Recent Development in Information Science: Implications for Information Systems Research

Over past several decades, the management information systems (MIS) community has adopted theories, methodologies, philosophical bases, and assumptions from sister disciplines. This paper reports the changing nature of information science (IS) towards multi-disciplinarity and its development over the past decade. It also examines the contribution of informetrics to MIS research in delineating the intellectual structure of information systems, comparing cumulative research traditions, demonstrating theoretical differences between competing approaches, tracing a paradigm shift. Development in IS provides MIS researchers with ample opportunities for cross-disciplinary research, new research tools, new theories to understand information systems phenomena, etc

Information Behavior in Researchers at the Institute of Political Studies of the University of Antioquia

The following study explores concepts related to factors involved in scholars´ information and seeking behavior and subjectivities researchers from Institute of Political Studies – IPS at the University of Antioquia, have to choose and select information, their sources and preferences and formats, print and digital. This study reveals IPS researchers, according their background and culture, are biased to use print sources, but, because of technological, social and working implications they are facing and using even more digital tools to find, retrieve and store information for their activities on a regular basis. They are aware of the advantages digital information can bring to their academic performance versus print information and they are using digital content and tools more often

The Influence of Mobile Phone Banking Attributes on Commercial Banks Corporate Customers Loyalty in Kenya

This study was to establish whether loyalty of commercial bank corporate customers was impacted by attributes of mobile phone banking. The specific objective was to determine the extent to which mobile phone banking attributes influence commercial bank customer loyalty.The study was anchored on diffusion of innovations theory and used a positivistic approach and descriptive cross-sectional design. The target population of the study was 78 top managers from 26 commercial banks in Kenya offering mobile phone banking services. Regression analyses tested the hypothesis to determine whether mobile phone banking attributes impacted on corporate customer loyalty. The research hypothesis showed a strong relationship (R=.728). This was an indication that mobile phone banking dimensions explained 53% (R2 =.530) of customer loyalty. The other variables in the firm explained the remaining 47%.  P-value of less than 0.05 implied that mobile phone banking attributes had statistically significant effects on customer loyalty. Keywords: Innovation Attributes, Diffusion Theory, Customer Loyalt

Customer evaluations of after-sales service contact modes: An empirical analysis of national culture�s consequences

customer, service, culture, evaluation

Educators\u27 Use Of Electronic Networks: An E-Mail Survey of Account-Holders on a Statewide Telecomputing System

This study investigated educators use of TENET, a statewide educational telecomputing network in Texas. It also documented the development and testing of a lengthy theory-based questionnaire and verified the efficacy of a method for administering surveys via electronic mail. The 70-item survey was sent to a random sample of 300 TENET users. The response rate was 66%. The majority of respondents were highly experienced and educated public school teachers, support staff, and administrators, who were experienced computer users with easy access to equipment needed to connect to TENET. Participants logged on to TENET an average of 4-6 times per week. Electronic mail was the most often used network function. Most respondents felt TENET was useful. The network served professional, as well as social and diversionary functions. Social integration with a community of TENET users was a consistent and strong predictor of both usage and satisfaction variable

Customer evaluations of after-sales service contact modes : an empirical analysis of national culture's consequences

Technological advances extend the after-sales services portfolio from traditional service encounters to voice- and bit-based services. Technology enables service organizations to transcend geographical as well as cultural boundaries. It might even result in geographical convergence, often treated synonymously with cultural convergence. In this paper we address this issue. This paper examines the interaction between perceived service performance and national cultural characteristics in the formation of customer satisfaction for three types of after-sales service contact modes. The results suggest that, in contrast to the traditional face-to-face service encounter, the perceived quality-satisfaction relationship is particularly moderated by national culture in case of an after-sales service contact mode mediated by technology

User Acceptance of Electronic Meeting Technology in the Semiconductor Research Corporation

This study assesses the satisfaction of current and potential Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) E-meeting users through survey research. Results from 48 survey responses generally confirm the relationships among potential determinants of information technology usage as specified in an augmented version of Davis' (1989) Technology Acceptance Model. By measuring the relationship between the satisfaction factors, intention to use and actual use, we can have a better understanding of the current and potential E-meeting users in the SRC member community. Finally, uncovering negative relationships between perceptions and intention to use E-meeting technology creates an opportunity for the SRC to ameliorate these concerns, including but not limited to changes to the E-meeting technology used, changes in E-meeting conditions, or opportunities to address misperceptions

The virtual classroom: building the foundations

This is a report on the first year of a three-year project concerned with the development and assessment of new types of software capabilities designed to support university level courses. A virtual classroom or university without walls is being created within a computerized conferencing system. During the first year of the project, students in twelve courses at three universities completed part or all of their coursework online. Pre and post-course questionnaires and automatic monitoring of their computer-mediated communications are the main sources of data. Independent variables include the expectations and attributes of the individual students; characteristics of the particular hardware and software which they use; and variations among classes in the nature of the assignments and activities required or facilitated by the instructor. Intervening variables include the amount and type of use of the system by the students, and the extent to which group learning takes place. Dependent variables are course outcomes and judgments by the students about the relative value of traditional and virtual classrooms. There is considerable variance in outcomes, particularly in student assessments of whether the virtual classroom is a better learning experience and whether they learned more or learned less. There was also extreme variation in measures of activity levels by students. For instance, the mean number of student sessions online was 41, but the standard deviation was 61; and the mean number of comments (contributions per student to the class discussion) was six, while the standard deviation was eight. Variations in measures of online activity and outcomes were significantly related to course, pre-use expectations of the students, sex, and system access variables including workstation hardware and response time. However, the strongest relationships are for measures of process vs. outcome. Those students who actively participated (by making comments rather than just reading the comments of others, and by engaging in private communication online with a number of other students as well as the professor) and those students who experienced group learning (learning from peer-group activity rather than one-way transmission of knowledge from professor to student) reported the most positive outcomes

Acceptance of a Remote Desktop Access System to Increase Workspace Awareness

Awareness systems are being designed and implemented to improve employee connections. This study examines the variables that affect the acceptance of an awareness system. The awareness system that was used for this research was a remote desktop access system. The independent variables investigated were the degree of detail that can be viewed on a desktop, whether the users can control who can access their desktops, whether the users can control when others have access to their desktops, the equality of access to others' desktops, and task-technology fit. In determining the effect of the independent variables on acceptance, the dependent variable, the mediating variables of privacy and fairness were taken into account. There was a preliminary survey conducted to determine appropriate situations to be used in the scenario descriptions for the survey for the main study. The methodology of policy-capturing surveys was utilized to conduct the survey for the main study in order to investigate the model developed in this study. The policy-capturing survey was pre-tested on University of Waterloo students. The main study was conducted in two different organizations, the subjects for the first study were employees from the Information Systems and Technology Department at the University of Waterloo and the subjects for the second study were employees from Ciber Incorporated. Results indicate that perceptions of privacy and perceptions of fairness have significant effects on acceptance. Also, perceptions of privacy and fairness are related to details in the design of the remote desktop access system. This research may be a contribution to this field since little research has been conducted in this area and implications can be drawn for future research on acceptance of awareness systems