Supply Chain Resource Planning Systems: A Scenario of Future Enterprise Systems

To envisage possible future enterprise systems, we describe four scenarios that all respond to the increasing need for better supply chain-wide coordination of resource allocation decisions. We use two drivers to derive these scenarios; namely “normal form of providing corporate computing resources” and “stance of regulators towards explicit forms of industry-wide coordination”, the latter of which includes cooperation among competitors. While three of our scenarios are familiar to contemporary readers, the fourth, supply chain resource planning (SCRP) systems, marks a radical break with current practice. We describe the operating principle of SCRP systems and discuss possible governance structures for organizations supporting SCRP systems. We hope to encourage discussion about the future of enterprise systems that moves beyond extrapolating past and current trends. The paper concludes by outlining four areas for promising future research

Relationship Between Online and Offline Social Capital: Evidence from a Social Network Site in China

This study explores the impact of Social Network Sites (SNSs) usage on the formation of online bridging and bonding social capital, and the relationship between online and offline social capital. It is hypothesized that use of SNSs forms online social capital and online and offline social capital are positively correlated. A Chinese SNS, Renren, is studied specifically. Social capital scales and personality measures were adapted from existing literature to develop a questionnaire and a survey of 183 students was conducted in a university in China. Regression analyses suggest a strong positive relation between use of SNSs and online bridging social capital. Online social capital is demonstrated to be positively correlated with offline social capital. User extraversion is shown to predict certain use behaviors but its interaction effect with SNSs usage is not significant. Discussions about the theoretical and practical implications of the findings are provided

Supply Chain Resource Planning Systems: A Proposal

We present a novel model of IT-based supply chain integration that responds to the increasing need for better supply chain-wide coordination of resource allocation and offers an alternative to the traditional approach of supply chain integration based on ERP systems. We explore possible governance structures for our model and propose a stylized implementation process. The paper concludes by outlining three areas for future research

Assortment Size and Performance of Online Sellers: An Inverted U-Shaped Relationship

This paper investigates the role of assortment size in sellers’ performance in the e-commerce context, which has been primarily associated with lowered search costs and switching costs. However, in contrast to the findings in the literature, our theoretical analysis postulates an inverted U-shaped association, showing that performance of online sellers increases and then decreases as the assortment size becomes larger. The nonlinear effect can be effectively explained by the interplay between the benefits derived from simultaneous consumer utility and the liabilities derived from the competition-intensifying effect. Additionally, the optimal level of assortment size is reduced when market density or product uncertainty is high. Using a data set of 10,000 online sellers from a large e-commerce platform, our hypotheses concerning the inverted U-shaped curve and moderation effects of market density and product uncertainty are statistically supported. Our research contributes to the assortment literature by revealing the special effects of assortment size in the online retailing context, and provides practical implications for online sellers’ assortment planning and optimization under both general settings and specific conditions

IT Diffusion Stages in the Network Era of Chinese Companies

One of our recent studies revisited Nolan’s stages theory on IT growth in the context of Chinese companies and concluded that IT spending and learning with regard to IT management are not as tightly linked as is implied in Nolan\u27s stages theory. The study also revealed that aggregate IT spending can be better explained by a technology diffusion process on the population level. Based on the findings, in this paper, we re-consider Chinese companies’ IT spending growth pattern, and in turn, their IT application history over the past 20 years from a perspective of IT diffusion stages, highlighting the special characteristics of the network/Internet era. We project that the IT diffusion process in China’s Network Era would experience four stages and has currently reached the third. Also, we propose some important issues to be further addressed

Continued Use Of Intra-Organizational Blogs: Impacts Of Habits, Network Externalities, And Ranking

