Responding to Technology-Enabled Organizational Transformation

As a result of the emergence of the Internet and net-enabled business processes, many industries have experienced a period of IT-enabled transformation in which organizations and business operations changed very rapidly. A natural question that arises is how can firms survive and even thrive during such transformations? In addressing this question, we show how a firm’s strategic change orientation—a meta-construct consisting of technological opportunism, market orientation, and entrepreneurial orientation—can influence the assimilation of IT and the resulting performance of business processes. We identify and examine two separate change enablers through which this influence occurs: (1) the development of IT capabilities; (2) the creation of a positive climate for IT use. These two change enablers influence the assimilation of technology within the organization and the resulting business process performance. We test the proposed model using a survey of 153 organizations in the retail auto industry, a compelling example of an industry that has undergone an IT-enabled transformation. Results explain 34% of the variance in process performance, and 34% of the variance in financial performance

Checking Email in the Bathroom: Monitoring Email Responsiveness Behavior in the Workplace

The proliferation of email as a standard method of business communication necessitates research to understand effects on managers and their employees. This research investigates the phenomena of “email responsiveness,” defined as the extent to which individuals in the workplace perceive that they must prioritize how quickly they act in response to receiving an email, and “importance of connectedness,” defined as the priority individuals place on being connected to the organization. We present testable propositions that the social exchange mechanisms of leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) are moderated by connectedness and thereby influence job attitudinal outcomes

Electronic Mediation, Transformation, and Business Value: Three Essays in the Retail Auto Industry

This dissertation seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) what properties enable some organizations to generate more value from information technology (IT) than others? and (2) through what mechanisms do organizations generate value through IT? It examines the role of technology in value creation through three essays using three different aspects of organizational performance. Chapter 1: Responding to Technology-Enabled Organizational Transformation: The Role of Strategic Change Orientation Essay one examines the role of strategic change orientation and three change enablers--IT capabilities, climate for IT use, and mindfulness of IT adoption--in influencing business process performance during a period of IT-enabled transformation. The data source for this essay is a survey of auto retailers facilitated by a leading online infomediary. Chapter 2: Profiting From the Internet Channel: The Complementarity of Electronic Commerce Capabilities and Business Process Change Essay two accesses the joint role of electronic commerce capabilities and business process change in a model that examines the value firms derive from the Internet channel. The data source for this essay is a survey of auto retailers conducted by a leading market research firm. Chapter 3: Understanding Retailer Use of Online Auction Channels: Strategies In Repeated Search Processes Essay three examines sellers' use of the online auction market and the resulting value obtained for a given product through the theoretical lens of search theory. We model sellers' repeated listing of unsold products and adjustment of reserve price as a process of searching for high valuation customers. The data source for this essay is transactional data from a leading online auction site specializing in automobiles

Entrepreneurs’ Activities on Social Media and Venture Financing

Social media has been an incredible platform for startups to develop meaningful connections with stakeholders and customers. We investigate ways in which entrepreneurs use social media to drive both the level of engagement for their startup and the subsequent level of venture financing. Our empirical analysis demonstrates how differences in entrepreneurs’ tweets—i.e., differences in the level informativity, persuasiveness, and transformativity—is associated with different levels of startup engagement and venture financing. We show differences in entrepreneurs’ activity with the social media platform—i.e., the number of tweets, the number of mentions of other accounts, and the number of retweets—further drives engagement and venture financing. We test our model by collecting an extensive dataset of over 7,000,000 tweets from entrepreneurs and startups that have been through accelerators. Results indicate associates between the social media activities of entrepreneurs, startup engagement, and venture financing

Causal Matching for Startups: Methods for Controlling Confounding

Causal inference is a critical methodology that allows researchers to empirically test hypotheses and build theories. Ideally, the design method for establishing this causality would be through randomized controlled trials. However, studying the impact of different practices (hereinafter treatments) on initial outcomes when treatments are not applied exogenously is a challenge. Matching methods are an appropriate way to provide these study groups. The objective of this work is to provide an algorithm-based solution to match startups in a way that can mimic a human match. To do this, we use the human matching effort by Yu (2020) as a ground truth to evaluate various natural language processes and compare the performance of each with human raters. By comparing automated approaches with matching, we provide guidance for researchers interested in the causal analysis of startups using textual data and other covariates

The IT Products-Services Stack and Vendor Quality

This research examines how the portfolio of IT vendor offerings relates to consumer perceptions of vendor quality. Specifically, we examine how the degree of hardware, software, and services technologies—which we refer to collectively as the IT products-services stack—are related to vendor quality ratings. We test our model using over 28,000 IT vendor ratings given by top IT executives between 2004 and 2006. The findings suggest that mean satisfaction and value ratings are such that hardware \u3e software \u3e services and the variance (quality consistency) of satisfaction and value ratings are such that hardware/software \u3c services. Further, vendors with more focused offerings (in terms of percentage of hardware, software, and services) are found to be of higher quality than vendors with more diverse offerings

Seller Search and Market Outcomes in Online Auctions

It has become widely accepted that information technology (IT) has had a profound influence on market transactions, with lower search costs for buyers often considered the key to lower prices and higher consumer welfare. However, sellers also use online channels to search for buyers whose product preferences and valuations match the sellers' offerings, and limited research has examined the impact of IT on sellers' search strategies or associated market outcomes. In this study, we investigate how market characteristics, the length of time the seller searches the auction marketplace for a buyer, and seller search in other websites influence the final sale price in online auctions. The online auction market for used vehicles provides a valuable opportunity to observe search processes of sellers, as the unique vehicle identification number associated with each vehicle enables the tracking of an individual item across both subsequent auctions and across other websites. We find that the market characteristics, duration of search, and search in other websites are each associated with a higher final sale price. Our findings highlight the importance of examining both buyer and seller search behaviors to further our understanding of the impacts of IT on market outcomes and efficiency.seller search, online auctions, sequential auctions, online channels