<![CDATA[Professor Nils Urbach - News]]>Tue, 01 Sep 2026 19:58:55 +0200Weebly<![CDATA[Governing AI in IT service management]]>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:20:37 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/governing-ai-in-it-service-managementInformation technology service management (ITSM) is characterized by standardized processes and governance arrangements that ensure reliable service delivery while simultaneously enabling continuous improvement and innovation. As organizations explore AI-based support within established ITSM contexts, questions arise regarding how AI reshapes the balance between exploitative and explorative activities in service work.

Our recent study investigates how AI-based support interacts with organizational conditions to shape ambidextrous ITSM practices. Drawing on 35 qualitative interviews across five companies, we adopt a configurational perspective to examine AI-related statements across five organizational dimensions, highlighting governance-related and processual patterns of AI enactment across different configurations. 

Our findings show that AI functions as a socio-technical element whose role is configuration-specific and context dependent. Conceptualizing ITSM as a practical organizational frame in which AI shapes the coordination of exploitative and explorative activities, the study contributes to organizational ambidexterity research by explaining the configuration dependent role of AI in ITSM.

I am happy that our paper “Governing AI in IT Service Management: Organizational Conditions for Ambidextrous Practices” has been accepted for presentation at the 21st International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2026) that will take place in September 2026 in Linz, Austria.
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]]><![CDATA[Toward reliable e-money token redemption]]>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:16:44 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/toward-reliable-e-money-token-redemptionE-Money Tokens (EMTs) have emerged as a regulated category of crypto-assets under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR), combining stable value with a legal right of redemption at par. Although MiCAR requires issuers to disclose relevant risks, the technical risks affecting EMT redemption remain fragmented and not sufficiently understood. 

Our recent article addresses this gap by examining how issuers disclose technological risks and corresponding mitigation measures in EMT whitepapers. Drawing on 21 whitepapers from 12 EU-based EMT issuers, we apply Gioia-based qualitative coding and use the Echelon Design Science Research approach to derive and evaluate design objectives for EMT processing information systems. 

The analysis identifies five design objectives: ensuring technical availability, participating in DLT governance, monitoring and auditing the redemption environment, establishing operational integrity, and preparing contingencies for unmitigable risks. The findings contribute to design knowledge research and provide practical guidance for building secure, resilient, and MiCAR-compliant EMT redemption infrastructures.

I am happy that our paper “Toward Reliable E-Money Token Redemption: Design Objectives for Technical Risk Mitigation” has been accepted for presentation at the 21st International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2026) that will take place in September 2026 in Linz, Austria.
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]]><![CDATA[Beyond Roles – Shaping the transition to a skills-based organization]]>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 07:31:54 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/beyond-roles-shaping-the-transition-to-a-skills-based-organizationThe world of work is undergoing fundamental change. Artificial intelligence, automation, demographic shifts, and new expectations regarding work and leadership mean that traditional job profiles are losing their explanatory power ever more quickly. Organizations are increasingly challenged not merely to fill positions, but to make existing capabilities visible, develop them systematically, and deploy them flexibly where they create the greatest value.

This is precisely where the concept of the skills-based organization comes in. The focus is no longer primarily on a person’s formal role, but on their individual skills profile. This allows companies to better understand which skills already exist, which will be needed in the future, and how employees can be deployed and developed beyond established departmental and role-based structures. This not only strengthens organizational adaptability, but also creates new opportunities for internal mobility, learning, and personal development.

At the same time, skills must not be viewed in isolation. A successful transformation requires a holistic interplay of strategy, skills taxonomy, governance, HR processes, technology, and culture. Digital platforms and AI can help capture and make use of skills data. However, what remains decisive is that organizations foster a learning culture and understand skills as a strategic steering mechanism.

Our study “Beyond Roles — Shaping the Transformation toward a Skills-Based Organization” has now been published on this topic (in German). It provides a maturity model and practical guidance for organizations on their journey toward becoming skills-based.
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]]><![CDATA[Surveillance state, state crypto, and the end of cash? A more nuanced look at the digital euro]]>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:55:24 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/surveillance-state-state-crypto-and-the-end-of-cash-a-more-nuanced-look-at-the-digital-euroThe public debate on the digital euro is often shaped by striking narratives: Will it abolish cash? Will it become an instrument of state surveillance? Will the European Central Bank turn into a competitor of commercial banks? Or is the digital euro simply a form of “state crypto”?

In our eFin-Blog article, Valeryia Arnold and I argue that such questions are understandable, but often too simplistic. They tend to turn theoretical possibilities into seemingly inevitable outcomes. A more productive discussion, we suggest, should focus on the concrete design choices currently being considered for the digital euro.

To structure this discussion, we use an architectural perspective on central bank digital currencies. We distinguish four key layers: access, control, business model, and data. Each layer reveals different design options and helps separate realistic developments from speculative scenarios.

