Does personality still matter in e-commerce? How perceived hubris influences the assessment of founders’ trustworthiness using the example of reward-based crowdfunding

Reward-based crowdfunding broadens the scope of e-commerce transactions, as prototypical products are pre-sold under conditions of considerable uncertainty. To date, we know little about the mechanisms that underlie decisions to back reward-based crowdfunding campaigns. However, it is likely that startup founders’ possibility of showcasing their personalities in video pitches signals their trustworthiness, particularly, as other features, such as quality seals and customer testimonials, are often unavailable. We use signaling theory to reinforce the move from a feature-oriented perspective to a signaling perspective, as signals can transmit information about startup founders’ otherwise imperceptible qualities and abilities. Based on a survey (N = 108), we investigate how perceived hubris – proven to be particularly salient in startup contexts – influences the funding decision of potential backers. We find that abilities and legitimacy of a startup founder are rated positively when s/he is perceived as hubristic. These results have implications for crowdfunding campaigns and highlight the relevance of personality traits in electronic markets

Ambient Intelligence

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The Effect of Risk Representation Using Colors and Symbols in Business Process Models on Operational Risk Management Performance

The operational management of risk and internal controls (RIC) makes increasing use of visual representations to support tasks such as risk assessment and control activity definition. The strengths and weaknesses of different representations are typically assessed by cognitive theories that assume an analytical and an intuitive mode of information processing. Previous research has focused mainly on the analytical risk assessment while intuitive information processing has largely been neglected. We develop a theoretical argument based on dual-process theory, which explains why RIC representational alternatives influence different levels of information processing. We test our hypotheses with the help of an online experiment using accountants and operation managers recruited via MTurk (N = 166). Our results suggest that highlighting risk and controls in business process modeling and notation (BPMN) by using color improves risk understanding, control understanding, and the identification of control improvements, which help reduce the risk in a given process. Furthermore, we do not find evidence that the inclusion of color leads to perception biases. This has implications for information systems research, which has primarily addressed the analytical processing of conceptual models. Our findings extend cognitive research on such models by adding an intuitive processing path that can improve the user’s risk management performance. For practitioners, our findings are particularly relevant because colors can be easily added as a secondary notation element without disguising the factual risk situation in processes

Reviewing the Role of Culture in Strategic Information Systems Research: A Call for Prescriptive Theorizing on Culture Management

Culture is an important topic in strategic information systems (IS) research, particularly because information technology (IT) projects are often accompanied by cultural challenges. While culture has been widely analyzed in this discipline, there is a lack of research that systematically examines the role of culture in strategic IS research. With a structured literature review, we investigate the relation patterns between culture, strategy, and IS-related concepts in terms of dependent, moderating, and independent variables and the research approach in terms of descriptive, normative, and prescriptive. Four different patterns emerge, each one closely related to specific forms of theorizing and corresponding research designs. Research streams focusing on descriptive explanations of culture’s role are rather exhausted. IS research that builds on a normative understanding of culture exists in selected areas, while theorizing on the prescriptive management of culture has been largely neglected despite the relevance of cultural challenges in IS projects. We derive areas for future research and present two themes that emerged in our study to demonstrate how descriptive and normative approaches can provide a foundation for research on the prescriptive management of culture in strategic IS projects: the management of cultural clashes and the management of cultural identity

The Influence of Situation-Dependent Factors on Mobile Shopping Usage

Although situations influence the use of a technology, this field has been largely neglected in mobile shopping. Therefore, this paper aims to identify situational factors impacting on the intention to use a mobile device for actual purchase transactions, as actual purchases were found to be the least adapted shopping activity conducted via mobile devices. This study contributes to the field of mobile shopping behavior by being the first to simultaneously investigate the influence of various situational factors on the intention to shop mobile. Based on Belk’s five categories of situational factors, we perform a conjoint analysis to explore the relevance of different situational characteristics for low and high involvement products. The results indicate that particularly the product price, the internet connection, and the mobile shop layout determine mobile shopping behavior. Practical actions to strengthen the mobile channel and increase consumers’ intentions to purchase via mobile devices, can be derived from the findings

Measuring Web Site Information and Service Quality - An Extended Multi-Attribute Attitude Model

Information and service quality (ISQ) is a critical factor in the success of commercial web sites and is a well-researched areain Information Systems (IS) and Marketing. Our study develops an instrument that measures web site success by evaluatingISQ performance. We deploy a multi-dimensional conception of ISQ from IS literature that we use for measuring dimensionrelevance and performance perception according to Marketing research. Both are components of a linear compensatoryrelevance-weighting model. We extend this model by integrating a maximal performance norm and a normalizationprocedure for calculating an overall ISQ performance score, establishing a maximal perceived-performance gap. In addition,different web site usage contexts are linked to performance perceptions. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated inan empirical study examining the ISQ performance of a commercial web site (n = 226). Our instrument adds exploratorypower to existing measurement approaches and supports customer-centric web site design

Trusting Strangers: The Role of Trust in the Acceptance of Sharing Economy Platforms during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper focuses on the impact of trust and risk on forming behavioural intentions to use sharing economy platforms. Also, we investigate the interplay between risk, trust in and intention to use sharing economy platforms, as well as the antecedents of trust in this context. The study found strong support for the impact of trust on behavioural intention, and the mediating role of perceived risk. We also identify differences regarding the role of social influence on trust among the two studied platforms (Uber and Airbnb). The results have implications for trust research as they merge technology acceptance and e-commerce research

On the Importance of National Culture for the Design of Information Systems

In this contribution a literature review is conducted to illustrate how national culture influences phases of the design of information systems. For this purpose, we review the literature in order to identify reliable and commonly approved findings as well as still open remaining questions. Fundamentally, our literature review is a comprehensive framework that sets typical dimensions of system design as well as main types of cultural research in relation to each other. The existing research results in the area of national culture are classified along the levels of system design and attributed to typical phases of the design of information systems. It thus becomes apparent that in the domain of culture and information system design it is often only the design subject or the design object that is addressed. Contributions that connect both levels rarely exist. In our review, only a limited number of publications could be identified that covered concrete phases of the development providing system design, implementation, as well as verification and validation. From a theoretical perspective, there is an obvious dominance of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions that well address single topics of the design, such as user interface and inter cultural problems in development teams. Other domains, however (e.g., technology and architecture), are inadequately explained. Further, a predominantly phenomenological focus becomes obvious. The observed cultural phenomena and the connected interpretations are usable in a limited way for concrete development initiatives. The contribution ends with the vision of a theory for the culturally sensitive design of socio-technical information systems that absorbs current scientific knowledge and unites it in a structured approach

Publication Trade-Offs for Junior Scholars in IS: Conjoint Analysis of Preferences for Quality, First Authorship, Collaboration, and Time

A publication record provides evidence of research productivity and is critical for junior scholars starting their careers in academia. Publication attributes, such as level of the publication outlet, order and number of authors, are typically used to evaluate its quality. However, time spent on a publication is a limited commodity, and researchers face significant trade-offs when deciding which publications they should concentrate on. To better understand the choices made, conjoint analysis with 241 junior IS scholars was conducted. We find that when “quality vs. number of authors” and “quality vs. time” trade-offs are considered, quality is prioritized. However, the emphasis on quality is less pronounced when “rank as an author” is at stake. Especially Ph.D. students tend to choose first authorship when dealing with “quality vs. rank as an author” trade-off. Our findings provide intriguing insights into how publication attributes weigh against each other when research collaboration decisions are made