Leveraging BI Systems to Overcome Infobesity: A Comparative Analysis of Incumbent and New Entrant firms

Infobesity is a condition whereby firms collect more information than they need or more information than they can efficiently use. As both incumbent firms and new entrant firms face different information-rich technological and economic environments, they are at a greater risk of infobesity which can compromise their innovation outcomes. In this study we leverage a research design that integrates inductive analytics and abductive discovery to uncover how incumbent and new-entrant firms leverage Business Intelligence systems and digital collaboration activities to innovate in the face of infobesity. We find that new entrant firms encounter a threshold effect governed by the use of BI systems to filter information from their customer network. On the other hand, we found that while most incumbents are able to innovate, there are uninventive incumbents that are unable to develop new products when they deploy only moderate levels of BI systems to filter their supplier data

Unravelling the Origins of Infobesity: The Impact of Frequency on Intensity

Infobesity is characterized by information overload whereby firms and decision makers collect more information than they need, or they can efficiently use. While recent studies have begun to unravel the antecedents of infobesity in organizations, there is a need to examine the relationship between the frequency and the degree of experiencing infobesity originating from enterprise systems. We use a research design that integrates inductive analytics and abductive discovery to uncover the interaction of multi-level antecedents of infobesity and conclude that the rate at which firms encounter infobesity drives the perception of the intensity at which the overload will be experienced

Need for Speed in the Sharing Economy: How IT capability drives Innovation Speed?

Though innovation is considered to be the lifeblood of business, speed of innovation is more critical than innovation itself. IT plays a critical role in the process of open innovation as it is based upon collaborating with suppliers and customers. IT enables increased collaboration and generation of insights across the firm’s partner network. We examine the role of IT-enabled capabilities in determining the speed of innovation. We hypothesize that collaboration with customers is more effective than collaboration with suppliers for firms to speedily innovate. Further, a firm’s digital collaboration with customers is more effective when Business Intelligence systems are used. Econometric analyses of data from 249 U.S. firms yields strong support for our hypotheses. While both customer-side and supplier- side digital collaboration are positively associated with innovation speed, the effect of customer-side digital collaboration on innovation speed is stronger. Furthermore, Business Intelligence systems use amplifies the effect of customer-side digital collaboration

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: Infobesity in Multicultural Firms During Covid-19

Globalized firms maintain a presence across multiple countries encompassing multiple cultures. Cross-border, multicultural firms can leverage digital technologies to harness diverse information spread across the organization to generate insights and innovation. Conversely, digital technologies can cause organizations to suffer from infobesity. We examine this dialectic tension in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. We theorize that multicultural firms exhibited better performance, assessed through market measures, during the onset of the pandemic. We further maintain that the use of digital technologies to generate insights from data has a negative effect on the relationship between multiculturism and firm performance due to infobesity. Analysis of Fortune 500 firms, having 56,587 subsidiaries present in 179 distinct countries, demonstrates that multicultural firms witnessed relatively superior stock market returns during the first quarter of 2020. We make significant contributions to information systems and cross-cultural research and to broader inter-disciplinary management research

Dynamic Adjustment Of Information Technology, Corporate Governance, And Firm Profitability

How do managers make their decisions with regard to adjustment and deployment of information technology (IT) over time? Motivated by this complex dynamics, we draw on behavioral theory of the firm and theorize a bounded rational process of managerial decision making for IT investment. In particular, we explain the dynamic adjustment of IT investment by bounded rational managers' pursuing of satisfaction. When performance feedback of prior profitability is below their aspiration, they become unsatisfied and adjust IT investment to facilitate problemistic search directed toward innovative solutions to performance problems. As a result, performance problems will be solved and future profitability can be improved. We also deepen our understanding by theorizing the contingency of above dynamics based on the possibility of agency problems and the appropriateness of corporate governance mechanisms, which is largely omitted in behavioral theory. We further draw on agency theory and examine the moderating roles of different corporate governance mechanisms (i.e., incentive alignment versus monitoring) in the effects of IT investment on problemistic search and rent generation. By using a recent, large-scale panel data set, we find that managers are indeed bounded rational and dynamically adjust IT investment over time based on performance feedback. We also find that incentive alignment outgoes monitoring in directing managerial decision making toward innovating with and generating rent with IT investment. Novel theoretical and practical implications are discussed