From Real-Time BI to the Real-Time Enterprise: Organizational Enablers of Latency Reduction

Real-time business intelligence (BI) plays an important role in enabling the “real-time enterprise,” and as such has received a lot of attention in the practitioner literature in recent years. However, academic research on real-time BI and its role in improving overall organizational agility is scarce today. Most research on the real-time phenomenon has focused on technological, as opposed to organizational, issues. Using practitioner models of information value as a starting point, we draw from theories on individual and organizational decision making to create a model of the components of latency that impact an organization’s ability to both sense and respond to business events in real time. Failure to take all the antecedents of these latency components into account when implementing a real-time BI system can have serious consequences on a firm’s ability to optimize benefits from conversion to real-time BI systems. We close with suggestions for future IS research on this important emerging topic

Using Social Network Analysis to Analyze Relationships Among IS Journals

Social network analysis (SNA) offers a richer and more objective way of examining individual journal influence and relationships among journals than studies based on individual perceptions, since it avoids personal biases. This article demonstrates how SNA can be used to study the nature of the IS discipline, by presenting results from an exploratory SNA of 125 previously ranked journals from IS and allied disciplines. While many of the most prominent journals in the network are still associated with IS’s foundational disciplines, we identify several IS journals that play important roles in disseminating information throughout different subcomponents of the network. We also identify related groups of journals based not only on patterns of information flow, but also on similarity in citation patterns. This enables us to identify the core set of journals that is important for “pure IS” research, as well as other subsets of journals that are important for specialty areas of interest. Overall, results indicate that the IS discipline is still somewhat fragmented and is still a net receiver, as opposed to a net provider, of information from allied disciplines. Like other forms of analysis, SNA is not entirely free from biases. However, these biases can be systematically researched in order to develop an improved, consistent tool with which to examine the IS field via citations among member journals. Thus, while many challenges remain in applying SNA techniques to the study of IS journals, the opportunity to track trends in the discipline over time, with a larger basket of journals, suggests a number of valuable future applications of SNA for understanding the IS publication system

Uncertainty Avoidance and Consumer Perceptions of Global e-Commerce Sites: A Multi-Level Model

47 pagesOnline purchasing is a decision-making process that involves inherent uncertainty. Yet consumer tolerance for uncertainty differs across cultures, requiring e-vendors to decide whether to adapt websites to different cultures when operating globally. We examine the effect of Hofstede’s cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance (UA) on consumer perceptions of e-loyalty. Viewing information quality, trust, and system quality as uncertainty reduction mechanisms, UA is hypothesized to moderate relationships involving these constructs in a recognized model of IS success. Specifically, we posit that relationships involving these constructs will be stronger for consumers from high UA cultures. Using data drawn from over 3,500 actual consumers from 38 different countries, and controlling for the impact of other cultural dimensions, results suggest that UA moderates the effects of information quality on perceived usefulness, and of trust on e-loyalty, but not system quality relationships. We discuss practical implications of our research, in regard to designing websites intended for global use

The Influence of Uncertainty Avoidance on Consumer Perceptions of Global E-Commerce Sites

We examine the effect of Hofstede’s (2001) cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance (UA) on consumer perceptions of eloyalty. Viewing information quality, trust, and system quality as uncertainty reduction mechanisms, UA is hypothesized to moderate relationships involving these constructs in a recognized model of IS success. Using data drawn from over 3,500 actual consumers from 38 different countries, and controlling for the impact of other cultural dimensions, results suggest that UA moderates the effects of information quality on perceived usefulness, and of trust on e-loyalty, but not system quality relationships. The moderating effect of UA on the information quality-satisfaction relationship was non-significant, indicating uncertainty reduction effects may operate via a cognitive rather than an affective route. We close with implications

The Embeddedness of Information Systems Habits in Organizational and Individual Level Routines: Development and Disruption

