Showing papers in "ACM Sigmis Database in 2004"

Information systems outsourcing: a survey and analysis of the literature

Abstract: In the last fifteen years, academic research on information systems (IS) outsourcing has evolved rapidly. Indeed the field of outsourcing research has grown so fast that there has been scant opportunity for the research community to take a collective breath, and complete a global assessment of research activities to date. This paper seeks to address this need by exploring and synthesizing the academic literature on IS outsourcing. It offers a roadmap of the IS outsourcing literature, highlighting what has been done so far, how the work fits together under a common umbrella, and what the future directions might be.In order to adequately address the immense diversity of research on IS outsourcing and outsourcing in general, we develop a conceptual framework that helps us to categorize the literature. In particular, we look at the research objectives, methods used and theoretical foundations of the papers. In identifying the major research objectives, we view outsourcing as an organizational decision process and adapt Simon's stage model of decision making. This allows us to identify five major sourcing issues, from which at least one is covered by each academic article. These are the questions of why to outsource, what to outsource, which decision process to take, how to implement the sourcing decision, and what is the outcome of the sourcing decision. In analyzing the literature, we identify and structure the main explanatory factors and theoretical relationships within each of these sourcing stages. Based on our discussion of the research objectives, theoretical foundations and research approaches taken in the literature, we show how the various research streams hang together and we come up with a number of implications for research. Moreover, we identify a number of emerging sourcing issues. We believe that research on these "new" phenomena such as offshore outsourcing, application service providing and business process outsourcing would benefit from 'standing on the shoulders' of what has already been accomplished in the field of IS outsourcing.

Virtual teams: a review of current literature and directions for future research

Abstract: Information technology is providing the infrastructure necessary to support the development of new organizational forms. Virtual teams represent one such organizational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide organizations with unprecedented levels of flexibility and responsiveness. As the technological infrastructure necessary to support virtual teams is now readily available, further research on the range of issues surrounding virtual teams is required if we are to learn how to manage them effectively. While the findings of team research in the traditional environment may provide useful pointers, the idiosyncratic structural and contextual issues surrounding virtual teams call for specific research attention.This article provides a review of previously published work and reports on the findings from early virtual team research in an effort to take stock of the current state of the art. The review is organized around the input - process - output model and categorizes the literature into issues pertaining to inputs, socio-emotional processes, task processes, and outputs. Building on this review we critically evaluate virtual team research and develop research questions that can guide future inquiry in this fertile are of inquiry.

The experienced "sense" of a virtual community: characteristics and processes

Abstract: E-commerce strategists advise companies to create virtual communities for their customers. But what does this involve? Research on face-to-face communities identifies the concept of "sense of community:" a characteristic of successful communities distinguished by members' helping behaviors and members' emotional attachment to the community and other members. Does a sense of virtual community exist in online settings, and what does it consist of? Answering these questions is key, if we are to provide guidance to businesses attempting to create virtual communities.The paper explores the concept of sense of virtual community in a newsgroup we call Multiple Sports Newsgroup (MSN). We first demonstrate that MSN does indeed have a sense of virtual community, but that the dimensions of the sense of community in MSN differ somewhat from those reported for physical communities. The nature of these differences is plausibly related to the differences between electronic and face-to-face communication. We next describe the behavioral processes that contribute to the sense of virtual community at MSN-exchanging support, creating identities and making identifications, and the production of trust. Again, these processes are similar to those found in non-virtual communities, but they are related to the challenges of electronic communication. Lastly, we consider the question of how sense of community may come about and discuss the implications for electronic business.

