Assessing normative claims about democracy and public health: A multi-part approach utilizing quantitative analysis of international datasets with qualitative analyses of South Korea and Singapore as case studies

Normative understandings of democracy and public health have led to hypotheses that the democratic-ness of a country should be positively associated with its public health outcomes, given that the a democratic state is more likely to be responsive to the needs and demands of its population than an authoritarian regime. However, initial analysis using data from the World Bank and the Freedom House seem to indicate that there is little or no relationship between democracy and public health, and that in some cases, such as Singapore, authoritarian states fare better than democratic states, such as South Korea. I argue that this seeming discrepancy between normative expectations and outcomes can be explained by the following: 1) rather than regime type, democratic experience, or exposure to democratic experiences are positively correlated with better public health outcomes, such that the recent “waves of democratization” in countries without substantial state capacity and extensive democratic experiences has skewed the data; 2) in the short-term, rather than regime type, economic capacity and development are far better predictors of public health outcomes, and 3) in a comparative case study between South Korea and Singapore, South Korea’s seemingly negative performance can be attributed to political transition effects and the impact of liberalism (or illiberalism) on how policy is implemented, rather than the democratic nature of the South Korean government after 1987

Development Cooperation Decentralization by Local Government: A Comparative Study of Aid Policy in the United Kingdom and Germany [국제개발협력의 지방분권화에 대한 소고 : 영국과 독일의 원조정책 비교연구]

This paper aims to discuss effectiveness and obstacles of development cooperation decentralization by employing a comparative case study of United Kingdom and Germany. With SDGs, international community has emphasized the importance of decentralization of development cooperaton, which means that the central governments admits roles and importance of local governments in aid activities, and allows decentralized approach by the local governments towards developing countries at the local level. Findings of this study have confirmed that decentralization can improve aid effectiveness in developing countries at the local level. At the same time, the German experience implies that we can minimize obstacles of decentralization in practice. This research suggests to conduct a further research on more case studies of decentralization so that we can contribute to development and advancement of decentralized approach of development cooperation in order to achieve development effectiveness both at the international level and local level. In the end, we expect that the results of the study, which employed a methodology of combining a theoretical approach into the policy cases, can contribute to the field of Area Studies as well as Development Studies

Building Alliance Capabilities through Information Technology: The Effect of IT Resources on the Market Value Effects of Alliance Announcements

Does the investment in firm-specific IT resources lead to better alliance performance? This study proposes to answer this question by empirically examining the effect of a firm’s IT resources on the performance consequences of individual alliances for firms. Drawing upon previous works on organizational learning and dynamic capability, we identify and discuss key mechanisms that convert IT resources into alliance capability. Also, this study explores whether the effect of IT resources significantly varies depending on alliance characteristics, such as the types of activities and governance structures of alliances. Following an event-study approach, this empirical study analyzes the effect of IT expenditure on the stock market response to a new alliance announcement. 179 public firms spanning multiple industries in the United States account for 2,433 data points of alliance announcements from 1998 to 2005. The results are supportive of our hypotheses that a firm’s IT resources enhance its alliance performance

Leveraging Alliance Networks through Information Technology: Evidence from Panel Regressions

Despite the expectation that Information Technology (IT) is valuable in managing and leveraging multiple alliance relationships and the resultant alliance networks, a paucity in theoretical and empirical examination persists in the literature. Employing social network analysis (SNA), we examined whether IT investment moderates the effect exerted by a firm’s structural properties in alliance networks (direct partners, indirect partners, and structural holes) on its performance. Drawing upon previous research on dynamic capabilities and the knowledge-based view of the firm, we propose a conceptual model and discuss a potential underlying mechanism. Our empirical analysis of 306 U.S. public firms, which provide 971 observations during an 8-year span from 1998 to 2005, suggests that IT investment helps firms to (1) manage the burden of increasing complexity in coordinating multiple alliances, and (2) overcome the relative informational disadvantage resulted from their limited access to indirect partners and structural holes

Design, Analysis, and Experimental Results of Micromachined Single-structure Triaxis Vibratory Gyroscope with Advanced Coupling Mechanism

In this work, a novel micromachined monolithic triaxis gyroscope with an advanced anchor mechanism is designed and its structural characteristics are analyzed. Micromachined gyroscopes are usually packed in small packages, causing a high squeeze film damping effect that reduces the quality factor of out-of-plane vibration, resulting in lowered out-of-plane sensitivity. The proposed gyroscope has a four-mass single structure wherein the opposing masses vibrate in the opposite direction perpendicular to the direction they face, with the help of 'tree-shaped' coupling springs. The simulated driving and x-, y-, and z-axis sensing resonant frequencies are 19946, 20227, 20294, and 20361 Hz, respectively. Also, the prototype of the gyroscope was fabricated and tested. It showed a driving Q-factor of 106 and a scale factor of 7 mV/deg/s.11Ysciescopu

Information Systems, Alliance Portfolios, and Firm Performance: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis.

