Internet of Management Artifacts: Internet of Things Architecture for Business Model Renewal

In the information and knowledge era, organizations must find ways to survive and remain up-to-date and competitive to face a dynamic environment. The still dominant paradigm regarding the Internet of Things (IoT) focuses more on tangible things and physical devices and less on management and business environment. There is a lack of studies that clarify how the IoT can help business management to create perceived value for the company. The aim of this study is to propose a framework called the Internet of Management Artifact (IoMA) to understand how the IoT ecosystem can support managerial decision-making. Considering that this field of research lacks the empirical evidence that more transparently narrows the relationship between IoT and organizational management, we opted for a framework based on Design Search Research. The main contribution of this study is the proposition of the IoMA framework, which seeks a paradigm shift, changing from a paradigm centered on “things” and physical devices in the information technology architecture that remains dominant in the literature to a paradigm focused on business management. The study highlights how decision-makers can exploit IoT architecture, which provides them with rich, accurate and relevant information to promote business reconfiguration and thus capitalize on these renewals.