Showing papers in "Management Information Systems Quarterly in 2016"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that researchers interested in societal or business change should explicitly define the ICT artifact in both broad and specific ways, include affordances and constraints provided by ICT artifacts, and explicitly examine the unintended consequences of the artifact.
Abstract: • That IS researchers interested in societal or business change should expand their definitions of theory to include theories of the problem and theories of the solution; however, any single paper should only have to work with one of these two alternative theory types. • That IS researchers interested in societal or business change should explicitly define the ICT artifact in both broad and specific ways, include affordances and constraints provided by the ICT artifact, and explicitly examine the unintended consequences of the ICT artifact.
336 citations
TL;DR: It is found that, overall, urban users are net suppliers of social support while rural participants are net recipients, suggesting that technology-mediated online health communities are able to alleviate rural–urban health disparities.
Abstract: The striking growth of online communities in recent years has sparked significant interest in understanding and quantifying benefits of participation. While research has begun to document the econo...
212 citations
TL;DR: Using data from more than 300 firms in the United States, it is found that at the mean value of IT investments, firms with a dual IT strategic emphasis have a higher market value as measured by Tobin's Q than companies with a revenue or a cost emphasis, but they have similar levels of profitability.
Abstract: In this paper, we develop conjectures for understanding how information technology (IT) strategy and IT investments jointly influence profitability and the market value of the firm. We view IT strategy as an expression of the dominant strategic objective that the firm chooses to emphasize, which can be revenue expansion, cost reduction, or a dual emphasis in which both goals are pursued. Using data from more than 300 firms in the United States, we find that at the mean value of IT investments, firms with a dual IT strategic emphasis have a higher market value as measured by Tobin's Q than firms with a revenue or a cost emphasis, but they have similar levels of profitability. Of greater importance, IT strategic emphasis plays a significant role in moderating the relationship between IT investments and firm performance. Dual-emphasis firms have a stronger IT-Tobin's Q relationship than revenue-emphasis firms. Dual-emphasis firms also have a stronger IT- profitability relationship than either revenue- or cost-emphasis firms. Overall, these findings imply that, at low levels of IT investment, the firm may need to choose between revenue expansion and cost reduction, but at higher levels of IT investment, dual-emphasis in IT strategy or IT strategic ambidexterity increasingly pays off.
204 citations
TL;DR: This study explores microtask CS as perceived by crowd workers, revealing their values as a means of informing the design of CS platforms, and offers recommendations regarding the ethical use of crowd workers and calls for improving MTurk platform design for greater worker empowerment.
Abstract: Crowdsourcing (CS) of micro tasks is a relatively new, open source work form enabled by information and communication technologies. While anecdotal evidence of its benefits abounds, our understanding of the phenomenon's societal consequences remains limited. Drawing on value sensitive design (VSD), we explore microtask CS as perceived by crowd workers, revealing their values as a means of informing the design of CS platforms. Analyzing detailed narratives of 210 crowd workers participating in Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk), we uncover a set of nine values they share: access, autonomy, fairness, transparency, communication, security, accountability, making an impact, and dignity. We find that these values are implicated in four crowdsourcing structures: compensation, governance, technology, and microtask. Two contrasting perceptions—empowerment and marginalization—coexist, forming a duality of microtask CS. The study contributes to the CS and VSD literatures, heightens awareness of worker marginalization in microtask CS, and offers guidelines for improving CS practice. Specifically, we offer recommendations regarding the ethical use of crowd workers (including for academic research), and call for improving MTurk platform design for greater worker empowerment.
202 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that ICT constitutes a resource from which a set of five valuable capabilities is derived: to participate in an information society, to communicate effectively, to understand a new society,to be socially connected, and to express a cultural identity.
Abstract: The social inclusion of newly resettled refugees is a significant issue confronting both refugees and their host societies. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are increasingly viewed as a useful resource in programs that provide settlement services or promote participation in society. This paper moves beyond the conventional discussion on the digital divide to explore what people are actually able to do and achieve with ICTs. We draw on an analysis of the use of ICTs for particular purposes by more than 50 resettled refugees to develop an explanation of the process by which ICT use contributes to their social inclusion. We propose that ICT constitutes a resource from which a set of five valuable capabilities is derived: to participate in an information society, to communicate effectively, to understand a new society, to be socially connected, and to express a cultural identity. In realizing these capabilities through ICT use, refugees exercise their agency and enhance their well-being in ways that assist them to function effectively in a new society and regain control over their disrupted lives.
