Editorial Preface - JAIS Special Issue on Ontologies in the Context of Information Systems.

Ontologies, in the information systems context, deal with the structures of the world about which an information system informs, or to which it responds based on changes in that world. Ontologies are fundamental for system interoperability and integration; for increasing intelligence, flexibility, and reasoning around system responses and behaviors; for negotiating the meanings of the data in the system; and for innovating with new business models. Their importance has grown with the rise of enterprise systems, the semantic web, knowledge management systems, and new forms of value system integration, among other factors. This special issue of Journal of the Association of Information Systems (JAIS) on Ontologies in the Context of Information Systems contains three papers presenting contributions to the theory, domain knowledge, and methodologies for applying ontologies in the Information System (IS) field

Users’ Continued Usage of Online Healthcare Virtual Communities: An Empirical Investigation in the Context of HIV Support Communities

This study uses data from an online HIV/AIDS health support virtual community to examine whether users’ emotional states and the social support they receive influence their continued usage. We adopt grief theory to conceptualize the negative emotions that people living with HIV/AIDS could experience. Linguistic analysis is used to measure the emotional states of the users and the informational and emotional support that they receive. Results show that users showing a higher level of disbelief and yearning are more likely to leave the community while those with a high level of anger and depression are more likely to stay on. Users who receive more informational support are more likely to leave once they have obtained the information they sought, but those who receive more emotional support are more likely to stay on. The findings of this study can help us better understand users’ support seeking behavior in online support VCs

Assuring IT Services Quality through High-Reliability Risk Management in Offshore Business Process Outsourcing

Management of risks that emanate from offshore IT-enabled services outsourcing is a key challenge in the IT management area in current times. These new risks need to be addressed through the development of new risk management frameworks and methods. This paper proposes a risk management approach for offshore business process outsourcing based on the principles of high reliability organizations (HROs). Relying upon and using the organizing principles and mechanisms for HROs may help companies successfully combat the risks associated with offshore outsourcing. The proposed research model is planned to be empirically tested using data collected from offshore business process outsourcing projects of client firms in the US

A Social Presence Model of Task Performance: A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Model

Using the Elaboration Likelihood Model, we build a social presence model of task performance and hypothesize that social presence impacts task performance through two routes – central and peripheral. Using a meta- analytic sample of 80 studies, we test our model with the multivariate meta-analytic structural equation modeling methodology. We find support for all our hypotheses. We show that in the central route, social presence positively impacts task performance through its positive effect on flow. In the peripheral route, social presence positively impacts trust, which in turn negatively impacts task effort. Finally, reduced task effort improves task performance. We also show the moderating role of task complexity, which negatively moderates the social presence-flow relationship and positively moderates the social-presence-trust relationship

From Trust to Inter-organizational Innovation: The Differential Mediating Roles of IT-based Process and Knowledge Assets

In the context of inter-organizational relationships, this study links various dimensions of trust, IT-based resources and innovation in two distinct pathways defined by the characteristics of each of those dimensions. We parse out two dimensions of inter-organizational IT-based resources – IT-based Process Institutionalization and IT-based Knowledge Institutionalization – based on the purposes for which those resources are employed by the interacting organizations. Based on prior literature, we identify two dimensions each of trust, namely competence and benevolent trust; and two types of innovation, namely incremental and radical innovation. We then develop a model featuring two distinct sets of linkages: one from competence trust to IT-based process institutionalization to incremental innovation, and another from benevolence trust to IT-based knowledge institutionalization to radical innovation. We validate this model using the meta-analytic procedure, which enables us to glean an overall view of findings in prior literature on the relationships between trust, IT and innovation

The Role of Personal Innovativeness and Self-Efficacy in Information Technology Acceptance: An Extension of TAM with Notions of Risk

Several research efforts over the last decade have attempted to augment the basic technology acceptance model (TAM) by identifying and testing determinants of the two key predictor beliefs of the modelóperceived usefulness and perceived ease of useóand by identifying other extraneous variables that moderate various model relationships. This research is an attempt in the same direction. It addresses some key gaps and inconsistent findings in the TAM literature to further contribute to the refinement of TAM. In this endeavor, this research draws from social cognitive theory (SCT), computer self-efficacy (CSE), technology acceptance model (TAM), and the risk management literature to develop an extended TAM that includes new relationships between the model constructs and personal innovativeness and general and specific computer self-efficacy. The research will be conducted as a survey in the context of the personal digital assistant (PDA) technology

The Antecedents and Consequences of Agile Practices: A Multi-Period Empirical Study of Software Teams in Time-Bound Projects

Through a multi-period study of software teams in time-bound projects, we address the question: In what contexts do agile methods improve systems development performance? Our model includes team network and task characteristics as antecedents and transactive memory system (TMS) as a consequence of the use of agile practices. We further posit that team TMS also moderates the impact of agile practices on project performance. We test the hypothesized model using data collected in three waves from student teams who developed a database system over the course of a semester. Results evince that project performance does not improve through the use of agile practices alone, but does improve when task variability is high and the project team has a high degree of TMS. Results also indicate that the knowledge structure of a software team changes over time and the use of agile practices also directly contributes to the development of TMS within the team

Fit between Knowledge Transfer Complexity and Media Capability: A Meta-Analysis

This paper develops a knowledge transfer complexity (KTC) framework by synthesizing the various knowledge characteristics into four distinct KTC dimensions including: explicitness, depth, diversity, and rate of knowledge transfer (KT). Based on the notion of fit between knowledge complexity and media capabilities, we ask: which specific KTC dimensions are associated with which particular media capabilities in the context of KT at the individual level? We address this question using a meta-analysis methodology, and consider four key media capabilities in the media synchronicity theory. We examine 162 effect sizes from 70 journal publications and dissertations. Preliminary results provide support for the hypotheses that explicitness of knowledge requires high media parallelism, while depth of knowledge requires a media with high transmission velocity. As hypothesized, diversity of knowledge is associated with reprocessability, and rate of KT is associated with symbol sets, although these correlations are significant only with fail-safe statistic at this stage