Showing papers by "Vijay Gurbaxani published in 2006"

Migration to open-standard interorganizational systems: network effects, switching costs, and path dependency

Abstract: As firms seek to improve coordination through the use of electronic interorganizational systems (IOS), open standards are becoming increasingly important. To better understand the process of standards diffusion, we investigate firms' migration from proprietary or less-open IOS (i.e., electronic data interchange or EDI) to open-standard IOS (i.e., the Internet). Theoretical work in economics suggests that network effects are a determinant of network adoption, yet the extant literature falls short of empirical testing of the theory. We develop a conceptual model that features network effects, expected benefits, and adoption costs as prominent antecedents. We examine the model on a large dataset of 1,394 firms. The empirical results demonstrate the significant impacts of network effects on open-standard IOS adoption. We find that adoption costs are a significant barrier to open-standard IOS adoption, but EDI users and nonusers treat this very differently: EDI users are much more sensitive to the costs of switching to the new standard. This finding illustrates that experience with older standards may create switching costs and make it difficult to shift to open and potentially better standards, a phenomenon called "excess inertia" in technology change. Further testing the underlying factors that contribute to network effects and adoption costs, we find that trading community influence is a key driver of network effects, while managerial complexity, as opposed to financial costs, is a key determinant of adoption costs. Overall we believe that this study, based on a rigorous empirical analysis of a unique international dataset, provides valuable insights into a set of key factors that influence standards diffusion.

Perceptual structure of the desired functionality of internet-based health information systems

Abstract: With the emergence of the Internet, new health information systems are being designed and implemented that focus on coordination between providers, patients, payors and other constituents. While the importance of end user input in identifying the desired functionality of systems has long been recognized, very little work focuses on how users perceive the desired functionalities of these new systems to group together, and the implications of these groupings for the organization of functionalities into program modules and associated user interfaces. In this paper, we advance the construct, user based perceptual structure of desired functionality, in the context of these new coordination-intensive health information systems. Perceptual structure depicts how users perceive different desired system functions to group together. A conceptual framework is advanced which links perceptual structure to two broad categories of components, external coordination and internal coordination, which are related to prospective beliefs about system value. The framework is tested empirically via two field studies conducted by a hospital chain focusing on two major user groups, physicians and office administrators. The setting involves a proposed Internet-based health information system that links various constituencies in the service delivery chain. The empirically generated perceptual structure is found to be largely supportive of its conceptual counterpart. Implications for the design and development of this new class of systems, and public policy implications of such new systems are presented.