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Corporate Wikis: The Effects of Owners' Motivation and Behavior on Group Members' Engagement

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Originally designed as a tool to alleviate bottlenecks associated with knowledge management, the suitability of wikis for corporate settings has been questioned given the inherent tensions between wiki affordances and the realities of organizational life. Drawing on regulatory focus theory and social cognitive theory, we developed and tested a model of the motivational dynamics underlying corporate wikis. We examined leaders (owners) and users of 187 wiki-based projects within a large multinational firm. Our findings revealed two countervailing motivational forces, one oriented toward accomplishment and achievement (promotion focus) and one oriented toward safety and security (prevention focus), that not only predicted owners' participation but also the overall level of engagement within the wiki groups. Our primary contribution is in showing that, notwithstanding the potential benefits to users, wikis can trigger risk-avoidance motives that potentially impede engagement. Practically, our findings call for an alignment between organizational procedures surrounding wiki deployment and the technology's affordances.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 87-116
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290303
  • Authors
    • Ofer Arazy, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta
    • Ian R. Gellatly, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta

Information Security Outsourcing with System Interdependency and Mandatory Security Requirement

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The rapid growth of computer networks has led to a proliferation of information security standards. To meet these security standards, some organizations outsource security protection to a managed security service provider (MSSP). However, this may give rise to system interdependency risks. This paper analyzes how such system interdependency risks interact with a mandatory security requirement to affect the equilibrium behaviors of an MSSP and its clients. We show that a mandatory security requirement will increase the MSSP's effort and motivate it to serve more clients. Although more clients can benefit from the MSSP's protection, they are also subjected to greater system interdependency risks. Social welfare will decrease if the mandatory security requirement is high, and imposing verifiability may exacerbate social welfare losses. Our results imply that recent initiatives such as issuing certification to enforce computer security protection, or encouraging auditing of managed security services, may not be advisable.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 117-156
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290304
  • Authors
    • Kai-Lung Hui, Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics, and Operations Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
    • Wendy Hui, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
    • Wei T. Yue, Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong

Organizations' Information Security Policy Compliance: Stick or Carrot Approach?

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Companies' information security efforts are often threatened by employee negligence and insider breach. To deal with these insider issues, this study draws on the compliance theory and the general deterrence theory to propose a research model in which the relations among coercive control, which has been advocated by scholars and widely practiced by companies; remunerative control, which is generally missing in both research and practice; and certainty of control are studied. A Web-based field experiment involving real-world employees in their natural settings was used to empirically test the model. While lending further support to the general deterrence theory, our findings highlight that reward enforcement, a remunerative control mechanism in the information systems security context, could be an alternative for organizations where sanctions do not successfully prevent violation. The significant interactions between punishment and reward found in the study further indicate a need for a more comprehensive enforcement system that should include a reward enforcement scheme through which the organizational moral standards and values are established or reemphasized. The findings of this study can potentially be used to guide the design of more effective security enforcement systems that encompass remunerative control mechanisms.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 157-188
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290305
  • Authors
    • Yan Chen, College of Business Administration, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
    • K. Ramamurthy, Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
    • Kuang-Wei Wen, Information Systems Department, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Competitive Target Advertising and Consumer Data Sharing

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Advances in information technologies enable firms to collect detailed consumer data and target individual consumers with tailored ads. Consumer data are among the most valuable assets that firms own. An interesting phenomenon is that competing firms often trade their consumer data with each other. Based on a common-value all-pay auction framework, this paper studies the advertising competition between two firms that target the same consumer but are asymmetrically informed about the consumer value. We characterize firms' equilibrium competition strategies. The results show that better consumer information does not help the better-informed firm save the advertising expenditure but does enable it to reap a higher expected profit in competition. Sharing individual-level consumer data may soften the competition even though firms compete head-to-head for the same consumer. We also find that the better-informed firm may sell its data to its competitor but never voluntarily shares it with its competitor.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 189-222
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290306
  • Authors
    • Xia Zhao, Bryan School of Business and Economics, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
    • Ling Xue, Department of Management Information Systems, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, University of Memphis

