Acculturation to the Global Culture, Ethnic Identification and the Adoption of Social Computing

Globalization is now felt in most parts of the world and its effects on culture are becoming a topic of interest to the academic community (Cleveland, 2006). There have been calls to address the issue of globalization and its cultural effects on the IS field (Myers and Tan, 2002). This paper contributes to filling this gap by reporting on the survey results of 171 members of the general public in a developing country which has been opening up to globalization in the last decade. The findings show that there is a significant direct relationship between acculturation to the global culture and the adoption of social computing and an indirect relationship mediated by subjective norms. There is no significant direct relationship between ethnic identification and social computing adoption; however, the relationship is significantly mediated by subjective norm

Socialification: Social Software Elements Analysis and Design

The goal of this paper is to initiate a ‎conversation on the undergraduate teaching of ‎social software analysis and design in applications ‎which are non-social-media specific. This course ‎covers the topics required to strategically ‎‎“socialify” organizational applications to engage ‎users in the most productive way for the ‎organization. To capture this effort, we suggest the ‎term “socialification” which means the use of social ‎software design features in non-social-media ‎applications. We provide some background and ‎course goals and learning objectives as well as a ‎course structure. We then discuss issues to consider ‎when implementing a course in social software ‎elements development. We also cover the theoretical ‎grounding related to the interdisciplinary process ‎and explain how it contributes to the design of the ‎course.

The strategic role of IT as an antecedent to the IT sophistication and IT performance of manufacturing SMEs

The business value of IT (information technology) applications for SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) is dependent upon how such applications “fit” with the strategic orientation of these firms. Based on the strategic alignment of IT, this study uses a systemic approach to test the contribution of three predictors of IT performance in an organization: the strategic role of IT as well as the sophistication of the management and the use of IT. A multivariate mediation perspective is used to conceptualize alignment. The results of an empirical investigation of 44 manufacturing SMEs establish an important mediating effect of IT management and IT usage sophistication between the strategic role of IT and IT performance

Information Technology at Cirque du Soleil: Looking Back, Moving Forward

What do information technologies (IT) have to do with running an artistic organization such as Cirque du Soleil? It turns out that they are critical to the success of the organization. The case is situated in 2008 when Cirque had developed an IT infrastructure supporting the entire process value chain from show creation to production and design, casting, and logistics needed for running its 17 shows around the world. The case illustrates how IT can support different processes of firms, even those relatively ill-structured and which rely heavily on creativity. It also generates discussions on the notion of IT strategic alignment and brings students to reflect on the challenges associated with sustaining alignment over time

An Empirical Investigation of Information Systems Departments’ Configurations

This empirical study focuses on IS departments, investigates their configurations, and assesses their performance. It adopts the configurational approach to cluster IS departments based on their strategy and structure attributes. A nation-wide survey of 217 IS departments was conducted in Canadian business organizations. Cluster analysis was performed, which led to the emergence of three IS department configurations. The more strategy- and structure-oriented departments are, the higher their performance is. IS departments with a medium performance are the ones that focus more on their strategy than on their structure, whereas those who put more emphasis on their structure and less on their strategy achieve the lowest performance

Perceived Organizational Support in the Face of Algorithmic Management: A Conceptual Model

Organizational support theory proposes that employees develop global beliefs concerning the degree to which an organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. These beliefs, known as perceived organizational support (POS), are related to a number of positive employee outcomes, including: job satisfaction, work effort, performance, etc. Three categories of POS antecedents have been recognized in the literature: perceived supervisor support; fairness of organizational procedures; and organizational rewards and job conditions. In this paper, we explore these antecedent categories in the gig-work context where organizations replace human managers with algorithmic management practices and data-driven procedures. In doing so, we develop a new conceptual model that centers on the role that a gig-organization’s algorithm plays in engendering POS by promoting perceptions of fairness and support, and by managing the provision of performance-based rewards. Contributions and future research avenues are discussed

Peering Below the Surface: Social Mechanisms for Analyzing Interorganizational Information Systems Integration

In an interorganizational relationships (IOR) context, interorganizational information systems (IOS) need to be integrated in order to support collaboration between partners and provide a fuller exploitation of the systems they share. Although research stresses the importance of the two phases of the IOS integration, systems development and systems diffusion, there is a paucity of studies on the mechanisms underlying the integration process and their recursive relationships. Adopting a processual approach and drawing on the concept of social mechanisms, we propose a multilevel framework that conjectures about the dimensions of the IOS integration process (surface and deep structures) and the underlying social mechanisms that causally explain the how of the process and the relationships that dynamically link these dimensions

The Interorganizational Relationships Process: An Asset Orchestration Mechanisms Perspective in an SME Context

This exploratory study analyzes the collaborative efforts between two small and medium enterprises (SMEs) engaged in an interorganizational relationship (IOR) aimed at developing co-specialized and complementary assets through coordinating mechanisms. Despite the richness of the literature on IOR, less is known about the mechanisms that trigger and affect collaborative efforts during an IOR process. We adopt a qualitative and processual approach and draw on the concepts of assets orchestration mechanisms, surface structures and deep structures to propose a conceptual framework. We conjecture that the connection between surface structures and deep structures of the IOR process is facilitated by three specific mechanisms: allocating resources, structuring resources and coordinating resources. Our single case data analysis suggests that IOR efforts work well across organizational boundaries between business partners thanks to the assets orchestration mechanisms and when shared vision and artefacts are translated into shared processes and practices.

Healthcare service innovation based on information technology: The role of social values alignment

The electronic personal health record (ePHR) is an information technology (IT) de- signed for patients’ empowerment in health self-management. Its actual implementation remains less than expected due to two main barriers that must be addressed by ePHRs’ providers: lack of trust in providers with regards to data privacy and lack of flexibility of the tool. In this study, we suggest that to potentially overcome these two challenges, ePHRs could be provided by health cooperatives (co-ops) in collaboration with open source devel- opment communities that share similar values. Based on the concept of social alignment that focuses on values, we explore the potential social bi-alignments between the values underlying the mission of health co-ops and the purpose of ePHRs, and between the founda- tional values of health co-ops and open source development communities. We also explore the effect of such potential social values alignments on health co-ops’ interest in innovat- ing with an ePHR-based service. To achieve our research objectives, 17 interviews were conducted in health co-ops in Quebec, a province of Canada where the network of health co-ops is particularly active. Our findings show that the concept of social values alignment is useful in the context of ePHR-based service innovation in health co-ops. However, our data analysis shows that social values alignment is not sufficient for healthcare service innovation to happen. Indeed, our findings lead us toward the concept of organizational readiness to better understand what is required to increase the likelihood of ePHR-based service innovation in health co-ops. This study culminates with the undertaking of theo- retical development where we propose a conceptual model of IT-based service innovation in healthcare organizations by expanding on our findings and on insights from the liter- ature