@Inproceedings{CitationKey,
author = {Blau, Benjamin and Conte, Tobias and Weinhardt, Christof},
title = {{Incentives in Service Value Networks -- On Truthfulness, Sustainability,
and Interoperability}},
booktitle = {ICIS 2010 Proceedings},
year = {2010},
address = {Saint Louis, Missouri, USA},
month = {12},
note = {Paper 8},
url = {http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2010_submissions/8/},
abstract = {The concurrence of technical and behavioral trends -- such as
lightweight approaches for service composition and a rising demand for customized
services -- fosters the emergence of a novel organizational paradigm: Service
Value Networks (SVN). Distributed and highly-specialized service providers
contribute to an overall value proposition. SVNs provide means for the ad-hoc
composition of services that satisfies individual customers' needs. However,
the distributed nature of these environments and the opportunistic behavior
of participants require a purposeful design of incentives. Our contribution
is threefold: We (i) provide an auction mechanism  — the Complex Service Auction
-- to coordination value creation in SVNs which is incentive compatible in
dominant strategies (truthful). To restore budget balance -- the prerequisite
for a mechanism's sustainability -- and to implement incentives that increase
a network's degree of interoperability, we (ii) present the Interoperability
Transfer Function (ITF). Applying an agent-based simulation method, we (iii)
numerically show that this payment scheme limits strategic behavior of service
providers and strengthens interoperability endeavors compared to a benchmark
transfer function.}}

					

@Inbook{CitationKey,
author = {van Dinther, Clemens and Blau, Benjamin and Conte, Tobias and Weinhardt,
Christof},
title = {{Designing Auctions for Coordination in Service Networks}},
booktitle = {The Science of Service Systems},
publisher = {Springer},
year = {2011},
editor = {Demirkan, Haluk and Spohrer, James C. and Krishna, Vikas},
series = {Service Science: Research and Innovations in the Service Economy},
note = {ISBN: 978-1-4419-8269-8},
url = {http://www.springer.com/computer/swe/book/978-1-4419-8269-8}}

					

@Article{CitationKey,
author = {Blau, Benjamin and Conte, Tobias and van Dinther, Clemens},
title = {{A Multidimensional Procurement Auction for Trading Composite Services}},
journal = {Issue in the Electronic Commerce Research and Applications Elsevier
Journal on: Emerging Economic, Strategic and Technical Issues in Online Auctions
and Electronic Market Mechanisms},
year = {2009},
volume = {9},
pages = {460-472},
number = {5},
month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2009.11.001},
abstract = {Recently, static value chains are gradually  giving way to highly
agile service value networkswhich implies novel economic and organizational
challenges. Added value for customers is created by feasible compositions of
distributed service components. This work focuses on the design of a
multidimensional procurement auction for trading service compositions and the
analysis of service provider strategies that participate in the procurement
process. The mechanism implementation is incentive compatible, meaning that
it implements an equilibrium in which revealing the true multidimensional type
(QoS and valuation) is a weakly dominant strategy for all service providers.
Due to combinatorial restrictions imposed by the underlying graph topology,
the winner determination problem can be solved in polynomial time in contrary
to computational intractable combinatorial auctions. Furthermore we provide
a simulation-based analysis based on reinforcement learning model of bundling
and unbundling strategies of service providers that participate in the auction.
Based on our results we discuss strategic recommendations for service providers
depending on how they are situated within the network.}}

					

@Phdthesis{CitationKey,
author = {Blau, Benjamin},
title = {{Coordination in Service Value Networks - A Mechanism Design Approach}},
school = {Fakult\"{a}t f\"{u}r Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Universit\"{a}t
Karlsruhe (TH)},
year = {2009},
note = {Dissertation, Referent/Betreuer: Prof. Dr. Christof Weinhardt},
url = {http://digbib.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/volltexte/1000012353},
abstract = {The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to
agile service value networks (SVN) implies new economic and organizational
challenges. This work provides an auction-based coordination mechanism that
enables the allocation and pricing of service compositions in SVNs. The mechanism
is multidimensional incentive compatible and implements an ex-post service level
enforcement. Further extensions of the mechanism are evaluated following
analytical and numerical research methods.}}

					

