Research productivity of Library and Information Science in India during 2010-2019: A Scientometric Study

The aim of this study is to analyze the Library & Information Science literatures available in the Web of Science database during 2010-2019 by the topic “Research productivity of Library and Information Science in India during 2010-2019: A Scientometric Study”. The required data is retrieved from Web of Science database using advanced Boolean search techniques. Total 778 numbers of literatures are retrieved from the database. The literatures mainly include journal articles, proceeding papers, editorial materials, etc. In the study, analysis of year wise growth rate, productive journals, articles, authors, etc are covered. Along with that three mostly used bibliometric laws, Bradford’s law, Lotka’s Law and Zipf’s law are examined with the help of the dataset. It is found that there is no constant growth rate of the published literature but the average annual growth rate is 12.64%. The study reveals that the most published literature form is article (88.95%) and “Scientometrics” with highest contribution of 98 is the most preferred journal on the subject

Understanding smart contracts as a new option in transaction cost economics

Among different concepts associated with the term blockchain, smart contracts have been a prominent one, especially popularized by the Ethereum platform. In this study, we unpack this concept within the framework of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). This institutional economics theory emphasizes the role of distinctive (private and public) contract law regimes in shaping firm boundaries. We propose that widespread adoption of the smart contract concept creates a new option in public contracting, which may give rise to a smart-contract-augmented contract law regime. We discuss tradeoffs involved in the attractiveness of the smart contract concept for firms and the resulting potential for change in firm boundaries. Based on our new conceptualization, we discuss potential roles the three branches of government – judicial, executive, and legislative – in enabling and using this new contract law regime. We conclude the paper by pointing out limitations of the TCE perspective and suggesting future research directions

Moral Hazards and Effects of IT-enabled Monitoring Systems in Online Labor Markets

This paper investigates how IT-enabled monitoring systems mitigate moral hazard in an online labor market and their effect on market competition. We exploit a quasi-experiment at Freelancer when it introduced an IT-enabled monitoring system in 2015. We use a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to identify the treatment effect of the monitoring system on employer contractor choice, market competition, and employer surplus. We found that the IT-enabled monitoring system lowers the employers’ willingness to pay the reputation premiums. Meanwhile, comparing the trend of the control group, the IT-enabled monitoring system raised the employer surplus in hourly projects and increased the number of bids. Our result suggests that IT-enabled monitoring systems have a significant effect on alleviating moral hazards, reducing agency costs, and facilitating market competition

Home Bias in Online Employment

We study the nature of home bias in online employment, wherein the employer prefers workers from his/her own home country. Using a unique large-scale dataset from one of the major online labor platforms, we identify employers’ home bias in their online employment decisions. Moreover, we investigate the cause of employers’ home bias using a quasi-natural experiment wherein the platform introduces a monitoring system to facilitate employers to keep track of workers’ progress in time-based projects. After matching comparable fixed-price projects as a control group using propensity score matching, our difference-in-difference estimations show that the home bias does exist in online employment, and at least 54.0% of home bias is driven by statistical discrimination

Innovation Through IT and Business Process Outsourcing – Literature Review

Innovation is increasingly expected in today’s ongoing outsourcing relationships. While prior studies made considerable strides to examine innovation through outsourcing, the research landscape remains highly fragmented. In this review, we bring together and analyse prior research examining this emerging phenomenon in the contexts of IT outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO). We focus on articles published between 1997 and 2018 in the top outlets across information systems (IS), management, and related disciplines. Our contribution is threefold: First, we present an overview of the key literature on this topic. Second, we identify and document three different scopes of achievable innovation through outsourcing, associated firm-specific intentions and capabilities, and relationship governance structures conducive to such value creating activities. Third, we put forward propositions for future research on innovation through outsourcing

Effects of IT-enabled Monitoring Systems in Online Labor Markets

This paper investigates how IT-enabled monitoring systems mitigate moral hazard in an online labor market and their effect on market competition. We exploit a quasi-experiment at Freelancer when it introduced enhanced offline tracking features in 2015. Using a large dataset including 17,827 fixed-price projects and 8,563 hourly projects, we use a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to identify the treatment effect of the implementation of IT-enabled monitoring systems on employer contractor choice, employer surplus and market competition. We found that the IT-enabled monitoring system lowers the employers’ preference for high-reputable bidders, and thus reduces the reputation premiums. Meanwhile, comparing the trend of fixed-price projects, the implementation of the monitoring systems increased the number of bids by 17.4% and increased employer surplus in hourly projects by 21.5%. Our result suggests that IT-enabled monitoring systems have a significant effect on alleviating moral hazards, reducing agency costs, and facilitating market competition

How Client Capabilities, Vendor Configuration and Location Impact BPO Outcomes

Despite the increasing use of onshore and offshore business process outsourcing (BPO), a comprehensive literature review [38] finds that there has been limited empirical research on BPO outcomes. This article responds to the call for research by developing and testing a conceptual model for BPO outcomes using data from 50 firms publicly traded in the U.S., including 38 firms in the Forbes Global 2000. We find that client firm capabilities, vendor configuration, and country location lead to interesting tradeoffs in the BPO quality, cost, and time outcomes. For example, while multi-sourcing offers advantages such as risk mitigation, client firms encounter reduced BPO time benefits when they use multiple vendors. While onshore BPO can lead to an improved quality, higher onshore labor costs result in lower BPO cost savings. And while offshore destinations such as India offer lower labor costs, time zone differences lead to reduced BPO time benefits

Understanding Smart Contracts as a New Option in Transaction Cost Economics

Among different concepts associated with the term blockchain, smart contracts have been a prominent one, especially popularized by the Ethereum platform. In this study, we unpack this concept within the framework of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). This institutional economics theory emphasizes the role of distinctive (private and public) contract law regimes in shaping firm boundaries. We propose that widespread adoption of the smart contract concept creates a new option in public contracting, which may give rise to a smart-contract-augmented contract law regime. We discuss tradeoffs involved in the attractiveness of the smart contract concept for firms and the resulting potential for change in firm boundaries. Based on our new conceptualization, we discuss potential roles the three branches of government – judicial, executive, and legislative – in enabling and using this new contract law regime. We conclude the paper by pointing out limitations of the TCE perspective and suggesting future research directions