HOW DOES INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ENABLE INNOVATION IN SUPPLY CHAINS?

The paper explores a mechanistic understanding of IT-enabled innovation in a context of supply chain. Based on the innovation dynamics perspective and resource-based view, it links IT resources for supply chain management and IT-enabled innovation via e-business capability with supply chain partners. A conceptual model is formulated to explain how and why IT can enable product and process innovations along the supply chain, and is empirically validated by the data from 676 manufacturing firms in six countries. It was found that IT resources for supply chain management are capable of achieving IT-enabled innovation through both upstream and downstream e-business capability to collaborate with suppliers and customers. The paper contributes to the literature of digitally enabled supply chain management and IT business value. It also allows important managerial implications to firms, especially those in manufacturing sector, about how to chase IT-enabled innovation in supply chains to overcome today’s depression

Using Simulation in Information Systems Research

Like all other scientific research methodologies, simulation has its strengths and limitations. When used properly, simulation can be a powerful tool for developing new theoretical insights into IS phenomena of interest. Although simulation methods are not new in the IS field, there has been no systematic discussion about which simulation methods are suitable for IS research, when simulation is the most appropriate methodological choice for IS research, and how to evaluate simulation research. In this editorial, I provide an overview of simulation methods that may be used in IS research and discuss how they are typically used. More importantly, I provide guidelines for IS researchers on how to choose simulation among alternative methodologies and highlight six key criteria for evaluating simulation research. Overall, this editorial can provide useful guidance to IS researchers, editors, and reviewers when choosing, conducting, and assessing simulation research

Business Value of Social Media Technologies:Evidence from Online User Innovation Communities

Social media technologies allow user-generated content and provide new opportunities and challenges for firms to transform their business. In particular, more and more firms have started strategically using the online user innovation communities (OUICs) for open innovation initiatives. The extent to which firms are able to derive business value from OUICs, however, has not been systematically examined. Drawing on a multi-theoretical foundation from the framework of dynamic capabilities and the view of innovation value chain, we conceptualize two OUIC-enabled capabilities, which are, ideation capability related to collecting user-generated ideas about potential innovation from OUIC, and implementation capability related to selecting user-generated ideas for innovation development and introducing developed innovation via OUIC. Using a large-scale panel data set consisting of 1676 firm-day observations from Dell and Starbucks, we examine the impacts of OUIC-enabled capabilities on firm value. We find robust evidence that OUIC-enabled ideation capability actually does not influence firm value, whereas OUIC-enabled implementation capability increases firm value. Novel theoretical and managerial implications are discussed

Learning from Experience? Technological Investments and the Impact of Coopetition Experience on Firm Profitability

A firm may learn how to manage coopetition as it becomes more experienced. Conversely, because of the complexity of coopetition, a firm may fail to make sense of its experiences in working with coopetitors and may thus fail to learn from these experiences effectively. Building on this premise, we develop a contingency view regarding the relationship between coopetition experience and firm profitability - as coopetition experience can enhance or hurt firm profitability and the internal abilities of firms to capitalize on experience are heterogeneous. Analyzing a panel data set from 911 Spanish manufacturing firms between 2007 and 2014, we provide empirical evidence on the often overlooked but critical detrimental effects of coopetition experience on firm profitability and reveal the asymmetric moderating role of a firm's technological investments in information technology (IT) and R &D. Specifically, we find that the impact of coopetition experience on firm profitability is negative and becomes more negative as R&D investment increases, which suggests that R&D investment may aggravate the detrimental effects of coopetition experience. However, as IT investment increases, the effect of coopetition experience on firm profitability shifts from negative to positive, indicating that firms can counteract the "dark side" of coopetition experience through substantial IT investmen

Business Value of Big Data Analytics:A Systems-Theoretic Approach and Empirical Test

Although big data analytics have been widely considered a key driver of marketing and innovation processes, whether and how big data analytics create business value has not been fully understood and empirically validated at a large scale. Taking social media analytics as an example, this paper is among the first attempts to theoretically explain and empirically test the market performance impact of big data analytics. Drawing on the systems theory, we explain how and why social media analytics create super-additive value through the synergies in functional complementarity between social media diversity for gathering big data from diverse social media channels and big data analytics for analyzing the gathered big data. Furthermore, we deepen our theorizing by considering the difference between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large firms in the required integration effort that enables the synergies of social media diversity and big data analytics. In line with this theorizing, we empirically test the synergistic effect of social media diversity and big data analytics by using a recent large-scale survey data set from 18,816 firms in Italy. We find that social media diversity and big data analytics have a positive interaction effect on market performance, which is more salient for SMEs than for large firms

The Penrose Effect In Resource Investment For Innovation: Evidence From Information Technology And Human Capital

Resource-based theory views the firm as a bundle of resources administrated and coordinated by managers. We introduce the theoretical lens of Penrose effect to IS research, which refers to the fact that finite managerial capacities will suffer if the complexity of resource coordination is high. Therefore, although investment in knowledge-related assets, such as information technology (IT) and human capital, is associated with better innovation performance on the one hand, too much capital investment is likely to induce diminishing return on the investment because of Penrose effect. Accordingly, we take a curvilinear approach and propose that the relationships between IT/human capital investments and innovation performance are likely to be inverted Ushaped. Furthermore, we suggest that, in addition to bringing resource synergy, resource coordination also incurs costs, especially when the complexity of coordination among multiple resources is high. Thus, we take a nonlinear approach to examine the interaction effect of IT and human capital investments on innovation performance, which may not be always positive as past research often maintained. Longitudinal data from 404 German firms across several recent years confirm inverted U-shaped relationships between IT/human capital investments and innovation performance. In addition, we find that IT and human capital investments have a negative interaction effect, suggesting that high level of investment in one capital will lead to increasing coordination costs and diminishing return on investment in the other

Incumbent System Context and Job Outcomes of Effective Enterprise System Use

Enterprise system (ES) implementations frequently fail to deliver job benefits for employees, many of whom are dissatisfied with these systems that were implemented to support them in their jobs. The literature is clear that the realization of job benefits depends on how these systems are used, motivating us to focus on the determinants and outcomes of effective ES use. Focusing on employees’ use of systems to support their work processes, we examine how employees’ pre-implementation context—specifically, the use of an incumbent system and the associated work processes—affects their performance expectancy of a new ES and, consequently, their effective use of the ES and the resulting job outcomes. Our results suggest that (1) employees’ perceptions of two facets of information transparency based on incumbent system use, namely information visibility and information credibility, have different impacts on employees’ performance expectancy of a new ES depending on their perceptions of process standardization in the incumbent system context, and that (2) effective ES use mediates the impact of pre-implementation performance expectancy on post-implementation user satisfaction and, consequently, job effectiveness. Our findings provide insights into the mechanisms linking the context of using an incumbent system to post-implementation effective ES use and job outcomes, thereby integrating perspectives from technology acceptance and use, IS success, and work design