@Inproceedings{CitationKey,
author = {Blau, Benjamin and Kr\"{a}mer, Jan and Conte, Tobias and van Dinther,
Clemens},
title = {{Service Value Networks}},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th IEEE Conference on Commerce and Enterprise
Computing},
year = {2009},
address = {Vienna, Austria, 20-23 July 2009},
pages = {194-201},
editor = {Hofreiter, Birgit and Werthner, Hannes},
publisher = {IEEE},
note = {ISBN 978-0-7695-3755-9},
doi = {10.1109/CEC.2009.64},
abstract = {The current industry-driven trend in providing flexible software
services lays the ground for the new research area "service value networks"
(SVNs). We observe a rising number of industry-oriented publications provided
by research departments of large companies such as IBM or SAP as well as the
fact that more and more IS conferences offer special tracks on that issue.
However, when it comes to formalizing and economically analyzing such SVNs that
offer joint complex services to service customers, scientific approaches are
in their infancy. We intend to fill this research gap by providing a clear
understanding of service value networks by defining their characteristics, their
structure, and their components.

Mapping these aspects into a formalized model, we intend to establish a reference
point for future work in the area of service value networks.}}

					

@Article{CitationKey,
author = {Weinhardt, Christof and Anandasivam, Arun and Blau, Benjamin and
Borissov, Nikolay and Meinl, Thomas and Michalk, Wibke and St\"{o}\sser, Jochen},
title = {{Cloud Computing--A Classification, Business Models, and Research
Directions}},
journal = {Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE)},
year = {2009},
volume = {1},
pages = {391-399},
number = {5},
note = {ISSN: 1867-0202},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12599-009-0071-2},
abstract = {Lately, a new computing paradigm has emerged: "Cloud Computing".
It seems to be pro-moted as heavily as the "Grid" was a few years ago, causing
broad discussions on the differ-ences between Grid and Cloud Computing. The
first contribution of this paper is thus a de-tailed discussion about the
different characteristics of Grid Computing and Cloud Computing. This technical
classification allows for a well-founded discussion of the business opportunities
of the Cloud Computing paradigm. To this end, this paper first presents a business
model ontology for Clouds. It subsequently reviews and classifies current Cloud
offerings in the light of this ontology. Finally, this paper discusses challenges
that have to be mastered in order to make the Cloud vision come true and points
to promising areas for future research.}}

					

@Article{CitationKey,
author = {Blau, Benjamin and van Dinther, Clemens and Conte, Tobias and Xu,
Yongchun and Weinhardt, Christof},
title = {{How to Coordinate Value Generation in Service Networks--A Mechanism
Design Approach}},
journal = {Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE)},
year = {2009},
volume = {1},
pages = {343-356},
number = {5},
month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org./10.1007/s12599-009-0070-3},
abstract = {The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to
agile service value networks implies new economic and organizational challenges.
As coordination mechanisms, auctions have proven to perform quite well in
situations where intangible and heterogeneous goods are traded. Nevertheless
traditional approaches in the area of multiattribute combinatorial auctions
are not quite suitable to enable the trade of composite services. A flawless
service execution and therefore the requester's valuation highly depends on
the accurate sequence of the functional parts of the composition, meaning that
in contrary to service bundles, composite services only generate value through
a valid order of their components. 

We present an abstract model as a formalization of a service value network.
The model comprehends a graph-based mechanism design to allocate multiattribute
service offers within the network, to impose penalties for non-performance and
to determine prices for complex services. The mechanism and the bidding language
support various types of QoS attributes and their (semantic) aggregation. We
analytically show that this variant is incentive compati-ble with respect to
all dimensions of the service offer (quality and price). Furthermore we study
the mechanism theoretically as well as on a simulation basis in order to analyze
strategic behavior of service providers within service value networks.

}}

					

@Inproceedings{CitationKey,
author = {Blau, Benjamin and Conte, Tobias and Meinl, Thomas},
title = {{Coordinating Service Composition}},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Information Systems},
year = {2009},
editor = {Newell, S. and Whitley, E. and Pouloudi, N. and Wareham, J. and
Mathiassen, L.},
pages = {2763--2776},
month = {June},
address = {Verona, Italy},
url = {http://www.ecis2009.it/allegati/ecis2009_proceedings_public.pdf},
abstract = {The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains

to agile service value networks implies new economic and organizational
challenges.

