The energy transition has highlighted the need for consumer engagement to visualize the future power grids known as smart grids. However, the dynamics of consumer engagement in smart grids remain poorly understood, particularly in the context of the increasing role of smart service providers. Smart service providers digitalize how consumers engage with smart grids by leveraging smart technologies to provide services for consumers. Since smart services complicate the understanding of consumer engagement, especially by automating the service functionalities, this licentiate thesis aims to explore the role of smart service providers in digitalizing consumer engagement within smart grids. Adopting a case study as the research strategy, this qualitative and interpretive thesis investigates two service providers in Sweden as case organizations. Using interviews, observation, tweet analysis, documents, and literature review, this thesis answers three questions to shed light on the characteristics of smart technologies, smart service providers’ actions to enhance the potential for engagement, and challenges of engaging consumers from the perspective of smart service providers. In conclusion, this thesis depicts that digitalizing consumer engagement incorporates different initiatives taken by service providers besides characteristics of smart technologies that facilitate the provision of services. Moreover, this thesis suggests a definition of digitalized consumer engagement based on two aspects of delegation and supervision since service providers encourage consumers to configure and monitor smart services through provided technologies. The practical contributions of this thesis provide insights for smart service providers on designing smart technologies and strategies that enhance the potential for consumer engagement. The theoretical contributions extend the understanding of consumer engagement by framing it as a dynamic, co-constructed process influenced by the sociotechnical roles of service providers and the delegation of tasks to smart technologies.

Recently different studies discussed the importance of consumer engagement in the power system. Since the power system is undergoing digitalization by harnessing the capabilities of digital technologies for consumers, it triggered our curiosity to understand the role of new actors referred to as smart service providers in building consumer engagement. Therefore, this paper explores consumer engagement potentials via the digitalization of power systems by centering on the development of a smart service provider as a case in Sweden. Our analysis uncovers three types of engagement potentials: Exclusive, connective, and inclusive. These types highlight the evolution from early technology adoption focused on individual benefits, towards a more inclusive model fostering collective action and sustainability in the energy sector. Our results illustrate the dynamic interaction between smart service providers, consumers, and the wider energy grid showcasing the multifaceted nature of consumer engagement. The implication of our result provides insights for policymakers and power system stakeholders in shaping strategies for inclusive and sustainable energy transitions.

Smart home technologies for energy-related purposes have increased attention. At the same time a concept known as energy citizenship (EC), where citizens play an active role in the energy ecosystem has emerged. The increasing automation enabled by Energy smart home technologies (ESHTs) raises questions about citizens’ active role in the emerging smart grid paradigm, potentially undermining EC. A question is how ESHTs play roles in enactment of EC. To address this, our literature review aims to describe the enactment of EC through ESHTs by introducing a conceptual framework. By adopting the lens of affordances, findings reveal that such technologies influence awareness and agency at individual and collective levels, primarily through affordances of monitoring, personalizing, flexible control, and contribution feedback. However, the influence of ESHTs on EC is not uniform, as it depends on citizens’ behaviours, preferences, and the compatibility of various technologies working together.

In this paper we present a framework that aims at exploring and explaining how an energyefficiency and flexibility ecosystem emerges. The framework builds on two theories, namelyinformation ecology theory and architectural theory of digital innovation. The framework isused in an initial test by using descriptive data from an organization working as an aggregatorin the energy market. From the combination of the theories and the initial test usingdescriptions from the aggregator case and its products and services in the context of energyefficiency and flexibility the potential of the framework is shown. It can be concluded thatthe framework has a potential to explore and explain the ecosystem of an aggregatorregarding energy efficiency and flexibility and by highlighting the four integration tasks;sharing, combining, standardizing, and multi-homing it can guide future development of aplatform ecosystem.

This paper aims to explore the role of aggregators in the energy flexibility ecosystem through the lens of an employed framework built on two theories: Information ecology theory and the architectural theory of digital innovation. The framework is initially tested using descriptive data from an organization working as an aggregator in the energy market. The potential of the framework is shown from a combination of these theories and an initial test using descriptions from the aggregator case and its products and services in the context of energy flexibility. By highlighting four integration tasks of sharing, combining, standardizing, and multi-homing, the framework has the potential to explore the role of aggregator within the flexibility ecosystem. This study concludes with three propositions regarding the interaction of the ecosystem actors and the role of aggregators in the creation of flexibility ecosystem that opens up avenues for future studies.

The capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) systems bring about new leaps in organizational change. While several work processes are now digital, and are increasingly getting automated, organizational processes thrive from augmenting AI-based tasks and human tasks. One framework depicting the augmentation between humans and AI is the delegation framework which theorizes on delegation of tasks between human agents and agentic IS artifacts. However, as the framework is limited to elaborating human agent-agentic IS agent roles, the role of the developer is missing. This study aims to shed light on the role of the developer within the delegation framework. We explore the implication of this involvement through the theoretical lens of adaptive structuration. We use cases drawn from 12 literature sources, qualified by assessing them used against the delegation framework guidelines, and analyzed them to identify developer roles. Our findings show that the developer influences the processes underlying the functioning of the agentic IS artifact, its attributes, its evolution, and mechanisms for delegation. The state of agency in an artifact is influenced and even largely defined by the developer. This implies that agency in an IS artifact can be viewed as encompassing more than their own abilities to act within their environments.