PurposeThe purpose of this study is to apply the concept of organizational ambidexterity as a conceptual lens to increase the understanding of tensions between exploitation (continuity) and exploration (change) in Agile software development (ASD) project teams, and particularly the balancing (ambidextrous) strategies utilized.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual framework was constructed from interdisciplinary sources on ambidexterity. A literature review of publications on ambidexterity in ASD was then performed, and the results from the selected publications were classified according to an extension of the conceptual framework.FindingsContextual ambidexterity in ASD is affected by the four basic coherent concepts: time, task, team and transition. The study found that most ambidextrous factors and strategies were task and team-related. In addition, a mixture of hard (performance) strategies and soft (social) strategies is needed in order for people/teams to (be able to) become ambidextrous.Practical implicationsTo provide a better understanding of ASD, it is important to identify a broader set of ambidextrous factors and strategies that can impact ASD project teams. The expanded conceptual framework can serve as a basis for future empirical research and provide insights to practitioners on how to strengthen ambidexterity in ASD projects.Originality/valueThe contribution is of great importance for ASD research and practice, as ASD methods are a popular method for managing projects within ASD and in other nonsoftware organizations. In addition, as more and more organizations struggle to deal with rapidly changing environments, interest in the phenomena of paradoxical tensions and the strategy (ambidexterity) to deal with these tensions increase.

In the past, organisations relied on traditional quantitative metrics, such as Return on Investment (ROI) to make decisions when investing in technology. With the advent of electronic commerce (EC), organisations have had to rethink their investment and acquisition decisions due to the strategic nature of electronic commerce. Where ROI measures have failed, they have been replaced with a plethora of organisational driving forces. This paper focuses on the driving forces behind EC adoption by small and medium enterprises (SME's) and aims to determine the impact of organisational factors such as size and type of business on EC acquisition criteria. The results of a research study carried out in Sweden are presented and suggest that there exist high levels of significance between the size of the business and customer demand, reduced costs, developing new markets and improvement to marketing as driving forces, and the type of business and customer demand, pressure from competition, increased sales and improvement of relationship with business partners as driving forces for EC adoption.

Purpose To fully grasp the potential of using social media, one must know what governments and citizens are communicating in these media. Despite much statistics published, there is a dearth of research analyzing information content in detail. The purpose of this paper is to identify the kind of information exchange that occurs between a local government and its constituent citizens using social media. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a qualitative single case study of the Facebook presence of the municipality and city of Karlstad, Sweden, one of the most prominent local governments on Facebook in the country. Facebook page data were collected between May 2015 and July 2015. A content analysis was performed on the data to explore new and existing categories that drive the analysis. Findings The paper identifies 11 content categories for municipality posts and 13 content categories for user posts (citizen or organization). The frequency for each content category reveals that the page owner is first of all using its Facebook page to promote different happenings in the municipality while the page user is asking questions to the municipality or other users. Research limitations/implications The study is limited to one municipality, but achieves analytical generalizability in its findings. In other words, the categories and mode of communication are a finding in and of itself that in future research may be validated in terms of commonality on a national scale. Practical implications Management concerns about opening up a municipality Facebook page for user posting may be exaggerated: positive posts are as common as complaints. If an organization wants to use the Facebook page for increased user participation and collaboration, it seems that users, both citizens and organizations, welcome such opportunities. However, such posts are not likely to receive many comments or shares from other users. Originality/value The paper is one of the first that uses content analysis to categorize both page owner posts and user posts on a local government Facebook page. The content categories identified in the paper provide novel and detailed insights on what types of information exchange occur on social media between a local government and citizens but also highlight the need to distinguish organizations from citizens among the visitors to the government Facebook page. Different types of user will post different types of content. The identified content categories can serve as a basis for future empirical research within e-government research.

In this chapter we look into earlier empirical research on the barriers to e-commerce (EC) adoption and diffusion for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We explore research conducted in the context of information and communications technologies (ICT) in general, as well as EDI and Internet-based e-commerce. What we are interested in is whether these barriers are something new created by the new wave of Internet based technologies. We divide the barriers, inhibitors, or factors slowing down the diffusion of new technologies found in previous literature into those internal to an organization and those imposed by external forces. The basic premise of this chapter is that technologies advance or change, but the barriers for SMEs to adopt them do not. The authors hope that understanding this will help researchers, small companies, and policy makers to move on and do something active to reduce such barriers.