Two Sides of a Single Coin: Assessing the Net Effect of Organizational Mobile IS/IT Use

The rise of mobile computing devices in organizations is unabated. For example, over 94% of Fortune 500 companies currently test or deploy iPads, and a similar percentage integrate smartphones into their technological landscape. Mobile information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) use indisputably entails a number of advantages in an organizational context, such as an increase in in-formation availability and information quality. However, researchers have started to assess the draw-backs of mobile IS/IT, including work-life conflict, spillover effects, and an increase in work stress. The goal of our study therefore is to provide a balanced overview of the benefits and drawbacks of mobile IS/IT use in a conceptual research model so as to ultimately assess the net productivity impact of mobile IS/IT use in an organizational context. We use a deductive-inductive research approach to develop our model by combining an extensive literature review and 17 expert interviews in major German and Swiss public corporations. The model therefore integrates insights from theory and prac-tice to arrive at a more holistic understanding of our research topic

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

A qualitative analysis of the impact of cultural inertia on studynet/canvas use in teaching and learning at a post-92 university

IJAR, 2021,. All rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Since this line of inquiry is underrepresented in the literature on technology adoption, this study investigates the effect of inertia on technology usage and acceptance in Higher Education institutions. Inertia is described in this study as students' and academics' unwillingness to accept new technology as a teaching and learning resource. The paper considers the benefits and drawbacks of using technology, especially studynet/canvas and its effect on teaching and learning, as well as why some people embrace technology more slowly than others. The researcher used open-ended questions to assess the views of UH academics and students on a variety of topics, including self-efficacy, for example, self-confidence and self-belief in one's ability to master new technology; compatibility; instructor effectiveness; and facilitating conditions; and then analysed their overall influence on teaching and learning, especially in relation to technology use, adoption and acceptance in HEIs. The researcher discovered that users have a high level of self-efficacy, and compatibility has also been suggested to play a significant role in user adoption of the platform. Our findings indicate that inertia, such as self-efficacy, compatibility, instructor effectiveness, and facilitating conditions, influence studynet/canvas use. Based on researcher’s results, it is certain that capacity building, connectivity, technology update, and adaptation are the most important aspects of inertia affecting academics and students' use of studynet/canvas. This paper adds to organisational theories by elucidating the main factors influencing the slow adoption and use of new technology, such as studynet/canvas and its impact on staff and students’ success. It offers guidance to HEI management and technologists on the main factors preventing increased use of the studynet/canvas platform as a teaching and learning resource. The study also considers the long-term effects of these factors on universities, especially those founded after 1992.Peer reviewe

Adoption and Impact of Mobile-Integrated Business Processes - Comparison of Existing Frameworks and Analysis of their Generalization Potential

The integration of mobile workplaces in the (electronically mapped) intra-enterprise value chain is a major and still increasing corporate IT issue. Although the usage of mobile technologies for this purpose is far behind expectations and numerous failures can be observed,still little work has been done on theory building in this area. In this contribution we identify and compare existing frameworks for adoption and impact of mobile technology to support mobile business processes. The hypotheses underlying these frameworks are challenged with experiences from three long-term case studies which are diverse in industry, company size and other factors in order to scrutinize their potential for generalization. The outcome is a set of hypotheses that show robustness against variation of major parameters and thus may be suitable to serve as a basis for a generalized and unified framework on mobile-integrated business processes.

