Utilization and Impacts of Collaborative Information Technologies: Global Comparisons

This detailed abstract describes a global study investigating the utilization and impacts of collaborative information technologies (CITs). Data collected from 607 organizations in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, and US was analyzed to assess the extent to which CITs are used to support collaboration tasks and their perceived organizational level impacts. Our preliminary results reveal similarities and differences in the extent to which CITs support collaboration tasks and their perceived organizational level impacts in the study regions. Our presentation will provide more in-depth data analysis comparing the four regions and the implications of our findings for practice and research

The adoption and use of collaboration information technologies: International comparisons

Information technology (IT) applications to support group decision processes have been of considerable interest over the years. With the emergence of virtual team arrangements and the advent of emerging information and networking technologies, an increasing amount of attention is now being aimed at understanding collaboration among group members, as they make decisions to accomplish tasks. Effective and efficient collaboration is critical from a decision quality and decision timeliness standpoint. Commonly known as collaborative information technologies (CITs), many technology solutions have the capability to enhance collaboration and facilitate group decisions in task accomplishment by enabling better communication, sharing of information, ideas, expertise and evaluating alternatives, irrespective of time and distance barriers. Many studies have investigated such individual CIT solutions in different regional settings. However, despite the fact that no single medium can support collaboration in different types of tasks, there is a scarcity of research investigating the adoption and use of mutiple CIT options across regions. This paper builds upon innovation diffusion theory and tests a research model to validate five antecedents of collective adoption and use of seven CITs in the US, Australia, and Hong Kong. Sub-sample analyses of data collected from 344 organizations in these three regions suggest that not only do adoption and use patterns of some CIT solutions vary across regions but so do the antecedents that explain their proliferation. Implications of our findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers

Designing for Light-Weight Collaboration: The Case of Interactive Citizens’ Advisory Services

This paper reports on the design of a collaborative system to support citizens' advisory services. Recent research on the adoption of collaborative technologies indicates that: a) successful collaborative technologies diffuse from the private sector to the business sector and not vice versa, b) collaborative processes evolve and therefore cannot be prestructured in detail, and c) creative collaboration can be characterized as creating and sharing mental models. We demonstrate how these insights informed our design of a citizens' advisory system and provide data from an evaluation in a German city. Implications for the design of our collaborative system are offered

IS Integration and Business Performance: The Mediation Effect of Organizational Absorptive Capacity in SMEs

A fundamental result of the information technology (IT) and business performance literature is that IT is not a driver of performance per se. However, it can be associated with higher performance if accompanied by organizational change. The identification of the variables describing organizational change is still on-going work. This paper focuses on organizational absorptive capacity and analyses its effects on the relationship between IT and business performance in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Organizational absorptive capacity measures the ability of an organization to complete a learning process. A significant learning effort is typically associated with IT, as it represents a complex technology. To cope with IT's complexity, implementation is typically incremental and is accompanied by a continuous integration effort of data and applications. The degree of integration of a company's information system (IS), called IS integration, is a proxy of IT maturity and quality. In this study, we explore the effect of IS integration on business performance through absorptive capacity, that is, we hypothesize that absorptive capacity has a mediation role between IS integration and business performance. The proposed research model is tested with data surveyed from 466 SMEs sited in Italy, for which exports constitute more than half of their revenues. Results indicate that organizational absorptive capacity has a mediation effect. Alternative models attributing to absorptive capacity a role different from mediation are found to be non-significant

Cost-effectiveness of emergency versus delayed laparoscopic cholecystectomy for acute gallbladder pathology

Background: The optimal timing of cholecystectomy for patients admitted with acute gallbladder pathology is unclear. Some studies have shown that emergency cholecystectomy during the index admission can reduce length of hospital stay with similar rates of conversion to open surgery, complications and mortality compared with a ‘delayed’ operation following discharge. Others have reported that cholecystectomy during the index acute admission results in higher morbidity, extended length of stay and increased costs. This study examined the cost-effectiveness of emergency versus delayed cholecystectomy for acute benign gallbladder disease. Methods: Using data from a prospective population-based cohort study examining the outcomes of cholecystectomy in the UK and Ireland, a model-based cost–utility analysis was conducted from the perspective of the UK National Health Service, with a 1-year time horizon for costs and outcomes. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was used to investigate the impact of parameter uncertainty on the results obtained from the model. Results: Emergency cholecystectomy was found to be less costly (£4570 versus £4720; €5484 versus €5664) and more effective (0·8868 versus 0·8662 QALYs) than delayed cholecystectomy. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that the emergency strategy is more than 60 per cent likely to be cost-effective across willingness-to-pay values for the QALY from £0 to £100 000 (€0–120 000). Conclusion: Emergency cholecystectomy is less costly and more effective than delayed cholecystectomy. This approach is likely to be beneficial to patients in terms of improved health outcomes and to the healthcare provider owing to the reduced costs