Cloud Sourcing – Next Generation Outsourcing?

Although Cloud Sourcing has been around for some time it could be questioned what actually is known about it. This paper presents a literature review on the specific question if Cloud Sourcing could be seen as the next generation of outsourcing. The reason for doing this is that from an initial sourcing study we found that the sourcing decisions seems to go in the direction of outsourcing as a service which could be described as Cloud Sourcing. Whereas some are convinced that Cloud Sourcing reduces cost and complexity in advantage for increased labor productivity, others maintain that the negotiation with the cloud provider is crucial to ensure data privacy, security regulations, compliance, standards, tolerance for risk, governance and service level agreements. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the debate on Cloud Sourcing in the top IS conferences and AIS basket of 8 journals goes in the direction of Cloud Sourcing being the future of sourcing as practice predicts, and to identify the space for the development of this research. An introductory literature review showed that there is not much written about Cloud Sourcing as an alternative for outsourcing albeit it seems to have a great potential

Relativism in the Cloud: Cloud Sourcing in virtue of IS Development Outsourcing - A literature review

Nowadays Cloud Computing and Cloud Sourcing is on the agenda in many organizations. Many Chief Information Officers (CIOs) that urge for alternatives to traditional outsourcing are interested in how they can take advantage from Cloud Computing, by sourcing Information Technology (IT) from the cloud. This paper provides an overview of the research direction of Cloud Sourcing in the IS field. A literature review based on selected papers from top Information Systems (IS) journals and conferences were conducted. Findings from the review indicate that the attention of Cloud Sourcing in IS literature has mainly been directed towards security and risk as well as adoption issues, and that Cloud Sourcing is claimed to be the next generation of outsourcing. Unfortunately, this is where this strong claim ends without any further evidence, which indicate that there is a need for more research on Cloud Sourcing, especially in the direction of investigating relationships and implications when organizations start using Cloud Sourcing

Relativism in the Cloud: Cloud Sourcing in virtue of IS Development Outsourcing - A literature review

Nowadays Cloud Computing and Cloud Sourcing is on the agenda in many organizations. Many Chief Information Officers (CIOs) that urge for alternatives to traditional outsourcing are interested in how they can take advantage from Cloud Computing, by sourcing Information Technology (IT) from the cloud. This paper provides an overview of the research direction of Cloud Sourcing in the IS field. A literature review based on selected papers from top Information Systems (IS) journals and conferences were conducted. Findings from the review indicate that the attention of Cloud Sourcing in IS literature has mainly been directed towards security and risk as well as adoption issues, and that Cloud Sourcing is claimed to be the next generation of outsourcing. Unfortunately, this is where this strong claim ends without any further evidence, which indicate that there is a need for more research on Cloud Sourcing, especially in the direction of investigating relationships and implications when organizations start using Cloud Sourcing

AUTOMATIC POST-ADOPTIVE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY USE: THE ROLE OF INNOVATIVENESS GOAL

The business value of information technology (IT) is realized through the continuous use of IT subsequent to users’ adoption. Understanding post-adoptive IT usage is useful in realizing potential IT business value. Most previous research on post-adoptive IT usage, however, dismisses the unintentional and unconscious aspects of usage behavior. This paper advances understanding of the unintentional, unconscious, and thereby automatic usage of IT features during the post-adoptive stage. Drawing from Social Psychology literature, we argue human behaviors can be triggered by environmental cues and directed by the person’s mental goals, thereby operating without a person’s consciousness and intentional will. On this basis, we theorize the role of a user’s innovativeness goal, as the desired state of an act to innovate, in directing the user’s unintentional, unconscious, and automatic post-adoptive IT feature usage behavior. To test the hypothesized mechanisms, a human experiment employing a priming technique, is described

Commercialized Content on Social Media Platforms: Exploring the Drivers of the Viewership of Paid Q&A

Paying to view others’ answers is an emerging business model happening on Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter. Yet, little is known about what drives people to pay to view others’ answers. Based on signaling theory and related literature, we develop a model to predict the viewership of paid-for answers. Using unique panel data of 417 question-to-answers, we find that answer providers’ Weibo level, the number of comments that the paid-for answer receives, as well as the question price positively affect the viewership of the paid-for answer. Our findings contribute to the literature and enlighten content providers and platform organization on how to facilitate individual users to commercialize content for profits

