Communications of the Association for Information Systems

Noise or Quality? Cross-nested Hierarchical Effects of Culture on Online Ratings

Thomas Mattson — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:28:32 PDT

Previous feedback system research in a variety of contexts has focused on the impact that ratings (as proxies for quality) have on a variety of social and economic outcomes with equivocal findings. These mixed findings may be partially due to noise (factors not related to quality) embedded in aggregated or average positive and negative ratings. One significant source of ratings noise may come from culturally diverse raters’ issuing ratings in virtual environments. Culture impacts how groups of individuals are socialized to behave and think, which may result in members’ having different attitudes towards publicly downgrading (negative ratings) or praising (positive ratings) other members in the feedback system. In this paper, I investigate how culture influences rating practices specifically in public electronic knowledge sharing communities. Using a cross-nested hierarchical linear model, I demonstrate empirically that cultural differences at the community, occupation, and national levels interact in unique ways to increase or decrease an individual’s propensity to give and receive a positive or a negative rating. My study contributes to the literature on rating systems along with having practical ramifications for the designers of feedback systems.

Commentary: Reflections on Being a Professor-in-Residence

Chris T. Street — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:23:58 PDT

Deciding what to do during a sabbatical is one of the most exciting times for professors. An opportunity to recharge and renew and develop professional skills is an important contributor to staying current and relevant in research and in the classroom. This paper describes a professor-in-residence (PiR) sabbatical experience that was somewhat non-traditional. Instead of visiting an academic institution, a PiR sabbatical involves becoming embedded in a company (in this case, a small software company) and is the flip-side to the executive-in-residence concept popular in many business schools. This paper describes the experience and provides suggestions and insight for professors, hosts, and institutions when considering sabbatical options and how to plan for them.

Towards a Decomposed Expectation Confirmation Model of IT Continuance: The Role of Usability

A.K.M. Najmul Islam et al. — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:17:10 PDT

We propose a decomposed expectation confirmation model of IT continuance by 1) decomposing user expectation and confirmation into two dimensions of usefulness and usability, 2) conceptualizing the role of usability in IT continuance research, and 3) exploring changes in user perceptions of usability and usefulness over time and their impacts on user satisfaction and continuance intention. We tested the proposed research model using longitudinal data that we collected in two points in time six months apart from 125 users of the LinkedIn professional social networking site (pSNS). The results show that 1) perceived usability, usability confirmation, perceived usefulness, and usefulness confirmation determined user satisfaction with pSNS and 2) perceived usability along with satisfaction predicted continuance intention, whereas perceived usefulness had no effect. This study contributes IT continuance research by 1) proposing and empirically validating a decomposed model of IT continuance and 2) by bringing in usability as a core construct of interest for IT continuance research.

An Exploratory Study on Sustainable ICT Capability in the Travel and Tourism Industry: The Case of a Global Distribution System Provider

Roya Gholami et al. — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:17:06 PDT

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. Environmental values have spread globally and consumer beliefs are pressurizing firms in almost all industries to comply with green regulations. Sustainability has become such an important part of business strategy that almost every major company now has an executive with “sustainability” in their title. The travel and tourism industry produced 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2010. Policy makers have responded with ambitious targets. The European Union aims to achieve a 60 percent reduction in transport sector emissions by 2050. This exploratory study draws on the sustainable ICT capability maturity framework (SICT-CMF) and the case of the Amadeus IT Group, a large travel and tourism industry corporate enterprise that specializes in IT solutions. The study investigates the current capability maturity level of sustainable ICT in the company. The findings suggest that the company is a market leader in terms of sustainability initiatives and that it demonstrates an “advanced” level of sustainability capability. We discuss the lessons learned from Amadeus’ experience.

The Linkage between Conferences and Journals in the Information Systems Field: Observations and Recommendations

Ping Zhang et al. — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:17:02 PDT

Younger scholars often receive advice to submit work to conferences for feedback and polishing in anticipation that they will later submit it to a journal for publication. But is this a normal practice? What do the IS scholars really think or do about the linkage between conferences and journals? What are IS journals’ policies and their editors-in-chiefs’ views on that linkage? This paper explores aspects of the relationship between conference presentation and journal publication, which include motivations for participating in conferences, potential for subsequent publication, preferred journal targets, and progress of paper development following conference presentation. We obtained data that form the basis for our findings and recommendations from two main sources: 1) a panel study with two sequential surveys of IS scholars who presented papers at three consecutive International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) meetings (in St. Louis 2010, Shanghai 2011, and Orlando 2012) and 2) an email interview with the editors-in-chief of 21 major IS journals in regard to their respective journals’ policies and their personal views. The paper provides recommendations for various stakeholders including scholars, journal editors, conference organizers, leaders in the field, and anyone outside the IS field who wants to understand its norms and culture.

