Does IT Matter (Now)? A Global Panel Data Analysis of 7 Regions from 2018-2020 on Digitalization and Its Impact on Economic Growth

There has been a long-running debate in Information Technology (IT) and economics literature about the contrary arguments of IT concerning digitalization and the economic growth of nations. While many empirical studies have shown a significant value of IT, others revealed a detrimental impact. Given the ambiguous results and anecdotal commentary on the increase in digitalization attributed to the COVID-19 global pandemic, this paper aims to explore the economic growth-digitalization nexus of 59 countries in 7 regions by employing correlation and regression analyses over the period 2018-2020. The findings indicate a positive relationship between economic growth and digitalization for both ‘HIGH’ and ‘LOW’ digitalized country categorization and regional assessment. Consistent with regional results, except for Northern Africa and Western Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa regions, the remaining regions show a positive correlation and regression results. The findings of this study can be helpful in future prospective national IT and economic development policies

Does the Use of Omnibus Constructs in SQB in IS Research Compromise Its Insights?

With the advancement of information technology (IT), there is growing concern about the phenomenon of SQB, as people rarely willingly accept change and prefer their beliefs. As a result, academics in IS research regard SQB research as an exciting theme. While knowledge of SQB in the IS discipline is growing, we need a comprehensive view due to the use of omnibus constructs, which display a shared use of several constructs without proper validation and change attribute consideration, potentially producing unclear and ambiguous results. As a result, we examined 31 papers published using the SQB constructs between 2010 and 2023. The existing literature demonstrates the importance of this approach in furthering our understanding of the complex issue of using SQB constructs. We present a cross-tabulation of observed change attributes across the SQB constructs to examine the omnibus nature of the SQB constructs and provide directions for future research

Revisiting the Constructs of SQB Theory: A Review and Research Agenda

This literature review aims to examine the current state of SQB theory by looking at its evolution, most used constructs, contextual coverage and propose new SQB constructs to a revised model. More specifically, this paper examines SQB research published from 2010 to 2021. While some work has been done on examining the application of SQB theory within their context, the associated SQB constructs in which this work was achieved are frequently observed. Investigating the papers from a theoretical and contextual view exposes that IS researchers have continuously used SQB, yet primary attention is on existing theories with little attention to contextual differences even though a fast-moving IT appearance is present in the field. Regardless of the context, researchers can learn lessons on SQB learned from other scholars and move beyond to further enrich the understanding of SQB with an expansion of the existing SQB literature. Keywords: SQB theory, constructs, context, literature review

A Framework to Understand the Emergence of SQB: Observations Through a New Lens

Although change initiatives are a frequent and critical need in contemporary organizations, an individual’s propensity to resist change is frequently reported. Resistance is the consequence of the cognitive and behavioral responses of people affected by the change. This phenomenon has the potential to change the current status quo of many individual and group-level theories, particularly those addressing the why and how of resistance to change. This study uses an interpretive research approach with the use of the grounded theory method and adopts the SQB theory to observe the resistance to change in response to SQB emergence. This study employs four focus group discussions that yield a framework to understand the emergence of SQB. The study identifies an inter-play among SQB emergence framework constructs: actor, entity and time. This study assists in identifying new frameworks and paradigms for the SQB perspective that can be used in changing conditions. Keywords Change, SQB, resistance to change, framework

Face-to-Face to Virtual: Exploring Status Quo Bias in Digitalized Education

Digitalization of education with the COVID-19 outbreak has created complicated issues for tertiary education, where profound changes to education delivery have been identified. Consequently, this rapid shift from face-to-face to virtual has made learners resist the change and prefer to be in their status quo. However, this comprehensive acknowledgment shows an absence of focus on SQB and digitalized education. In light of this context, this short paper presents a formative a-priori model and a survey design that orchestrates the key constructs to address SQB in digitalized education and test afterward. Grounded in the Status Quo Bias theory, it delivers a valuable and pragmatic assessment based on replies derived from the hermeneutic literature review. Our future work will test the proposed model\u27s hypotheses that explain the learner status quo bias on digitalized education and form a theoretical base for future research

Investigating How SQB Changes from Face-to-Face to Virtual in the Tertiary Education Sector

With the COVID-19 outbreak, the digitalization of education has created complex issues for tertiary education, where profound changes in education delivery have been identified. As a result, the rapid transition from face-to-face to virtual learning has caused learners to resist change and prefer to remain in their status quo. Given the scarcity of detailed theoretical and practical considerations and attributing the COVID-19 pandemic to the education transition, this study presents a robust and validated model that orchestrates the combined effect on learners when changing from face-to-face to virtual in tertiary education. We collected the data from focus groups that were held with tertiary students from various nations, grounded in the Status Quo Bias theory in the a-priori model, for validation. The key constructs identified are switching costs and perceived value. And the validated model can be used as a groundwork in both academia and practitioners in future changing conditions