Purpose: The transition to omnichannel retail is the recognized future of retail, which uses digital technologies (e.g. augmented reality shopping assistants) to enhance the customer shopping experience. However, retailers struggle with the implementation of such technologies in brick-and-mortar stores. Against this background, the present study investigates the impact of a smartphone-based augmented reality shopping assistant application, which uses personalized recommendations and explainable artificial intelligence features on customer shopping experiences.Design/methodology/approach: The authors follow a design science research approach to develop a shopping assistant application artifact, evaluated by means of an online experiment (n = 252), providing both qualitative and quantitative data.Findings: Results indicate a positive impact of the augmented reality shopping assistant application on customers' perception of brick-and-mortar shopping experiences. Based on the empirical insights this study also identifies possible improvements of the artifact.Research limitations/implications: This study's assessment is limited to an online evaluation approach. Therefore, future studies should test actual usage of the technology in brick-and-mortar stores. Contrary to the suggestions of established theories (i.e. technology acceptance model, uses and gratification theory), this study shows that an increase of shopping experience does not always convert into an increase in the intention to purchase or to visit a brick-and-mortar store. Additionally, this study provides novel design principles and ideas for crafting augmented reality shopping assistant applications that can be used by future researchers to create advanced versions of such applications.Practical implications: This paper demonstrates that a shopping assistant artifact provides a good opportunity to enhance users' shopping experience on their path-to-purchase, as it can support customers by providing rich information (e.g. explainable recommendations) for decision-making along the customer shopping journey.Originality/value: This paper shows that smartphone-based augmented reality shopping assistant applications have the potential to increase the competitive power of brick-and-mortar retailers.

Purpose: In smart cities pervasive systems are deployed by enterprises and stakeholders in municipalities to provide digital services to citizens. But cities are faced with the challenge of achieving system pluggability, mainly service integration due to numerous actors and systems needed for smart urban transformation. Hence, there is need to employ a comprehensive and holistic approach to help achieve service integration of pervasive platforms. Therefore, this study presents an Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF) to support smart urban transformation.Design/methodology/approach: In this study the design science research methodology is adopted based on a multi-case studies of two organizations and data is collected using semi-structured interview from an organizations and municipality in Norway to validate how service integration can be achieved by the developed EAF to address pluggability challenges faced in urban environment.Findings: Findings suggest that the presented EAF provides the structure to manage changes and maintain urban transformation and aims to align the business with the underlying information systems from the perspective of the stakeholders. Additionally, findings from the case studies modelled in ArchiMate language depict how service integration of different pervasive platforms provide digital services for smart urban transformation.Research limitations/implications: This research only employed semi-structured interviews to validate service integration of digital platforms, other identified dimensions of pluggability were not fully addressed in this study.Practical implications: Findings from the case studies provides insights on how pervasive platforms can be integrated to achieve a pluggable digital service from different stakeholders and data sources in practice. The developed EAF presented in this study provide a model that supports collection and exchange of data from different data sources in smart urban environment to enable the provision and consumption of digital services.Social implications: The developed EAF aids system pluggability of actors and systems in providing digital service such as smart urban transformation that contributes to sustainable use of electric mobility in cities.Originality/value: As cities increasingly deploy pervasive platforms to support urban innovation, researchers are seeking to explore how these platforms shape urban transformation. Presently, prior studies do not offer important insights into pervasive platform management from urban perspective. Against this backdrop, this study employs the information systems perspective of digital platforms literature roots in software development and physical product development to depict how the EAF can be employed to describe specific cases that integrate different pervasive platforms deployed by different stakeholders communicating to co-create collective digital services to citizens.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline a framework for analyzing healthcare process management projects. By using this framework, it seeks to analyze a system implementation in Ireland. The system aims to standardize healthcare human resource and payroll for the Irish healthcare sector. Design/methodology/approach – A popular system and business process implementation is analyzed in Ireland. The research intends to use this case scenario to identify success and failure, which in turn forms the basis to propose a conceptual reference method for introducing healthcare process management. Findings – The healthcare sector has shown that it has, compared with other sectors, a relatively underdeveloped information system structure. In this context, the importance of reducing healthcare costs and streamlining workflows, processes, and care pathways is ever more seriously recognized. However, despite the importance of process management, currently, internationally very few guidelines are provided for introducing healthcare process management in hospitals. Practical implications – The paper provides a good example of a large-scale, nation-wide business process management (BPM) project; shows the different facets of BPM success factors; and helps to raise awareness for both managerial factors and domain-inherent, structural, and content factors. Originality/value – The analysis revealed some interesting results. The reasons for failure in healthcare are rather more content and structural in nature than solely project management issues.

Research has shown that physical activity is essential in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease (CVD). Smart wearables (e.g., smartwatches) are increasingly used to foster and monitor human behaviour, including physical activity. However, despite this increased usage, little evidence is available on the effects of smart wearables in behaviour change. The little research which is available typically focuses on the behaviour of healthy individuals rather than patients. In this study, we investigate the effects of using smart wearables by patients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation. A field experiment involving 29 patients was designed and participants were either assigned to the study group (N = 13 patients who finished the study and used a self-tracking device) or the control group (N = 16 patients who finished the study and did not use a device). For both groups data about physiological performance during cardiac stress test was collected at the beginning (baseline), in the middle (in week 6, at the end of the rehabilitation in the organized rehabilitation setting), and at the end of the study (after 12 weeks, at the end of the rehabilitation, including the organized rehabilitation plus another 6 weeks of self-organized rehabilitation). Comparing the physiological performance of both groups, the data showed significant differences. The participants in the study group not only maintained the same performance level as during the midterm examination in week 6, they improved performance even further during the six weeks that followed. The results presented in this paper provide evidence for positive effects of digital self-tracking by patients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation on performance of the cardiovascular system. In this way, our study provides novel insight about the effects of the use of smart wearables by CVD patients. Our findings have implications for the design of self-management approaches in a patient rehabilitation setting. In essence, the use of smart wearables can prolong the success of the rehabilitation outside of the organized rehabilitation setting.