Understanding Different Cognitive Levels of Social Engagement: Evidence from Paid Q&A

Despite the widespread conversion of free content to paid content, empirical research investigating social engagement in the paid context still lags. Moreover, prior research used like and comment to measure social engagement without considering their differences. In this study, we conceptualize like and comment on two distinct behavioral manifestations differing cognitive processes involved: low- and high-cognitive social engagement. Specifically, setting in a paid Q&A site, we identify the answer provider characteristic (i.e., the number of followers and posts) and answer characteristic (i.e., viewership revenue) as salient factors influencing social engagement. We compare their direct and interaction effects on the two types of social engagement. Results show that identified factors have a greater direct effect and smaller interaction effect on low-cognitive social engagement than on highcognitive social engagement. Our work advances knowledge of social engagement and has practical implications for platform practitioners to achieve social engagement

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE ROLE OF DEPENDENCY IN PREDICTING CONTINUANCE INTENTION TO USE UBIQUITOUS MEDIA SYSTEMS: COMBINING A MEDIA SYTEM PERSPECTIVE WITH EXPECTATION-CONFIRMATION THEORIES

The mobile telecommunications landscape has evolved into a highly competitive and complex ecosystem composed of network operators, mobile device manufacturers as well as software, content and service providers. This major shift has strongly impacted the fundamental nature of mobile devices which have now become complex multi-purpose, multi-context ubiquitous media systems. Such change has engendered an urgent need to revisit our understanding of mobile device usage through the lens of theories that encompass the multifaceted nature of ubiquitous systems. Relying on a media perspective, the paper investigates the role of individual media dependency in predicting continuance intention to use ubiquitous media systems. Data collected from 150 smartphone users were used to test the developed conceptual model. The results confirmed the overall effect of ubiquitous media systems dependency on individuals´ reasoned continuance usage decision. The findings suggest that the level of dependency towards a ubiquitous media system inflates the perceived positive attributes about the system: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, as well as the cognitive appraisal about the discrepancies between initial expectations and post-use performance. Theoretical and practical implications developed from these findings are then discussed

An Empirical Examination of Continuance Intention of Social Network Sites

Social network sites (SNSs) have drawn extensive attention among scholars and practitioners. In this study, we aim at explaining the continuance of SNSs. Specifically, we propose and empirically test a research model of continuance intention to use SNSs. We also examine the relative impacts of SNS-specific motivation factors and social factors derived from the SNS environment on continuance intention to use SNSs. Building upon expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT), our research model was empirically tested with 204 Facebook users through an online survey. While prior studies focus mostly on the SNS-specific motivations, our results demonstrated that social factors derived from the SNS environment play a dominant role in explaining the continuance intention to use SNSs. In particular, this study suggested that perceived critical mass, social presence, and social norms are influential and major factors that determine continuance intention. We believe that this study provides significant contributions to both researchers and practitioners in the context of SNSs

Towards a Decomposed Expectation Confirmation Model of IT Continuance: The Role of Usability

We propose a decomposed expectation confirmation model of IT continuance by 1) decomposing user expectation and confirmation into two dimensions of usefulness and usability, 2) conceptualizing the role of usability in IT continuance research, and 3) exploring changes in user perceptions of usability and usefulness over time and their impacts on user satisfaction and continuance intention. We tested the proposed research model using longitudinal data that we collected in two points in time six months apart from 125 users of the LinkedIn professional social networking site (pSNS). The results show that 1) perceived usability, usability confirmation, perceived usefulness, and usefulness confirmation determined user satisfaction with pSNS and 2) perceived usability along with satisfaction predicted continuance intention, whereas perceived usefulness had no effect. This study contributes IT continuance research by 1) proposing and empirically validating a decomposed model of IT continuance and 2) by bringing in usability as a core construct of interest for IT continuance research

Analyzing the Factors Expediting Commercial Value for Companies in Online Social Networks Using Electronic Word-Of-Mouth

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