Marvin Hanisch
Title
Prof. Dr.
Last Name
Hanisch
First name
Marvin
Email
marvin.hanisch@unisg.ch
ORCID
Phone
071 224 3819
16 results
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Item type:Publication, Organizational design for digital transformation: A systematic literature reviewDigital transformation has become a central topic in management research over the past decades. This systematic review of 109 studies from 2000 to 2025 clarifies the role of organizational design in digital transformation. Synthesizing insights from the literature, we identify eight organizational design dimensions and integrate them into a framework of three interdependent stages of digital transformation. The Align stage connects digital leadership, digital governance, and digital culture; the Execute stage mobilizes digital strategy, digital organization, as well as digital resources and capabilities; and the Transform stage establishes digital operating and business models. Our analysis further reveals a distinct tradeoff at each stage: balancing control and autonomy during alignment, stability and adaptability during execution, and optimization and reconfiguration during transformation. We build on these insights to develop a research agenda and derive implications for managerial practice.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of Business ResearchVolume:218 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Success and Failure in Blockchain-Based Interorganizational Ecosystems: A Governance PerspectiveInterorganizational ecosystems require governance arrangements that can align diverse and often competing organizations around a shared value proposition. Although blockchain, as a form of digital governance, promises to facilitate large-scale collaboration by codifying and enforcing rules, decentralizing control, and ensuring verifiable data exchange, many blockchain-based interorganizational ecosystems nevertheless fail. Leveraging 155 interviews and detailed internal records from a large technology provider covering 81 interorganizational blockchain projects across 25 industries, supplemented by archival evidence on the trajectories of 196 projects and 70 podcast interviews, we develop a grounded theory explaining how governance misalignments trigger collaboration breakdowns. Specifically, we identify three underlying governance tradeoffs that expose tensions between blockchain’s network-centric rules and actor-centric needs: consistency versus flexibility in coordination, system reliance versus actor reliance in trust and control, and ecosystem utility versus member utility in incentives. These tradeoffs are amplified or attenuated by corresponding boundary conditions related to scale and cohesion (for coordination), co-opetition (for trust and control), and value logics (for incentives). Our study advances governance theory by explaining how blockchain interacts with traditional governance, shapes critical tradeoffs, and influences ecosystem success and failure. We also offer design principles to help managers navigate the inherent governance tradeoffs in ecosystem collaboration.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of ManagementScopus© Citations 5 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Governing Within Semirigid Limits: Navigating the Centralization–Decentralization Paradox in Blockchain‐Based PlatformsBlockchain‐based platforms can facilitate data sharing and coordination in interorganizational ecosystems by enabling secure, tamper‐evident recordkeeping and streamlined, trust‐minimized transactions across organizational boundaries. However, their decentralized architecture may conflict with the centralized control exercised by platform sponsors, giving rise to a centralization–decentralization paradox. This study explores how this paradox unfolds in a large, blockchain‐based logistics platform that was ultimately discontinued. Through an in‐depth, longitudinal case study, we identify three interrelated governance contradictions—regarding ownership, trust, and growth—that triggered destabilizing oscillations between centralized and decentralized governance modes. We introduce the concept of semirigid limits to capture the bounded flexibility within which governance can be made and adapted under such paradoxical conditions. Our findings show that the centralization–decentralization paradox is especially difficult to navigate when strategic boundary conditions—here, industry competition, fragmented coordination, and high interdependencies—are present. Our study contributes to the paradox and governance literature by theorizing how governance contradictions emerge and persist and by identifying the mechanisms that constrain alignment and adaptation. We also offer guidance for managers in regard to addressing the competing demands of centralization and decentralization in interorganizational platforms.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of Operations ManagementVolume:71Issue:7Scopus© Citations 21 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Design Science Across Disciplines: Building Bridges for Advancing Impactful Business Research(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2025-12); Schrage, StephanieDesign science offers a powerful yet underutilized approach for generating practically relevant and rigorous knowledge in business research. Although design science has strong disciplinary roots and has received renewed attention across fields such as information systems, strategy, business ethics & sustainability, entrepreneurship, and accounting, it often remains confined within disciplinary silos. This paper addresses that issue by presenting a comparative, interdisciplinary analysis of design science across five core fields. To foster a broad and inclusive understanding, we draw on the Bridge Model of Design Science, which positions design science as playing a vital bridging role between explanatory business research and business practice. We then examine how various disciplines engage in design science, highlighting unique strengths and shared challenges. By promoting an interdisciplinary dialogue, this paper contributes to a more interdisciplinary design science approach—one even better equipped to tackle the complex challenges facing business and society today. We also envision a future for design science in business research and outline a path toward realizing it.Type:journal articleJournal:Schmalenbach Journal of Business ResearchVolume:77Issue:4Scopus© Citations 8 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Prescriptive Theorizing in Management Research: A New Impetus for Addressing Grand ChallengesAlthough management research