Virtual Organizations: The Business Design for the Twenty-First Century

The growing prominence of virtual organizations, such as Dell and Amazon.Com, has demonstrated the potential for virtual governance structures to achieve greater competitiveness than their more traditional counterparts. The designs of such organizations typically support three important characteristics: virtual customer interaction, virtual sourcing of complementary resources and assets from a network of alliance partners and suppliers, and the leveraging of virtual expertise for greater organizational effectiveness. The organizational adoption of a virtual organizational design has important economical and organizational implications for the firm. This study aims to investigate how economic (using transaction cost theory) and organizational factors (using institutional theory) could affect top management’s attitudes towards adopting virtual organizational designs. A mailed questionnaire survey of potential adopters of virtual organizations will be conducted. Additional insights on economical and organizational factors of interest will be sought through semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of the respondents. Results from the study would provide researchers with a better understanding of how economical and organizational factors could affect management’s decision to adopt new governance structures in general, and virtual organizations in particular. The findings could also point practitioners to the concerns of firms that intend to adopt virtual organizational designs, and suggest ways of addressing these concerns during implementation

Impact of Organisational Resources on implementaion of ERP by an SME Firm: An Exploratory Study

SME firms have limited resources which imposes a constraint on their ability to address the critical factors for successful ERP implementation. In this research we investigate problems faced by two subsidiaries of an SME trading firm. Our findings indicate that the problems are different for the three stages of ERP implementation life cycle- (1) pre-implementation, (2) customization, reengineering and installation, and (3) post-implementation usage and monitoring. The remedial measures call for different resources in the three stages and SME firms have a handicap in addressing some of the problems. Our findings also indicate that problems in the initial pre-implementation stage may have a ripple effect on the following stages, affecting successful implementation. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed

The process of RFID assimilation by supply chain participants in China: A technology diffusion perspective on RFID technology

RFID technology is recently an emerging technology that is being used in many echelons of supply chain participants. Mostrecent IS research on this technology focus on factors which will impact its organizational adoption. However, adoption isjust one part of assimilation process which cannot make sure that RFID can be full-scale deployed in an organization.Assimilation theories also suggested that most information technologies exhibit an “an assimilation gap” which meanswidespread usage tends to lag behind their adoption. Therefore, a stage-based model is necessary for us to understand theassimilation process of RFID technology.In this paper, we will draw on innovation diffusion theory, institutional theory and stage-based model to investigate whichinnovation factors play significant roles during three assimilation stages: initiation-adoption-routinization. Factors under eachcategory of TOE (technological, organizational, and environmental) framework will be potential antecedents of the stagebasedassimilation process and their impacts on each stage will be investigated

Using Reputation System to Motivate Knowledge Contribution Behavior in Online Community

In this study, we present a theoretical model of motivations explaining the relationship between reputation system and knowledge contribution in online communities. Knowledge contribution is modeled as a response to varied motivations (base on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). These motivations are proposed to be influenced by the availability of reputation systems. We test this model in an experiment. Given the importance of global knowledge sharing in today’s world, we expect our findings will be useful to inform the design of online knowledge-sharing communities

Less Is More: Pure Motivation Gains More Support

The research explores the question of influencers’ external motivation disclosure and followers’ support. A new IT artifact – a digital psychological contract can be used to describe the relationship between influencers and followers. The research plans to use second-hand data, surveys, and experiments to confirm that influencers’ external motivation disclosure (e.g., MCN information disclosure) will decrease followers’ supportive behaviors because of decreased perceived motivation purity. The research also plans to exclude many alternative explanations and try to find some solutions to alleviate the adverse effects of external motivation disclosure. This research will also make theoretical contributions and provide practical insights for influencers, MCN companies, and content-sharing platforms

Identify the Antecedents of Distrust in a Website

It has been widely accepted that distrust is qualitatively different from trust. Yet scholarly knowledge about the antecedents of distrust is scarce, while the antecedents of trust have received extensive attention. Furthermore, little empirical research has explored how website factors impact on the formation of distrust in a user. Drawing upon the review of distrust literature and competence-motive perception, we propose a new theoretical framework to explain how website factors impact on perceptions of the attributes of a given website, which in turn form user distrust. In this research, distrust is triggered by website evaluations in two areas, namely malevolence and incompetence. These two attributes are determined by three website factors: lack of structural assurance, interface design, and lack of third-party recognition. The proposed research model of distrust formation in the online context is verified by an online survey with 283 valid responses. We offer theoretical and practical implications for our findings

Will Distributed GSS Groups Make More Extreme Decisions? An Empirical Study

This study examines the impact of proximity, anonymity, and information exposure on group polarization in a GSS context. Proximity was studied at two levels: proximate and distributed. Anonymity was examined at two levels: identified and anonymous. Information exposure was also varied at two levels: exposure to positionswithoutargumentsandexposuretopositionswitharguments. Thedependentvariableswerechoice shift and preference change. Distributed groups had greater choice shift than proximate groups. When exposed to positions without arguments, distributed meetings resulted in higher preference change than proximate meetings. But when exposed to positions with arguments, proximity interacted with anonymity to alter preference change. These findings indicate that a distributed GSS setting encourages group polarization. However, group polarization can also be raised in a proximate GSS setting if the anonymity capability is used by group members to exchange mutual positions and arguments