199 citations
TL;DR: How ICT (e-commerce) can empower a marginalized community, giving rise to a rural e-commerce ecosystem that can aid self-development, is shown.
Abstract: The emergence of Alibaba's Taobao (e-commerce) Villages in remote China has challenged the assumption that rural, underserved communities must always be the recipients of aid to stimulate ICT-enabled development. Based on an in-depth case study of two remote villages in China, this research note shows how ICT (e-commerce) can empower a marginalized community, giving rise to a rural e-commerce ecosystem that can aid self-development. We propose the concept of digital empowerment to explicate our findings in the exploration of community-driven development: first, we identify the critical actors of a rural e-commerce ecosystem and how they use ICTs; second, we illustrate how the same ICT can be used for different affordances by the actors in the evolution of a rural e-commerce ecosystem. The paper also presents unintended consequences of rural e-commerce development. We conclude with suggestions on how to make ICT useful for rural development and, in doing this, challenge some of the prevailing theoretical arguments about this process.
193 citations
TL;DR: The model shows the divergence between the United States and China in forming threat perceptions and in seeking help and avoidance as coping behaviors and the significant moderating impacts of espoused culture on the way perceptions of security threats and coping appraisals influence security behaviors.
Abstract: Little is known about the context sensitivity of users’ online security perceptions and behaviors to national and individual attributes, and there is inadequate research about the spectrum of users’ behaviors in dealing with online security threats. In addressing this gap, this paper draws on two complementary theoretical bases: (1) the contextualization of the protection motivation theory (PMT) to online security behavior and (2) a polycontextual lens for the cross-national comparison of users’ security behaviors in the United States and China. The conceptualized model is tested based on 718 survey observations collected from the United States and China. The results support our model and show the divergence between the United States, an exemplar of modern Western society, and China, an exemplar of traditional Eastern society, in forming threat perceptions and in seeking help and avoidance as coping behaviors. Our results also uncovered the significant moderating impacts of espoused culture on the way perceptions of security threats and coping appraisals influence security behaviors. Our findings underline the importance of context-sensitive theory building in security research and provide insights into the motivators and moderators of individuals’ online security behaviors in the two nations.
184 citations
TL;DR: A new predictive modeling technique based on weaker biases is designed, fitting a probabilistic model to a data set of past behavior makes it possible to predict how currently running process instances will behave in the future.
Abstract: Predictive modeling approaches in business process management provide a way to streamline operational business processes. For instance, they can warn decision makers about undesirable events that are likely to happen in the future, giving the decision maker an opportunity to intervene. The topic is gaining momentum in process mining, a field of research that has traditionally developed tools to discover business process models from data sets of past process behavior. Predictive modeling techniques are built on top of process-discovery algorithms. As these algorithms describe business process behavior using models of formal languages (e.g., Petri nets), strong language biases are necessary in order to generate models with the limited amounts of data included in the data set. Naturally, corresponding predictive modeling techniques reflect these biases. Based on theory from grammatical inference, a field of research that is concerned with inducing language models, we design a new predictive modeling technique based on weaker biases. Fitting a probabilistic model to a data set of past behavior makes it possible to predict how currently running process instances will behave in the future. To clarify how this technique works and to facilitate its adoption, we also design a way to visualize the probabilistic models. We assess the effectiveness of the technique in an experimental evaluation with synthetic and real-world data.
175 citations
TL;DR: An expanded framework points to the importance of studying control portfolio configurations and control enactment (in terms of control style and control congruence) in combination in combination, in order to better understand IS project control effectiveness.