has a rich tradition of both descriptive and prescriptive theorizing, the latter is often (and erroneously) viewed as unscientific, purely practice‐oriented, or simply a corollary of descriptive analysis. Prescriptive theorizing concerns how things should be and how they can be achieved, as opposed to descriptive theorizing, which focuses on why or how things are (interrelated). Accordingly, prescriptive theorizing has strong normative and instrumental properties, which are especially relevant when addressing pressing societal, ecological, and ethical concerns, also referred to as grand challenges, that demand a re‐evaluation of established norms and behavioural patterns. However, this opportunity is currently underutilized in the management literature, and there is a lack of guidance on how to leverage the principles of prescriptive theorizing. Therefore, I clarify its main characteristics, outline how scholars can construct rigorous prescriptive arguments, and show how normative and instrumental reasoning can promote positive social change. Embracing prescriptive theorizing as a vital complement to descriptive theorizing in management research provides scholars with an intellectual toolkit to actively engage in the urgent discourse on grand challenges and develop compelling new and impactful theories.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of Management StudiesVolume:61Issue:4Scopus© Citations 49 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Strategic Alliance Governance Through Termination Provisions: Safeguard and Incentive, Flexibility and CommitmentTermination provisions establish vital governance mechanisms in alliances, offering essential safeguards and incentives by providing the flexibility to exit (underperforming) partnerships. However, they can also foster distrust and instability by potentially undermining commitment and continuity. We argue that the motivation behind termination provisions lies in the need to address safeguarding and flexibility concerns arising from increases in alliance scope, upfront payments, and technological uncertainty. Conversely, alliances with strong relational commitment and social embeddedness stemming from prior and indirect ties tend to omit termination provisions. Drawing on an analysis of 1,576 biopharmaceutical alliance contracts, we scrutinize various conditional and unconditional termination rights, along with their partner-specific allocations. Among other findings, we observe a positive association between broad alliance scope and termination rights for patent challenge, for lack of reasonable effort, and for specific countries assigned to the research and development (R&D) firm contributing technological expertise and, furthermore, termination rights for convenience for the client firm sponsoring the alliance. Larger unilateral upfront payments increase the likelihood that the client firm receives termination rights for lack of reasonable effort and for convenience. Higher technological uncertainty is associated with termination rights for convenience for the client or R&D firm. In contrast, prior ties negatively correlate with termination rights for convenience for the client firm, while indirect ties show a negative association with termination rights for convenience and specific countries for the R&D firm. Conceptually, our study highlights the relevance of termination provisions as elastic governance mechanisms that enable partners to accommodate postcontractual disturbances.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of ManagementVolume:51Issue:7Scopus© Citations 8 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Kindred spirits: Cognitive frame similarity and good faith provisions in strategic alliance contracts(Wiley, 2024-08-13); Scopus© Citations 10 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Hybrid Administrative Interfaces: Authority Delegation and Reversion in Strategic Alliances(Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 2024-03); Scopus© Citations 9 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Agency in the algorithmic age: The mechanisms and structures of blockchain-based organizingFirms are increasingly adopting blockchains as a form of knowledge engineering to align their internal processes, share information, and improve oversight. We study intraorganizational blockchains from an agency perspective to understand how the distributed, sequenced, and consensus-based nature of blockchains mitigates information asymmetries and affects organizational structures. First, we explain how blockchains differ from conventional relational, contractual, and system-based mechanisms to address three pertinent information challenges—concentration, continuity, and conflict. Subsequently, we address the consequences of introducing such blockchains, arguing that they create both direct and sequenced information channels among principals and agents, which elicit an organizational reconfiguration via vertical disintermediation and lateral reintermediation. Finally, we theorize the implications of blockchain-based organizing for agency theory regarding the chain of command, the unity of direction, and the span of control. Overall, we show how blockchains for intraorganizational governance can mitigate principal-agent problems and impact organizational design in profound ways.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of Business ResearchVolume:168Scopus© Citations 13 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Digital governance: A conceptual framework and research agendaThe rapid expansion of digital technologies has paved the way for new forms of organizing, facilitated by increased data and knowledge exchange between individuals and organizations. However, this poses major new challenges for designing effective governance mechanisms. This paper highlights the critical role of digital governance in facilitating digitally enabled exchange relationships. To this end, we propose a typology of analog, augmented, and automated governance modes, each associated with specific control, coordination, incentive, and trust mechanisms. Additionally, we provide a heuristic for determining the optimal governance choice via the interplay of transactivity (i.e., the contributors, connections, and consistency in an exchange network) and corresponding governance costs. Our study advances the governance literature by defining digital governance as a distinct form and outlining key governance mechanisms and choices in the digital era. Finally, we identify avenues for future research in this field.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of Business ResearchVolume:162Scopus© Citations 261