Are Citations to Academic Journal Articles a Measure of Quality or Something Else? An Exploratory Analysis with Emphasis on Design Science and IS Technical Research

One pervasive belief about scholarly citations that underlies several studies appearing in the IS literature is that the number ofcitations to a paper reflects the quality of the study. For example, a paper that receives 200 citations is perceived as havinghigher quality than another study that receives 50 citations. While most experts acknowledge that there are other factors thatdrive citations, such as the number of years a paper was available to be cited – or possibly “gaming” of citations by authorswho cite themselves frequently (author self-citations) or over-zealous editors who incent prospective authors to cite theirjournals (journal self-citations), there is an underlying assumption that, barring such unscrupulous behavior, citations are ameasure of research quality. This paper critically examines this assumption using a validated typology identifying 13 distinctsubject areas that characterize IS research. Results show that papers on some topics (e.g., IT adoption and use; newmeasurement development and validation) consistently receive more citations than average – while some topics consistentlyreceive below-average citation rates (e.g., IS development; IT project/risk management). Unless one assumes that all paperson a given topic are consistently of higher quality than all papers on other topics, our data suggest that a key driver ofcitations are the subject area of the study and, in turn, the size of the research community that conducts research on the topic

Analyzing IT Outscoring Relationships as Alliances among Multiple Clients and Vendors

As the business environment become more uncertain and competitive, many organizations are seeking ways to gain economic efficiency and share in business and technology risk. Despite wide differences in the reference disciplines applied to outsourcing research, the vast majority of it assumes a one-to-one relationship between the client and the outsourcing vendor. This paper examines the economic, strategic, and organizational issues involved in IT outsourcing when more complex arrangements are considered - such as multi-vendor alliances, co-sourcing, and complex multi-vendor, multi-client relationships. In this paper, we identify a taxonomy of four classes of outsourcing relationships (based on how many clients and vendors are involved in the outsourcing relationship, and illustrate each with recent business examples. Grounded in this taxonomy, we develop a theoretical framework that identifies both enabling and constraining forces that may influence client firms in choosing among the four types of outsourcing relationships. This paper provides insights regarding how the variations in the nature of these outsourcing relationships may shape the benefits and risks be achieved from outsourcing, as well as the ongoing complexity of managing outsourcing relationships.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Towards a deeper understanding of system usage in organizations: A multi-level perspective

The objective of this paper is to contribute towards a deeper understanding of system usage in organizations by examining its multilevel nature. Past research on system usage has suffered from a levels bias, with researchers studying system usage at single levels of analysis only, e.g., the individual, group, or organizational level. Although single-level research can be useful, we suggest that studying organizations one level at a time will ultimately lead to an unnatural, incomplete, and very disjointed view of how information systems are used in practice. To redress this situation, we draw on recent advances in multilevel theory to present system usage as a multilevel construct and provide an illustration for what it takes for IS researchers to study it as such. The multilevel perspective advanced in this article offers rich opportunities for theoretical and empirical insights and suggests a new foundation for in-depth research on the nature of system usage, its emergence and change, and its antecedents and consequences

Expanding the Frontiers of Information Systems Research: Introduction to the Special Issue

An introduction to the Expanding the Frontiers of Information Systems Research special issue

Effect of metal Ions (Ni2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+) and water coordination on the structure of L-phenylalanine, L-tyrosine, L-tryptophan and their zwitterionic forms

Methods of quantum chemistry have been applied to double-charged complexes involving the transition metals Ni2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+ with the aromatic amino acids (AAA) phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan. The effect of hydration on the relative stability and geometry of the individual species studied has been evaluated within the supermolecule approach. The interaction enthalpies, entropies and Gibbs energies of nine complexes Phe•M, Tyr•M, Trp•M, (M = Ni2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+) were determined at the Becke3LYP density functional level of theory. Of the transition metals studied the bivalent copper cation forms the strongest complexes with AAAs. For Ni2+and Cu2+ the most stable species are the NO coordinated cations in the AAA metal complexes, Zn2+cation prefers a binding to the aromatic part of the AAA (complex II). Some complexes energetically unfavored in the gas-phase are stabilized upon microsolvation

Reskilling IS professionals : individual and organizational adaptation to software process innovations

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, leaves 208-228).by Michael J. Gallivan.Ph.D

Analyzing IS research productivity: an inclusive

approach to global IS scholarshi