Initial trust and the adoption of B2C e-commerce: The case of internet banking

Abstract: A possible reason for the delayed acceptance of the Internet as a retail distribution channel may be the lack of trust consumers have in the electronic channel and in the Web merchants. Few prior studies on the adoption of business-to-consumer e-commerce have considered trust in information technology as an important determinant of adoption behavior. This research explicitly encompasses the electronic channel and the merchant as objects to be trusted in a specific e-commerce application, i.e. Internet banking.Our conceptual model posits that initial trust in the electronic channel as a banking medium and trust in bank are the major determinants of adoption behavior. Based on social network theory and trust theory, determinants of trust in the electronic channel such as propensity-to-trust, word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals, structural assurances, are included in the research model.The analyses of independent variables indicated that propensity-to-trust, structural assurances, and relational content of WOM were significant predictors of initial trust in the electronic channel. Our findings also indicated that a significant relationship exists between initial trust in the electronic channel and the adoption of Internet banking. However, further analysis revealed that trust could be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the adoption of Internet banking.

Consumer acceptance of virtual stores: a theoretical model and critical success factors for virtual stores

Abstract: Virtual stores provide great efficiency in the retail value chain, and their existence has tremendously paved the way for the diffusion of electronic commerce. Understanding the determinants of consumer acceptance of virtual stores will provide important theoretical contributions to the area of business-to-consumer (B-to-C) electronic commerce and lead to the development of more effective and meaningful strategies for virtual stores. By expanding the Technology Acceptance Model and the Innovation Diffusion Theory, this study aims to provide an integral theoretical paradigm that can successfully support a wide array of technical, business, and consumer issues involved in online retailing. The results from a Web-based survey of 253 online consumers indicate that the proposed theoretical model is able to explain and predict consumer acceptance of virtual stores substantially well. The resulting theoretical model explains a large portion of the factors that lead to a user's behavioral intention to use and actual use of a virtual store. In addition to providing new theoretical grounds for studying the virtual store phenomenon, this article also supplies virtual stores with a number of operative critical success factors to remain competitive in the volatile electronic marketplace.

Factors influencing the adoption of web-based shopping: the impact of trust

Abstract: Business-to-consumer electronic commerce (e-commerce), one form of which is Web-based shopping, is defined as electronic-based economic transactions conducted between individual consumers and organizations. While this form of e-commerce is forecast to grow rapidly for the foreseeable future, it still represents only a small fraction of total consumer spending. To better take advantage of and be prepared for this economic phenomenon, organizations need to identify and understand factors that may impact consumers' decisions to engage in Web-based e-commerce. Recently, the importance of trust has been discussed in both the academic and practitioner press. The impact of trust on the use of e-commerce has been established empirically. The research reported here builds on those findings by establishing that not only is trust in Web merchants significantly related to purchase intentions via the Web, but this significance holds even when other, more traditional perceptions are considered. A survey of consumers was conducted and results indicate that trust in Web merchants is positively related to intentions to make purchases from Web merchants, even when the impact of other perceived innovation characteristics are considered. The research also contributes to the literature on technology adoption by verifying the impact of perceived innovation characteristics on adoption intentions.

Changing patterns in IT skill sets 1988-2003: a content analysis of classified advertising

Abstract: This paper examines trends in required job skills for IT professionals Through an empirical study of classified job advertising for IT professionals over the past 17 years, we evaluate whether the observed trends support earlier predictions offered by researchers who sought to anticipate future job and skill demands (Leitheiser 1992; Trauth, Farwell, & Lee 1993) Many of the findings are consistent with previous studies and support the notion that employers are seeking an ever-increasing number and variety of skill sets from the new hires In addition, we found ongoing evidence of a recruitment gap (Todd, McKeen & Gallupe 1995) where, despite many firms' stated emphasis on well-rounded individuals with business knowledge and strong "soft skills," the job advertising aspect of the recruiting process continues to focus on "hard skills" The changing demand patterns for IT professionals necessitate life-long learning skills not only for IT practitioners but also for the academics who teach them

Expertise, extraversion and group interaction styles as performance indicators in virtual teams: how do perceptions of IT's performance get formed?

