This chapter stresses the importance of putting core competence in its specific and accurate context to optimize its usefulness. Otherwise, the value might easily erode or even get totally lost. This research highlights core competence in the contexts of recruiting and educating IT project managers. A longitudinal study (2010 – 2013) scrutinized 325 advertisements for IT project managers. A core competence lens was used on the findings to test if such a lens was applicable to the project area (recruitment and training), which it was. This chapter follows-up on the prior research that proposes both recruitment and further training of IT project managers would gain from applying the core competence concept. The main reason for this goes back to understanding the importance of acknowledging the context, and of acting accordingly to reach customer perceived benefits / values. Core competence must be considered in the light of end products and business value.

While gamification has gained in popularity across different research domains, there is still scarce knowledge on gamification in a servicescape context. The little research that exists in this field does not point in any clear direction. However, further investigation of gamification can provide researchers and practitioners with opportunities to further understand, embed and implement gamification into their marketing activities. To solve these issues, this research reviews contemporary servicescape and gamification literature and conceptualises a framework showing how gamification and its mechanics are linked to the concept of servicescapes and its marketing outcomes. This review highlights gamified mechanics in servicescapes as visible, non-visible and platform dependent. These are shown to influence cognitive and affective responses such as engagement, motion, flow and emotions, which subsequently have impact on long and short-term marketing outcomes. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.

Online channels are highly relevant for microenterprises, but research focusing specifically on the challenges and circumstances faced by microenterprises doing channel expansions is scarce. A channel expansion is a strategic decision that will modify the business strategy of the company. Through twenty-two case studies in Finland and Sweden, we investigate microenterprises doing channel expansions. The goal of the research is to find out how microenterprises carry out channel expansions and what characteristics emerge from the two national samples. We look at the channel expansion from a business model perspective, which gives us a practical tool to probe the microentrepreneurs to discuss their expansions from many dimensions. Our findings show that microenterprises struggle to balance technology, business, and customer demands with competence and resources. A lack of strategic planning leads to a situation where both positive and negative outcomes of the channel expansions are largely unanticipated and unexpected.

With regard to the contemporary discussion of gamifying processes in various domains, it is obvious that there exists a naive notion that simply adding leaderboards/pins/points/badges would lead to success. Even though other instances of gamification mechanics could actually perform better. The literature has not yet managed to prove whether different domains require different mechanics in order to impact on engagement and motivation. To address these critical issues, a literature review was conducted across six domains that examined game mechanics, including their uniqueness for gamification research. Findings show a myriad of mechanics with different sharing properties, which are more or less domain-congruent. These mechanics can be separated into four levels: general, mostly similar, partly similar and unique. The findings enable a better understanding of how to employ situation-congruent mechanics to a given context, which is important for both research and practice.

Making it easier for Swedish young elderly (60-75 years) to live a rewarding life after retirement is an increasingly important issue in society. One way to achieve this is to give them a sense of purpose by helping other seniors, and to achieve that requires support systems. When developing an information system (IS) there is a need to know about the thoughts, demands and needs they (both those providing and receiving support) have about wellbeing and about use of IS. When designing IS and its interactive e-servicescape it is essential to identify consumer behavioural factors about wellbeing and the feeling of being needed. To do this, a pilot study with a survey was carried out and workshops conducted with a focus group. The conclusions are that expectancy, motivation, context, reward, and trust are the five key elements. These elements can be seen as a model for feeling needed when providing support to others and they also can provide important input to building an IS with its e-servicescape.

The project manager's team role and sense of coherence can significantly influence the project role. A pilot study was conducted by a web survey; 35 IT project managers from Swedish public authorities participated. Questionaries' from Belbin's and Antonovsky's books was used for the web survey. Research findings showed that Belbin's team role shaper was the strongest and implementer was the second strongest. Twelve of the respondents had a strong sense of coherence, 21 had normal, and two had weak.

The project sponsor’s achievement is critical for project success. Hence, this research studies Swedish IT project managers’ opinion on IT project sponsors’ work and their understanding of the project / deliverable. Data were collected by two surveys, in 2007 (public authorities/business, 94 participants), and in 2016 (public authorities, 82 participants). According to the findings, a minority (36%) of the project managers valued the project sponsors’ knowledge / understanding as high (4 and 5 on a 5-point scale). They valued the sponsors’ understanding of the project’s deliverable somewhat higher (about 40%) than the understanding of IT and business (about 30%), and of the overview of the project (about 30%). Seen in the light of recent years’ data-crimes, digital society, and importance of successful businesses, the project sponsor has a huge responsibility and must therefore act from a basis of sound knowledge and complete understanding of the IT project and its deliverable.

Today’s commonly carried out channel expansions of commerce could be both costly and problematic to manage. Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that often suffer from a lack of digital competence, time and monetary resources in generally. Still, these transitions would be necessary to carry out because of customer demands and expectations concerning 24/7 availability, and access to digital commerce alternatives. Scarce resources are important reasons to search for how to carry out channel expansions with minimized problems. Activity theory (AT) focuses on the whole in order to detect problems that hinder successful outcomes. Hence, this theory was applied to prior findings, from a project about SME’s channel expansions, highlighting several problems that could appear during these activities. Implications for research foremost involve issues connected to the use of AT; implications for practice particularly concern how the expansive visibilization of work method could be used to support channel broadening activities.

The proportion of ageing citizens is high and increasing in most EU countries and there is a growing political pressure to make sure that the costs for the elderly care programs do not grow out of bounds. The focus of the ageing population programs is at the 75+ age group. The younger age group - the "young elderly" that is the focus in our research - does not get much attention. Recently, we have noticed a growing insight that preventive programs could be helpful as healthier young elderly will help produce healthier seniors (the 75 + age group) which over time will have significant effects on the costs for health and social care for the ageing population. Our study is a synergistic combination of two timely research areas: digitalisation and the ageing population. The focus combination of digital wellness services and the young elderly is unique. We build on a research program that is operating since January 2014. Our current research in progress aims at finding out how a digital coach - a personal trainer called Vendla - can be worked out for digital wellness services.

SMEs are faced with new business opportunities through online channels, i.e., electronic commerce and mobile commerce. The model by which they create and capture value is challenged, making the adoption of a business model that fits the organisation a crucial strategic decision. The purpose of this paper is to study value creating activities taken by SMEs when making a transition to an online multichannel context. Sixteen SMEs in Sweden are studied using a qualitative research approach and through the lens of an e-transit business model configuration. The results show that SMEs are required to take various value creating activities denoted as primary and secondary transition activities and that there is a discrepancy between actions taken and their perceived degree of importance. One main conclusion is that the combination of value creating activities an SME should focus on during different stages of an online channel expansion differ depending on the type of transition (e.g., from physical store to electronic commerce or from electronic commerce to mobile commerce) and will change over time.