The 4th International Workshop on Software-intensive Business: Fueling a Software-driven Economy (IWSiB 2021)

June 14, 2021, Online

Call for Submissions
Important Dates
Submissions due (extended): April 30, 2021
Notifications to authors: May 21, 2021
Workshop date: June 14-18, 2021
Camera-ready copy: July 16, 2021 (tbc)

All dates are defined as AoE (Anywhere on Earth).

The global pandemic has shown, thanks to advanced software technologies, society and businesses were able to quickly respond to environmental disruptions. Demands in software-based service offerings facilitating remote work drastically increased. For example, the revenue for a Check Point, a company specializing on VPN solutions, increased by 4% in 2020 (Cohen, 2020). The revenue of Zoom, a video conferencing solution, even jumped by 30% in 2020 (Malara & Nellis, 2020). Consequently, software producing organizations face increasing demands and evolving requirements from businesses that seek innovative solutions for new realities that are enforced by physical distancing guidelines. The International Workshop on Software-intensive Business: Fueling a Software-driven Economy (IWSiB) brings together communities working on software-intensive business research and bridges the gap between software engineering and business research. The workshop provides a forum for academics and practitioners alike to shape a research agenda, identify contemporary challenges and best practices, and explore new avenues for research and practice at the intersection of both disciplines, business and software engineering..

Topics of Interest
IWSiB seeks submissions describing novel research, experience reports, as well as emerging ideas. We are interested in studies describing original and unpublished results in the field of software-intensive business. The focus of the workshop is to have vivid and energizing discussions. Hence, we welcome very much new promising ideas and work-in-progress reports.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited, to the following aspects of software-intensive business (cf. Abrahammson et al, 2018; Jansen, 2019):
Software product management (e.g., strategy, planning, pricing)
Software ecosystem (e.g., engineering ecosystems, analysis of ecosystem data, modeling of ecosystem structure and behavior, management of developer ecosystems and platforms)
Continuous practices (e.g., experimentation, innovation, improvement)
Agile & lean projects & portfolio (e.g., methods & practices, management and organizing, behavioral and cognitive factors)
Organizational management (e.g., managing technical and social debt, integrating product and business development, managing human-AI symbiosis)
Software startups (e.g., scaling, privoting, funding, business models)
Software platform (e.g., orchestration, governance, architecture, evolution and lifecycle)
Software engineering economics (e.g., in engineering of software or in the software industry)
Emerging trends and research areas (e.g., implications of COVID-19 to the software industry, AI ethics, digital twins, etc.)

Evaluation
Submissions will be first screened on rigor and relevance and then evaluated by at least three members of the program committee based on soundness, significance, novelty, verifiability, and presentation quality.
Submission Guidelines
We encourage submissions of contributions describing different stages of research, from position papers to full research reports. We welcome both research and industry papers. The workshop proceedings will be published in a separate volume of the XP proceedings, which will be prepared to be archived by Springer (open access).

All submissions must conform to the LNBIP formatting and submission instructions. Authors should consult Springer’s author guidelines and use their proceedings templates, either for LaTeX or for Word, for the preparation of their papers. Springer encourages authors to include their ORCIDs in their papers. In addition, the corresponding author of each paper, acting on behalf of all of the authors of that paper, must complete and sign a Consent-to-Publish form.

The paper length should not exceed 8 pages.
There is no limit on the number of submissions an author may submit, but authors are advised to focus on quality rather than on quantity.
By submitting to the IWSiB workshop, authors acknowledge that they are aware of and agree that papers submitted to IWSiB workshop must not have been published elsewhere and must not be under review or submitted for review elsewhere while under consideration for IWSiB workshop.
Papers must be submitted electronically via EasyChair by the defined deadline.

Organisers
Karl Werder, University of Cologne, Germany
Sami Hyrynsalmi, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
Xiaofeng Wang, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

Program Committee (tbc)
Ville Alkkiomäki, F-Secure Corporation
Stefan Biffl, Vienna University of Technology
Jan Bosch, Chalmers University of Technology
Sjaak Brinkkemper, Utrecht University
Christoph Bussler, Google
Christoph Elsner, Siemens AG
Paul Grünbacher, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Robert Heinrich, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Georg Herzwurm, University of Stuttgart
Helena Holmström Olsson, University of Malmo
Slinger Jansen, Utrecht University
Hans-Bernd Kittlaus, InnoTivum Consulting
Andrey Maglyas, Maglyas Consulting
Juergen Muench, Reutlingen University
Alexander Mädche, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Anh Nguyen Duc, University College of Southeast Norway
Alexander Nolte, University of Tartu
Rafael Prikladnicki, PUCRS
Jurka Rahikkala, Vaadin Ltd
Bala Ramesh, Georgia State University
Guenther Ruhe, University of Calgary
Kari Smolander, LUT University
Pasi Tyrväinen, University of Jyväskylä

For more details of the workshop, please contact: Karl Werder (werder@wiso.uni-koeln.de), Sami Hyrynsalmi (Sami.Hyrynsalmi@lut.fi), or Xiaofeng Wang (xiaofeng.wang@unibz.it).

References:
[1] Abrahamsson P, Bosch J, Brinkkemper S, Mädche A (2018) Software Business , Platforms , and Ecosystems : Fundamentals of Software Production Research (Dagstuhl, Germany).
[2] Cohen T (2020) Check Point profit tops estimates but uncertainty clouds outlook. Reuters:3. Retrieved (January 25, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chk-pnt-sftwre-results/check-point-profit-tops-estimates-but-uncertainty-clouds-outlook-idUSKCN24N1WV.
[3] Malara N, Nellis S (2020) Zoom forecasts sales surge as video conferencing becomes a daily routine. Reuters:3. Retrieved (January 25, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/article/zoom-video-commn-results-int-idUSKBN25R2QV.
[4] Jansen S (2019) There’s No Business Like Software Business: Trends in Software Intensive Business Research. Hyrynsalmi S, Suoranta M, Nguyen-Duc A, Tyrväinen P, Abrahamsson P, eds. (Springer, Cham, CH), 19–27.