The Impact of IOS Use and Interpersonal Ties on Digital Innovation: Insights from Boundary Spanning and Institutional Theories

Drawing upon the boundary spanning and institutional theories, this study investigates the influence of interorganizational systems (IOS) use and interpersonal ties between a firm and its suppliers on a firm’s digital innovation and how such effects are moderated by institutional distance between the firm and its suppliers. Based on a pilot test of 123 Chinese firms, our results find that a firm’s use of IOS significantly improves its digital innovation, while interpersonal ties between the firm and its suppliers do not significantly improve the firm’s digital innovation. Further, we find that institutional distance between the firm and its suppliers differentially moderates the influences of IOS use and interpersonal ties on digital innovation. Specifically, institutional distance negatively moderates the impact of IOS use on digital innovation yet positively moderates the impact of interpersonal ties on digital innovation. We further discuss the theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the current study

Information Management Environment, Business Strategy, and the Effectiveness of Information Systems Strategic Planning

This paper discusses the effect of organization information management environment (IME) maturity and alignment between business strategy and information systems strategic planning (ISSP) on ISSP success. A research model is formulated and tested using data collected from 49 organizations in China. Data shows that that the higher the information management environment maturity, the more success ISSP and the higher the alignment between business strategy and ISSP, the more success ISSP. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed

The Impact of Enterprise Social Media Use on Overload: The Moderating Role of Communication Visibility

Prior research has mainly focused on the positive effects of information technology (IT) use. However, emerging research begins to highlight the importance of considering the dark side of IT use. This study examines how enterprise social media (ESM) use (i.e., work- and social- related use) affects employees’ perceived overload (i.e., information and social overload). In addition, we propose that communication visibility moderates the nonlinear relationship between ESM use and overload. The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed

Somewhat homomorphic encryption scheme for secure range query process in a cloud environment

With the development of the cloud computing, recently, many service models have appeared which are based on the cloud computing, such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and database as a service (DaaS). For DaaS, there exist many security issues. Especially, the database as a service cannot be fully secured because of some security problems. This research area of cloud computing is called as cloud security. One of the problems is that it is difficult to execute queries on encrypted data in cloud database without any information leakage. This thesis proposes a secure range query process which is based on a somewhat homomorphic encryption scheme to improve secure database functionalities. There is no sensitive information leakage in the secure range query process. The data that are stored in the cloud database are the integers which are encrypted with their binary forms by bits. A homomorphic “greater-than” algorithm is used in the process to compare two integers. Efficiency, security, and the maximum noise that can be controlled in the process are covered in the security and efficiency analysis. Parameter setting analysis of the process will also be discussed. Results of the proposed method have been analyzed through some experiments to test the secure range query process for its practicability with some relatively practical parameter settings.Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Computational Science

Leveraging Work-Related Stressors for Employee Innovation: The Moderating Role of Enterprise Social Networking Use

Enterprise social networking (ESN) techniques have been widely adopted by firms to provide a platform for public communication among employees. This study investigates how the relationships between stressors (i.e., challenge and hindrance stressors) and employee innovation are moderated by task-oriented and relationship-oriented ESN use. Since challenge-hindrance stressors and employee innovation are individual-level variables and task-oriented ESN use and relationship-oriented ESN use are team-level variables, we thus use hierarchical linear model to test this cross-level model. The results of a survey of 191 employees in 50 groups indicate that two ESN use types differentially moderate the relationship between stressors and employee innovation. Specifically, task-oriented ESN use positively moderates the effects of the two stressors on employee innovation, while relationship-oriented ESN use negatively moderates the relationship between the two stressors and employee innovation. In addition, we find that challenge stressors significantly improve employee innovation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Supply Chain Exploitation, Exploration, and Firm Performance: Effects of Top Management and Information Technology Capabilities