Alternate Strategies for a Win-Win Seeking Agent in Agent-Human Negotiations

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With the growth of e-commerce and e-markets, there is an increasing potential for the use of software agents to negotiate business tasks with human negotiators. Guided by design science methodology, this research prescribes and validates a win-win seeking negotiation agent using strategies of "simultaneous-equivalent offers" and "delayed acceptance" and compares their effects against the use of conventional sequential-single offer and immediate acceptance strategies. To evaluate the alternate strategies, a negotiation agent system was implemented and an experiment was conducted in which 110 agent-human dyads negotiated over a four-issue online purchase task. Our results indicate that the proposed agent strategies can enhance the economic performance of the negotiated outcome (counterpart agreement ratio, individual utility, joint utility, and the distance to Pareto-efficient frontier) and maintain the human counterparts' positive perceptions toward the outcome and the agent. The findings confirm the efficacy of the proposed design and showcase an innovative system to facilitate e-commerce transactions.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 223-256
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290307
  • Authors
    • Yinping Yang, Institute of High Performance Computing, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore
    • Sharad Singhal, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
    • Yunjie Xu, School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Inducing Intrinsic Motivation to Explore the Enterprise System: The Supremacy of Organizational Levers

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The adoption of an organization-wide system, such as an enterprise system (ES), has often been mandated by organizational management, which may not necessarily motivate users to proactively explore the system's features and subsequently apply pertinent features that best support their job tasks. Anchoring on self-determination theory, this research investigates the antecedents and consequences of users' intrinsic motivation to explore ES features. We propose two organizational levers (i.e., autonomous job design and socialization tactics) that the management could exercise to trigger intrinsic motivation, thereby leading to improved ES feature exploration. Intrinsic motivation is manifested by hedonic motivation and normative motivation, whereas ES feature exploration is conceptualized as a dual-dimensional outcome reflected by cognitive behavior (exploratory usage) and positive affect (exploration satisfaction). Through a two-stage survey of 127 organizational users in China, we find general support for our research model. We further observe significant moderating effects of prevention focus on the association between organizational levers and intrinsic motivations. Beyond demonstrating how organizational users respond to different organizational levers, this research examines a broader, enduring challenge, which is to determine how organizational users can be induced to be intrinsically inspired to innovatively harness implemented information systems.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 257-290
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290308
  • Authors
    • Weiling Ke, School of Business, Clarkson University
    • Chuan-Hoo Tan, City University of Hong Kong
    • Choon-Ling Sia, City University of Hong Kong
    • Kwok-Kee Wei, College of Business, City University of Hong Kong

Understanding Postadoptive Behaviors in Information Systems Use: A Longitudinal Analysis of System Use Problems in the Business Intelligence Context

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For an organization to gain maximum benefits from a new information system (IS), individual users in the organization must use it effectively and extensively. To do so, users need to overcome many problems associated with their system use in order to integrate the new IS into their work routines. Much remains to be learned about the types of problems that users encounter in using the new system, in particular, the root causes of system use problems and how they relate to and co-evolve with the problems over time. In this study, we seek to develop a comprehensive and dynamic view of system use problems in organizations. Using a combined method of revealed causal mapping and in-depth network analysis, we analyze nine-month archival data on user-reported problems with a new business intelligence application in a large organization. Our data analysis revealed seven emergent constructs of system use problems and causes, including reporting, data, workflow, role authorization, users' lack of knowledge, system error, and user-system interaction. The seven constructs were found to interact differentially across two usage phases (initial versus continued) and between two types of users (regular versus power user). This study contributes to advancing our theoretical understanding of postadoptive IS use by focusing on its problematic aspect. This study also suggests useful methods for organizations to effectively monitor users' system use problems over time and thus guides organizations to effectively target mechanisms to promote the use of new technologies.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 291-326
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290309
  • Authors
    • Xuefei Deng, Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii at Manoa
    • Lei Chi, Blue Slate Solutions, Albany, New York

Investigating the Value of Sociomaterialism in Conceptualizing IT Capability of a Firm