Managing access to the internet in public libraries [MAIPLE]

Managing access to the internet in public libraries [MAIPLE

Mobile learning for sales and service personnel:Case studies in the corporate training environment

This research investigates how organisations where e-learning is already firmly established experience the adoption of mobile learning. Drawing on responses from training managers and sales and service staff, it investigates key aspects of mobile learning, as understood in organisations; how they perceive the relationship between mobile learning and e-learning provision; their key objectives for deploying mobile learning; and the dynamics of mobile learning practice as it is emerging. The project uses a multi-case study methodology with data collected from three corporate organisations in different sectors (healthcare, computing, and financial services). In each case, data is drawn from interviews with training managers and questionnaire responses from sales and service staff. Sharples’ framework for mobile learning, which focuses on the mobility of learners and learning as ‘conversations’, forms the analytical basis for the study. Three case reports are first presented, and then a cross-case analysis is conducted to draw out points of commonality and difference between the cases. My findings show that mobile learning is understood in the organisations through the lens of e-learning: while the two are not perceived as the same thing, the relationship is perceived to be close. While some barriers to adoption are technological, most concern social factors (stakeholder resistance and lack of leadership support). There is also a lack of use of collaborative aspects of mobile learning in emerging practices, even though respondents were aware that such possibilities existed. Most importantly, actual practices of mobile learning are driven more by the organisations’ business needs and how they have previously used e-learning, rather than their specific perceptions of mobile learning. The work contributes to existing research on mobile learning in the corporate sector (especially the perceived advantages and effectiveness of mobile learning, and challenges in adopting it), and in particular, the influence of context (social factors) on integrating mobile learning in organisations

The Nature and Impact of Service Employees’ Innovative Behaviour; a personal-interactive services perspective

The amount of research on service innovation rapidly increased since the start of the third millennium, likely due to the continuous diversification of manufacturing companies into the service sector and the decline of manufacturing in the traditional industrial western countries compared to the World’s emerging economies. Service innovation, furthermore, has received significant attention from academics and practitioners alike and has been increasingly perceived as a means of creating competitive advantage. Arguably, this is due to the growing competition between service companies to reach unconventional levels which led to higher customer expectations of continuous improvement of services.This study investigated the nature and impact of service employees’ innovative behaviour leading to initiating innovation within the sub-sector of personal-interactive services, where the hotel sector was investigated respectively. In doing so, the study also critically reviewed the established literature relevant to service innovation and added further insight to previous research underpinning service employees’ role in initiating innovation.A qualitative case-study research strategy, which compared between three cases, was applied to achieve the objectives of the study. The application of qualitative case-study research allowed closer assessment and observation while the researcher was directly present within the service delivery environment. The combining of qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews, focus groups and direct observation, was applied to congregate evidence of employees’ innovative behaviour patterns from multiple perspectives. The expected limitations of the applied research methods are classically associated with qualitative case-study research such as access barriers, high volume of data outcome and also the complications associated with data collection and analysis.The research findings contributed to the general body of knowledge by highlighting the nature and impact of service employees’ innovative behaviour. A novel classification of six innovative behaviour patterns was established under the three main categories of mandatory, quasi-mandatory and voluntary conduct. The research findings further revealed the significant impact of service employees’ innovative behaviour in initiating innovation, where 49 out of 70 innovative ideas were realised as innovations through employees’ innovative behaviour. The research also added further insight by identifying management procedures and motivation as contextual determinants that enable or inhibit service employees’ innovative behaviour

Adoption and Impact of Mobile-Integrated Business Processes - Comparison of Existing Frameworks and Analysis of their Generalization Potential

The integration of mobile workplaces in the (electronically mapped) intra-enterprise value chain is a major and still increasing corporate IT issue. Although the usage of mobile technologies for this purpose is far behind expectations and numerous failures can be observed,still little work has been done on theory building in this area. In this contribution we identify and compare existing frameworks for adoption and impact of mobile technology to support mobile business processes. The hypotheses underlying these frameworks are challenged with experiences from three long-term case studies which are diverse in industry, company size and other factors in order to scrutinize their potential for generalization. The outcome is a set of hypotheses that show robustness against variation of major parameters and thus may be suitable to serve as a basis for a generalized and unified framework on mobile-integrated business processes

Investigating Visitors’ Behavioural Response to Virtual Reality (VR) Retail Environments