Strategic Alignment in SMEs: Strengthening Theoretical Foundations

Chris T. Street et al. — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:16:58 PDT

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a vital part of the global economy in that they compose the vast majority of all businesses worldwide. In spite of these firms’ importance, they remain understudied in strategic alignment research. In this paper, we consolidate and extend the IS literature on strategic alignment in SMEs. We develop a set of theoretical propositions that outline the ways in which SMEs’ unique characteristics affect their ability to achieve and sustain alignment between their IS/IT strategy and their overall business strategy. In some respects, SMEs can achieve and sustain alignment as larger firms do, while, in other respects, they differ noticeably. We ground each of our propositions in the dynamic capabilities framework to strengthen the theoretical foundations of strategic alignment research, particularly in SMEs. We discuss the implications of our propositions and note theoretical issues emerging from the study of strategic alignment in the SME context.

Course Design based on Enhanced Intercultural Transformation Theory (EITT): Transforming Information Systems (IS) Students into Inventors during Academic Exchange

Chitra Sivakumar et al. — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:16:54 PDT

In this paper, we propose the enhanced intercultural transformation theory (EITT) with additional factors (i.e., support and motivation) as an extension to the existing intercultural transformation theory (ITT). Based on the EITT, we propose a three-phased (i.e., learner, explorer and inventor) framework of an exchange experience assessment (EEA) course with all five EITT factors (i.e., stress, adaptation, growth, support and motivation) interfaced with three stakeholders (i.e., student, patent advisor and instructor). Also, we report the design of the EEA course and its implementation in a university. The collected data confirmed our proposed EITT and EEA course framework that helped to transform information systems (IS) students into inventors. We found that students could develop patentable inventions through the stress-adaptation-growth process during their academic exchanges, but they still needed the patent advisors’ and instructor’s support and motivation. Our findings can enable any interested faculty in any university to attempt offering a similar course for the benefit of budding undergraduate inventors during academic exchange.

MSIS 2016 Global Competency Model for Graduate Degree Programs in Information Systems

Heikki Topi et al. — Tue, 23 May 2017 17:54:53 PDT

This document, “MSIS 2016: Global Competency Model for Graduate Degree Programs in Information Systems”, is the latest in the series of reports that provides guidance for degree programs in the Information Systems (IS) academic discipline. MSIS 2016 is the seventh collaborative effort between ACM and AIS (following IS’97, IS 2002, and IS 2010 at the undergraduate level; MSIS 2000 and MSIS 2006 at the graduate level; and CC 2005 as an integrative document).

Technostress Research: A Nurturing Ground for Measurement Pluralism?

Thomas Fischer et al. — Tue, 23 May 2017 17:54:50 PDT

Because technostress research is multidisciplinary in nature and, therefore, benefits from insights gained from various research disciplines, we expected a high degree of measurement pluralism in technostress studies published in the information systems (IS) literature. However, because IS research mostly relies on self-report measures in general, reasons exist to also assume that technostress research has largely neglected multi-method research designs. To assess the status quo of technostress research with respect to the application of multi-method approaches, we analyzed 103 empirical studies. Specifically, we analyzed the types of data-collection methods used and the investigated components of the technostress process (person, environment, stressors, strains, and coping). The results indicate that multi-method research is more prevalent in the IS technostress literature (approximately 37% of reviewed studies) than in the general IS literature (approximately 20% as reported in previous reviews). However, our findings also show that IS technostress studies significantly rely on self-report measures. We argue that technostress research constitutes a nurturing ground for the application of multi-method approaches and multidisciplinary collaboration.

The Light and Dark Side of the Black Box: Sensor-based Technology in the Automotive Industry

Marco Marabelli et al. — Tue, 23 May 2017 17:54:46 PDT

Diverse aspects of our everyday lives increasingly feature sensor-based technologies. Despite the importance of understanding how business and consumers exploit and adopt these technologies, the information systems (IS) community has thus far devoted relatively little attention to the topic. Accordingly, in this paper, we foster an exploration of the issue among IS scholars by focusing on the emergent use of sensor-based technologies in the automotive insurance industry. Insurance providers have increasingly begun to turn to such technologies to gain competitive advantage around risk assessment and behavior-based pricing. To investigate this phenomenon, we consider the experiences of two organizations operating distinct national contexts: Progressive Insurance (US) and Generali (Italy). These two insurance providers have been first movers in adopting sensor-based technologies for risk assessment and policy pricing. First, we highlight the key similarities and differences between the cases with regard to the technologies adopted, business models pursued, and anticipated benefits and pitfalls for the companies and their consumers. Second, in a more holistic way, we discuss the implications and unintended consequences of sensor-based technologies in the automotive insurance industry. We formulate several research questions that provide opportunities and encourage more research in this emerging area of study.

