Diffusion of Innovations: A Longitudinal Study of a Virtual Community

The exponential growth and global access of the Internet may have signaled a basic change in human sociology. Increasingly, people are choosing to relate to each other through computer-mediated channels by forming virtual communities. As these virtual communities become more pervasive, it is important that we gain an understanding of the nature of these social systems. This study will analyze the content of warehoused electronic communications to study these communities. The preliminary analysis examines the viability of the community and the diffusion of innovations. The ongoing inquiry will use computerized content analysis to gain deeper insight into community dynamics, leadership and communication character

A Framework for the Exploration of The Evolution of Electronic Meeting Systems in Multinational Corporations

The purpose of this paper is to identify an important development in videoconferencing and present a framework for future research and understanding of this technology. Video-conferencing is a rich medium that provides multiple cues through reoccurring channels of communication with immediate feedback capabilities supporting different languages and a high degree of personalization. The Information Technology (IT) infrastructure necessary to support the large bandwidth for video-conferencing is being expanded around the globe. Organizations dealing across national boundaries will be faced with additional equivocality in making decisions because of diverse cultural perspectives. Equivocality is reduced by allowing decision makers to communicate their individual understanding to each other in an attempt to develop a shared vision or interpretation of the circumstance. Desktop video-conferencing has the potential to be an important new tool for the coordination of multinational corporation

Implications of Blockchain Data Architecture: Research and Teaching an Emergent Innovation

The paper will frame teaching and research strategies based on experience of teaching and researching emergent technologies and particularly focus on Blockchain distributed data architecture

An International Empirical Examination of Technology Architecture in the United States

This study examines information technology architecture by replicating a North American survey in Taiwan, India and England and evaluates the impact of each nation\u27s economic status on information technology architecture used by that nation\u27s businesses. The results suggest that the original taxonomy of information technology architecture (centralized, decentralized, cooperative centralized, and cooperative distributed) is valid and unaffected by national economic status

Investigating the Role of Information Technology in Building Buyer-Supplier Relationships

A widely held position observed through the lens of transaction cost theory (TCT) has been the role of information technology in decreasing transaction costs between buyers and suppliers and in creating more market based governance structures. However, observations have not supported this contention. In particular, buyer-supplier dyads often engage in cooperative behavior that could offset opportunistic tendencies espoused by TCT. The role of IT in this structure is unclear. This paper examines the relationship between perceived transaction costs and the concept of relationalism within buyer-supplier dyads. The role of IT in mediating this relationship is also examined. Survey data from 203 buyers in the OEM electronics industry is used to test proposed hypotheses. All major constructs, transaction costs, relationalism, and IT use are operationalized using validated multidimensional scales. The results suggest a positive role of IT in partially offsetting the negative relationship between transaction costs and relationalism. The results suggest that the decision to use IT within the dyad can encourage a commitment to establishing relational behavior

Technology Architecture: Examining a Data Driven Model

The 1990s has been marked by the widespread transfer of new information technologies that can alter the fundamental nature of computing. Effective storage and multitasking processing technologies have combined with developments in telecommunications to create new opportunities for resource sharing and communication among computers. The importance of this revolution has been recognized by senior information systems executives, whom have identified the planning and development of corporate information technology structure (architecture) as the most critical issue of the decade (Niederman , Brancheau & Wetherbe, 91). This study, through the responses of 313 North American senior IS executives, will explore the nature of IT (information technology) structure and its relationship to organizational structure