Journal Self-Citation II: The Quest for High Impact – Truth and Consequences?

For the information systems discipline, it is important to have means for assessing the performance exhibited by individual faculty members, groups of researchers, and the journals that publish their work. Such assessments affect the outcomes of university decisions about these individuals, groups, and journals. Various kinds of data can be used in the processes that lead to the decisions about performance. In this paper we consider one type of data that seems to be increasingly adopted, either explicitly or implicitly, as an indicator of performance: the journal impact factor (JIF), which is periodically reported in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The allure of JIFs for rating performance is that they come from a third party source (Thomson Reuters), are systematically determined in a largely transparent fashion, and yield a single number for each journal that is covered in the JCR. However, behind this allure several issues give us pause when it comes to interpreting or applying JIFs in the context of deciding on performance ratings. It appears that these issues are rarely understood or pondered by those in the information systems world who adopt JIFs for such decisions – at least not in an overt way. We examine these issues to understand the advisability of employing JIFs to produce performance ratings, the underlying assumptions, and the consequences. We conclude that use of JIFs in university decision making should be undertaken only with great caution, alternative decision inputs should be considered, and that judging the impact of a specific article by the journal in which it appears is questionable

Antecedents and Outcomes of the Flow Experience: An Empirical Study in the Context of Online Gaming

This study uses flow theory and the technology acceptance model (TAM) to provide new insight into the impact of enjoyment, one important dimension of flow, on user satisfaction, user beliefs, and behavioral intention to use. In addition, based on the propositions that knowledge results in an increased ability for activity and that flow is an emotional state of activity, this paper adopts a process view of knowledge to examine the role of knowledge in predicting enjoyment. The foregoing concepts are represented in a nomological network of enjoyment. Associated hypotheses are tested by using questionnaire responses of 253 online game players

Toward a Knowledge Acquisition Framework for Web Site Design

Due to the development of Web technology and interdependency between organizations and customers, organizations are using Web sites as a mechanism to enable and facilitate knowledge acquisition (KA). A user can acquire knowledge that a sponsor offers via a Web site. Conversely, s sponsor can acquire knowledge that a user offers via a Web site. This paper introduces a set of propositions that can underlie efforts to develop a KA framework for guiding and studying Web site design. The propositions identify four major elements (user features, sponsor features, system features, and environmental features) as the main determinants of a Web site’s usability for KA

Enduring buyer–supplier relationship and buyer performance : the mediating role of buyer–supplier dyadic embeddedness and supplier external embeddedness

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate the causal mechanisms that explain the relationship between the long-term buyer–supplier relationship and buyer performance. Building on the growing body of research on social capital in supply chain management (SCM), the authors examine how a buyer achieves superior performance in forming the enduring partnership with a supplier through two different forms of supplier embeddedness: buyer–supplier dyadic embeddedness and supplier external embeddedness. Design/methodology/approach – The bootstrapping method is utilized in data analysis to examine the mediating effects of the two different forms of supplier embeddedness simultaneously on the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer performance outcomes. Findings – The authors find that the two forms of supplier embeddedness serve as distinct conduits for the buyer to translate the long-term buyer–supplier relationship into performance effectiveness. Notably, dyadic embeddedness only mediates the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer economic performance, while supplier external embeddedness solely mediates the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer innovation performance. Originality/value – This study empirically demonstrates that different forms of supplier embeddedness may benefit a buyer differentially when directed at distinct performance goals. If a buyer can leverage both buyer– supplier dyadic embeddedness and supplier external embeddedness, the buyer will overcome value creation limitations of social capital from a single source, obtaining more comprehensive performance benefits sought by developing long-term buyer–supplier relationships.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Understanding organizational agility: a work-design perspective

This paper introduces a unified theoretical model of organizational agility and investigates the attributes of knowledge-intensive work-design systems, which contribute to achieving and sustaining organizational agility. Even though there has been considerable research on the topic of agility, these studies are not unified regarding their conceptualizations of agility and/or tend to adopt fairly limited views of agility dimensionality. Here, we organize a review of existing definitions and conceptual models of organizational agility, and proceed to advance a relatively comprehensive model built from a work-design perspective. This new model offers a theoretical platform for understanding organizational agility. This paper further investigates those attributes of a work design system that contribute to organizational agility. A knowledge-intensive work-design system is an example of an edge organization. Its governance mechanism (participant engagement governance, network governance, and system dynamic governance) involves three work-design levels: strategic, operational and episodic. We contend that an entrepreneurial governance pattern has attributes contributing to organizational agility, whereby the impetus for its work-design efforts stem not from some deep hierarchical authority pattern, but rather is distributed among participants and through their networking dynamics. These attributes allow each participant positioned at the edge of the system to stay alert and respond to environing trends and forces, on behalf of the system and in concert with the system. Result of an illustrative case study are reported

