Demigods of Technology Use – How Beating the Overconfidence Bias Can Prevent Medical Errors

The healthcare domain faces considerable challenges due to the digitization of medical processes and routines. Information technologies are designed to enable physicians to treat more patients and to increase service quality and patient safety. Despite acknowledging the rapid digital transformation of healthcare, research often neglects whether physicians are actually able to effectively decide which technology to use in which setting and whether their technology use thus effectively enhances quality and safety. Literature on cognitive biases already looked broadly at related errors in judgment and action and questioned rational behavior. Nevertheless, overconfidence, being one of the most common cognitive biases, has barely been linked to the accurate adoption and use of technology by physicians. Against this background, this research-in-progress paper proposes a framework for conducting a mixed-methods study based on the particularities of overconfidence in healthcare. We invite future research to compare our approach with established theoretical frameworks in IS research

How Autonomy is Used in Information Systems Research: Status Quo and Prospective Opportunities

Autonomy is a central concept that allows researchers to investigate essential aspects such as job-related outcomes in Information Systems (IS) research. With the increase of mobile technologies, autonomy is increasingly gaining importance. Given the growing body of research in this area, this research presents the results of a systematic literature review. The results show in detail how autonomy has been used and identify fruitful avenues for future research. Specifically, we suggest that future research should contextualize autonomy to give it a pivotal theoretical significance for IS research. Moreover, future research should also acknowledge the multi-dimensional facets of autonomy to enhance its explanatory power

Quality Is more Important than Quantity: Social Presence and Workplace Ergonomics Control Predict Perceived Remote Work Performance

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a widespread disruption to the way that we work. One of its lasting consequences will be the ubiquity of remote work. The effective use of collaboration tools is therefore a critical factor for information systems (IS) research when design the workplaces of the future. We theorize that social presence and workplace ergonomics control are important predictors of perceived performance. Moreover, we investigate how different factors (i.e., collaboration tool efficacy, mode of work, and number of meetings) influence social presence. Using survey data (N = 389), we provide evidence that workplace ergonomics control and social presence are indeed important for perceived performance. Surprisingly, we observe that only collaborative platform efficacy has a significant impact on social presence, and that neither the number of meetings nor the modality were significant factors. Based upon these results, we derive implications for theory and practice

Where Are Your Thoughts? On the Relationship between Technology Use and Mind Wandering

Mind wandering is an important brain activity that fosters creativity and productivity. Research suggests that individuals spend up to 50% of their waking time thinking about things that are unrelated to the present situation or task. Previous literature has acknowledged the importance of mind wandering in technology-related contexts by investigating its mediating role between task and individual performance. In this study, we go one step further and investigate the direct relationship between technology use and mind wandering. In particular, we investigate if different types of technology use (hedonic use vs. utilitarian use) have an impact on mind wandering. Results from a factorial survey study (n=90) suggest that there is a significant difference between hedonic use and utilitarian use when it comes to mind wandering. Based on these insights, we discuss the role of mind wandering for IS research and potentials for future research

Creativity Loading – Please Wait! Investigating the Relationship between Interruption, Mind Wandering and Creativity

With the advancement of information technologies, routine tasks are increasingly supported by information systems, which is why ideation and creativity is becoming more and more important. We know from many anecdotes that creative ideas emerge when our mind is wandering instead of being focused on the task at hand. Yet, most information systems that are used for work-related purposes offer only little opportunities for task-unrelated thoughts. In contrast, current literature shows that most information technology is designed to keep our attention. In order to better understand the value of mind wandering, we propose an experimental design that incorporates interruptions that vary in their length with the objective to stimulate episodes of mind wandering and thus positively impact creativity. We provide initial insights on how the experiment should designed and discuss implications for future research

Constituting Factors of a Digitally Influenced Relationship between Patients and Primary Care Physicians in Rural Areas

In times of an ageing society and a rural exodus of primary care physicians, healthcare systems are facing major challenges. To maintain comprehensive care and an equitable access to healthcare services, today’s technological advancements represent a promising measure. Technologies empower patients by providing innovative tools such as sensors and applications for self-measurement, leading to self-initiated interventions, while supporting physicians in handling rising demands through telemedicine and spatially detached solutions. These enhanced treatments come with patient and physician-sided challenges such as incorrect digital information provided to the patient, negatively affecting treatment quality and leading to high issue resolving efforts. In order to investigate the perspectives of rural physicians on treatment digitalization and effects of patient empowerment, we conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Our findings show that patient activation, impacts on treatment process, patient differentiation, and patient-physician-interaction are relevant factors in the physicians’ valuation and willingness to use health technologies

Kognitive Prozesse beim Einsatz von Technologie - Über die Gestaltung der Zukunft der technologievermittelten Arbeit

Frederike Oschinsky makes a persuasive case for why cognitive processes matter. In her dissertation, she draws from twenty-six research publications related to the topics of human-computer interaction, decision support systems, and digital innovation to advance three key findings. First, she shows that an individual’s cognitive state can impact the effectiveness of an information system, especially if the goal of the information system are creative work outcomes. Second, she finds that cognitive biases can inhibit digital transformation, but can also be managed with effectively designed decision support systems. Third, she shows how technological artifacts can be designed to facilitate creative processes, and consequently more productive collaborations. These findings are supported with evidence uncovered using an impressive assortment of methods including literature reviews, case studies, qualitative interviews, questionnaire surveys, and behavioural experiments. The studies also concern a considerable breadth of phenomena including mind wandering, biases in decision making, and effective team collaborations. This work is an essential reading for any information systems or cyberpsychology researcher who wants to know how a better understanding of cognitive processes can improve the information systems that are essential to the contemporary workplace

Cultivating Creativity: Insights from German Local Governments about the Drivers and Barriers of Change

There is a tremendous need for creative problem solving and innovation. While creativity is considered as a crucial resource in the private sector and in start-ups, creative methods such as design thinking are rarely used as a systematic approach for public innovation. Thus, individual creative work practices with their drivers and barriers are not yet fully understood in public organizations. We start to fill this gap by giving an overview on related work as well as on the foundations of creativity. Next, we present best practices from German local governments. We conduct a focus group interview and illustrate preliminary results. By doing so, we identify four main themes that determine the drivers and barriers when cultivating creativity in the public sector (i.e., creativity and self-efficacy, complexity and application, clearance, mindset). As a conclusion, we discuss our results and show avenues for further research