Abstract: The control of information systems (IS) projects is a key activity for deployment of information technology (IT) resources and ultimately for value creation through IT. For the last 20 years, research on IS project control has grown to cover a wide range of aspects and issues, including control modes, amounts, and portfolios, control in internal and outsourced settings, and control antecedents, consequences, and dynamics. There is an important theoretical and practical impetus for this research, since the nature of IS projects creates specific and challenging conditions for control, and since control research in neighboring disciplines often neglects temporary endeavors such as projects. In this study, we provide a systematic review and synthesis of the literature and develop an expanded theoretical framework for IS project control with supporting conjectures. Our review reveals that existing research primarily studies the contextual antecedents and performance consequences of control modes and amounts, and thus focuses on control portfolio configurations (what). In contrast, prior research largely neglects control enactment, that is, how the controller interacts with the controllee to put the portfolio of controls into practice. Our expanded framework points to the importance of studying control portfolio configurations and control enactment (in terms of control style and control congruence) in combination, in order to better understand IS project control effectiveness. Expanding the toolbox of concepts available to IS researchers, our framework helps resolve existing research gaps and inconsistencies, and opens up new avenues for future research on the control of IS projects.
138 citations
TL;DR: This work identifies two primary thematic areas—integration and analytics—in which the information systems discipline can contribute to EHRs and recommends for IS scholars to collaborate with allied healthcare disciplines in order to advance the use of EHR to improve patient care.
Abstract: Electronic health records (EHR) facilitate integration of patient health history for planning safe and proper treatment. Combined with data analytics, aggregate-level EHR enable examination and development of effective medicines and therapies for chronic diseases. Although promising efforts to implement EHRs are underway, social and organizational challenges plague EHR development and widespread use. These challenges are due to lingering issues such as privacy, interoperability, and security among key stakeholders (patients, providers, and purveyors). Based upon stakeholders' needs and the issues, we identify two primary thematic areas—integration and analytics—in which the information systems (IS) discipline can contribute to EHRs. Through the accumulated body of knowledge, IS researchers are well positioned and have the expertise to design, develop, and facilitate the use of EHR in the delivery of healthcare. We identify potential research opportunities in each of the two thematic areas that have the potential to transform the delivery of healthcare. We conclude with a recommendation for IS scholars to collaborate with allied healthcare disciplines in order to advance the use of EHR to improve patient care.
135 citations
TL;DR: This study develops a theoretical framework for examining adaptation behaviors, extends adaptive structuration theory to the level of individuals, and addresses specific criticisms of AST in the information systems literature.
Abstract: The confluence of widely available malleable technology and the "bring your own device" (BYOD) trend creates a new dynamic for information technology innovation in the workplace. Nontechnical users are empowered to adapt pliable technology in the course of normal usage episodes. We develop a theoretical perspective of adaptation behaviors by extending the adaptive structuration theory (AST) to the level of individuals, and present a topology of adaptation behaviors to capture the rich landscape of this emerging phenomenon. Based on this new theoretical perspective, we propose a research model and perform a survey study targeting young professionals to empirically investigate adaptation of malleable IT by users. Our findings reveal the compounding effects of four distinct adaptation behaviors including the insight that task adaptation mediates the effect of technology adaptation on individual performance. This study contributes by providing a theoretical framework for examining adaptation behaviors, extending AST to the level of individuals, and addressing specific criticisms of AST in the information systems literature.
TL;DR: This paper relies on a two-year longitudinal study of the Swedish affiliate of Amnesty International and offers a value-based model on the antecedents and effects of new action repertoires from the SMO perspective, building new theory on social media and digital activism at the organizational level.
Abstract: An emerging research agenda focuses on social media's influence on political activism. Specific attention has recently been paid to digital social movement organizing and action repertoire developm...
TL;DR: The construct identity detector (CID) is designed and evaluated, the first tool with large-scale construct identity detection properties and the first tools that does not require respondent data.
Abstract: The problem of detecting whether two behavioral constructs reference the same real-world phenomenon has existed for over 100 years. Discordant naming of constructs is here termed the construct identity fallacy (CIF). We designed and evaluated the construct identity detector (CID), the first tool with large-scale construct identity detection properties and the first tool that does not require respondent data. Through the adaptation and combination of different natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, six designs were created and evaluated against human expert decisions. All six designs were found capable of detecting construct identity, and a design combining two existing algorithms significantly outperformed the other approaches. A set of follow-up studies suggests the tool is valuable as a supplement to expert efforts in literature review and metaanalysis. Beyond design science contributions, this article has important implications related to the taxonomic structure of social and behavioral science constructs, for the jingle and jangle fallacy, the core of the Information Systems nomological network, and the inaccessibility of social and behavioral science knowledge. In sum, CID represents an important, albeit tentative, step toward discipline-wide identification of construct identities
TL;DR: This exploratory study provides preliminary insights into the mechanisms through which corruption manifests in a nation and demonstrates how e-government can be helpful in alleviating it.