Abstract: This study investigates how a personality trait and expertise affect virtual teams interaction, and how that interaction leads to different levels of performance (e.g., solution quality, solution acceptance, cohesion). Teams have been shown to exhibit constructive, aggressive/defensive, or passive/defensive interaction styles that affect communication and thus team performance by facilitating or hindering the exchange of information among group members. These styles reflect an aggregation of the behaviors exhibited by individual team members, which are rooted in their individual personalities. The effects of interaction style on team performance have been well established in face-to-face and virtual teams. Generally, constructive interaction styles produce positive outcomes whereas passive/defensive styles beget negative ones. Aggressive/defensive teams produce solutions that are correlated with the expertise of those that have wrested control of the group but there is often little support for those solutions. The current work explores how different constellations of extraversion and expertise manifest themselves into group interaction styles and, ultimately, outcomes. The study involves 248 professional managers from executive MBA and professional development programs in 63 virtual teams that performed an intellective task. Results show that expertise and extraversion to be curvilinearly related to group interactions and performance, and high levels of extraversion and higher variations in extraversion between team members lead to less constructive and more passive/defensive interaction styles within teams. Results show that although expertise is the best predictor of task performance, it is primarily group interaction styles that predict contextual outcomes (e.g., solution acceptance, cohesion, effectiveness) in virtual teams.

Examining IT professionals' adaptation to technological change: the influence of gender and personal attributes

Abstract: This paper examines the challenge of adapting to technological changes in IS departments. It develops a set of hypotheses about how two personal attributes (tolerance of ambiguity and openness to experience) will be associated with IT professionals' ability to adapt to a technological innovation. It also examines the literature on gender in the IT profession, positing that women IT employees will exhibit some differences in job performance (relative to men), but no differences in terms of job satisfaction or turnover intentions. Based on a mixed-method study of two firms that were adopting client/server development, the paper first describes the different implementation strategies employed by each firm, and then analyzes employees' responses to the change. In combining the insights from both case studies and surveys, the results showed that four out of eight hypotheses were fully supported and two received partial support. Women reported lower job satisfaction on a dimension that captures job stress, and this effect was exacerbated in the firm that expected its IT employees to demonstrate considerable initiative to master the innovation. In contrast, the women at the second firm, while showing no differences in job stress (relative to their male peers), nevertheless exhibited a very different pattern of job skills and performance than the men. Finally, the personal attribute that was strongly associated with employees' job satisfaction (openness to experience) was negatively correlated with one aspect of job performance - directly opposite to what was hypothesized. The paper concludes with insights for IS researchers and managers interested in IS personnel and technology implementation.

'Why didn't somebody tell me?': climate, information asymmetry, and bad news about troubled projects

Abstract: The reluctance to transmit bad news is a problem that is endemic to many organizations. When large projects go awry, it often takes weeks, months, and sometimes even years, before senior management becomes fully aware of what has happened. Accurate communication concerning a project and its status is therefore critical if organizations are to avoid costly and embarrassing debacles. This paper describes the results of an experiment designed to explore some key variables that may influence an individual's willingness to report bad news in an information systems project context. We extend a basic theoretical model derived from the whistle-blowing literature by considering relevant constructs from agency theory. We then test the entire model using a controlled experiment that employs a role-playing scenario. The results explain a significant portion of the variance in the reluctance to report negative status information. Implications for research and practice are discussed, along with directions for future research.

Turnover of information technology professionals: the effects of internal labor market strategies

Abstract: Retaining information technology (IT) professionals is important for organizations, given the challenges in sourcing for IT talent. Prior research has largely focused on understanding employee turnover from an intra-individual perspective. In this study we examine employee turnover from a structural perspective. We investigate the impact on IT turnover of organizations' Internal Labor Market (ILM) strategies. ILM strategies include human resource rules, practices, and policies including hiring and promotion criteria, job ladders, wage systems and training procedures. We collect data on ILM strategies and turnover rates for eight major IT jobs across forty-one organizations and analyze the data using confirmatory agglomerative hierarchical clustering techniques. Our results show that organizations adopt distinct ILM strategies for different IT jobs, and that these strategies relate to differential turnover rates. Specifically, technically-oriented IT jobs cluster in craft ILM strategies that are associated with higher turnover, whereas managerially-oriented IT jobs cluster in industrial ILM strategies that are associated with lower turnover. Further, depending on their contingencies of goal orientation (not-for-profit versus for-profit), IT focus (IT producer versus user), and information intensity (IT critical versus support), organizations adopt an industrial ILM strategy for their technically-oriented IT jobs to dampen turnover. Not-for-profit and IT user organizations where IT is critical adopt industrial ILM strategies for their technically-oriented IT jobs to attenuate turnover and improve the predictability of their IT workforce. IT producers and IT users where IT plays a supporting role adopt craft ILM strategies that engender higher turnover to remain timely and flexible in IT skills acquisition.