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Sociomateriality (or sociomaterialism) allows us to approach the information technology (IT) capability research from an angle that has been rarely visited by information systems scholars. While relevant studies presume that humans and materials are distinct and largely independent, sociomateriality emphasizes agency that represents the relational, emergent, and shifting capacity realized through the association of actors (both humans and materials). The objective of this paper is to explore the value of conducting IT capability research through the theoretical lens of sociomaterialism. For this, we expand the imbrication metaphor introduced in an early study to explain the formation and advancement of a firm's IT capability from the sociomaterial perspective. Then, the key building blocks of IT capability of an organization are conceptualized based on the combination of existing studies and the expanded imbrication metaphor. Lastly, the effectiveness of formulating IT capability as a third-order construct that substantiates the entanglement concept of sociomaterialism is examined in comparison with that of traditional modeling approaches. We confirm the value of sociomaterialism in conceptualizing IT capability and subsequently in unraveling the true contribution of IT capability toward strengthening business performance. The findings also have practical implications in which IT capability is a function of IT management capability as well as IT personnel capability and IT infrastructure capability.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 327-362
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290310
  • Authors
    • Gimun Kim, School of Business Administration, Chungnam National University in Korea
    • Bongsik Shin, San Diego State University
    • Ohbyung Kwon, School of Management, Kyung Hee University, Korea

Editorial Introduction

Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Independent Variables

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In 1992, DeLone and McLean suggested that the dependent variable for information systems (IS) research is IS Success. Their research resulted in the widely cited DeLone and McLean (D&M) IS Success Model, in which System Quality, Information Quality, Use, User Satisfaction, Individual Impact, and Organizational Impact are distinct, but related dimensions of IS success. Since the original IS Success Model was published, research has developed a better understanding of IS success. Meanwhile, comprehensive and integrative research on the variables that influence IS success has been lacking. Therefore, we examine the literature on the independent variables that affect IS success. After examining over 600 articles, we focused our attention on integrating the findings of over 140 studies. In this research, we identify 43 specific variables posited to influence the different dimensions of IS success, and we organize these success factors into five categories based on the Leavitt Diamond of Organizational Change: task characteristics, user characteristics, social characteristics, project characteristics, and organizational characteristics. Next, we identify 15 success factors that have consistently been found to influence IS success: Enjoyment, Trust, User Expectations, Extrinsic Motivation, IT Infrastructure, Task Compatibility, Task Difficulty, Attitudes Toward Technology, Organizational Role, User Involvement, Relationship with Developers, Domain Expert Knowledge, Management Support, Management Processes, and Organizational Competence. Finally, we highlight gaps in our knowledge of success factors and propose a road map for future research.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 7-62
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290401
  • Authors
    • Stacie Petter, Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis, University of Nebraska at Omaha
    • William DeLone, Kogod School of Business, American University
    • Ephraim R. McLean, Chair of the Computer Information Systems Department, Georgia State University

Effect Mechanisms of Perceptual Congruence Between Information Systems Professionals and Users on Satisfaction with Service

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With the proliferation of available electronic service channels for information systems (IS) users such as mobile or intranet services in companies, service interactions between IS users and IS professionals have become an increasingly important factor for organizational business-IT alignment. Despite the increasing relevance of such interactions, the implications of agreement or disagreement on the fulfillment of critical service quality factors for successful alignment and higher user satisfaction are far from being well understood. While prior research has extensively studied the question of matching different viewpoints on IS service quality in organizations, little or no attention has been paid to the role of perceptual congruence or incongruence in the dyadic relationship between IS professionals and users in forming user satisfaction with the IS function. Drawing on cognitive dissonance theory, prospect theory, and perceptual congruence research, this study examines survey responses from 169 matching pairs of IS professionals and users in different organizations and explains how perceptual fit patterns affect user satisfaction with the IS function. The paper demonstrates that perceptual congruence can, in and of itself, have an impact on user satisfaction, which goes beyond what was found before. Moreover, the results of the study reveal the relevance of nonlinear and asymmetric effect mechanisms arising from perceptual (in)congruence that may affect user satisfaction. This study extends our theoretical understanding of the role of perceptual alignment or misalignment on IS service quality factors in forming user satisfaction and lays the foundation for further study of the interplay between perceptions in the dyadic relationship between IS professionals and IS users. Managers who seek to encourage particular behaviors by the IS professionals or IS users may use the results of this study to reconcile the often troubled business-IT relationship.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 63-96
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290402
  • Authors
    • Alexander Benlian, Darmstadt University of Technology (TU Darmstadt), Germany