While supply chain (SC) exploitation and exploration have been playing an increasingly important role in supply chain management, there is a dearth of research examining their antecedents and outcomes. In this research, we examine how SC exploitation and exploration impact firm performance. Specifically, drawing upon the boundary spanning theory, we theorize how top management, as boundary spanners, and three types of information technology (IT) capabilities, as boundary objects, enable SC exploitation and exploration. Our research hypotheses are tested using data collected from 157 firms in China. We found that both SC exploitation and exploration have significantly positive effects on firm performance. Also, top management participation directly affects both SC exploitation and exploration. In addition, IT business partnerships and external IT linkages positively affect both SC exploitation and exploration, whereas IT infrastructure is not significantly related to either SC exploitation or exploration. Contributions and implications of this study are discussed

Self-Sacrificing Behavior of the Sponsoring Company and Participation Behavior of Community Members in the Crowdsourcing

Self-sacrificing behavior of the sponsoring company in the community is increasingly important to improve the active participation and organizational citizenship behavior of community members. However, our understanding of how self-sacrificing behavior influence the participation and behavior of community members remains limited. This study investigates the underlying influencing mechanism of the self-sacrificing behavior of the sponsoring company on the knowledge management process of community members in crowdsourcing communities and further examines the mediating effect of organizational identification. Based on 286 community members surveyed from the crowdsourcing communities of eight high-tech companies, we find that the self-sacrificing behavior of the company can help community members develop organizational identification, which leads to knowledge innovation and integration. Furthermore, we find that knowledge integration of crowdsourcing community members mediates the relationship between their organizational identification and knowledge innovation

The Interaction Effects between Supply Chain Integration and IT Capabilities on Firm Performance

It is well touted that embedding information technology (IT) capabilities in supply chain processes would allow firms to derive competitive advantage. Yet the outcomes of such embeddedness vary greatly across companies. Investigating how a firm configures appropriate IT capabilities with supply chain integration (SCI) to achieve superior performance is of significance. Drawing upon the dynamic capabilities theory, we examine how SCI and IT capabilities jointly affect firm performance. We test the hypotheses of interest with data collected from 252 firms in China. The results of hierarchical regression analysis reveal that the interactive effects of SCI and IT capabilities on firm performance vary across different combinations of dimensions of SCI (i.e., information sharing and collaborative planning) and IT capabilities(i.e., IT infrastructure flexibility, IT assimilation capability, and top management’s IT knowledge). In addition, the dimensions of SCI and IT capabilities have differential effects on firm performance. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the current research are discussed

Personalized Product Evaluation Based on GRA-TOPSIS and Kansei Engineering

With the improvement of human living standards, users’ requirements have changed from function to emotion. Helping users pick out the most suitable product based on their subjective requirements is of great importance for enterprises. This paper proposes a Kansei engineering-based grey relational analysis and techniques for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (KE-GAR-TOPSIS) method to make a subjective user personalized ranking of alternative products. The KE-GRA-TOPSIS method integrates five methods, including Kansei Engineering (KE), analytic hierarchy process (AHP), entropy, game theory, and grey relational analysis-TOPSIS (GRA-TOPSIS). First, an evaluation system is established by KE and AHP. Second, we define a matrix variate—Kansei decision matrix (KDM)—to describe the satisfaction of user requirements. Third, the AHP is used to obtain subjective weight. Next, the entropy method is employed to obtain objective weights by taking the KDM as input. Then the two types of weights are optimized using game theory to obtain the comprehensive weights. Finally, the GRA-TOPSIS method takes the comprehensive weights and the KMD as inputs to rank alternatives. A comparison of the KE-GRA-TOPSIS, KE-TOPSIS, KE-GRA, GRA-TOPSIS, and TOPSIS is conducted to illustrate the unique merits of the KE-GRA-TOPSIS method in Kansei evaluation. Finally, taking the electric drill as an example, we describe the process of the proposed method in detail, which achieves a symmetry between the objectivity of products and subjectivity of users