E-COMMERCE LIVE STREAMING AND LOCAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS’ PARTICIPATION

Government officials in more than half of the poverty-stricken counties in China have recently helped sell local specialty products through e-commerce live streaming platforms. Yet it is little understood if such practice reduces poverty and boosts the local economy by encouraging local entrepreneurship. We conduct an empirical investigation and find that government officials’ participation in e-commerce live streaming is associated with an increase in the online presence of local special products and stores, a manifestation of rising entrepreneurship and shaking off poverty. In addition, the effects of government officials’ participation in live streaming are more pronounced in economically and technologically under-developed areas, suggesting that they help mitigate inequality. Our findings contribute to the intersection of ICT for development, poverty alleviation, and entrepreneurship and highlight the value of a public-private partnership that integrates government participation (the top-down approach) and market behaviors (the bottom-up approach) in poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship

Coherence and transparency: some advice for qualitative researchers

There is relatively little advice in the Engineering domain for undertaking qualitative studies. Researchers have to rely on generic guidance that may result in imprecise application of qualitative methods. A related discipline to Engineering is Information Systems (IS) and the experiences of the IS domain may provide some useful insights for undertaking qualitative studies. This paper synthesizes the guidance from the IS community for crafting high quality qualitative studies and manuscripts. It reports on five themes: i) Establishing philosophical underpinnings; ii) Clarifying theoretical aims; iii) Selecting qualitative methods; iv) Demonstrating rigour in qualitative data analysis; and v) Grappling with generalisation. The review stresses the importance of coherence and transparency for crafting qualitative research manuscripts and provides a list of reflective questions for qualitative research design

Narrowing the Theory’s or Study’s Scope May Increase Practical Relevance

Numerous articles in top IS journals note as a limitation and lack of generalizability that their findings are specific to a certain type of technology, culture, and so on. We argue that this generalizability concern is about limited scope (e.g., explanatory breadth). The IS literature notes this preference for generalizability as a characteristic of good science and it is sometimes confused with statistical generalizability. We argue that such generalizability can be in conflict with explanation or prediction accuracy. An increase in scope (e.g., increasing explanatory breadth) can decrease explanation or prediction accuracy. Thus, in sciences such as cancer research, where explanation and prediction accuracy are highly valued, the cancer accounts (generally speaking) have become increasingly narrower (and less generalizable). IS thinking has not yet benefitted from these considerations. Whether generalizability is valued should be linked with the research aims. If the aim is practical applicability through explanation or prediction accuracy, then “limited” generalizability could be a strength rather than a weakness

A Renaissance of Context in Design Science Research

Foundational theorems for sciences of the artificial highlight that the object of design is not form alone, but ensembles of form and context. However, traditional methods, frameworks, and guidelines for design science research (DSR) strongly focus on developing artifacts as forms while downplaying their contextual reference. This undue emphasis on forms leads design researchers to develop incomplete design theories. Based on drawing on the foundational literature on design as science, we advocate for a renaissance of context, leading us to propose selective adaptations of core methods and frameworks that constitute DSR. We evaluate our approach by reviewing papers that account for most of these adaptations implicitly. Further research can draw on our results to develop IT artifacts and design theories as ensembles of context and form while discussing implications for additional methods and frameworks in DSR

Who gets phished? Insights from a Contextual Clustering Analysis Across Three Continents

Phishing attacks are one of the most prevalent cybersecurity threats to modern organizations. As a result, researchers and practitioners alike have pooled their strengths to understand who is most at risk of falling for phishing attacks. Since recent work calls for consideration of discrete context dimensions when examining phishing susceptibility, we use cluster analysis in conjunction with a large-scale phishing experiment to identify and scrutinize highly deceivable employees across three continents based on contextual influencing factors. The results reveal salient similarities between employee groups in Europe, Australia, and North America. Consequently, our findings underscore the importance of classifying employees based on discrete contextual characteristics impacting their phishing susceptibility. Furthermore, the identified clusters have important implications for policymakers, awareness programs, and anti-phishing interventions, as they allow to better target individuals based on contextual attributes