This thesis aimed to explore the influence of Virtual Reality (VR) retail environment cues on visitors’ behavioural intentions in the context of urban shopping destinations. The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) were employed as a theoretical foundation given that many researchers have provided substantial evidence on its suitability as a theoretical framework to investigate the effects of various physical and virtual (online/mobile) retail environment cues on human behaviour through the mediating variables of affective and cognitive states. The first step to achieving the aim was to determine the current state of knowledge surrounding this topic. Therefore, relevant literature over four key topic areas was critically reviewed including 1) urban place marketing, particularly within the broader context of urban tourism, 2) retail store environment literature extending to electronic and mobile commerce research, 3) immersive technology, and 4) technology adoption (Objective 1). Then, primary data were collected in two research phases. Research Phase 1 entailed two sets of semi-structured interviews. First, a contrasting case-based approach was employed, and interviews were conducted with seven urban place marketers from three urban place marketing organisations in four urban shopping destinations in the UK (Objective 2). The findings provided initial insights into urban place marketers’ views on the perceived barriers, benefits, internal organisational capability and external pressures associated with immersive technology (VR and Augmented Reality) implementation and their overall intention to adopt these innovative technologies for city marketing. This data was analysed using thematic analysis and four themes and eleven sub-themes emerged including three new context-specific sub-themes (technology access, organisational readiness and industry readiness). Based on these findings, twelve semi-structured interviews with visitors to Manchester City Centre were gathered and aimed to draw out context-specific themes and sub-themes. This data was also analysed using thematic analysis and overall, three themes and thirteen sub-themes emerged including four new sub-themes (virtual aesthetics, virtual atmospherics, social presence and layout design) under the main theme of VR retail environment cues. Accordingly, ten hypotheses were proposed and informed the development of a qualitative VR Visitor Behaviour Model based on S-O-R theory. The aim of Research Phase 2 was to validate the proposed model (Objective 3). To achieve this, survey data were gathered from 150 potential visitors to urban shopping destinations and the data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) (Objective 3). From these findings, a final VR Visitor Behaviour S-O-R Model was proposed, which is the main contribution of this study (Objective 4). The thesis concludes by outlining the theoretical contributions of this research and providing guidance to urban place marketers and VR developers and designers. Finally, avenues for further research based on the identified study limitations are offered

Technological disruptions in services: lessons from tourism and hospitality

Purpose: Technological disruptions such as the Internet of Things and autonomous devices, enhanced analytical capabilities (artificial intelligence) and rich media (virtual and augmented reality) are creating smart environments that are transforming industry structures, processes and practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore critical technological advancements using a value co-creation lens to provide insights into service innovations that impact ecosystems. The paper provides examples from tourism and hospitality industries as an information dependent service management context. Design/methodology/approach: The research synthesizes prevailing theories of co-creation, service ecosystems, networks and technology disruption with emerging technological developments. Findings: Findings highlight the need for research into service innovations in the tourism and hospitality sector at both macro-market and micro-firm levels, emanating from the rapid and radical nature of technological advancements. Specifically, the paper identifies three areas of likely future disruption in service experiences that may benefit from immediate attention: extra-sensory experiences, hyper-personalized experiences and beyond-automation experiences. Research limitations/implications: Tourism and hospitality services prevail under varying levels of infrastructure, organization and cultural constraints. This paper provides an overview of potential disruptions and developments and does not delve into individual destination types and settings. This will require future work that conceptualizes and examines how stakeholders may adapt within specific contexts. Social implications: Technological disruptions impact all facets of life. A comprehensive picture of developments here provides policymakers with nuanced perspectives to better prepare for impending change. Originality/value: Guest experiences in tourism and hospitality by definition take place in hostile environments that are outside the safety and familiarity of one’s own surroundings. The emergence of smart environments will redefine how customers navigate their experiences. At a conceptual level, this requires a complete rethink of how stakeholders should leverage technologies, engage and reengineer services to remain competitive. The paper illustrates how technology disrupts industry structures and stimulates value co-creation at the micro and macro-societal level