A Cultural Sociology Perspective on IT Occupational Culture

Cultural studies have played an important role in information systems (IS) research for over 25 years. Past IS studies haveprimarily focused on two levels of analysis: national culture and organizational culture. The gap in our knowledge of cultureis in the area of occupational culture of IT professionals. IT professionals have their own distinct occupational culture withtheir own set of shared values. The ‘strong program’ of cultural sociology will be used to examine and interpret the meaningof the core shared values of the IT occupation. The cultural framework of shared language, shared history, and shared contextwill be utilized in this research-in-progress

Computer-Mediated Friendship Networks

Social networks have been around since the dawn of civilization. What is unique about social networks today is that a large part of these social networks is computer-mediated. Computer-mediated friendship networks (CMFNs) are a prime example of IT that matters. This research-in-progress focuses on the antecedents to CMFN usage based on Self-Determination Theory and Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory. Findings show that Perceived Intrinsic Value, Perceptions of Homophily, and Perceptions of Emotional Support as well as Stage of Life impact CMFN usage in interesting ways. Contributions of this study include 1) showcasing the important role that friendship style plays in CMFNs, 2) empirically demonstrating the role of intrinsic motivation in an information system which has been unsuccessful previously, and 3) extending the literature on computer-mediated social networking by defining and analyzing a particular category of computer-mediated social networks, namely, the CMFN, which has not been examined previously in the literature

Healthcare Information Technology Issues: Hospital CEO and CIO Perspectives

Healthcare Information Technology (IT) is widely regarded as a tool for improving the quality and perhaps reducing the cost of healthcare in the United States. Yet, its implementation is a continuous challenge for the healthcare industry. In this paper, we report the results of a survey distributed to CEOs and CIOs at 1400 U.S. hospitals regarding their perceptions of the key information technology (IT) issues for healthcare. Among the top ten issues, the implementation of electronic medical records is ranked the highest. Included in the top ten are issues related to: improving healthcare quality by the use of information technology; change management, privacy, security, and accuracy of electronic records; and decision support applications. We found remarkable similarity between the views of the CEOs and the CIOs, but they were also conservative and risk-averse in their entrepreneurial orientation. These results have wide implications for many stakeholders in the healthcare domain

Critical Issues in EHR Implementation: Provider and Vendor Perspectives

Stakeholders, both internal and external, can have differing and sometimes conflicting perspectives and priorities even though each has a vested interest in organizational success. Using the lens of stakeholder theory, we examine the differing views of stakeholders (namely, medical providers and vendors) in the implementation of electronic health record (EHR) systems. The implementation process itself can be broken down into three phases: pre-implementation, during implementation, and post-implementation. After determining a comprehensive set of seventeen key issues relevant to each phase, we discovered that there are significant differences in the perceptions of EHR vendors and their customers in terms of which issues in each phase of an EHR implementation are most important. These findings indicate that vendors tend to underestimate the role of nursing staff and that providers tend to underestimate the role of security. Both groups, however, agree that physician support throughout the implementation is essential for success

Global Perspectives on IT Occupational Culture: A Three-Way Cultural Analysis

This study examines the occupational values of IT professionals across the world. Using the three-way perspective of cultural theory as integrated, differentiated, and fragmented allows for a more comprehensive view of IT Occupational Culture (ITOC). Conducted under the auspices of the World IT Project, survey responses were gathered from more than 10,000 IT workers in 37 different countries. The findings provide global-based support for the ITOC ideology of values: Autonomy in Decision-Making, Structure in the Workplace, Precision in Communication, Innovation in Technology, Reverence for Knowledge, and Enjoyment in the Workplace (abbreviated as ASPIRE). The most important value was Reverence for Knowledge. ITOC is both more homogeneous and, at the same time, more complex than originally thought. While there are surprising global similarities in ITOC around the world, there are also important differences, which may be due to national culture, especially with regard to Structure in the Workplace and Precision in Communication. A better understanding of ITOC around the world should help reduce the amount of cultural clash between IT departments and business management

Information Technology Issues in Healthcare: Hospital CEO and CIO Perspectives

Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) is widely regarded as a key to improving the quality of healthcare in the United States and potentially reducing its cost. Yet, its implementation is a continuous challenge for the healthcare industry. In this article, we report the results of a survey distributed to CEOs and CIOs at 1400 U.S. hospitals regarding their perceptions of the key information technology (IT) issues in healthcare. Among the top ten issues, the implementation of electronic medical records is ranked the highest. Included in the top ten are issues related to: improving healthcare quality by the use of information technology; change management, privacy, security, and accuracy of electronic records; and decision support applications. While some differences existed, we found much similarity between the views of the CEOs and the CIOs with both groups being characterized as conservative and risk-averse in their entrepreneurial orientation. No major differences were observed between urban and rural hospitals, or large and small hospitals. Given the heightened interest in healthcare IT, these results have wide implications for many stakeholders in this burgeoning industry

Individuality Matters: A World View of Individual Issues of IT Professionals

Individuality matters. While information technology (IT) is important, more critical for the success of IS functions in an organization are its people, their values, attitudes, norms, and behavior. There are differences among IT professionals, not only at the organizational level, but also at the global level. Using data collected from more than 10,000 IT employees in 37 countries under the World IT Project, this study examines some fundamental issues of IT workers from a global perspective. While there are differences, we find that almost universally, nine individual issues are important across many countries, and they are interrelated in a similar manner. IT employees in some countries maintain stronger social bonds among themselves than those in others, which provide them with the necessary social capital to utilize in times of high work exhaustion, environmental dynamism and insecurity, as well as their efforts to change jobs. In difficult situations, the professional self-efficacy of the workers secures them. A significant number of IT employees feel that excessive work overload upsets the balance between their lives at home and workplace demands. Nevertheless, an intellectually stimulating and well-balanced work environment ensures job satisfaction for a significant number of IT employees in many countries

The World IT Project: History, Trials, Tribulations, Lessons, and Recommendations

We conceived The World IT Project, the largest study of its kind in the IS field, more than a decade ago. This ambitious mega project with an enormous global scale was formally launched in 2013 and is expected to finish by 2017. Major publications on the project should appear through 2019. The project responded to the pervasive bias in IS research towards American and Western views. What IS research glaringly lacks is a global view that tries to understand the major IS issues in the world in the context of unique cultural, economic, political, religious, and societal environments. The World IT Project captures the organizational, technological, and individual issues of IT employees across the world and relates them to cultural and organizational factors. This first major paper provides the project’s objectives and history, its general framework, governance, important decision points, and recommendations for future researchers based on lessons learned. Ultimately, we hope to provide a world view of IT issues that will be relevant to stakeholders at the firm, national, and international levels. We also invite scholars to send their recommendations for analyzing and writing papers using our vast database

A Framework for the Impact of IT on Organizational Performance

Abstract: Purpose -Despite the constant stream of research investigating information technology (IT) business value, IT capabilities, and competitive advantage, researchers are calling for a more coherent understanding of the firm-level impacts of IT, and how those firm-level impacts can be measured. The purpose of this study is to investigate the multitude of organization-level studies of the impact of IT. Originality/value -The research framework proposed provides a comprehensive snapshot of IS studies on organizational performance. IT business value | organizational impact | productivity rate | profitability | financia