Coherence and transparency: some advice for qualitative researchers

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Brazilian Association of Production Engineering (ABEPRO) under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/There is relatively little advice in the Engineering domain for undertaking qualitative studies. Researchers have to rely on generic guidance that may result in imprecise application of qualitative methods. A related discipline to Engineering is Information Systems (IS) and the experiences of the IS domain may provide some useful insights for undertaking qualitative studies. This paper synthesizes the guidance from the IS community for crafting high quality qualitative studies and manuscripts. It reports on five themes: i) Establishing philosophical underpinnings; ii) Clarifying theoretical aims; iii) Selecting qualitative methods; iv) Demonstrating rigour in qualitative data analysis; and v) Grappling with generalisation. The review stresses the importance of coherence and transparency for crafting qualitative research manuscripts and provides a list of reflective questions for qualitative research design

Live Healthcare Console: Evaluating digital health design models, a South African perspective

Background: The Department of Health has implemented eHealth systems, yet Gauteng (South Africa) continues to experience healthcare burdens such as prioritising scarce resources. The healthcare technology landscape continues to grow in complexity, yet the availability of real-time information for decision making is limited. A Live Healthcare Console has been proposed to keep key stakeholders informed using real-time information by connecting existing healthcare resources. Objectives: The objective of the research was to identify and evaluate five eHealth design models to determine whether they can be used to design a Live Healthcare Console. The evaluation of the models considered the Batho Pele Principles, which was created by the South African government to promote service delivery. Method: A literature review was conducted to identify relevant eHealth models. The models were evaluated and scored using a custom evaluation framework. The models were also scored against the eHealth model aims (combine, communicate, collaborate and connect) identified in this research. Results: The average score of the five models was 70%, with none fully satisfying the unique South African contexts such as the Batho Pele Principles. Conclusion: A new design model needs to be created as the foundation for the Live Healthcare Console, as no model which caters to the South African context exists. Contribution: A custom evaluation framework for eHealth models considering the unique South African contexts was created. Five models were also evaluated and scored against the new framework

Inductive Empiricism, Theory Specialization and Scientific Idealization in IS Theory Building

This paper distinguishes and discusses three strategies for theory building in Information Systems (IS) - inductive empiricism, theory specialization and scientific idealization - and contrasts them in terms of three desiderata of theories - realism, generality and precision - and tradeoffs between them. Inductive empiricism, emphasizing realism and generality, represents the received view with the classic Grounded Theory Methodology as a prime example. The paper argues for openness to theory specialization in practical disciplines such as IS. Theory specialization implies sacrificing generality of theories for their realism and precision. The distinctive attention of the paper lies in scientific idealization, sacrificing realism of theories for their precision and generality. It has been almost completely omitted in in the literature on IS theory building. The special focus of the paper lies in IT applications as a category of IT artifacts and in design-oriented theories which provide knowledge of how to design “better” IT applications. The paper illustrates its points using TAM/UTAUT research as an example

Context May Be King, but Generalizability Is the Emperor!

The relative importance of context and generalizability (or particularism and universalism) has long been debated in scientific research. Recently, Davison and Martinsons raised valid concerns about the possibility of false universalism in IS research, discussed its negative consequences, and made a call for explicitly including particularism in research design and reporting. In this commentary, we generally agree with the notion that context should matter more in IS research; yet, the importance of generalizability in research should not be downplayed. Specifically, we posit that generalizability should be given higher position in the scientific process and be the ultimate goal for researchers. Still, researchers need to fully understand the research context, which, in combination and replication, can help to cautiously make generalizable knowledge claims. Therefore, we characterize the relationship between context and generalizability as that of a “King” (as an analogy of the local role of context) versus the “Emperor” (as an analogy of the global role of generalizability)