Abstract: Despite the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on enhancing transparency and fairness, there is limited theoretical understanding of how ICT affects corruption. Adopting an institutional perspective, we conceptualize the mechanisms through which e-government influences corruption in a nation. Specifically, we theorize the relationship between e-government and corruption at two levels: (1) base corruption observed in national institutions (political, legal, and media institutions), and (2) permeated corruption in the national stakeholder service systems (business and citizen systems). Using panel data from 63 countries over a 4-year period, we test the direct and mediated effects of e-government on corruption in national institutions and stakeholder service systems, respectively. This exploratory study provides preliminary insights into the mechanisms through which corruption manifests in a nation and demonstrates how e-government can be helpful in alleviating it. In addition, the study offers important implications that we believe will be instrumental in stimulating future research on the subject.
TL;DR: This paper examines the use of massive, fine-grained data on consumer behavior—specifically payments to a very large set of particular merchants—to improve predictive models for targeted marketing, and suggests that larger firms may have substantially more valuable data assets than smaller firms, when using their transaction data for targeted Marketing.
Abstract: Organizations increasingly have access to massive, fine-grained data on consumer behavior. Despite the hype over "big data," and the success of predictive analytics, only a few organizations have incorporated such finegrained data in a non-aggregated manner into their predictive analytics. This paper examines the use of massive, fine-grained data on consumer behavior—specifically payments to a very large set of particular merchants—to improve predictive models for targeted marketing. The paper details how using this different sort of data can substantially improve predictive performance, even in an application for which predictive analytics has been applied for years. One of the most striking results has important implications for managers considering the value of big data. Using a real-life data set of 21 million transactions by 1.2 million customers, as well as 289 other variables describing these customers, the results show that there is no appreciable improvement from moving to big data when using traditional structured data. However, in contrast, when using fine-grained behavior data, there continues to be substantial value to increasing the data size across the entire range of the analyses. This suggests that larger firms may have substantially more valuable data assets than smaller firms, when using their transaction data for targeted marketing.
TL;DR: The findings suggest that, as with traditional media, some inevitable evils accompany the societal benefits of social media and that mass media is having a detrimental effect on public discourse.
Abstract: Mass media digitization is an unfolding phenomenon, posing novel societal opportunities and challenges that researchers are beginning to note. We build on and extend MIS research on process digitization and digital versus traditional communication media to study how and to what extent social media—one form of digital mass media—are emancipatory (i.e., permitting wide-spread participation in public discourse and surfacing of diverse perspectives) versus hegemonic (i.e., contributing to ideological control by a few). While a pressing concern to activists and scholars, systematic study of this issue has been elusive, owing partially to the complexity of the emancipation and hegemony concepts. Using a case study approach, we iteratively engaged with data on the discourse surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and source literature to identify six facets of interpretive media packages (i.e., competing social constructions of an issue) as measurable constructs pertinent to emancipation and hegemony. These facets included three structural constraints (on authorship, citation, and influence) and three content restrictions (on frames, signatures, and emotion). We investigated propositions regarding effects of social versus traditional media and lean versus rich social media on these interpretive media package facets by comparing the SOPA discourse across two lean traditional and social media (newspapers and Twitter) and two rich traditional and social media (television and YouTube). Our findings paradoxically revealed social media to be emancipatory with regard to structural constraints, but hegemonic with regard to an important content restriction (i.e., frames). Lean social media mitigated structural advantages and exacerbated content problems. These findings suggest that, as with traditional media, some inevitable evils accompany the societal benefits of social media and that mass media is having a detrimental effect on public discourse. We offer practical steps by which private and public institutions may counter this effect, theoretical implications for wider consideration of the six interpretive media package facets proposed here, and encouragement to MIS researchers to increase their efforts to compare different digitized processes so that a more comprehensive theory of the effects of different forms of digitized processes can be developed.
