MY PAPERS

With the growing recognition of the customer�??s role in service creation and delivery, there is an increased impetus on building customer-centric organizations. Digital technologies play a key role in such organizations. Prior research studying digital business strategies has largely focused on building production-side competencies and there has been little focus on customer-side digital business strategies to leverage these technologies. We propose a theory to understand the effectiveness of a customer-side digital business strategy focused on localized dynamics�??here, a firm�??s customer service units (CSUs). Specifically, we use a capabilities perspective to propose digital design as an antecedent to two customer service capabilities�??namely, customer orientation capability and customer response capability�??across a firm�??s CSUs. These two capabilities will help a firm to locally sense and respond to customer needs, respectively. Information quality from the digital design of the CSU is proposed as the antecedent to the two capabilities. Proposed capabilitybuilding dynamics are tested using data collected from multiple respondents across 170 branches of a large bank. Findings suggest that the impacts of information quality in capability-building are contingent on the local process characteristics. We offer implications for a firm�??s customer-side digital business strategy and present new areas for future examination of such strategies.

Notwithstanding potential benefits, such as quality of interorganizational relationships and operational and strategic gains, adoption of information technology (IT)-enabled interorganizational business process standards (IBPS) is still limited. Given that these standards are designed for interorganizational business processes, we suggest that adoption of these standards depends not only on the factors pertinent to a focal firm but also on factors that represent synergies between a focal firm and its trading partners. In this paper, building on the technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) framework and interorganizational theories, we propose a model that postulates that a set of TOE factors will have synergistic effects (i.e., interactions between a focal firm's and its partner's factors) on IBPS adoption. We tested our model in a study of 248 firms (124 dyads) in the high-tech industry implementing RosettaNet-based IBPS and found that three TOE factors (i.e., process compatibility, standards uncertainty, and technology readiness) had synergistic effects and two factors (i.e., expected benefits and relational trust) had direct effects on IBPS adoption. We also found that IBPS adoption led to greater relationship quality (i.e., partnering satisfaction) and operational efficiency (i.e., cycle time). Further, we found that IBPS adoption mediated the effect of TOE factors on partnering satisfaction and cycle time.

This paper extends the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to study acceptance and use of technology in a consumer context. Our proposed UTAUT2 incorporates three constructs into UTAUT: hedonic motivation, price value, and habit. Individual differences�??namely, age, gender, and experience�??are hypothesized to moderate the effects of these constructs on behavioral intention and technology use. Results from a two-stage online survey, with technology use data collected four months after the first survey, of 1,512 mobile Internet consumers supported our model. Compared to UTAUT, the extensions proposed in UTAUT2 produced a substantial improvement in the variance explained in behavioral intention (56 percent to 74 percent) and technology use (40 percent to 52 percent). The theoretical and managerial implications of these results are discussed.

Advances in Internet technologies have led to the popularity of technology-based self-service, with the design of such services becoming extremely important. Using technology-based services in the public sector as the setting, we identified the key service attributes driving adoption and use of transactional e-government services, and citizens' preference structures across these attributes. After identifying four key attributes, i.e., usability, computer resource requirement, technical support provision and security provision, we conducted a Web-based survey and a conjoint experiment among 2465 citizens. In a two-stage Web-based survey, citizens reported their perceptions about a smartcard technology for transactional e-government services before use, and their use and satisfaction 4 months later. Results showed that the key attributes (noted above) influenced citizens' intentions, subsequent use and satisfaction. In the conjoint experiment, citizens reported their preferences for key service attributes for two transactional e-government services. Further, a cluster analysis uncovered four distinct citizen segments, i.e., balanced, usability-focused, risk-conscious and resource-conservative, that can inform efforts in designing e-government services. A post hoc analysis confirmed the appropriateness of the market segmentation in understanding citizens' adoption and use of transactional e-government services.