Enterprise 2.0 applications, such as blogging systems, are increasingly prevailing in corporate contexts. As intra-organizational blogs are expected to provide a new approaching to building a flexible intra-organizational networking platform which could effectively facilitate knowledge sharing, it is worthwhile to address why and how the employees may accept a blogging system and keep blogging continually. Drawing upon the existing literature, this paper proposes a conceptual model which suggests that the continued use of internal blogging among employees is jointly driven by the forces of habituation and network externalities, while these forces can be shaped by managerial incentives such as a ranking mechanism. To empirically test the proposed model, actual usage data are collected from the internal blogging platform of a large Chinese company, so as to measure all the related constructs. Statistical results from a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis illustrate that the model effectively explains the continued use of corporate internal blogging systems. By using the actual record data obtained from an in-practice system, our study manages to avoid the self-report bias which inevitably perplexes conventional survey-based research. We believe that the findings of this paper would contribute to the literature of Enterprise 2.0 user behavior on both theoretical and methodological perspectives, while providing helpful practical insights for better promoting the use of blogging systems in corporate contexts

An Institutional Perspective on Two-sided Networks

In the early 2000s, the term ‘two-sided network’ has been coined to describe a form of organizing economic activities related to novel uses of information technology. While it is evident that two-sided networks make use of the novel possibilities of information technologies to organize economic activities, they have not yet been studied from an institutional perspective to shed light on the nature of this phenomenon. We suggest a way to remedy this situation by developing a novel classification scheme to systematically describe institutionally distinct forms of two-sided networks. We find that the phenomenon of two-sided networks may herald an entirely new way of organizing economic activities, possibly replacing, or evolving from, traditional forms. Moreover, within certain limits, there may be substitutive relationships between forms of two-sided networks which suggests that there are alternatives to forms which currently dominate the public and academic attention and which may be more desirable

Will You “Dashang”? Effects of Social Signals in Online Pay-What-You-Want

Dashang, as a new form of the pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing paradigm, has emerged on social media platforms, especially in China. In the settings of Dashang, consumers are free to pay any amount to the authors or broadcasters after they have consumed some information goods. Compared with traditional offline scenes, Dashang has incorporated more social elements and platform engagements. However, it remains unelucidated what are the critical factors that motivate users to pay. In this paper, we investigate whether and how social signals, such as the disclosed information about the volume of paid people, may influence consumers’ willingness to pay under Dashang. An ambivalent framework is proposed, suggesting that such social signals may have both positive and negative effects on voluntary payment. The manuscript is to present the theoretical development of the research, aiming to reveal the benefits and liabilities of the social signal disclosure mechanism

Diffusion and Evaluation of E-Government Systems: A Field Study in China

As IT/IS application in governmental organizations gains more and more attention from both academics and practitioners in China, the diffusion of e-government systems has become one of the central research issues in this fast growing economy. In this paper, we follow a conceptual model consisting of two dimensions to evaluate the IT/IS application status of Chinese governments. With a field study conducted in a local government in Beijing, the capital of China, we utilize the model to determine the e-government development level in this administrative district. Furthermore, a behavioral research model for analyzing the factors influencing e-government systems evaluation in the Chinese cultural context is proposed based on classical IT/IS adoption theories. In the light of survey data, the relationships between ease of use, usefulness, fitness, and user evaluation towards egovernment systems are validated, providing us with more in-depth understanding about the characteristics and process of e-government diffusion in such Chinese organizations

Adoption and Penetration of e-Government Systems: Conceptual Model and Case Analysis based on Structuration Theory

The study of IT/IS adoption has by far largely relied on social psychological theories which lack the capability to explain why and how systems continue to be used after they are adopted. Incorporating Structuration Theory from the sociology realm, this paper proposes a “structure-pattern” conceptual model for analyzing the adoption and application practice of e-Government systems from an organizational level perspective. Based on this model, a case study with regard to the practice of an e-Government application in Chaoyang District of Beijing City is conducted, so as to validate the interpretive ability of the model, as well as to reveal the evolution process of typical e-Government applications. Results from this case study may provide helpful insights for related practice. It is also demonstrated that Structuration Theory based Concepts and the case study methodology are promising for tackling the long existing difficulties in the traditional IT/IS research