TL;DR: This paper analyzes the pioneering work of eKutir, a social business in India that leverages an information and communication technology platform to progressively build a self-sustaining ecosystem to address multiple facets of smallholder farmer poverty.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the pioneering work of eKutir, a social business in India that leverages an information and communication technology (ICT) platform to progressively build a self-sustaining ecosystem to address multiple facets of smallholder farmer poverty. The study reveals that eKutir's ecosystem has evolved through five distinct phases, each expanding the number and type of actors engaged and the breadth of ICT-supported services provided. The evolution displays a distinct pattern where the five elements of the ecosystem progressively evolve and reinforce one another to create a system that is economically sustainable, scalable, and can accelerate transformative change. The study has important implications for the design of emergent ICT platforms, which can enable an ecosystem-based approach to address complex problems.
TL;DR: A novel classification system is arrived at that delineates e-commerce service failures into information, functional, and system categories, each with its own set of constituent dimensions.
Abstract: E-commerce service failures have been the bane of e-commerce, compelling customers to either abandon transactions entirely or switch to traditional brick-and-mortar establishments. Yet, there is a paucity of studies that investigates how such failures manifest on e-commerce websites and their impact on consumers. This paper, therefore, synthesizes extant literature on e-service and system success to arrive at a novel classification system that delineates e-commerce service failures into information, functional, and system categories, each with its own set of constituent dimensions. Extending expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT), we further distinguish among disconfirmed outcome, process, and cost expectancies as major consequences of e-commerce service failures. A theoretical model of e-commerce service failure classifications and their consequences was constructed together with testable propositions that relate the three failure categories to consumers' disconfirmed expectancies. Finally, we explore the validity of our theoretical model based on descriptive accounts of actual occurrences of e-commerce service failures and their corresponding consequences. Consistent with our theoretical model, information and functional failures were found to be associated with disconfirmed outcome and process expectancies respectively. System failures, on the other hand, do not affect consumers' disconfirmed expectancies, thereby contradicting our predictions. Post hoc analysis on constituent dimensions of information, functional, and system failures yielded additional insights on the preceding observations.
TL;DR: The value of information technology related intangible assets is assessed and data on business practices and management capabilities is used to understand how this value is distributed across firms to suggest that contributions of IT to value depend heavily on other factors, and are not a rising tide that lifts all boats.
Abstract: In this article, we assess the value of information technology related intangible assets and then use data on business practices and management capabilities to understand how this value is distributed across firms. Using a panel of 127 firms over the period 2003–2006, we replicate and extend the finding from Brynjolfsson, Hitt, and Yang (2002) that $1 of computer hardware is correlated with more than $10 of market value. We account for the “missing $9” by broadening the definition of IT to include capitalized software, and then include all purchased and internally developed software, other internal IT services, IT onsulting, and IT-related training (whether or not it is capitalized by the firm). In addition, we use data on IT-related business practices in order to analyze the distribution of IT-related intangibles within the sample. Our results suggest that the “invisible” IT not accounted for on balance sheets is being priced into the market value of firms. We also estimate that there is a 45% to 76% premium in market value for the firms with the highest organizational IT capabilities (based on separate measures of human resource practices, management practices, internal IT use, external IT use, and Internet capabilities), as compared to those with the lowest organizational IT capabilities. Our results thus suggest that contributions of IT to value depend heavily on other factors, and are not a rising tide that lifts all boats.
TL;DR: The findings suggest that an ICT intervention can effectively address one of society’s most important problems (i.e., infant mortality) even in parts of the world with limited resources and deep suspicion of technology and change.
Abstract: The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals listed high infant mortality rates as a major problem in developing countries, especially in rural areas. Given the powerful information dissemination capabilities, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been suggested as interventions to build infant care awareness and to modify healthcare behaviors. We examine how the use of one ICT intervention—specifically, eHealth kiosks disseminating authenticated and accessible medical information—can alleviate the problem of high infant mortality in rural India. We investigate how mothers’ social networks affect their use of eHealth kiosks, seeking professional medical care for their infants and, ultimately, infant mortality. Drawing on the social epidemiology and social networks literatures, we focus on advice and hindrance from both strong and weak ties as the conduit of social influence on mothers’ health-related behaviors for the care of their infants. Over a period of 7 years, we studied 4,620 infants across 10 villages where the eHealth kiosks were implemented along with support resources for proxy use. The results revealed that (1) eHealth kiosk use promotes seeking professional medical care and reduces infant mortality, (2) mothers are especially vulnerable to hindrance from both strong and weak ties as they choose to maintain the status quo of traditional infant healthcare practices (e.g., reliance on untrained personnel, superstitions, fatalism) in villages, and (3) advice from both strong and weak ties offers the potential to break down misplaced beliefs about infant healthcare practices and to develop literacy on seeking professional medical care. In contrast, in a comparative group of 10 neighboring villages, the reduction in infant mortality was not as pronounced and the effect of professional medical care in reducing infant mortality was lower. Our findings suggest that an ICT intervention can effectively address one of society’s most important problems (i.e., infant mortality) even in parts of the world with limited resources and deep suspicion of technology and change. Overall, we believe such an ICT intervention will complement other investments being made, including the facilitation of use (proxy use) and provision of professional medical facilities to reduce infant mortality.
