Modeling Multilevel Structures of Information Technology Acceptance: An Investigation of Group Level Effects on Individual Usage of Web-Based Systems

Despite the sizable and continually increasing amount of investment in information technology (IT), IT often falls short of realizing its expected benefits due to inadequate user acceptance. Understanding the key factors that facilitate user acceptance of IT is an issue that has considerable practical implications. While much research effort has been directed to investigating the effects of various variables operating at the individual level, little effort has been made to modeling and assessing the effects of group level variables on individual usage behavior. Our study addresses this issue by proposing a multilevel model composed of individual level variables and group level variables, integrating the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model with Resource-Based Theory. Research hypotheses derived from this integrative model will be empirically validated in a field study setting involving college students who use a Web-based system over a 12-week period. The proposed model will be tested using a hierarchical linear modeling approach, which is specifically designed to examine multilevel data structures. The findings are expected to provide important insights into the dynamic interplay between individual level variables and group level variables and their joint effects on individual acceptance of IT

Website Intelligence: Conceptual Development and Empirical Assessment

As web sites proliferate, offering more of the same, why does a customer choose one web site over the others? Among other factors, website intelligence offers a viable answer to this question. However, past studies fall short of providing a comprehensive conceptualization or effective metric of website intelligence, limiting our ability to enhance the intelligent aspects of web sites. Integrating prior research findings, we propose website intelligence as a second order construct consisting of three sub-dimensions of content, presentation, and interaction, and develop new measures for these dimensions. Further, we theorize the website intelligence construct as a mediator of the system quality and information quality effects on user perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, and test the proposed model using PLS on data collected from an experiment. The newly developed measure exhibits strong psychometric properties. The results largely support the proposed mediating role of website intelligence

Understanding Information Behavior and the Relationship to Job Performance

Information behavior is an important topic area for the future Internet, Information Systems developers, and the information research community. This article shows two main factors of information behavior—information motivation and information capability—and its relationship to job performance based on the literature review of psychology, management, IS, and IT training fields. This article reviews the wide range of literature on the information behavior, provides the summarized tables of literature, and proposes the future research framework based on the literature review

Examining the Influence of Time-Use Preferences on Technology Acceptance: The Role of Computer Polychronicity

Past research recognizes the important influence of individual beliefs on technology acceptance and use. This line of research has also identified a variety of factors that drive the formation of these beliefs. One category of variables that has not received much attention in this research stream consists of individual preferences, in particular time-use preferences. In the current study we add to the literature on technology acceptance, and belief formation in particular, by introducing and empirically testing a new construct labeled computer polychronicity, which captures individuals’ time-use preferences regarding IT. Computer polychronicity is positioned in this study as a key driver of perceived usefulness, mediating the effects of computer anxiety and computer playfulness. Overall, the results support the notion that preferences play important roles in the formation of technology-related beliefs

Measuring the Mobile User Experience: Conceptualization and Empirical Assessment

User experience is commonly considered important for IT adoption and use. However, a formal measure that captures a user’s holistic experience obtained through the use of an IT artifact has not been developed. In this study, we propose a new measure of user experience and examine its validity using the data collected from over 240 smartphone mobile users in South Korea. Based on prior research on brand experience in marketing, we conceptualize user experience as a second order construct with four sub-dimensions. The convergent and discriminant validity of the measurement items of mobile user experience is examined along with the established measurement items of the cognitive absorption, which is similar to the proposed construct in that both capture what a user has experienced while interacting with an IT artifact. Further, we examine the effects of the proposed construct on perceived usefulness, satisfaction, and continuous intention

Toward an Integrative Understanding of Information Technology Training Research across Information Systems and Human-Computer Interaction: A Comprehensive Review

