Comparison-Shopping Websites: An Empirical Investigation on the Influence of Decision Aids and Information Load on Consumer Decision-Making Behavior

Rapid advances in Internet commerce technology have brought about the emergence of comparison-shopping Websites, which act as agents to consolidate vast amounts of product information. Researchers have tradi- tionally focused on incorporating the latest database interrogation technology and investigating the economic implications of the existence of comparison-shopping Websites. Little attention has been paid to understanding whether the decision aids provided are capable of assisting a consumer in managing a large quantity of information or, more importantly, are compatible with the decision-making behavior of the consumer. This study surveys several successful comparison-shopping Websites, enumerates two comercially successful forms of decision aids (i.e., screening and sorting), and examines their effects on decision effectiveness under different information loads. Based on a 3×2×2 factorial controlled experiment, we had three major findings. First, more sophisticated screening aids that assist a consumer in filtering a large quantity of information do not necessarily improve decision effectiveness. Surprisingly, our results even suggest that in some circumstances the opposite could be true. Second, the results indicate that the effectiveness of decision aids, to a large extent, depends on the information load. Third, decision makers are adaptive. One may supplement the absence of more sophisticated screening aids with the sorting aid

Teaching Information Systems Development via Process Variants

Acquiring the knowledge to assemble an integrated Information System (IS) development process that is tailored to the specific needs of a project has become increasingly important. It is therefore necessary for educators to impart to students this crucial skill. However, Situational Method Engineering (SME) is an inherently complex process that may not be suitable for students to apply in a classroom IS development project. SME is defined as the systematic creation of new methods from parts of existing methods, i.e., the method fragments, by taking into account the specific business situation of each IS development project. A less complex pedagogical approach is to teach students how to design an IS development process variant that incorporates the building blocks of various existing processes in order to leverage the advantages of each individual process. This paper first proposes a framework for teaching students the designing of process variants, followed by a preliminary empirical study conducted in a genuine classroom setting to determine whether the framework benefits students. Through the preliminary study, we discuss how the student IS development project teams had successfully applied our framework to design and use their own process variants. The initial observations obtained from the study also suggest that students who designed their own process variant appeared to consistently outperform those who did not, i.e., students which opted to use the traditional waterfall model

Synthesizing System Integration Requirements Model Fragments

Systems integration is an enduring issue in organizations. Many organizations have often been faced with the predicament of managing large and complex IT infrastructures accumulated over the years. Before proposing suitable integration architecture and selecting appropriate implementation solutions, a holistic and clear understanding of the enterprise-wide integration requirements among various internal and external systems is needed. This paper builds on prior literature on conceptual modelling of integration requirements to present an algorithm that synthesizes model fragments, i.e., piecemeal sections of the integration requirements. The details of the algorithm, for synthesizing two or more model fragments into a single integration requirements model, are detailed in this paper. An empirical assessment of the algorithm\u27s generated integration solution is made by comparing it against that performed manually

Empirical investigation of relational social capital in a virtual community for website programming

A virtual community of interest has a specific and narrow topic of discussion. Therefore, these communities attract registered members who are focused on knowledge sharing. The current research examines whether network ties, which are an aspect of structural social capital that can be categorized into strong and weak social ties, can provide a non-trivial explanation for members? trust, reciprocity, and identification in a virtual community for website programming interest. This relationship enables us to examine a context in which members share a common goal of resolving programming problems through knowledge sharing in contrast with other community settings where only general topics are discussed (e.g., societal and emotional issues). Data were collected through a survey of a virtual community for website programming composed of 69 members. Affirming conventional perception, results of the study indicate that weak ties affect the level of generalized trust and facilitate group identification. Remarkably, the number of members? strong ties is not significantly related to the degree of their perceived norms regarding generalized reciprocity. Reciprocity refers to a mutual expectation that a benefit granted at present should be repaid in the future. The results suggest two key points. First, even for a virtual community of interest, weak ties overshadow strong ties in explaining the outcome variables. Second, reciprocity is not guaranteed even in a focused form of discussion with a non-social topic that involves specialized knowledge. Therefore, virtual community members should be cautious even if ties are strong. Overall, results imply that virtual community administrators, particularly those who manage specialized communities, should be attentive to the strong and weak ties that exist among the community members

Designing recommendation agent

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

The Consequential Institutional IT Use Among Disaster Responders: Role Stacking

This research seeks to unearth Information Technology (IT) use by disaster responders (DRs) deployed by their affiliated disaster response organizations (DROs) for natural disaster response missions. Our on-ground analysis sheds insights into how several types of IT use behavior are surfacing as the DRs concurrently serve the role of a member of the ephemeral disaster response organization and the affiliated DRO. Informed by the role expansion lens, role stacking and its consequential IT use behavior emerge to explain how behavior towards institutional IT tasks is shaped by the location and activities of the DRs. This research expands the understanding of IT use in situations where users are disentangled from a preexisting institutional boundary through mission deployments. Such an understanding is particularly important since providing IT applications to the employees is a substantial investment committed by an institution. However, users do not necessarily use the institutional IT applications in certain situations

Measuring the success of intervention programmes designed to increase the participation rate by women in computing

Despite the prevalent use of blog for various personal reasons, there is a paucity of research examining the commercialization of blog. Even though it is possible to forge strong buyer-seller relationships among blogger and readers in a blog social network through collective social interaction, a fundamental prerequisite towards blog commercialization is the blogger’s willingness to engage in commercial exchange. Consequently, this paper examines the blogger’s decision making process on using his/her blog for commercial exchange. The decision process involves the appraisal of two novel theoretical notions, namely blog-blogger-reader-product similarity (BBRPS) and perceived reader-negative reaction (PRNR). Drawing on the cognitive-motivational-relational theory, we posit that the blogger’s emotional responses to the two appraisal factors affect how the blogger copes with the exchange situation. The coping strategy adopted by the blogger in turn increases or decreases exchange intention. Results from an experiment we conducted provide support for this model. Specifically, when BBRPS is high and PRNR is low, the blogger would be inclined towards using his/her blog for commercial exchange. Even when PRNR is high, it is plausible for blogger to persist in the use of his/her blog for commercial exchange as long as the negative emotional barrier is not excessively high

Teleconsultation by a Team of Physicians: The Intricacy of Hierarchy

Teleconsultations delivered by a team of physicians can yield various benefits over individual-based teleconsultations, such as rapid response, diverse expertise, workload distribution, and a learning environment for junior physicians. However, formal hierarchical barriers may inhibit junior physicians from actively participating in consultations in the presence of their senior counterparts. Drawing upon the lens of hierarchy, this study investigates strategies for mitigating formal hierarchical obstacles by examining the influence of medical rank-based formal hierarchy on physician participation and exploring the moderating effects of three informal hierarchical factors: gender stereotypes, platform-given informal hierarchy, and reputation-given informal hierarchy. We analyzed data from a prominent Chinese teleconsultation platform to derive our findings. This research aims to contribute to the literature on hierarchy, online health IT, and gender stereotypes while providing practical insights for effectively motivating and managing physicians in team-based teleconsultation services

Drivers for Green IT in Organizations: Multiple Case Studies in China and Singapore

An important consideration in green IT initiative is to achieve both environmental sustainability (doing good) and business profitability (doing well). This research, which builds on the theoretical lens of corporate ecological responsiveness and multiple case studies with nine companies in China and Singapore, advocates three type of drivers in which organizations could be motivated to push for green IT. The drivers include the alignment of green IT with the primary business objective of achieving profitability by better satisfying the market demand and by reducing operation costs, the institutional pressure exerted by the government, and the corporate social responsibility. Implications for research and practice are discussed