Special Issue: Multiple Dimensions of Value in Information Systems

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Special Issue: Multiple Dimensions of Value in Information Systems

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 97-102
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290403
  • Authors
    • Robert O. Briggs, Information Systems, San Diego State University
    • Jay F. Nunamaker, National Center for Border Security, University of Arizona

Strategic Alignment and Misalignment of Knowledge Management Systems: A Social Representation Perspective

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To derive more business value from existing organizational knowledge, many organizations seek to rely on strategically aligned knowledge management systems (KMS). However, as documented in prior studies, they often underestimate the challenges about social interactions and users' perceptions in response to new information systems. Based on an interpretive case study, this paper examines the implementation of a KMS to show how social representations of four groups of users resulted in the misalignment of the KMS with the organizational strategy. The social representation lens allows us to interpret strategic alignment in terms of dynamic processes of anchoring and objectification that aid individuals and groups to make sense of KMS initiatives. The groups studied developed different cognitive views of the KMS that ultimately led to a strategic misalignment. The key implication is that social interactions within and among groups shape KMS alignment with organizational strategy, thus elucidating the nature of system use.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 103-126
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290404
  • Authors
    • Alina Dulipovici, HEC Montreal, Canada
    • Daniel Robey, Georgia State University

Service Expansion of Product Firms in the Information Technology Industry: An Empirical Study

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The provision of services has become an increasingly important component of the economy of industrialized countries and the revenue stream for many traditional product companies. This is especially true for companies that offer information technology (IT) products. This paper examines factors that are associated with the extent to which IT product companies are able to develop service revenue, which we refer to as service expansion of IT product companies. We identify the characteristics of the product portfolio—specifically, the composition and scope of firm offerings among hardware, application software, and infrastructure software—as key to successful service expansion. We also propose that this relationship is moderated by prior performance of the product business and industry characteristics such as concentration and maturity. Data from IT product vendors spanning five years are used to test the proposed relationships. Overall, this research provides a theoretical foundation for understanding service expansion and diversification in the IT industry as well as practical guidance for IT product companies considering expansion to services.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 127-158
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290405
  • Authors
    • Shu Han, Sy Syms School of Business, Yeshiva University
    • Jason Kuruzovich, Lally School of Management and Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
    • T. Ravichandran, Lally School of Management and Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Facilitator-in-a-Box: Process Support Applications to Help Practitioners Realize the Potential of Collaboration Technology

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The potential benefits of collaboration technologies are typically realized only in groups led by collaboration experts. This raises the facilitator-in-the-box challenge: Can collaboration expertise be packaged with collaboration technology in a form that nonexperts can reuse with no training on either tools or techniques? We address that challenge with process support applications (PSAs). We describe a collaboration support system (CSS) that combines a computer-assisted collaboration engineering platform for creating PSAs with a process support system runtime platform for executing PSAs. We show that the CSS meets its design goals: (1) to reduce development cycles for collaboration systems, (2) to allow nonprogrammers to design and develop PSAs, and (3) to package enough expertise in the tools that nonexperts could execute a well-designed collaborative work process without training.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 159-194
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290406
  • Authors
    • Robert O. Briggs, San Diego State University
    • Gwendolyn L. Kolfschoten, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands
    • Gert-Jan de Vreede, Center for Collaboration Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha
    • Stephan Lukosch, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands
    • Conan C. Albrecht, Brigham Young University

Sparking Creativity: Improving Electronic Brainstorming with Individual Cognitive Priming

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Much of human behavior involves subconscious cognition that can be manipulated through "priming"—the presentation of a stimulus designed to subconsciously implant a concept in working memory that alters subsequent behavior. Priming is a well-known phenomenon for individual behavior, but we do not know whether priming can be used to influence group behavior. We developed a Web-based computer game that was designed to improve creativity through priming. Participants were exposed to a priming game and then worked as members of a group using electronic brainstorming (EBS) to generate ideas on a creativity task. Our results show that when users played the game, designed to improve performance, their groups generated significantly more ideas that were more creative than when they were exposed to neutral priming. Our findings extend the literature by providing evidence that individual priming substantially affects group idea generation performance. Avenues for future research include designing EBS software that optimizes group ideation through priming, examining the conditions under which priming has the most substantial impact on ideation performance, and examining whether priming can be used to enhance other group processes (e.g., convergence tasks).