From E-Commerce to E-Knowledge

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) has become one of the major factors that determines the future survival or success of organizations. Like any new field, e-commerce is replete with confusion and lack of coherence. As if there aren’t enough buzzwords in the e-commerce literature, new ones such as electronic business (e-business) and collaborative commerce (c-commerce) are created which further add to the confusion. Here, we extend the existing five-fold e-commerce taxonomy to accommodate various e-business and c-commerce perspectives as well. However, none of these perspectives explicitly acknowledges the role of knowledge and its management. We contend that these are the essence of e-commerce/c-commerce/e-business. Thus, the objective of this paper is to extend the taxonomy’s traditional perspectives by advancing the e- knowledge view that explicitly recognizes the importance of knowledge management. A knowledge-oriented perspective of e-commerce/c-commerce/e-business is beneficial in furnishing a common, organized, and unified foundation for understanding and managing the electronic organization

Influence Structure and Inter-group Learning

Inter-group learning is an important phenomenon in the modern business world of virtual organizations, distributed knowledge processing, and supply chain systems. Here, we examine how alternative influence structures within groups may affect the learning that happens through inter-group interactions. This study uses a simulation methodology with measures related to influence structure, knowledge matrices, and learning-task completion. The results indicate that the level of centrality in a group’s own influence structure tends to negatively relate to its learning performance. The presence of an influential individual in a group will slow down the learning (require more rounds of interaction to get agreement), impede the spread of knowledge (learn less of the truth), and increase the chance of group conflict (increasing frequency of learning impasses). Furthermore when two groups both have highly centered influence structures, they are detrimental to each other’s learning performance

A Survey of Knowledge Coordination Issues in Business Process Management

In an era of knowledge economy, knowledge coordination has become an important topic for processoriented management fields, such as project management and supply chain management. However, the concept of knowledge coordination has remained somewhat ambiguous. We first identify the elements of knowledge coordination. Then, we develop a theoretical framework analyzing knowledge coordination issues in business process management and investigating the interrelations among knowledge coordination mechanisms and coordination benefits/outcomes. The framework classifies knowledge coordination issues into three categories: administrative coordination issues, process coordination issues, and measurement issues of coordination effects, and proposes that knowledge process coordination mediates the positive relationship of knowledge administrative coordination with performance outcomes

Bring Entrepreneurship into Supply Chain Partner Networks: The Influence on Best-value Supply Chains

A firm’s design for its supply chain partner network reveals the firm’s pursuit of resources and opportunities to build up the best-value supply chains in terms of agility, adaptability and alignment. This study develops a research framework, proposing that a firm with an entrepreneurial supply chain partner network, characterized with strong and highly-diversified ties, enjoys a high level of relational learning, trust and integration, and contending that the three types of relational competencies exert positive influence on supply chain agility, adaptability, and alignment. The framework offers a theoretical platform to guide future research and practice concerned with supply chain entrepreneurshi

Evaluating Journal Quality: Beyond “Expert” Journal Assessments in the IS Discipline

Assessing the relative stature of journals devoted to the information systems (IS) discipline is an important issue for IS scholars and those who evaluate them. Even though journal assessment results are often dubiously applied by those making hiring, promotion, and merit decisions, the fact that they are so often a major ingredient in these decisions demands that we understand underlying journal assessment processes. Beyond processes involving the opinions of various “experts,” we here examine how IS journals can be evaluated based on overt behaviors of crowds of IS scholars. These behaviors are revealed preferences, in contrast to stated preferences found in opinions. Two classes of objective journal assessments are studied: impact measures and power measures. Among the former, we find that so-called journal impact factors are problematic, rendering their meaningfulness in evaluating journal stature highly suspect. Another kind of impact measure, the H-index, is found to be a more straightforward way to gauge journal impact. Two power measures for assessing IS journal stature are examined: publishing intensity and publishing breadth. The stature of IS journals according to each of the impact measures and power measures is determined. A comparison of the results shows that a small group of four or five IS journals are repeatedly found at the top across multiple objective assessment approaches. To account for both the consumption and production of IS research, it is suggested that a combined use of impact and power measures be employed in exercises aimed at evaluating relative statures of journals devoted to IS research