The impact of e-commerce on the role of IS professionals

Abstract: Understanding the knowledge, skills and abilities of information systems professionals has been a longstanding goal of information systems research. An IS professional's ability to perform in his or her role is vital to the utilisation of information systems within an organisation. This research addresses the question: in what ways has the recent ascension of Internet-based electronic commerce altered the competency requirements of IS professionals? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifteen participants from a variety of public and private organizations, who are currently participating or had participated in e-commerce projects. The findings indicate that the implementation of e-commerce in organisations has introduced three main types of business changes: expectations, perceptions, and compliance. These three changes have in turn driven project changes and subsequent changes in the competency requirements and role of the IS professional. The implications of these changes for IS professionals and the organizations for which they work are discussed.

Assessing information technology personnel: toward a behavioral rating scale

Abstract: Performance ratings are used as a means to measure and record performance of individuals on any particular job. Results can then be used for promotion, increases in pay and other incentives. They, therefore, can have a large impact on a person's career and are viewed by both employers and employees as extremely important. Performance ratings vary widely and typically include a variety of measures - some of which the employee can control, and others over which the employee has no direct control. Overall, the various types of performance ratings are not perfect; each has its flaws along with its advantages. In this study, one particular type of scale - a behavioral rating scale - is proposed by taking the results of a previous study performed by Green (1989) and empirically testing a set of critical skills for use as a performance assessment instrument for information technology (IT) personnel. The instrument is provided for researchers who wish to incorporate a behavior-oriented measure in their research and for practitioners who may be looking for a behavior-oriented scale to evaluate IT personnel. The psychometric properties of the instrument as observed in this study are also presented.

The evolution of IT (computer) personnel research: more theory, more understanding, more questions

Abstract: Scholars have been publishing research on IT work and workers since at least 1965. The work is a testimony to the longevity and importance of topics concerning computer personnel, human resource management, and the information technology workforce. Human resources have consistently been noted as a top concern of MIS leaders through a series of "key issues" studies (Brancheau et al., 1996; Niederman et al., 1991; Brancheau & Wetherbe, 1987; Dickson & Wetherbe, 1984; and Ball & Harris, 1982). The research also shows that along with the evolution of information technology there is a parallel evolution of skills and capabilities; that allows IT specialists to continue designing and implementing new technologies, which enable users to introduce them into business, science, and other environments to create value. A review of the original proceedings of the special interest group on computer personnel research from 1965, shows that the field has also progressed substantially.Almost four decades ago, scholars began by producing very basic descriptive research on job analysis and job description, how to train personnel, assessment techniques, and the effects of attitudes on learning. As the old saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. A look at the state of IT personnel in the early part of the 21st century shows that we continue to research similar problems such as periods of high demand for IT workers punctuated with periods of slowdown (remember the doldrums of the early 1990s?), investigate approaches and techniques for increasing IT worker productivity (remember the introductions of COBOL, CASE tools, and more recently extreme programming?), and struggle with issues of diversity in the IT workplace. Even the issue of outsourcing is not new. One of the authors recalls serving as discussant in 1992 on a computer personnel research conference paper challenging IT workers to increase productivity or face the prospect of having their job outsourced!Although some of the major issues of the day seem to recur at regular intervals, others seem new or at least manifested in a new way. We believe that scholars are facing significant challenges in addressing at least four major issues that confront IT personnel: