Cultural Determinants of Organizational Social Media Adoption

In this research-in-progress paper, we present a two-step approach to measure the impact of cultural values on organizational social media adoption. We build on the GLOBE framework to measure societal culture and the Competing Values Framework to measure organizational culture. We define organizational social media adoption as the use of social networking, blogs, and media sharing tools in order to communicate and collaborate with customers, partners, and organization members. Cultural values appear to be salient factors for the ongoing adoption of social media in organizations

What Makes a Review Voted? An Empirical Investigation of Review Voting in Online Review Systems

Many online review systems adopt a voluntary voting mechanism to identify helpful reviews to support consumer purchase decisions. While several studies have looked at what makes an online review helpful (review helpfulness), little is known on what makes an online review receive votes (review voting). Drawing on information processing theories and the related literature, we investigated the effects of a select set of review characteristics, including review length and readability, review valence, review extremity, and reviewer credibility on two outcomes—review voting and review helpfulness. We examined and analyzed a large set of review data from Amazon with the sample selection model. Our results indicate that there are systematic differences between voted and non-voted reviews, suggesting that helpful reviews with certain characteristics are more likely to be observed and identified in an online review system than reviews without the characteristics. Furthermore, when review characteristics had opposite effects on the two outcomes (i.e. review voting and review helpfulness), ignoring the selection effects due to review voting would result in the effects on review helpfulness being over-estimated, which increases the risk of committing a type I error. Even when the effects on the two outcomes are in the same direction, ignoring the selection effects due to review voting would increase the risk of committing type II error that cannot be mitigated with a larger sample. We discuss the implications of the findings on research and practice

Understanding knowledge creation, transfer, and application: Investigating cooperative, autonomous systems development teams

Knowledge management has begun to play a key role in organizations and research activities alike. Knowledge can be classified as tacit (i.e., knowing-how ) and explicit (i.e., knowing-what ). A gap exists in knowledge management research in that research has been dominated by an information technology perspective and tends to focus on explicit knowledge. This study seeks to address this gap by focusing on tacit knowledge management using tenets from cooperative learning theory. The research proposes that the sharing of tacit knowledge is made up of related sub-activities, and seeks more clarity in understanding autonomy, an antecedent that drives these activities. Furthermore, the research attempts to uncover the relationships between the tacit knowledge sharing sub-activities and the work outcomes produced by the knowledge work

Freedom to cooperate: Gaining clarity into knowledge integration in information systems development teams

The specialized knowledge that exists among information systems development (ISD) teams must be shared and integrated to successfully develop systems solutions. Unfortunately, knowledge sharing and integration continues to be problematic. In this study, we seek out those antecedent characteristics that ISD teams should possess to facilitate the collaboration and knowledge integration necessary for enhanced performance. We propose cooperative learning theory as a lens to understand knowledge integration activities in ISD projects. We suggest that knowledge integration behaviors are discretionary, and that ISD professionals must feel autonomy in deciding to engage in them. We investigate whether the effects of autonomy on cooperative learning and of cooperative learning on work outcomes vary depending on the types of autonomy present in ISD teams. A research model is proposed, and it is empirically tested through a study of 206 ISD professionals from 38 ISD teams. Our findings suggest that autonomous teams engage more frequently in cooperative learning behaviors, and consequently perform more effectively and are more satisfied. We also find that relationships exist between the type of autonomy present in teams and the resultant elements of cooperative learning and work outcomes. © 2009 IEEE

Understanding the Antecedents of Effective Knowledge Management: The Importance of a Knowledge-Centered Culture

Within the context of knowledge management, little research has been conducted that identifies the antecedents of a knowledge-centered culture - those organizational qualities that encourage knowledge creation and dissemination. In this study, the existing literature on organizational climate, job characteristics, and organizational learning (in the form of cooperative learning theory) are linked with the current thinking and research findings related to knowledge management to develop a theoretical model explaining the relationships among organizational climate, the level of cooperative learning that takes place between knowledge workers, and the resulting level of knowledge created and disseminated as measured by team performance and individual satisfaction levels. The study goes on to empirically test the proposed research model by investigating the climate of organizations, and seeks to understand the linkage between a set of organizational and individual characteristics and knowledge-related activities found in cooperative learning groups and the resulting work outcomes. The hypothesized research model is tested using LISREL with data collected from 203 information systems (IS) professionals engaged in systems development activities. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications the results have for future research and managerial practice

The hybrid clicks and bricks business model

Innovative strategies that can be used in employing physical storefronts in combination with virtual storefronts to maximize value to both the customers and the business are discussed. Allowing customers to return or exchange Web-purchased goods at physical stores instead of having to ship them back, removes one of the perceived obstacles to shopping online. It also induces them to visit the company\u27s physical stores for additional purchases. Offering repair services at physical stores for goods purchases online also help the customer avoid packing and shipping plus leads customers to the stores. Furthermore, customers should be able to make use of a company\u27s Internet capability for learning about products, getting recommendations, and placing orders while utilizing their physical stores for quick access to merchandize

Towards a better understanding of system analysts’ tacit knowledge: A mixed method approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to elicit tacit knowledge exhibited in expert information system (IS) professionals in a form that can be shared with others; and to develop categorical framework suggesting key content areas of tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain. Design/methodology/approach – Requirements analysis is selected as the main focus of this study due to the importance of this phase to the success of IS development and the nature of requirements analysis tasks requiring extensive amount of tacit knowledge. The authors used the “storytelling” approach, a semi-structured interview technique for knowledge elicitation. Findings – The study resulted in 132 knowledge items using a qualitative method and categorized them into 14 categories using cluster analysis. The study found that experienced, successful analysts see systems analysis in behavioral, managerial, and political terms and focus heavily on interpersonal, project management, and organizational issues. Research limitations/implications – The limitations in the research sample, or in the recollection capability of the research subjects could compromise the comprehensiveness of the tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain; however, the elicited knowledge at least represents important dimensions one might reasonably find in this domain. Originality/value – Very little research has attempted to capture this tacit dimension of system analysts’ knowledge. Thus, capturing and transferring the tacit knowledge from experts should help in the evolution of novice to expert system analysts thereby improving both their effectiveness and the quality of the information systems developed