Figure B.2, described in Figure B.3 and represented more dynamically and practically through the Gear for Analyzing Information Quality software.