Volunteering 2.0: How Can Volunteer Organizations Employ Online Social Networks?

The effectiveness of online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for managing an organization is an area ripe for investigation in information systems research. Volunteer organizations in particular (who typically lag rather than lead in technology) stand to benefit from online social networks, if equipped with the knowledge to strategically implement these tools. This research context is especially unique because volunteers and employees approach work differently, which affects how they interact with the organization and its systems. We use the theory of functionalist motivations to support the use of online social networks to manage volunteers. Because this research area is relatively new, this study provides a theoretically-grounded exploration into how volunteer organizations are using online social networks to manage their volunteer workforce, in what ways they are using these systems, and their effectiveness compared to previous systems

Driver\u27s License Suspension for Unpaid Fines and Fees: The Movement for Reform

Nearly eleven million people in the United States have a suspended driver’s license for unpaid fines and fees. Laws that suspend, revoke, or prevent renewal of driver’s licenses and/or restrict driving privileges (i.e., registration holds and non-renewals) for nonpayment of traffic- and court-related debt criminalize poverty and disproportionately impact those with a lower economic status. These unproductive and harmful debt-based restrictions not only fail to increase collections of fines and fees, but also divert important public resources for law enforcement and courts away from public safety. The primary way in which these restrictions manifest themselves is through driver’s license suspensions, which are the focus of this article. However, several states also hold or suspend registrations or other required compliance documents, creating the same types of complications that result from a suspended license. The racial disparities of debt-based driver’s license suspensions are even more troubling, as individuals of color are more likely to experience poverty and to be stopped by law enforcement, as well as ticketed, arrested, charged, and convicted for traffic violations. To date, twenty-two states and Washington, D.C. have passed reforms that curb or eliminate the use of driver’s license suspensions and driving privilege restrictions for unpaid fines and fees. While most states continue to suspend, revoke, or prohibit license and/or vehicle compliance renewals for those with unpaid court debt, a growing movement for reform has taken hold. This Article will discuss the imperative for stopping debt-based restrictions and examine the rationales and impacts of two pathways to reform: litigation and legislation. This Article will lay out specific factors that jurisdictions should consider in their reform approach. Careful evaluation of these factors will ensure the greatest benefit while posing the least harm to those most impacted by these policies

Non-contractible Factors as Determinants of Electronic Market Adoption

Newly emerging electronic marketplaces have significant implications for the choice of governance mechanisms used by firms. This paper builds on transaction cost and routine based perspectives in analyzing buyersí decision to use IT-enabled market mechanisms such as reverse auctions. The study argues that buyers are less likely to adopt reverse auctions for products with higher degrees of noncontractibility. A significant contribution of this study lies in operationalizing and validating the concept of noncontractibility as an explanatory variable for predicting buyer adoption of electronic marketplaces. We argue that the notion of noncontractibility addresses the mixed predictions in previous research concerning the impact of IT on firm boundaries as evident in the electronic market and move to the middle hypotheses

Does Search Matter? Using Clickstream Data to Examine the Relationship between Online Search and Purchase Behavior

One of the most frequently used cues of the likelihood to purchase in a brick-and-mortar setting is the searching and browsing behavior of consumers. Retail sales employees are often trained to examine a consumer’s searching behavior in determining their likelihood to purchase. It would seem, therefore, that such a similar correlation should occur in the online setting. Namely, consumes’r search behavior should be related to their likelihood to purchase. However, does search behavior offer any information in the online setting? It is this question that we explore in this paper. In addition, we investigate how the relationship between search and purchase behavior differs at different levels of analysis, extended search, and session-level search. We find that in the aggregate, when taking extended search into account, search breadth and depth are both positively associated with purchase behavior, suggesting that the extended search process is positively associated with purchase behavior. When we drill down to the session level, separating the sessions by person, we find that search breadth is negatively associated with amount spent online, whereas search depth is positively associated with amount spent online. These results show that a relationship exists between search behavior and purchase behavior. In addition, the results suggest that firms should examine both extended search and session-level search when assessing their consumer base

Get Your Modem Runnin\u27, Get Out on the I-Way: Encouraging Internet Investigations in the Basic Course

The Internet can be a valuable resource for instructors and students alike. Students need to develop Internet savvy to take advantage of its holdings and to use it responsibly. Instructors can help students develop such savvy by providing pointers for its use as well as by taking them through a few exercises. Once students have learned to proceed efficiently and judiciously, the Internet can be a powerful vehicle for assisting their investigations

Information Markets: A Research Landscape

Information markets are mechanisms that allow a group of geographically dispersed participants to reach and continuously reevaluate consensus by discovering the value of alternative outcomes. Evidence suggests that these markets can produce better quality decisions than a small subset of selected decision makers: a finding in direct opposition to the trust we place on expertise. In challenging and uncertain decision-making arenas, information markets offer an interesting, and somewhat counter-intuitive approach. In practice, information markets may be used in combination with other decision-making methods, but these market-based mechanisms offer many advantages. This paper presents an information market typology and explores some of the challenges raised by different market applications. Market types include event and estimation-based prediction markets, decision markets, and idea markets. An integrated research landscape model and research propositions are presented to help guide continuing research in this area

RoadMap for the Development of Education in Kazakhstan: Higher Education Roadmap Recommendations

This document presents a set of recommendations for the Roadmap Project of the Republic of Kazakhstan developed by the Higher Education Project Team (Mary Canning, Joni Finney, Dennis Jones and Aims McGuinness). It is based on the July 2013 report Development of Strategic Directions for Education Reforms in Kazakhstan for 2015-2020.and on the reports of the Steering Committee

Goal Attainment on Long Tail Websites: An Information Foraging Approach

Information foraging theory (IFT) has emerged within the previous decade as a way of explaining the behavior of individuals as they hunt for information (Pirolli, 2007). In IFT, users forage for information using their metaphorical sense of smell which helps guides them through patchy areas of their environment. This preliminary research leverages IFT to build two versions of a clickstream model of information foraging that uses clickstream data to explain goal achievement. The goal being examined is the purchase of a product or submission of a contact form at long tail websites (i.e., sites with limited traffic). The first version of the model uses session-level panel data to examine across-website goal-seeking browsing patterns. Page-level data is used in the second version of the model to reason about browsing patterns within a website. The hypotheses and their related measures are presented for each version of the model

NON-CONTRACTIBILITY AND ASSET SPECIFICITY IN REVERSE AUCTIONS: “MOVE TO THE MIDDLE ” OR “EFFICIENT MARKETS”?

Masten, Marshall Van Alstyne and seminar participants at the University of Michigan Busines