The Role of Access to Personal Support in Fostering Frequent Information Systems Use

Recent research has begun to examine some of the factors underlying the continued use of information systems. This paper seeks to contribute to this emerging research stream through a preliminary investigation of the role played by user access to various support resources in encouraging frequent system use in personal use contexts. Although organizations typically provide users with access to formal support resources through help desk services, a body of literature exists which suggests that individuals may rely to a significant extent on resources such as friends and co-workers to support their ongoing use of personal information systems. An examination of this possibility was performed using an archival data set. Analysis of the data using structural equation modeling (SEM) indicates that user perceptions that they can rely on friends, co-workers, and personal abilities to resolve technical difficulties are associated with more frequent system use

Improving the Predictability of IT Investment Business Value

Limitations in our ability to adequately forecast the expected value of IT investments represent a notable impediment to efforts to develop business cases that can be relied upon when making IT investment decisions. This undermines the effectiveness of these decisions and threatens the benefits that a portfolio of IT investments ultimately delivers. Since IT investment decisions have direct implications for the business value generated by IT and for organizational performance in general, this research aims to offer insights that help managers reduce the gap between the expected value of IT investments and the value that these investments actually deliver. Drawing on prior work that suggests the importance of reference classes to overcoming forecast uncertainty, we identify six distinct classes of IT investments. We evaluate the utility of these reference classes using a dataset of 486 post investment reviews (PIRs) from a large international organization. Results of our analysis indicate that cost reduction initiatives deliver more of their expected business value than revenue generating investments. Further to this, the accuracy of forecasts for initiatives that extend existing revenue streams are better than for initiatives that seek to establish entirely new revenue streams. These findings can be used as an input for practitioners seeking to determine the efficiency of their IT portfolio, improve the impact of their investments, or improve the accuracy of their business cases. They can also be used by those seeking to bet-ter understand the IT business value assessment process

AMCIS 2008 Panel Report: Aging Content on the Web: Issues, Implications, and Potential Research Opportunities

Since its inception in the early 1990s, the World Wide Web (Web) has grown enormously. According to the “official Google blog” (Google 2008), the Web had 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique coexisting URL’s as of July 25, 2008. Given the exponential growth of the Web over time, an issue that is likely to gain prominence is that of outdated information. This is especially important to study since many of us rely on the Web to find facts in order to take decisions. For example, for students and researchers, the “date” of a document is important for scholarship and student work. However, getting an accurate date on content is challenging, and furthermore, outdated pages that are not deleted from Web servers will continue to be returned in response to Web searches. The panel, held at the 2008 Americas Conference on Information Systems in Toronto, Canada, identified a number of research issues and opportunities that arise as a result of this phenomenon

An Exploration of Organizational Level Information Systems Discontinuance Intentions

Limited attention has been directed toward examining post-adoption stages of the information system life cycle. In particular, the final stages of this life cycle have been largely ignored despite the fact that most systems eventually reach the end of their useful life. This oversight is somewhat surprising given that end-of-life decisions can have significant implications for user effectiveness, the value extracted from IS investments, and organizational performance. Given this apparent gap, a multi-method empirical study was undertaken to improve our understanding of organizational level information system discontinuance. Research commenced with the development of a broad theoretical framework consistent with the technology–organization– environment (TOE) paradigm. The resulting framework was then used to guide a series of semi-structured interviews with organizational decision makers in an effort to inductively identify salient influences on the formation of IS discontinuance intentions. A set of research hypotheses were formulated based on the understanding obtained during these interviews and subsequently tested via a random survey of senior IS decision makers at U.S. and Canadian organizations. Data obtained from the survey responses was analyzed using partial least squares (PLS). Results of this analysis suggest that system capability shortcomings, limited availability of system support, and low levels of technical integration were key determinants of increased intentions to replace an existing system. Notably, investments in existing systems did not appear to significantly undermine organizational replacement intentions despite support for this possibility from both theory and our semi-structured interviews

The Power of Communities: From Observed Outcomes to Measurable Performance

Considerable research has sought to establish the benefits that technology-mediated online communities offer their members. In an effort to capitalize on these benefits, organizations have been introducing internally oriented communities to support a wide range of tasks. As a result, such communities have become quite common within organizations and it is therefore becoming increasingly important to link community participation to business outcomes such as team and organizational performance. This paper develops a model linking three commonly identified outcomes of communities: knowledge access, trust, and bridging ties to team performance. We examine two routes from community outcomes to performance, one direct and the other mediated by individual team member innovation. Results of empirical analysis conducted with members of 115 global teams linked to 41 distinct communities support our hypotheses. These findings provide evidence for the business value of communities and offer insights into the value of communities across levels of analysis

Innovation Drivers and Outputs for Software Firms : Literature Review and Concept Development

Software innovation - the ability to produce novel and useful software systems - is an important capability for software development organizations and information system developers alike. However, the software development literature has traditionally focused on automation and efficiency while the innovation literature has given relatively little consideration to the software development context. As a result, there is a gap in our understanding of how software product and process innovation can be managed. Specifically, little attention has been directed toward synthesising prior learning or providing an integrative perspective on the key concepts and focus of software innovation research. We therefore identify 93 journal articles and conference papers within the domain of software innovation and analyse repeating patterns in this literature using content analysis and causal mapping. We identify drivers and outputs for software innovation and develop an integrated theory-oriented concept map. We then discuss the implications of this map for future research

TOWARDS AN EVALUATION FRAMEWORK FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS 1

In this paper we develop a theory driven evaluation framework for Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). The framework builds on theoretical foundations underlying organizational Knowledge Management (KM) to identify the facilitators of different KM activities in organizations. These facilitators are then used to form a benchmark for evaluating KMS. Specifically, organizations selecting KMS can use the framework to identify gaps and overlaps in facilities provided by individual tools in support of knowledge management activities. In addition, the framework can be applied to identify gaps and overlaps i

Responding to Information System Obsolescence:Should We Upgrade or Replace?

As information systems (IS) age, managers must determine whether to continue upgrading these systems or replace them with systems that have greater potential to offer organizational value. Given the widespread use of information systems and the challenges that IS replacement can present, understanding the forces that encourage managers to continue to upgrade existing systems is of considerable organizational importance. Hence, drawing on prior work we identify factors related to the value a system brings to an organization, the degree of organizational commitment to the system, and the evolvability of the system that influence managerial upgrade decisions. Data collected via a cross-sectional survey of IS managers was analyzed using Partial Least Squares. Analysis of this data indicates that IS managers have a preference for upgrading systems that provide greater organizational value, suffer from fewer shortcomings, are more complex, less customized, and for which support is readily available