TL;DR: Based on the Power TAC community's results, preliminary empirical evidence is given for the efficacy of competitive gaming platforms, and for the community's contributions toward resolving the sustainable electricity challenge.
Abstract: The shift toward sustainable electricity systems is one of the grand challenges of the 21st century. Decentralized production from renewable sources, electric mobility, and related advances are at odds with traditional power systems where central, large-scale generation of electricity follows inelastic consumer demand. Information systems innovations can enable new forms of dynamic electricity trading that leverage real-time consumption information and that use price signals to incentivize sustainable consumption behaviors. However, the best designs for these innovations, and the societal implications of different design choices, are largely unclear. We are addressing these challenges through the Power Trading Agent Competition (Power TAC), a competitive gaming platform on which numerous research groups now jointly devise, benchmark, and improve IS-based solutions to the sustainable electricity challenge. Based on the Power TAC community's results, we give preliminary empirical evidence for the efficacy of competitive gaming platforms, and for the community's contributions toward resolving the sustainable electricity challenge.
TL;DR: In this article, the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in enhancing the well-being of nations was examined, and it was shown that the effects of ICT may not be limited to productivity (e.g., GDP) but also improve the wellbeing of a country by helping citizens to develop their social capital and achieve social equality, enabling access to healthrelated information and health services, providing education to disadvantaged communities, and facilitating commerce.
Abstract: This paper examines the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in enhancing the well-being of nations. Extending research on the role of ICT in the productivity of nations, we posit that the effects of ICT may not be limited to productivity (e.g., GDP), and we argue that the use of ICT can also improve the well-being of a country by helping citizens to develop their social capital and achieve social equality, enabling access to health-related information and health services, providing education to disadvantaged communities, and facilitating commerce. Using a number of empirical specifications, specifically a fixed-effects model and an instrumental variable approach, our results show that the level of ICT use (number of fixed telephones, Internet, mobile phones) in a country predict a country's well-being (despite accounting for GDP and several other control variables that also predict a country's well-being). Furthermore, by using an exploratory method (biclustering) of identifying both country-specific and ICT-specific variables simultaneously, we identify clusters of countries with similar patterns in terms of their use of ICT, and we show that not all countries increase their level of well-being by using ICT in the same manner. Interestingly, we find that less developed countries increase their level of well-being with mobile phones primarily, while more developed countries increase their level of well-being with any ICT system. Contributions and implications for enhancing the well-being of nations with ICT are discussed.
TL;DR: The results indicate that implementing a paywall has a disproportionate impact on WOM for popular and niche articles, creating a longer tail in the WOM (i.e., content sharing) distribution, and show that a pay wall has implications for product and promotion strategies.
Abstract: Information goods providers such as print newspapers are experimenting with different pricing models for their online content. Despite research on the topic, it is still not clear how information pricing strategy influences word-of-mouth (WOM) via social media, which has become a dominant channel for raising awareness about a newspaper's articles and attracting new visitors to its website. Using The New York Times' paywall rollout as a natural experiment, our study examines how the implementation of paywall by a firm (i.e., a shift from "free" to "for-a-fee") influences the pattern and effectiveness of online WOM in social media. Our results indicate that implementing a paywall (i.e., charging for content that was earlier available for free) has a disproportionate impact on WOM for popular and niche articles, creating a longer tail in the WOM (i.e., content sharing) distribution. Further, we find that the impact of WOM on the NYT's website traffic weakens significantly after the introduction of a paywall. These results show that a paywall has implications for product and promotion strategies. The study offers novel and important implications for the theory and practice of strategic use of social media and paywall.
TL;DR: This paper proposes an audience selection framework for online brand advertising based on user activities on social media platforms, and develops a hierarchical community detection algorithm to identify a set of brands that are closely related to a specific brand.