Researchers investigating issues in the domain of training and human-computer interaction share a common interest in ensuring that users are skilled in the use of Information Technologies (IT). When users have the necessary skills, they can utilize IT productively and also have a pleasant human-to-computer interaction. Over the past three decades, Information System (IS) researchers have made considerable efforts in identifying the most effective ways to develop users’ IT skills. However, at this point in time, there are many changes taking place in the IT environment and organizations find it challenging to keep their employees trained and updated on IT skills. Hence, it is important for the IS community to respond by taking the lead in identifying and conducting research that can help organizations effectively address these challenges. We take the first step in conducting a comprehensive review of training research published in major IS and HCI journals over the past three decades so as to synthesize IT training research, provide an integrative understanding of findings, and propose directions for future research. Our study indicates that while IS research on training has made steady progress in advancing our understanding of alternative IT training methods and cognitive learning processes, it also has several shortcomings. Past research has: a) focused primarily on the training program without sufficient attention to activities prior to and after the program, b) used a small set of theoretical foundations, and c) focused on a few topics and on single-user systems rather than integrated enterprise systems. Critical issues such as improving user motivations prior to training, transfer of training skills to the workplace, assessment of training, and supporting user learning that occurs after training have not been given adequate attention. We identify several research opportunities by tapping into relatively unexplored theories and urge researchers to continue research to address the gaps identified in this comprehensive review as well as to develop innovative methods to help employees learn through newer channels, such as e-learning and social media

Critical change in the Fermi surface of iron arsenic superconductors at the onset of superconductivity

The phase diagram of a correlated material is the result of a complex interplay between several degrees of freedom, providing a map of the material's behavior. One can understand (and ultimately control) the material's ground state by associating features and regions of the phase diagram, with specific physical events or underlying quantum mechanical properties. The phase diagram of the newly discovered iron arsenic high temperature superconductors is particularly rich and interesting. In the AE(Fe1-xTx)2As2 class (AE being Ca, Sr, Ba, T being transition metals), the simultaneous structural/magnetic phase transition that occurs at elevated temperature in the undoped material, splits and is suppressed by carrier doping, the suppression being complete around optimal doping. A dome of superconductivity exists with apparent equal ease in the orthorhombic / antiferromagnetic (AFM) state as well as in the tetragonal state with no long range magnetic order. The question then is what determines the critical doping at which superconductivity emerges, if the AFM order is fully suppressed only at higher doping values. Here we report evidence from angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) that critical changes in the Fermi surface (FS) occur at the doping level that marks the onset of superconductivity. The presence of the AFM order leads to a reconstruction of the electronic structure, most significantly the appearance of the small hole pockets at the Fermi level. These hole pockets vanish, i. e. undergo a Lifshitz transition, at the onset of superconductivity. Superconductivity and magnetism are competing states in the iron arsenic superconductors. In the presence of the hole pockets superconductivity is fully suppressed, while in their absence the two states can coexist.Comment: Updated version accepted in Nature Physic

Multiferroicity with coexisting isotropic and anisotropic spins in Ca3Co2-xMnxO6

We study magnetic and multiferroic behavior in Ca3Co2−xMnxO6 (x??? 0.97) by high-field measurements of magnetization (M), magnetostriction [L(H)/L], electric polarization (P), and magnetocaloric effect. This study also gives insight into the zero- and low-magnetic-field magnetic structure and magnetoelectric coupling mechanisms. We measured M and ??L/L up to pulsed magnetic fields of 92 T, and determined the saturation moment and field. On the controversial topic of the spin states of Co2+ and Mn4+ ions, we find evidence for S=32 spins for both ions with no magnetic-field-induced spin-state crossovers. Our data also indicate that Mn4+ spins are quasi-isotropic and develop components in the ab plane in applied magnetic fields of 10 T. These spins cant until saturation at 85 T, whereas the Ising Co2+ spins saturate by 25 T. Furthermore, our results imply that the mechanism for suppression of electric polarization with magnetic fields near 10 T is flopping of the Mn4+ spins into the ab plane, indicating that appropriate models must include the coexistence of Ising and quasi-isotropic spins.close12