As coordination mechanisms, auctions have proven to perform quite well in
situations

where intangible and heterogeneous goods are traded. Nevertheless traditional

approaches in the area of multiattribute combinatorial auctions are not quite
suitable

to enable the trade of composite services. A flawless service execution and
therefore

the requester's valuation highly depends on the accurate sequence of the
functional

parts of the composition, meaning that in contrary to service bundles, composite
services

only generate value through a valid order of their components. We present an
abstract

model as a formalization of a service value network. The model comprehends a
graph-based

mechanism design to allocate multiattribute service offers within the network,
to impose

penalties for non-performance and to determine prices for complex services.
The mechanism

and the bidding language support various types of QoS attributes and their
(semantic) aggregation.

We analytically show that this variant is incentive compatible with respect
to all dimensions

of the service offer (quality and price).}}

					

@Inproceedings{CitationKey,
author = {Blau, Benjamin and Lamparter, Steffen and Haak, Steffen},
title = {{remash! - Blueprints for RESTful Situational Web Applications}},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Mashups, Enterprise Mashups
and Lightweight Composition on the Web},
year = {2009},
month = {April},
address = {Madrid, Spain},
abstract = {Situational applications enabled through Web service mashup
technologies and lightweight protocols have attracted tremendous attention in
the area of social computing, Web 2.0 and increasingly in the business context.
Short-term tasks can be dealt with by ad-hoc building pipes of data services
that together expose required capabilities. Nevertheless existing approaches
such as Yahoo Pipes!, Google Mashup Editor and IBM Mashup Center} are still
in their infancy. Flexible binding of external third-party services and
alternatives as well as collaborative mashup design is still not adequately
supported by current solutions.\\

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First we provide a specification
for blueprints for situational applications that incorporate policies about
technical feasible service flows and user preferences. Secondly, we demonstrate
a prototypical realization of a graphical blueprint planner, an adequate
architecture design that enables mass collaboration and a policy language.
Thirdly, we analyze performance issues that may arise during real-time validation
and preference-based selection of situational applications using a
simulation-based approach.}}

					

@Inproceedings{CitationKey,
author = {van Dinther, Clemens and Blau, Benjamin and Conte, Tobias},
title = {{Strategic Behavior in Service Networks under Price and Service Level
Competition}},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Business
Informatics},
year = {2009},
volume = {1},
pages = {599-608},
month = {February},
address = {Vienna, Austria},
abstract = {Decentralized service providers specialize on contributing their
core competency to an overall goal. This paper focuses on the strategic behavior
of service providers within Service Value Networks. We present an abstract model
as a formalization of a Service Value Network. The model comprehends an
auction-based mechanism design to allocate multi-attribute service offers within
the network and to determine prices for complex services. Furthermore we study
the mechanism theoretically as well as on a simulation basis in order to analyze
strategic behavior of service providers within Service Value Networks.}}

					

@Article{CitationKey,
author = {Weinhardt, Christof and Anandasivam, Arun and Blau, Benjamin and
St\"{o}\sser, Jochen},
title = {{Business Models in the Service World}},
journal = {IEEE IT Professional, Special Issue on Cloud Computing},
year = {2009},
volume = {11},
pages = {28--33},
number = {2},
note = {ISSN: 1520-9202},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MITP.2009.21},
abstract = {With the rapid growth of Cloud Computing, the sharing of IT resources
has become popular in commerce. However, the term Cloud Computing has not been
clearly distinguished from other approaches like Grid or Voluntary Computing.
Consequently, the benefits of this new concept is hardly to understand. In this
paper we develop a conceptual framework to understand the products offered by
the companies like Amazon or Google. We provide a criteria catalog to characterize
Cloud Computing. Furthermore, the Cloud Business Ontology Model gives an overview
how products can be classified. Based on the Ontology we establish a relation
to current product offerings and pricing models.}}

					

@Conference{CitationKey,
author = {Conte, Tobias and van Dinther, Clemens and Blau, Benjamin and Weinhardt,
Christof and Lamparter, Steffen and Holtmann, Carsten},
title = {{Value Webs - Evaluation and Pricing in Service Networks}},
booktitle = {Accepted Abstract at the 17th Annual Frontiers in Service
Conference},
year = {2008},
address = {Washington D.C., USA},
pages = {24},
month = {October}}