The Aim to Decentralize Economic Systems With Blockchains and Crypto

As an information systems (“IS”) professor, I wrote this Article for legal professionals new to blockchains and crypto. This target audience likely is most interested in crypto for its legal implications—depending on whether it functions as currencies, securities, commodities, or properties; however, legal professionals also need to understand crypto’s origin, how transactions work, and how they are governed

Crypto and Blockchain Fundamentals

I believe blockchain will do for trusted transactions what the Internet has done for information. - Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM Since the 1990s, we have had an Internet of Information that allows us to seamlessly share information such as documents, images, emails, and videos over the Internet. While most Internet users do not need to understand the details of the technical protocols operating underneath user-friendly software interfaces, it is helplful to understand how they work at a high-level. With the Internet of Information, copies of information are routed over the Internet. If a sender emails a friend, the sender keeps the original email, and the friend receives a copy of the email. To transact value, i.e., money, over the Internet, one cannot send a copy. Instead, after the transfer of value is complete, the sender should no longer have the money, but rather the recipient should

Nine likely scenarios arising from the growing use of robots

The future of work is less predetermined and more nuanced than many think, write Leslie P. Willcocks and Mary C. Lacit

Funny Business: Public Opinion of Outsourcing and Offshoring as Reflected in U.S. and Indian Political Cartoons

In this paper, we studied the public’s opinion of outsourcing and offshoring as reflected in political cartoons. Researchers in many fields have used political cartoons to track public opinion, yet we are unaware of any such research in the field of IS. We analyzed the content of 165 political cartoons from the U.S. and India that depict offshoring and outsourcing. Overall, U.S./Western political cartoons portray outsourcing and offshoring negatively, causing lost jobs for workers and poorer customer service for consumers. Indian political cartoons focus on jobs gained and the labor and infrastructure constraints caused by the rapid growth of ITO and BPO industries. We also compared the content of political cartoons to IS academic research. We found both similarities and differences. One similarity is that lower costs were found to be the most common reason depicted/cited for outsourcing/offshoring in political cartoons and IS academic research. One difference is that political cartoonists primarily empathize and thus promote the interests of the workers, direct supervisors, and customers most affected by outsourcing/offshoring whereas IS researchers primarily promote the interests of the firm. We also discuss the use of political cartoons as an effective pedagogical device in global outsourcing courses

Businesses will increasingly use robots to deal with theexplosion of data

The term “Robotic Process Automation” (RPA) connotes visions of physical robots wandering around offices doing the job of humans. However, the term really means automation of service tasks. Let’s think of business processes such as transferring data from multiple input sources such as email and spreadsheets to systems of record like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Here the term RPA most commonly refers to configuring software to do the job

Employing U.S. Military Families to Provide Business Process Outsourcing Services: A Case study of Impact Sourcing and Reshoring

This paper describes how a startup business process outsourcing (BPO) provider named Liberty Source helped a large U.S.-based client reshore business services from an established Indian BPO provider. Founded in 2014, Liberty Source is a for-profit firm that provides a competitive alternative to offshoring while fulfilling its social mission to launch and sustain the careers of U.S. military spouses and veterans who face various employment disadvantages. Thus, the case describes reshoring in the context of impact sourcing. It addresses key impact sourcing issues pertaining to workforce development, scalability, and impact on employees. The impact was positive: the workers found the employment and stable salary were beneficial, “the military” culture fit well with the workers, and workers received considerable flexibility and greater career options. Liberty Source was able to reduce a client’s costs after reshoring the client’s processes because Liberty Source’s U.S. site had about 20 percent fewer full time equivalents (FTEs) FTEs than the original India location and because Liberty Source received subsidies. We found evidence that the offshore BPO provider and Liberty source experienced difficulties with finding enough skilled staff for the wages offered and both firms experienced attrition problems, although attrition was greater in India

Panel: Artificial Intelligence and The Future of Work

Advancement in AI, robotics, machine learning, and automation has started to replace many structured, routine, and repetitive jobs. McKinsey Global Institute’s report (2017) estimates that by 2030, automation may displace between 400 million and 800 million individuals and these individuals will need to switch job categories and learn new skills. MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and Boston University’s Pascual Restrepo (2017) find that each additional robot in the US economy reduces employment by 5.6 workers, and every robot that is added to the workforce per 1,000 human workers causes wages to drop by 0.25 to 0.5 percent. In the past, technology advancement has consistently generated more new jobs than it destroys. Will it be the same this time? The three panelists will present their views on the topic from different perspectives

Information Technology Sourcing Research: Critique, Lessons and Prospects

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