Highlights• The study explores the effect of information technology on individual users' creative performance.• The authors link theories of flow and cognitive load to the analysis of creativity.• Ease of use is found to drive users' creativity by lowering cognitive load.• A challenging task fosters creativity if the user is immersed in the activity.ABSTRACT Purpose -Information technology has been recognized as one of the keys to improved productivity in organizations. Yet, existing research has not paid sufficient attention to how information systems influence the creative performance of individual users.Design/methodology/approach -This study draws on the theories of flow and cognitive load to establish a model of the predicted influences. We hypothesize that information technology supports creativity by engaging individuals in a creative process and by lowering their cognitive load related to the process. To test these hypotheses, we employ a meta-analytical structural equation modeling approach using 24 previous studies on creativity and information systems use. Findings -The results suggest that factors that help the user to maintain an interest in the performed task, immerse the user in a state of flow, and lower a person's cognitive load during information system use can affect the user's creative performance.Research implications -Our findings imply that a combination of the theories of flow and cognitive load complements the understanding of how information systems influence creativity.Originality/value -This paper proposes an explanation on why information systems affect creativity, which can be used by scholars to position further research, and by practitioners to implement creativity-support systems.We pose the following research question: How does information systems use influence the creative performance of individuals in a creative work process? To address this question, this study proposes a conceptual model that incorporates two theories-flow and cognitive load. Based on these two theoretical perspectives, we establish a number of hypotheses on the factors that influence the user's creative performance. The hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling in a meta-analytical research setting, which utilizes the findings of 24 previous studies of creativity and information systems as a sample dataset.This study is structured as follows. After this brief introduction, the upcoming section reviews recent works on the links between creativity and IS use. Thereafter, we describe the main concepts of the study and form testable hypotheses. In the remaining sections, we describe our method used to test the model, present the results, and discuss the implications of the study for research and practice. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDCreativity has been an area of perennial interest to the IS research community. It is widely discussed in entrepreneurship, management, psychology, human resources disciplines, and also in the area of information systems. Researchers have been especially interested in how d...

User innovation is a form of open innovation in which the users of a product or service have an active role in shaping the product or service they want to use. It has been found particularly promising for innovating service solutions. The present study investigated the process of user innovation utilizing crowdsourcing on an online communication platform with thousands of customers. Building on an in-depth case study of a hamburger restaurant chain's co-innovation initiative, we analyzed key activities in customers' value-creating processes, the crowdsourcer's value-creating processes, and innovation encounter processes that determine co-innovation outcomes. In doing so, our study sheds light on factors that contribute to customers' commitment to co-innovation outcomes. We identified three key activities by which a crowdsourcer can facilitate the realization of desired innovation outcomes: development of opportunities for coinnovation, planning co-innovation activities, implementation and assessment of the outcomes. For customers, the innovation process should comprise cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement for improved commitment to these outcomes. In light of the findings on these processes, we recommend possible future directions for research and practice.

Information about individual-level genetic ancestry is central to population genetics, forensics and genomic medicine. So far, studies have typically considered genetic ancestry on a broad continental level, and there is much less understanding of how more detailed genetic ancestry profiles can be generated and how accurate and reliable they are. Here, we assess these questions by developing a framework for individual-level ancestry estimation within a single European country, Finland, and we apply the framework to track changes in the fine-scale genetic structure throughout the 20th century. We estimate the genetic ancestry for 18,463 individuals from the National FINRISK Study with respect to up to 10 genetically and geographically motivated Finnish reference groups and illustrate the annual changes in the fine-scale genetic structure over the decades from 1920s to 1980s for 12 geographic regions of Finland. We detected major changes after a sudden, internal migration related to World War II from the region of ceded Karelia to the other parts of the country as well as the effect of urbanization starting from the 1950s. We also show that while the level of genetic heterogeneity in general increases towards the present day, its rate of change has considerable differences between the regions. To our knowledge, this is the first study that estimates annual changes in the fine-scale ancestry profiles within a relatively homogeneous European country and demonstrates how such information captures a detailed spatial and temporal history of a population. We provide an interactive website for the general public to examine our results.

Human experiences have been studied in multiple disciplines, Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) being one of the largest research fields with its user experience (UX) research. Currently, there is little interaction between experience researchers from different disciplines, although cross-disciplinary knowledge sharing has the potential to accelerate the development of UX and other experience research fields to the next level. This article reports a research profiling study of almost 52,000 experience publications over 125 years, showing the breadth of experience research across disciplines. The data analysis reveals the disciplines that study experiences, the prominent authors, institutions and countries in experience research, the most cited works by experience researchers across disciplines, and how UX research is situated on the map of experience research. This descriptive research profiling study is a necessary first step on the journey of mapping the landscape of experience research, guiding researchers towards understanding experience as a multidisciplinary concept, and establishing a more coherent experience research field.