Cognitive Feedforward and Feedback as Substitutes for Conscientiousness

Tamuchin McCreless et al. — Tue, 23 May 2017 17:54:43 PDT

In this study, we explore the impact of feedback, feedforward, and personality on computer-mediated behavior change. We studied the impacts of the effects using subjects who entered information relevant to their diet and exercise into a database through an online tool. We divided the subjects into four experimental groups: those who received only feedback, those who received only feedforward, those who received both feedback and feedforward, and those who received neither feedback nor feedforward. We found that both feedforward and feedback impacted behavior change but that the effect was much greater for individuals who ranked low in conscientiousness than for individuals who ranked high in conscientiousness. In fact, the magnitude of the effect of feedforward and feedback was nearly the same as the magnitude of the effect of conscientiousness.

The Role of Organizational Strategy in the User-centered Design of Mobile Applications

Eyal Eshet et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 23:13:11 PDT

Gathering insights on users and the contexts they use mobile applications is at the core of the user-centered design (UCD). Organizations find it strategically important to efficiently and effectively use these insights. With the proliferation of mobile applications, gaining timely and relevant insights is increasingly challenging due to the heterogeneous and dynamic context of use, the abundant availability of information on use behavior and the intense time constraints imposed by the highly competitive mobile market. This paper develops a research model that considers strategy foci as motivators that affect the efficient and effective use of insights on users and context in design practices. We examine the mediating effects of UCD resources, such as time and financial constraints, organizational practices, and UCD competence. To test the model, we conducted a survey with 100 mobile practitioners and used PLS to estimate the model. The model shows that focus on an innovation strategy both directly and indirectly affected data use on user and their context (i.e., mediated by organizational practices and UCD competence) in design practices. Strategies with a focus on cost had no direct effect on the use of user insights but led to negative impacts on UCD competence and organizational practices.

The Effect of Socializing via Computer-mediated Communication on the Relationship between Organizational Culture and Organizational Creativity

Kevin P. Scheibe et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 23:13:06 PDT

An organization’s culture plays a strong role in its creating new knowledge, but, as organizations become more dispersed and technologies more advanced, many come to rely on computer-mediated communication (CMC) for employees to engage in all levels of knowledge management. Researchers have conducted little work to understand the effectiveness of socializing via CMC on organizational creativity, particularly as it relates to organizational culture. Some organizations tend toward a group culture, while others lean toward a rational culture. We investigate how both face-to-face (FTF) and computer-mediated socializing influence the relationship between organizational culture and organizational creativity at each cultural extreme. We surveyed 186 knowledge workers to investigate these relationships. Organizational culture interacted with socializing such that creativity in rational cultures benefited from using CMC to socialize, while group cultures appeared to be agnostic to different socializing types.

Applying a Layered Framework to Disaster Recovery

Corey Baham et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 23:13:01 PDT

Building highly available information technology (IT) infrastructures has become critical to many corporations’ survival. However, the disaster recovery (DR) industry lacks a common enterprise framework to capitalize on the value that DR provides corporations due in part to inadequate conceptual frameworks for DR that can facilitate the alignment of corporate efforts toward corporate resiliency. To address this problem, we propose a new conceptualization for the DR of enterprise architecture. This conceptual framework comprises DR layers that describe the nature of DR and its related components from a functional and technical point of view. We discuss the benefits of these DR layers to DR teams and compare our approach to traditional thinking. Further, we present a case study, its findings, and their implications for DR. As a result, we demonstrate how our layered framework of enterprise architecture provides a unified understanding of the DR practice, which one can then use to support decision making and corporate alignment of the DR practice and its associated technology.

Explaining the Challenges in ERP Development Networks with Triggers, Root Causes, and Consequences

Tommi Kähkönen et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 23:01:40 PDT

Many organizations still find it painful to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Although ERP projects are collaborative efforts that many separate organizations conduct, academic research has not investigated ERPs fully from this perspective. To identify the challenges in ERP development networks (EDNs), we carried out an interpretive empirical study by using grounded theory to analyze data. After identifying 10 EDN challenges and analyzing the associations between the challenges further, we constructed a model that explains the challenges in ERP development networks. Relationship conflicts (root causes) create or reinforce one or more operational problems (consequences). Changes in the EDN structure initiate or reinforce the other two types. Whereas the existing literature has discussed ERP challenges mainly separately, we offer a more profound explanation of how they emerge and interrelate. Our findings aid practitioners in recognizing and focusing on the root causes of challenges rather than firefighting consequences. The findings can provide useful insights into collaborative and dynamic environments where multiple organizations interact.