On the access layer, the digital euro appears to be designed not as a replacement for cash, but as an additional payment option. Access could be provided through apps, web interfaces, cards, QR codes, or contactless payments. Importantly, the current direction points toward integration into existing payment habits rather than forcing entirely new user behavior.

On the control layer, our article addresses the widespread concern that the digital euro could enable comprehensive state surveillance. We show that the actual design space is more differentiated. Identification and regulatory checks would likely remain with banks and payment service providers, while privacy-enhancing mechanisms such as the separation of identity and transaction data, encryption, and offline payments for smaller amounts are being discussed.

On the business model layer, we make clear that the European Central Bank is not expected to take over the customer-facing role of commercial banks. Rather, the emerging model points to a division of labor: the ECB would provide the basic infrastructure, while banks and payment service providers would continue to handle customer interaction, identification, compliance, and parts of payment processing. Holding limits could also reduce the risk of large-scale shifts of deposits from commercial banks to digital euros.

On the data layer, we highlight the importance of technological choices such as account-based versus token-based models, offline functionality, interoperability, and standardization. The current direction seems to be hybrid: larger online payments would remain close to existing account-based structures, while token-based approaches may become relevant for offline payments that resemble some characteristics of cash.

The central message of our article is that the digital euro should neither be dismissed as a surveillance tool nor celebrated as a purely technological innovation without risks. Its societal implications depend on concrete architectural and regulatory decisions. The digital euro currently appears less like a radical break with the existing financial system and more like an attempt to extend Europe’s payment infrastructure with additional digital, interoperable, and potentially more privacy-sensitive capabilities.

The full article is available here (in German): https://zevedi.de/efinblog-ueberwachungsstaat-staats-krypto-bargeldende-diskussion-um-den-digitalen-euro-und-gestaltungsoptionen/
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]]><![CDATA[Balancing exploration and exploitation]]>Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:26:20 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/balancing-exploration-and-exploitationIn an era of rapid technological disruption, organizations must increasingly balance the exploitation of existing capabilities with the exploration of innovative business models and technologies, a duality known as ambidexterity. While prior research has largely focused on ambidexterity at the organizational and individual levels, its operationalization at the team level, particularly within project contexts, remains underexplored. 

Our recently published study addresses this gap by designing and evaluating a decision-support tool that enables structured, ambidexterity-informed staffing of project teams. The tool supports the scoping of business transformation projects, assesses the required balance between exploration and exploitation across different phases, and recommends team compositions aligned with these needs. Following a Design Science Research approach, the artifact was iteratively developed and refined through expert interviews, practitioner workshops, and a scholarly focus group. Additionally, we derive three design principles to guide the effective staffing of ambidextrous project teams and to support the development of information systems in ambidextrous contexts. 

Our study advances ambidexterity research by identifying micro-mechanisms and phase-contingent requirements, linking these to concrete skill profiles through validated measurement, and demonstrating how organizations can embed evidence-based ambidextrous staffing into existing processes.

I am happy that our paper "Balancing Exploration and Exploitation—Designing a Staffing Tool to Leverage Ambidextrous Team Compositionshas" has been accepted for publication in the Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research and is now availabe online (open access).
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]]><![CDATA[Designing a blockchain-based information system for procurement processes]]>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:32:07 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/designing-a-blockchain-based-information-system-for-procurement-processesThe inter-organizational processes in procurement remain burdened by media discontinuity, inefficiencies, and a lack of trust among trading partners. Blockchain-based information systems are frequently proposed as a remedy because they enable shared, tamper-evident records. However, existing instantiations rarely scale beyond small consortia because they fail to address the extended blockchain trilemma, which requires simultaneously achieving decentralization, scalability, security, and strict privacy requirements for sensitive commercial information.

In contrast to prior blockchain procurement prototypes that manage the extended blockchain trilemma primarily through permissioned architectures, our recent study investigates how a blockchain-based information system can be designed to reconcile the trade-offs inherent in the extended trilemma, achieving a viable balance through architectural allocation and cryptographic enforcement. Following the design-science research paradigm, an empirically validated problem statement is synthesized from a structured literature review and expert interviews. Five design objectives are derived, evaluated, and used to guide a prototype design, which is then iteratively refined and evaluated through quantitative and formative assessments and sixteen semi-structured expert interviews.

Reflection on the build–evaluate cycles yields two design principles: (1) Balancing decentralization, scalability, and security by using a public chain as a trust anchor, a Layer 2 for scaling, and decentralized communication between layers. (2) Maintaining that balance when privacy is required by integrating efficient, resilient cryptography and minimizing control points. These principles extend existing procurement research, linking business requirements to infrastructural choices, providing a transferable foundation for scholars and practitioners aiming to deploy secure, scalable, and privacy-preserving blockchain solutions in inter-organizational contexts.

