Validating Formative Partial Least Squares (PLS) Models: Methodological Review and Empirical Illustration

The issue of formative constructs, as opposed to the more frequently used reflective ones, has recently gained momentum among IS and Management researchers. Most researchers maintain that formative constructs have been understudied, and that there is paucity in methodological literature to guide researchers on how such constructs should be developed and estimated. A survey of IS research has revealed that about 29% of constructs were misspecified as reflective rather than formative constructs. Furthermore, guidelines about how models containing formative constructs should be indentified and estimated are fragmented and inconsistent. Thus, this paper aims to present a methodological review of formative model identification and evaluation. We bring a brief theoretical overview of formative constructs, and put together a guideline for estimating formative measurement and structural models. We then present a simplified model composed of three formative constructs and illustrate how it is assessed and estimated using SmartPLS

FROM IT ASSETS TO BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC VALUE

This study conceptually develops a Business Value if IT (BVIT) model, conjointly and innovatively using four theoretical frameworks, the Resource-Based View(RBV) of the firm, Knowledge-Based View (KBV), Contingency theory, and the Strategic Alignment Model. The developed model proposes that IT-enabled knowledge and communication capabilities, which actually create IT-enabled economic value (EVIT), can be driven by organizational strategy and resources via their impact on IT strategy and resources. The study contributes to the extant body of knowledge by developing three new IT-driven business value constructs: Know-Tech, Com-Tech, and EVIT along with theoretical grounding and implications about empirical measurements. It is thus suggested that IT-enabled knowledge and communication capabilities mediate the effects of organizational and IT strategies and resources on EVIT, thereby illustrating the paths that lead from IT components to IT-embedded capabilities and to EVIT. The model implies that IT matters in modern knowledge-based turbulent and dynamic competitive environments by contributing to the acquisition of organizational IT-Embedded knowledge and communication capabilities that can drive sustainable economic value. The proposed model also shows the paths by which IT contributes to eventual organizational economic gains albeit indirectly through deeply embedded, inimitable, dynamic and valuable organizational knowledge and communication capabilities. This research paves the way to an empirical investigation of \u27IT-Embeddedness\u27 as recently called for by scholars

Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State

Cartography, place-naming and state-sponsored explorations were central to the modern European conquest of the earth, empire building and settler-colonisation projects. Scholars often assume that place names provide clues to the historical and cultural heritage of places and regions. This article uses social memory theory to analyse the cultural politics of place-naming in Israel. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ study of the construction of social memory by the Latin Crusaders and Christian medieval pilgrims, the article shows Zionists’ toponymic strategies in Palestine, their superimposition of Biblical and Talmudic toponyms was designed to erase the indigenous Palestinian and Arabo-Islamic heritage of the land. In the pre-Nakba period Zionist toponymic schemes utilised nineteenth century Western explorations of Biblical ‘names’ and ‘places’ and appropriated Palestinian toponyms. Following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the Israeli state, now in control of 78 percent of the land, accelerated its toponymic project and pursued methods whose main features were memoricide and erasure. Continuing into the post-1967 occupation, these colonial methods threaten the destruction of the diverse historical cultural heritage of the land

Anti-TNFα Treatment Impairs Long-Term Immune Responses to COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) treated with anti-tumor-necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) exhibited lower serologic responses one-month following the second dose of the COVID-19 BNT162b2 vaccine compared to those not treated with anti-TNFα (non-anti-TNFα) or to healthy controls (HCs). We comprehensively analyzed long-term humoral responses, including anti-spike (S) antibodies, serum inhibition, neutralization, cross-reactivity and circulating B cell six months post BNT162b2, in patients with IBD stratified by therapy compared to HCs. Subjects enrolled in a prospective, controlled, multi-center Israeli study received two BNT162b2 doses. Anti-S levels, functional activity, specific B cells, antigen cross-reactivity, anti-nucleocapsid levels, adverse events and IBD disease score were detected longitudinally. In total, 240 subjects, 151 with IBD (94 not treated with anti-TNFα and 57 treated with anti-TNFα) and 89 HCs participated. Six months after vaccination, patients with IBD treated with anti-TNFα had significantly impaired BNT162b2 responses, specifically, more seronegativity, decreased specific circulating B cells and cross-reactivity compared to patients untreated with anti-TNFα. Importantly, all seronegative subjects were patients with IBD; of those, >90% were treated with anti-TNFα. Finally, IBD activity was unaffected by BNT162b2. Altogether these data support the earlier booster dose administration in these patients

Creative Responses to Separation: Israeli and Palestinian Joint Activism in Bil\u27in

This article examines creative ways in which Israeli and Palestinian activists engage with each other and the powers seeking to separate them in their nonviolent struggles for a just and lasting peace. Using the geopolitical theory of territoriality, the article briefly examines a number of administrative, physical, and psychological barriers facing joint activism and the strategies activists use to counteract them. Drawing on nonviolent theory and practice, the article analyzes how activists exert power through the creative use of symbols and practices that undermine the legitimacy of occupation policies. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2004-05 and July 2006, the article explores the implications of this activism on conceptions of identity, and strategies for restarting a moribund peace process. The relative \u27success\u27 of sustained joint action in Bil\u27in can provide scholars and policymakers with innovative approaches for addressing some of the outstanding issues needing to be addressed by official negotiators. Although government bodies are more constrained than activists, the imaginative means of engaging with the system- and the reframing of issues through the redeployment of \u27commonplaces\u27-can perhaps provide inspiration, if not leverage, for thinking outside of the box