Despite recent interest in studying information system habits, our understanding of how these habits develop and operate in an organizational context is still limited. Within organizations, IS habits may develop over long periods of time and are typically embedded within larger, frequently practiced, higher-level work routines or task sequences. When new systems are introduced for the purpose of at least partially replacing incumbent systems, existing IS habits embedded in these routines may inhibit adoption and use of the new systems. Therefore, understanding how work-related IS habits form, how they enable and inhibit behavior, and how they can be disrupted or encouraged requires that we examine them within the context of organizational and individual level work routines. The current study integrates psychology and organizational behavior literature on cognitive scripts and work routines to examine IS habits as they occur embedded within larger, more complex task sequences. The objective of the paper is to contribute to the IS habit literature by (1)　situating IS habits within the context of their associated work routines and task sequences, and (2)　providing a theoretical understanding of how incumbent system habits can be disrupted, and how development of new system habits can be encouraged, within this context. We draw from extant research in psychology, organizational behavior, and consumer behavior to offer propositions about context-focused organizational interventions to break, or otherwise discourage, the continued performance of incumbent system habits and to encourage the development of new system habits. Specifically, our theoretical development includes script disruption techniques, training-in-context, and performance goal suspension as organizational interventions that disrupt incumbent system habits. We further theorize how stabilizing contextual variables associated with modified work routines can facilitate the development of new system habits. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of combining intervention strategies to successfully disrupt incumbent system habits and encourage development of new system habits and thus facilitate adoption of new systems

Shackled to the Status Quo: The Inhibiting Effects of Incumbent System Habit, Switching Costs, and Inertia on New System Acceptance

Given that adoption of a new system often implies fully or partly replacing an incumbent system, resistance is often manifested as failure of a user to switch from an incumbent technology to a newly introduced one. Thus, a potential source of resistance to adopting a new system lies in the use of an incumbent system. Using the status quo bias and habit literatures as theoretical lenses, the study explains how use of an incumbent system negatively impacts new system perceptions and usage intentions. We argue that habitual use of an incumbent system, rationalization due to perceived transition costs, and psychological commitment due to perceived sunk costs all encourage development of inertia. Inertia in turn fully mediates the impact of these incumbent system constructs on constructs related to acceptance of the new system via psychological commitment based on cognitive consistency and by increasing the importance of normative pressures. Specifically, we hypothesize that inertia leads to decreased perceptions of the ease of use and relative advantage of a newly introduced system and has a negative impact on intentions to use the new system, above and beyond its impact through perceptions. Finally, we hypothesize that inertia moderates the relationship between subjective norm and intention, such that normative pressures to use a new system become more important in the presence of inertia. Empirical results largely support the hypothesized relationships showing the inhibiting effect of incumbent-system habit, transition and sunk costs, and inertia on acceptance of a new system. Our study thus extends theoretical understanding of the role of incumbent system constructs such as habit and inertia in technology acceptance, and lays the foundations for further study of the interplay between perceptions and cognition with respect to the incumbent system and those with respect to a new system

The Concept of Authenticity: What It Means to Consumers

The literature is filled with numerous idiosyncratic definitions of what it means for consumption to be authentic. The authors address the resulting conceptual ambiguity by reconceptualizing authenticity, defining it as a holistic consumer assessment determined by six component judgments (accuracy, connectedness, integrity, legitimacy, originality, and proficiency) whereby the role of each component can change according to the consumption context. This definition emerges from a two-stage, multimethod concept reconstruction process leveraging data from more than 3,000 consumers across no fewer than 17 types of consumption experiences. In stage one, the authors take a qualitative approach employing both in-depth interviews and surveys (one conducted on a nationally representative sample) to identify authenticity’s six constituent components. The final components are based on themes emerging from consumer data that were integrated and reconciled with existing definitions in the literature. In stage two, quantitative analyses empirically estimate the six components and support the composite formative nature of the construct. The authors document how certain components contribute to assessments of authenticity differently across contexts; in addition, they show that authenticity has consumer-relevant downstream consequences while being conceptually distinct from consumer attitudes. Their findings offer practitioners direction regarding what to emphasize to convey authenticity to consumers