Development and Validation of the Information Systems Creative-Self-Efficacy Scale

High-performing information systems (IS) professionals harness creativity as they build systems to solve new and unstructured business problems. Psychology has developed useful scales and techniques for measuring creativity. However, being creative is not sufficient. IS professionals must also have confidence in their creative ability to succeed. The belief in one’s ability to be creative is termed creative self-efficacy (CreaSE). CreaSE is defined in the general business context, but scales are not thoroughly developed or refined. CreaSE has also never been studied in the IS context. We detail steps to develop and validate a theoretically-based measure of CreaSE as related to IS. Our process includes six datasets collected during refinement. Participants include business and IS students, online respondents, university professors, IS executives, and IS professionals. The validated instrument is a second-order formative measure with reflective first-order sub-constructs based on belief in cognitive ability, affect, domain knowledge, skills, and understanding of people

Optimizing Software Team Performance with Cultural Differences

Software development is primarily a team task that requires a high degree of coordination among team members. Prior research has indicated that the composition of team member traits such as personality and culture can influence the performance of software teams. However, this line of research does not give practical guidance on how to build teams with personnel constraints. Some research has built teams by starting with personality. However, cultural traits—which are also known to influence team performance—have not been examined in the same manner. This research, therefore, builds upon this stream by: 1) examining the effects of Hofstede’s latest six-dimensional model of national culture, 2) segmenting potential software team members into distinct cultural clusters, and 3) testing the outcomes of teams built upon homogeneous versus heterogeneous cultural compositions over time. Our results indicate that—consistent with prior research—homogenous team compositions are initially better for performance. However, this effect reverses over time, and ultimately heterogenous team compositions are superior

A Chatbot Tutor Can Lessen the Gender Confidence Gap in Information Systems Learning

Women are underrepresented in the information systems discipline as well as other STEM fields. A common explanation for the significant gender gap is the difference in women’s and men’s self-efficacy concerning information systems (IS) tasks and roles during their secondary education. As a potential solution, this study explores how chatbot tutors impact confidence differently between 136 women and men in an introductory programming course. Our findings confirmed prior research showing that while men have greater confidence in information systems tasks, there is no difference in performance in those tasks between women and men. Next, we found that a chatbot used during learning can improve confidence of all students. Finally, and most importantly, we found that the effect of a chatbot tutor is stronger for women than for men. Therefore, chatbot may be a valid tool to lessen the gender gap in the information systems discipline

The Effect of Software Team Personality Composition on Learning and Performance: Making the Dream Team

Optimizing work team composition in organizational and educational environments is an important task toward maximizing performance. Social science research has revealed that personality trait composition influences team cohesion and performance. However, this research has not been well-adapted into the IS context. In addition, prior research demonstrates how individual personality traits impact teams, but fails to appropriately characterize overall team personality composition. We expand this research by 1) characterizing holistic personality compositions, and 2) examining team learning in addition to performance in the IS context. We draw from theory on team performance and Big 5 trait composition. Results demonstrate that teams comprised of homogenous versus heterogeneous personality compositions differ in their performance and learning. The primary implication of this research is that teams can benefit from a priori personality measurements and directed composition. Initially, optimal learning and effectiveness comes from homogenous teams. However, this may change over time

11th Annual Research Week

A History of Mission Driven Scholarshi