The Role of User Psychological Contracts in the Sustainability of Social Networks

Stanislav Mamonov et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 22:57:52 PDT

Many emergent ventures, such as social networks, leverage crowd-sourced information assets as essential pillars supporting their business models. The appropriation of rights to information assets through legal contracts often fails to prevent conflicts between the users and the companies that claim information rights. In this paper, we focus on social networks and examine why those conflicts arise and what their consequences are by drawing on psychological contract theory. We propose that intellectual property and privacy expectancies comprise core domains of psychological contracts between social networks and their users. In turn, perceived breaches of those expectancies trigger a psychological contract violation. We use the exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect typology to define the user behavioral outcomes. We evaluated our framework by surveying 598 Facebook users. The data support our framework and indicate that perceived breaches of privacy and intellectual property rights generate the affective experience of a psychological contract violation, which is strongly associated with exit intentions.

Using Psycho-physiological Interaction Analysis with fMRI Data in IS Research: A Guideline

Marco Hubert et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 22:57:47 PDT

The integration of neuroscientific methods in Information Systems (IS) research to better understand how the brain interacts with IS-relevant context has gained in importance. Many papers that highlight the potential of neuroIS and that discuss methodological issues associated with using functional brain imaging already exist. However, neuroIS researchers have to keep in mind that the emergence of complex mental processes such as trust in IS contexts is based on activity in a network of brain regions rather than on activity in one area alone. Accordingly, we introduce psycho-physiological interaction (PPI) analysis, a technique that one can use to analyze fMRI data. Specifically, we review how one can conduct PPI analysis, provide a concrete research example, and show how this analysis can inform IS trust research. Thus, we introduce neuroIS researchers working in the domain of functional brain imaging to advanced fMRI analyses methods and show, based on the example of trust, how these methods can enhance our understanding of the nature of IS constructs.

Connectivity and Continuity: New Fronts in the Platform War

Jorge Pérez et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 22:57:42 PDT

Device interconnectivity in video conferencing, telephony, texting, file sharing, and application handoff has become a critical battleground for tech giants. This panel compared approaches to device connectivity and application continuity, reviewed current solutions, and shared projections for the future of connectivity. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are predictably focusing on connectivity across devices and applications rather than across platforms. Given the scope of impact of these innovations, tech giants will be under increasing pressure to architect a world wherein devices and platforms are secondary to what users want to achieve via technology. Participants examined competing approaches to connectivity and continuity, explored emergent issues for research and practice, and discussed the social and business impacts of these technologies.

Enterprise Architecture Management: Toward a Taxonomy of Applications

Fatemeh Rahimi et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 22:57:35 PDT

Despite the growing interest in enterprise architecture management, researchers and practitioners lack a shared understanding of its applications in organizations. Building on findings from a literature review and eight case studies, we develop a taxonomy that categorizes applications of enterprise architecture management based on three classes of enterprise architecture scope. Organizations may adopt enterprise architecture management to help form, plan, and implement IT strategies; help plan and implement business strategies; or to further complement the business strategy-formation process. The findings challenge the traditional IT-centric view of enterprise architecture management application and suggest enterprise architecture management as an approach that could support the consistent design and evolution of an organization as a whole.

The Appreciative System, Learning, and Its Impact on Information Systems Design

Frank Stowell et al. — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 22:57:27 PDT

Many researchers and practitioners recognize that there is a link between the failures of information system (IS) provision and flawed Information Requirements Definition (IRD). Misinformation arises from defective communication between clients and analysts and lead to situations where the actual requirements of clients are not identified and properly represented in the subsequent information system. Recent research suggests that this could be the result of inquiry methods that do not subscribe to known learning theories and instead focus on contextual factors affecting client learning. In this paper, we explore the underpinning ideas of client-driven requirements definition and attempt to find a way of “navigating” the gap between what the client wants and what the technical expert can provide. The approach described stimulates client learning, which we suggest is a fundamental component of a successful outcome. We propose a method of requirements analysis that has shown its value in helping to overcome the communication gap between client and developer while creating a collaborative learning environment. The lessons learnt from this research may provide an interface for other technology driven development methods.