Privacy Concern, Locus of Control, and Salience in a Trust-Risk Model of Information Disclosure on Social Networking Sites

The social networking site (SNS) acts as a gateway through which online networking connections are made possible. Therefore, a user must be willing to provide his or her information to the SNS in order for others to find and “befriend” him or her and vice versa. Results from an online survey was used to test a trust-risk model of information disclosure in which two dispositional factors (Internet privacy concern and locus of control) and one situational factor (salience of SNS in daily life) were hypothesized to influence perceived risk regarding SNSs in general and trust in a SNS in particular. All proposed hypotheses were found significant, suggesting that the dispositional and situational factors are potentially salient in the SNS context. Findings also suggest that perhaps providing completed categories of personal information may be more sensitive than individual pieces of information alone

Assessing the Impacts of IS Strategy through the Development of Dynamic Capabilities

Of central importance to the functioning of the IT department is its information systems strategy. While research attention has been copiously given to other areas relating to the strategic value of IS, fewer studies have assessed the impact of the IS strategy itself, which can be an important avenue through which firm performance may be realized. As such, drawing upon the dynamic capabilities perspective, we propose a model of IS strategy and its impacts. Responses from 271 CIOs were collected via an online-based survey to test the proposed model. Results suggest that while innovative strategies reinforce dynamic capabilities development, undefined strategies tend to prove detrimental to development, and conservative strategies tend to neither help nor hurt. The impact of strategy on performance is mediated through dynamic capabilities, with the IS Innovator leading in performance, followed by the IS Conservative, and lastly the IS Undefined, whose lack of strategy proves harmful

Extending the IS Strategy Typology: An Assessment of Strategy Impacts on Capabilities Development and Performance

A typology of IS strategy has recently been forwarded in the literature in which IS strategy is categorized into three types: Innovative, Conservative, and Undefined. But more recent investigations in IS found that when firms attempt to take an ambidextrous approach, to some degree exhibiting both moderately innovative and conservative strategy behaviors, firms tend to perform equally well or better than those implementing predominately a single approach. Therefore, this paper proposes an extension to the existing typology by including a fourth strategy—IS Ambidextrous. It contributes by operationalizing and testing the extended typology in a model that assesses IS strategies’ impacts on dynamic capabilities development and ultimately on performance. It is found that, in practice, a substantially high percentage of firms strive to be ambidextrous and that this approach to IS is a rewarding strategy and by no means inferior to any of the other IS approaches in the typology

The Subtlety of Political Risk with Foreign Direct Investment: The Case of the Vietnamese Sugar Industry

Political risk entails more than a host country taking advantage of investment from foreign sources. A more subtle form of political risk is attributable to the host government\u27s mismanagement of policies that may be intended to attract foreign direct investment, but may have unintended consequences. A perfect example is the \u27\u27One Million Tonne Sugar Program sponsored by the government of Vietnam during the mid-1990s. What appears to be a very lucrative investment for foreign investors becomes a financial disaster due to the inability of the government to allocate resources efficiently and police its borders from smugglers

The Buffer Effect of Receiving Social Support on SNS Exhaustion and SNS Satisfaction: An Exploratory Study of the Lonely and Emotionally Unstable

Popular press reports that using social networking sites (SNSs) can cause increased stress levels in individuals. Although academic literature has attempted to explain the technostress related to social media, much remains unclear how feelings of being drained from SNS activities can be alleviated. This exploratory study draws upon the buffer effect of social support theory and tests it in the context of SNS. We analyze users who experience loneliness and emotional instability to better understand their psychological responses to social overload and receiving social support in terms of effects on SNS satisfaction, exhaustion, and discontinuous usage intention. Data from more than 1,000 users support our hypotheses that receiving social support is significantly related to SNS exhaustion and satisfaction. Interestingly, contrary to prior studies, the relationship between social overload and SNS satisfaction is found to be significantly positive for emotionally unstable users. Implications for research and practice are provided

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF IS STRATEGY AND IS CONTRIBUTION TO FIRM PERFORMANCE

Given the important impact that an IS strategy has on the potential value IS brings to an organization, we develop and test a model of IS Strategy and Performance. Our survey-based study provides strong evidence that firms with defined IS strategies perform better than those without defined IS strategies. Our study also provides evidence that the two IS defined strategies -- IS Innovator and IS Conservative -- contribute in very different ways to firm performance: the IS Innovator strategy contributes to strategic growth whereas the IS Conservative strategy contributes to firm efficiency. Organizations without a clearly defined IS strategy experienced a negative contribution of IS to firm performance. The different types of performance had differing affects on satisfaction with the IS department and satisfaction with the CIO such that CIOs overseeing an Innovator strategy experience lower satisfaction from their organizations than do CIOs overseeing a Conservative strategy. The lowest performance and satisfaction levels were seen in firms with no IS strategy. Firms with no IS strategy should realize the negative outcomes of such a lack of strategy and work to extricate themselves before a consistent pattern of investing in IS without clear organizational benefit develops

Respiratory Infections during SARS Outbreak, Hong Kong, 2003

The effect of community hygienic measures during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kong was studied by comparing the proportion of positive specimens of various respiratory viruses in 2003 with those from 1998 to 2002. Community hygienic measures significantly reduced the incidence of various respiratory viral infections

Hyperspectral Perfusion Monitoring of Irradiated Breast Patients

Studies examining acute perfusion changes (month) in irradiated fields are limited. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is a novel method of scanning spectroscopy that provides direct measurement of cutaneous tissue perfusion that is non-invasive. In this clinical study, we examine the ability of HSI to assess cutaneous changes in skin perfusion during the acute period following irradiation in patients. Patients undergoing external beam breast conserving radiotherapy (n=15) or post-mastectomy radiation (n=3) were enrolled. Total treatment doses ranged between 42 Gy and 50 Gy. Baseline images were obtained before irradiation for bilateral breasts in each patient and then subsequently at each dose fraction. Skin reaction assessment was also performed on the patients. In the irradiated breast, total perfusion was found to increase prior to skin reaction formation and continued to steadily increase over the first 30 days in all patients. Skin reactions included erythema and dry desquamation starting at day 11. These findings suggest that HSI can identify early changes of tissue oxygenation and perfusion in acute radiation injury and may be able to predict the severity of such injuries. Future work will look at mitigating acute injury with topical applications and studying the perfusion changes in chronically irradiated skin