We propose a model to study expectation confirmation in information systems. The proposed model is based on the assimilation-contrast model and prospect theory, and suggests that both are needed to account for the magnitude and direction of the deviations between experiences and expectations. Using the technology acceptance model�??s (TAM) primary construct, namely perceived usefulness, expectations and experiences were conceptualized and operationalized to test our model. Data were collected in a field study from 1,113 participants at two points in time. Using polynomial modeling and response surface analysis, we demonstrated that our model offers a good explanation of the relationship among information systems expectations, experiences, and use. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Despite increasing organizational interest and investment in virtual worlds (VWs), there is a lack of research on the benefits of VWs. When and how does the use of VW systems engender better organizational outcomes than traditional collaborative technologies? This paper investigates the value of VWs for team collaboration. Team collaboration is particularly relevant in studying VWs given the rich interactive nature of VWs and an increasing organizational reliance on virtual teamwork. To understand the value of VW use for team collaboration, we examine the relationship between a team's disposition toward IT, their general disposition (personality) and VW use in influencing team cohesion and performance. We conducted a field study that compares two collaborative technology systems - one that is based on a traditional desktop metaphor and one that is grounded in the principles of a virtual world. We tracked the use of the systems for one year. We analyzed data at the team level and the results generally support our model, with agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness, and computer self-efficacy interacting with time and technology type to positively influence team technology use. We also found that the use of the virtual world system positively influenced the relationship between technology use and team cohesion, which, in turn, predicts team performance. The model explains 57 percent, 21 percent, and 24 percent of the variance in team technology use, team cohesion, and team performance, respectively.

In today's information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled service economy, there is great interest in digital service management. While the extant technology acceptance research has mainly studied user acceptance of various ICTs, there is a dearth of research on consumer acceptance of personal ICT services. In this paper, we extend the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to the context of ICT services by examining the moderating role of ICT service type. We tested the proposed model in a large-scale survey of 4777 consumers, including both potential and current consumers of mobile data services (MDS), of two different types of MDS: communication and infotainment services. The results strongly supported the model with service type moderating the key relationships. The findings have theoretical and practical implications for digital service management in particular and service science in general.

Collaborative technologies are widely used to enable teams to function effectively in today's competitive business environment. However, prior research has been inconclusive regarding the impacts of collaborative technologies on team performance. To address the inconsistencies in prior work, this paper seeks to understand the mediational mechanisms that transmit the effect of collaborative technologies on team performance. Specifically, we theorize that there is a relationship between design features and knowledge contextualization. We further theorize relationships between knowledge contextualization and a team's capability for collaboration, specifically examining collaboration know-how and absorptive capacity, both of which are expected to influence team performance. We conduct a field study including 190 software project teams from a large organization in China. The results support our theoretical model and demonstrate that design features have an impact on performance outcomes, mediated by collaboration know-how and absorptive capacity.

With the strong ongoing push toward investment in and deployment of electronic healthcare (e-healthcare) systems, understanding the factors that drive the use of such systems and the consequences of using such systems is of scientific and practical significance. Elaborate training in new healthcare systems is not a luxury that is typically available to healthcare professionals�??i.e., doctors, paraprofessionals (e.g., nurses) and administrative personnel�??because of the 24x7 nature and criticality of operations of healthcare organizations, especially hospitals, thus making peer interactions and support a key driver of or barrier to such e-healthcare system use. Against this backdrop, using social networks as a theoretical lens, this paper presents a nomological network related to e-healthcare system use. A longitudinal study of an e-healthcare system implementation, with data gathered from doctors, para-professionals, administrative personnel, patients and usage logs, lent support to the hypotheses that: (1) in-group and out-group ties to doctors negatively affect use in all user groups; (2) in-group and out-group ties to paraprofessionals and administrative personnel positively affect use in both those groups, but have no effect on doctors' use; and (3) use contributes positively to patient satisfaction mediated by healthcare quality variables�??i.e., technical quality, communication, interpersonal interactions and time spent. This work contributes to the theory and practice related to the success of e-healthcare system use in particular and information systems in general.

This work seeks to complement and extend prior work by using a multidisciplinary approach to explain electronic medical records (EMR) system use and consequent performance (here, patient satisfaction) among physicians during early stages of the implementation of an EMR. This was a quantitative study, with data obtained from three distinct sources: individual-level and social-network data from employees; use data from EMR logs; and patient satisfaction data from patients and/or authorized decision-makers. Responses were obtained from 151 physicians and 8440 patient satisfaction surveys over the course of a 1-year period at the shakedown phase of an EMR system implementation. Physicians who were better connected, both directly and indirectly, to their peers�??that is, other physicians�??for advice on their work, used the system less than those who were less connected. In addition to such social network ties, demographic characteristics (gender and age), three personality characteristics (openness to experience, agreeableness and extroversion) and a key technology perception (perceived usefulness) predicted EMR system use. For hospital administrators and other stakeholders, understanding the contributors to, and the relative importance of various factors in explaining EMR system use, and its impact on patient satisfaction is of great importance. The factors identified in this work that influence a physician's use of EMR systems can be used to develop interventions and applications that can increase patient buy-in and use of EMR systems.