IS standards in designing business-to-government collaborations

Elaborating the impact of standards on inter-organizational collaborations, inter-organizational studies demonstrated a standard’s positive impact on the collaboration between governmental and business partners. How and under which conditions information systems (IS) standards contribute to the effectiveness of business-to-government (B2G) collaborations in customs management is the topic of this thesis. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical and methodological background of the thesis. It illustrates how standards research emerged under institutional conditions such as actor types, linkages and social structures. With the case study in Chapter 3, the thesis introduces a reference framework that gathers different aspects in three pre-selected international business-to-government collaborations. Describing the cases that are subject to the export from EU to non-EU countries a diagnosis of B2G collaborations and relevant elements for the design of the artifact is conducted. A diagnosis of related work in the field of B2G collaborations is provided in Chapter 4. The assessment of collaboration forms revealed necessary constructs of a procedure model and institutional steps necessary to form B2G collaboration as such. Chapter 5 distils related work of IS standards research. In Chapters 6 and 7 considerations from the previous chapters lead to the core part of the thesis, the design and build of a procedure model to institutionalize B2G collaborations, the B2G Procedure Model (B2GPM). The results from the first round of design, the building blocks for B2G collaborations, are subject to Chapter 6. They conclude in a set of design principles of the B2GPM that are being introduced in the chapter. Chapter 7 covers the second round of design by refining the elements of B2G collaboration and the design principles. It continues with the design of the B2GPM. The composition, description, and documentation of the procedure model are the core part of this chapter. Chapter 8 is dedicated to the question of required organizational adoption to deploy the B2GPM. The model is seen as a procedural innovation by which B2G collaboration in customs management can be further improved. The applicability of the B2GPM is based on a series of evaluation cycles and results in the provision of influencing factors of organizational adoption.