Abstract: This paper proposes an audience selection framework for online brand advertising based on user activities on social media platforms. It is one of the first studies to our knowledge that develops and analyzes implicit brand–brand networks for online brand advertising. This paper makes several contributions. We first extract and analyze implicit weighted brand–brand networks, representing interactions among users and brands, from a large dataset. We examine network properties and community structures and propose a framework combining text and network analyses to find target audiences. As a part of this framework, we develop a hierarchical community detection algorithm to identify a set of brands that are closely related to a specific brand. This latter brand is referred to as the “focal brand.” We also develop a global ranking algorithm to calculate brand influence and select influential brands from this set of closely related brands. This is then combined with sentiment analysis to identify target users from these selected brands. To process large-scale datasets and networks, we implement several MapReduce-based algorithms. Finally, we design a novel evaluation technique to test the effectiveness of our targeting framework. Experiments conducted with Facebook data show that our framework provides significant performance improvements in identifying target audiences for focal brands.
TL;DR: It is argued that marketing-mix effectiveness varies with the evolution of the consumer-brand relationship and explicitly model these temporal variations using a time-varying effects model (TVEM) that accounts for self-selection of customers into receiving marketing communications and endogeneity of the number of such communications.
Abstract: Marketing resource allocation has been a topic of intense scrutiny, yet the literature on the topic has not paid adequate attention to the fact that the effectiveness of marketing-mix elements varies over time. Despite the fact that firms collect volumes of data on their customers, existing estimation approaches do not readily lend themselves to modeling the temporal variations for big data and provide little guidance to managers in terms of their resource allocation decisions. We address this gap and argue that marketing-mix effectiveness varies with the evolution of the consumer-brand relationship and explicitly model these temporal variations using a time-varying effects model (TVEM) that accounts for self-selection of customers into receiving marketing communications and endogeneity of the number of such communications. The proposed TVEM framework handles the complexities associated with big data analytics and provides novel insights for data-driven decision making. We combine transaction data from a Fortune 500 retailer with demographic information obtained from Acxiom Corp for over a quarter million customers to test our framework. The results provide strong support for our proposed framework. Specifically, we find that the influence of marketing mailers, other transaction characteristics (coupon redemption, returns, and cross-buy), and demographic factors (age, income, household size, and interests) on sales varies significantly over the customer life cycle and ignoring such temporal variations can lead to gross misallocation of marketing investments. Specifically, our results suggest that firms can increase their revenues by over 17 percent by just reallocating their resources based on the proposed framework. To facilitate adoption of our proposed framework, we provide guidance and actionable insights for managerial relevance.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a new data-analytic approach to measure firms' dyadic business proximity, which is scalable for large datasets and provides finer granularity on quantifying firms' positions in the spaces of product, market, and technology.
Abstract: In this article, we propose a new data-analytic approach to measure firms' dyadic business proximity. Specifically, our method analyzes the unstructured texts that describe firms' businesses using the statistical learning technique of topic modeling, and constructs a novel business proximity measure based on the output. When compared with existent methods, our approach is scalable for large datasets and provides finer granularity on quantifying firms' positions in the spaces of product, market, and technology. We then validate our business proximity measure in the context of industry intelligence and show the measure's effectiveness in an empirical application of analyzing mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. high technology industry. Based on the research, we also build a cloud-based information system to facilitate competitive intelligence on the high technology industry.
TL;DR: In this paper, an empirical investigation of the effect of the Internet on racial hate crimes in the United States from the period 2001-2008 was carried out, and they found evidence that on average, broadband availability increases racial hate crime.
Abstract: This research note reports on an empirical investigation of the effect of the Internet on racial hate crimes in the United States from the period 2001-2008. We find evidence that, on average, broadband availability increases racial hate crimes. We also document that the Internet's impact on these hate crimes is not uniform in that the positive effect is stronger in areas with higher levels of racism, which we identify as those with more segregation and a higher proportion of racially charged search terms, but not significant in areas with lower levels of racism. We analyze in depth whether Internet access will enhance hate group operations but find no support for the idea that this mechanism is driving the result. In contrast, we find that online access is increasing the incidence of racial hate crimes executed by lone wolf perpetrators. Several other mechanisms that could be driving the results are described. Overall, our results shed light on one of the many offline societal challenges from increased online access.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe an approach to address these challenges through competitive benchmarking, a novel research method that helps interdisciplinary research communities tackle complex challenges of societal scale by using different types of data from a variety of sources such as usage data from customers, production patterns from producers, public policy and regulatory constraints, etc.