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 195-216
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290407
  • Authors
    • Alan R. Dennis, John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
    • Randall K. Minas, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
    • Akshay P. Bhagwatwar, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

Emotions and Information Diffusion in Social Media—Sentiment of Microblogs and Sharing Behavior

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As a new communication paradigm, social media has promoted information dissemination in social networks. Previous research has identified several content-related features as well as user and network characteristics that may drive information diffusion. However, little research has focused on the relationship between emotions and information diffusion in a social media setting. In this paper, we examine whether sentiment occurring in social media content is associated with a user's information sharing behavior. We carry out our research in the context of political communication on Twitter. Based on two data sets of more than 165,000 tweets in total, we find that emotionally charged Twitter messages tend to be retweeted more often and more quickly compared to neutral ones. As a practical implication, companies should pay more attention to the analysis of sentiment related to their brands and products in social media communication as well as in designing advertising content that triggers emotions.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 217-248
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290408
  • Authors
    • Stefan Stieglitz, Department of Information Systems, University of Munster in Germany
    • Linh Dang-Xuan, Research Group for Communication and Collaboration Management in the Department of Information Systems, University of Munster in Germany

Are Users Threatened by Credibility Assessment Systems?

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Despite the improving accuracy of agent-based expert systems, human expert users aided by these systems have not improved their accuracy. Self-affirmation theory suggests that human expert users could be experiencing threat, causing them to act defensively and ignore the system's conflicting recommendations. Previous research has demonstrated that affirming an individual in an unrelated area reduces defensiveness and increases objectivity to conflicting information. Using an affirmation manipulation prior to a credibility assessment task, this study investigated if experts are threatened by counterattitudinal expert system recommendations. For our study, 178 credibility assessment experts from the American Polygraph Association (n = 134) and the European Union's border security agency Frontex (n = 44) interacted with a deception detection expert system to make a deception judgment that was immediately contradicted. Reducing the threat prior to making their judgments did not improve accuracy, but did improve objectivity toward the system. This study demonstrates that human experts are threatened by advanced expert systems that contradict their expertise. As more and more systems increase integration of artificial intelligence and inadvertently assail the expertise and abilities of users, threat and self-evaluative concerns will become an impediment to technology acceptance.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 249-262
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290409
  • Authors
    • Aaron C. Elkins, MIS Department, University of Arizona
    • Norah E. Dunbar, Center for Applied Social Research, University of Oklahoma
    • Bradley Adame, Center for Applied Social Research, University of Oklahoma
    • Jay F. Nunamaker, Center for the Management of Information and the National Center for Border Security, University of Arizona

Using Accountability to Reduce Access Policy Violations in Information Systems

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Access policy violations by organizational insiders are a major security concern for organizations because these violations commonly result in fraud, unauthorized disclosure, theft of intellectual property, and other abuses. Given the operational demands of dynamic organizations, current approaches to curbing access policy violations are insufficient. This study presents a new approach for reducing access policy violations, introducing both the theory of accountability and the factorial survey to the information systems field. We identify four system mechanisms that heighten an individual's perception of accountability: identifiability, awareness of logging, awareness of audit, and electronic presence. These accountability mechanisms substantially reduce intentions to commit access policy violations. These results not only point to several avenues for future research on access policy violations but also suggest highly practical design-artifact solutions that can be easily implemented with minimal impact on organizational insiders.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 263-290
  • DOI 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290410
  • Authors
    • Anthony Vance, Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University
    • Paul Benjamin Lowry, City University of Hong Kong
    • Dennis Eggett, Brigham Young University

Index to Journal of Management Information Systems Volume 29, 2012-13

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