A longstanding body of information systems (IS) research has been devoted to identifying the role of information technology (IT) in enhancing organizational performance. As interorganizational relationships have become an important source of competitive advantage, recent research has examined the role of IT in facilitating interactions between business partners. Much less attention, however, has been paid to the role of IT in developing firm-level internal capabilities for managing such relationships, which become increasingly complex as the number and scope of interorganizational interactions increase. Drawing on theories of dynamic capabilities, the knowledge-based view of the firm, and organizational learning, I develop a theoretical model that posits how IT contributes to the development of firm-level capabilities that enhance alliance performance (Chapter 2). This model suggests that digitized process and knowledge supported by IT contribute to the development process by facilitating organizational learning of alliance-specific tasks, institutionalizing alliance management processes, and increasing the capacity to exploit the knowledge obtained from alliance partners. In Chapter 3, using the event-study methodology, I empirically analyze the influence of a firm’s use of IT-enabled knowledge platforms on the stock price response to a new alliance announcement. In Chapter 4, by employing a social network analysis (SNA) technique, I investigate the interactions between a firm’s IT investment and the alliance network of the firm, as well as their consequent influence on the performance of the firm. In summary, this dissertation presents a new theoretical perspective and empirical evidence regarding the role of IT in the interorganizational relationship management context, with a particular focus on strategic alliances. The prospective contribution of this dissertation to the business value of IT literature is mainly twofold. First, this dissertation investigates the role of IT within a wider range of interorganizational collaborations (i.e. strategic alliances) that goes beyond the primary focus of prior IS studies, which emphasized the supplier-buyer relationship. Second, this dissertation advances understanding of the relations between firm-level IT and organizational capability building.PhDBusiness AdministrationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100075/1/sanghee_1.pd

Theories Used in Information Systems Research: Identifying Theory Networks in Leading IS Journals

Though use of theory is critical in Information Systems (IS) research, the theoretical foundations of IS research have been understudied. Using Social Network Analysis, we analyze theory usage in IS research published in MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research from 1998 to 2006. We find Technology Acceptance Model, Resource- Based View and Game Theory to be the three most frequently used theories. While strong dominance is found in research focusing on Information Technology (IT) for individuals, organizations and markets, no theoretical dominance is found in IT for groups and IS development. Psychology, Economics and Sociology are disciplines IS researchers most frequently leverage for theories. Psychology contributes several theories representing a large fraction of the long tail of theories. Our analysis suggests that IS consists of a few distinctive clusters of research instead of a single core. Our results provide insights on theoretical foundations of IS and suggest research opportunities for scholars

Detecting Depression of Cancer Patients with Daily Mental Health Logs from Mobile Applications

Mobile mental health trackers, the mobile applications that gather self-reported mental logs from users, have gained recent attention from clinicians as a tool for detecting patients’ depression. However, critics have raised questions about the validity of the data collected from mental health trackers, which ask only a few simple questions using the face emoticon scale. This is the first study to address this issue, and we provide theoretical discussion that leads to the following hypotheses: (1) simpler but larger datasets collected daily from mobile mental health trackers can serve as good indicators to detect patients’ depression, and (2) higher adherence to mobile mental health trackers enhances screening accuracy. We test our hypotheses using the dataset of 5,792 sets of daily mental health logs collected from 78 breast cancer patients. Our random logistic panel regression and ROC analysis results, as well as k-means clustering analysis, provide strong supports for both hypotheses

Theories Used in Information Systems Research: Insights from Complex Network Analysis

Effective application of theory is critical to the development of new knowledge in Information Systems (IS) research. However, theory foundations of IS research are understudied. Using Complex Network Analysis, we analyze theory usage in IS research published in two premier journals (MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research) from 1998 to 2006. Four principal findings emerge from our analysis. First, in contrast with prior studies which found a lack of dominant theories at an aggregate level, we find stronger dominance of theory usage within individual streams of IS research. Second, IS research draws from diverse set of disciplines, with Psychology emerging as a consistently dominant source of theories for IS during our study period. Moreover, theories originating in IS were found to be widely used in two streams of research (‘IS development’ and ‘IT and Individuals’ streams) and more sparingly used in other streams. Third, IS research tends to form clusters of theory usage, with little crossover across clusters. Moreover, streams of IS research constitute distinct clusters of theory usage. Finally, theories originating from Economics, Strategy and Organization Science tend to be used together, whereas those originating from Psychology, Sociology and IS tend to be used together. Taken together, our results contribute to scholarly understanding of theory foundations of IS research and illustrate methodological innovations in the study of theory use by employing Complex Network Analysis

Dynamics of Social Influence on New Employees’ Use of Volitional IS: m-EHR Case in Hospital Setting

It is widely recognized that user resistance to Information Systems (IS) is particularly high in hospitals. In this regard, the future of mobile Electronic Health Record (m-EHR) systems is highly in question, mainly because their usage is not mandatory. Aiming to provide insights on how best to promote the use of m-EHR in hospitals, we investigate the effect of social influences on m-EHR usage by new doctors who recently began working at a hospital. Drawing upon the concept of organizational socialization and social influences, we hypothesize that coworkers’ m-EHR usage is positively associated with one by new doctors, and the strength of this association varies by the coworkers’ type of usage, by the hierarchical rankings of coworkers, and by the stage of socialization process in which the new doctors are situated. Our analyses using longitudinal m-EHR usage data (595,914 logs of 737 doctors) generally support our hypotheses