Abstract: Wicked problems like sustainable energy and financial market stability are societal challenges that arise from complex sociotechnical systems in which numerous social, economic, political, and technical factors interact. Understanding and mitigating these problems requires research methods that scale beyond the traditional areas of inquiry of information systems (IS) individuals, organizations, and markets and that deliver solutions in addition to insights. We describe an approach to address these challenges through competitive benchmarking (CB), a novel research method that helps interdisciplinary research communities tackle complex challenges of societal scale by using different types of data from a variety of sources such as usage data from customers, production patterns from producers, public policy and regulatory constraints, etc. for a given instantiation. Further, the CB platform generates data that can be used to improve operational strategies and judge the effectiveness of regulatory regimes and policies. We describe our experience applying CB to the sustainable energy challenge in the Power Trading Agent Competition (Power TAC) in which more than a dozen research groups from around the world jointly devise, benchmark, and improve IS-based solutions.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors study how the chosen revenue model affects the revenue of a platform, buyers' payoffs, sellers' payoff, and social welfare, and find that when a significant proportion of space is dedicated to advertising under the advertising model, matching probability on a platform plays a critical role in determining which revenue model can generate more revenue.
Abstract: The two leading online consumer-to-consumer platforms use very different revenue models: eBay.com in the United States uses a brokerage model in which sellers pay eBay on a transaction basis, whereas Taobao.com in China uses an advertising model in which sellers can use the basic platform service for free and pay Taobao for advertising services to increase their exposure. This paper studies how the chosen revenue model affects the revenue of a platform, buyers’ payoffs, sellers’ payoffs, and social welfare. We find that when little space can be dedicated to advertising under the advertising model, the brokerage model generates more revenue for the platform than the advertising model. When a significant proportion of space is dedicated to advertising under the advertising model, matching probability on a platform plays a critical role in determining which revenue model can generate more revenue: If the matching probability is high, the brokerage model generates more revenue; otherwise, the advertising model generates more revenue. Buyers are always better off under the advertising model because of larger participation by the sellers in the platform’s free service. Sellers are better off under the advertising model in most scenarios. The only exception is when the matching probability is low and the platform dedicates considerable space to advertising. Under these conditions, the sellers with payoffs similar to the marginal advertiser who is indifferent about advertising can be worse off under the advertising model. Finally, the advertising model generates more social welfare than the brokerage model.
TL;DR: In this paper, the effectiveness of display advertising across a wide range of consumer behaviors was evaluated using a massive individual-level data set, and it was shown that mere exposure to display advertising increases users' propensity to search for the brand and the corresponding product; consumers engage both in active search exerting effort to gather information and in passive search using information sources that arrive exogenously.
Abstract: The increasing availability of individual-level data has raised the standards for measurability and accountability in digital advertising. Using a massive individual-level data set, our paper captures the effectiveness of display advertising across a wide range of consumer behaviors. Two unique features of our data set that distinguish this paper from prior work are (1) the information on the actual viewability of impressions as on average 55% of the display ads are not rendered viewable and (2) the duration of exposure to the display advertisements, both at the individual-user level. Employing a quasi-experiment enabled by our setting, we use difference-in-differences and corresponding matching methods as well as instrumental variable techniques to control for unobservable and observable confounders. We empirically demonstrate that mere exposure to display advertising increases users' propensity to search for the brand and the corresponding product; consumers engage both in active search exerting effort to gather information, and in passive search using information sources that arrive exogenously. We also find statistically and economically significant effects of display advertising on increasing consumers' propensity to make a purchase. Furthermore, our findings reveal that the longer the duration of exposure to display advertising, the more likely the consumers are to engage in direct search behaviors (e.g., direct visits) rather than indirect ones (e.g., search engine inquiries). We also study the effects of various types of display advertising (e.g., prospecting, retargeting, affiliate targeting, video advertising, etc.) and the different goals they achieve. Our framework for evaluating display advertising effectiveness constitutes a stepping stone toward causally addressing the digital attribution problem.