I am happy that our paper "Designing a blockchain-based information system for procurement processes—Balancing decentralization, scalability, and security while maintaining privacy" has been accepted for publication in Information Systems and is now availabe online (open access).
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]]><![CDATA[Coding scales – Thinking remains limited]]>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:28:51 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/coding-skaliert-denken-bleibt-knapp
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AI coding is not just a matter of tools – it is a strategic leadership task
Those who establish a structured, company-specific approach early on will gain sustainable competitive advantages – while those who experiment in a piecemeal fashion or simply copy others risk wasting time, causing organizational friction, and creating inefficiency.
Generative and agent-based AI are fundamentally transforming software development
What begins today as AI coding and vibe coding is evolving into a new model of digital innovation: AI-centric software development. Large language models and development agents can already accelerate or partially automate many software development tasks – from writing code and testing to documentation and refactoring. This drastically reduces implementation costs and time. We see the results in technology and tool development, in software and innovation processes, in the job market, and in the sometimes comparatively low valuations of software stocks.

From coding to AI-centric innovation: A structural shift in software development
We are developing and using new software development tools, but there is much more at stake – the structure of digital innovation is changing. Since implementation scales better through automation, it is no longer a central bottleneck. The focus is shifting from implementation to design: from coding to problem understanding, system design, architecture, and the orchestration of intelligent product and process development. Software development is thus evolving from an implementation-driven discipline into an AI-centered innovation system. Within this system, new bottlenecks, new roles, new processes, and new governance requirements are emerging.

AI-centered innovation: Hypotheses, open questions, and an invitation to dialogue
This discussion paper does not present established scientific findings, but rather questions and hypotheses. It reflects our current observations and thoughts as inspiration for others and serves as an invitation to dialogue. The field is evolving so rapidly that it is not feasible to outline a detailed vision for AI-centered innovation and software development over the next few years and then systematically implement it. On the other hand, one cannot ignore the new possibilities and opportunities without falling behind the competition. Companies should not view generative and agent-based AI merely as productivity tools for coding, but should instead align their innovation and development organizations early on with an AI-centered model of software development – with a stronger focus on problem understanding, system design, and governance – while learning and experimenting iteratively to quickly capitalize on opportunities without rigid roadmaps.
]]><![CDATA[Veränderungen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt durch KI]]>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 19:47:18 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/veranderungen-auf-dem-arbeitsmarkt-durch-kunstliche-intelligenz
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]]><![CDATA[Artificial intelligence and the future of work]]>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 23:00:00 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-workAt this week's event “AI and the Future of Work – Job Security, Meaning, Participation” at the Evangelische Akademie in Frankfurt, I had the privilege of giving the opening lecture entitled “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work.”

In my keynote speech, I began by putting the current dynamics of AI development into context. The systems are rapidly becoming more powerful and are already surpassing human capabilities in certain areas of application. At the same time, their use in companies is increasing significantly: more and more organizations are integrating AI into their processes, and its use in the workplace is growing noticeably.

This reveals a nuanced picture of the effects. At the individual level, AI is increasing employee productivity, in some cases significantly. At the company level, however, these efficiency gains have not yet been reflected across the board in measurable productivity increases. In addition, there are increasing indications of ambivalent effects, such as quality risks or technostress.

At the same time, the increasing use of AI is having a substantial impact on the labor market. Existing job profiles will change fundamentally in some cases, tasks will be redesigned, and requirements will be redefined. It will therefore be crucial to systematically build new skills – from a sound understanding of AI systems and data-based decision-making abilities to critical reflection and control skills in dealing with algorithmic results.
]]><![CDATA[Digital innovation in the public sector]]>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 09:09:18 GMThttp://www.nils-urbach.de/news/digital-innovation-in-the-public-sectorThe public sector faces increasing pressure to drive digital innovation to meet modern societies’ demands. Existing literature calls for systematic approaches to digital innovation in the public sector and a better understanding thereof. However, the public sector still struggles to foster digital innovation and often fails to promote explorative initiatives as a basis for innovation.

In a recently published research study, using a case study of a German consortium project, we investigated how public-private partnerships can promote digital innovation in the public sector. We did so by adopting the resourcing perspective and building on recent conceptual work on network resourcing.

Our findings revealed that the unique characteristics of digital innovation, as opposed to traditional forms of innovation, influence how public-private partnerships can effectively drive digital innovation. We identified decentralized, cross-sector digital innovation clusters as a critical factor for the emergence of digital innovation in public-private partnerships and theorized dissemination practices as an extension to network resourcing in cases of distributed innovation agency within networks of public-private partnerships.

I am happy that our paper “Digital Innovation in the Public Sector: A Resourcing Perspective on How the Public Sector Collaborates with the Private Sector” has been accepted for publication in Information and Organization and is now available online.
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