Journal Self-Citation VIII: An IS Researcher in the Dual Worlds of Author-Reader and Author-Institution

This paper responds to the question of whether it is ethical for a journal editor to request an author to cite papers from a journal to which one is submitting an article. To craft a response to this question, two sets of relationships are explored. The first set is an author-reader relationship, and the second set is an author-institution or community relationship. In these dual relationships, the author is considered to be an IS researcher who publishes and disseminates knowledge through the channel of research journals. The reason for articulating these twofold relationships is to go beyond the common belief that the author is the sole and autonomous source of knowledge creation and distribution. We posit that: (1) an author cannot exist isolated from the reader, and (2) an author exists only as a part of an institutional system which opens and at the same time constrains an author’s knowledge production. In other words, an author is destined to create knowledge within the constrained system. For that very reason, it is important to understand the author as a function of conditional discourse of a specific institution. We conclude that editors’ requests for an author to cite papers from a journal to which one is submitting an article is ethically critical to: (1) build a good author-reader relationship, and (2) produce rich and plural knowledge which is “good” for advancing learning in the global community

Information Risk Communication in the Context of Zika Virus: A Pilot Study

Dissemination of information to at-risk populations is essential in any emergency situation. Among many health emergencies, Zika virus is a large-scale health challenge that requires authorities to communicate the risks of the virus, and, potential protective measures to the population. Communication technologies have an important role to play in this effort. Other factors, such as hazard characteristics and warning fatigue, also influence the effectiveness of communication. This article develops an adaptation of the Protective Action Decision Making (PADM) model for a holistic understanding of the technical and non-technical factors that influence the responses of vulnerable individuals to information about the Zika virus. The findings are expected to provide practical guidance to public health agencies in the selection of appropriate mix of media to deliver information about Zika. Investigation of antecedents to vulnerable stakeholders’ response will contribute to the growing literature on information risk communication and emergency responses to potential epidemics

Overconfidence in Phishing Email Detection

This study examines overconfidence in phishing email detection. Researchers believe that overconfidence (i.e., where one’s judgmental confidence exceeds one’s actual performance in decision making) can lead to one’s adopting risky behavior in uncertain situations. This study focuses on what leads to overconfidence in phishing detection. We performed a survey experiment with 600 subjects to collect empirical data for the study. In the experiment, each subject judged a set of randomly selected phishing emails and authentic business emails. Specifically, we examined two metrics of overconfidence (i.e., overprecision and overestimation). Results show that cognitive effort decreased overconfidence, while variability in attention allocation, dispositional optimism, and familiarity with the business entities in the emails all increased overconfidence in phishing email detection. The effect of perceived self-efficacy of detecting phishing emails on overconfidence was marginal. In addition, all confidence beliefs poorly predicted detection accuracy and poorly explained its variance, which highlights the issue of relying on them to guide one’s behavior in detecting phishing. We discuss mechanisms to reduce overconfidence

Developing a Framework using Interpretive Structural Modeling for the Challenges of Digital Financial Services in India

Digital financial services (DFS) can expand the delivery of basic financial services to the poor through innovative technologies like mobile-phone-enabled solutions, electronic money models and digital payment platforms. By 2020, it is estimated that the mobile will have the potential to serve about 250 million people for financial services in India. Yet there remains a long way for India to go in digital finance. Realizing this, the objectives of the current research are to recognize various key challenges of DFS, to find contextual relationships between various challenges and to develop a hierarchy of challenges to promote DFS in India. The findings revealed 45 contextual relationships among the key challenges using experts’ inputs. Implementing interpretive structural modelling (ISM) indicated “Lack of literacy/digital literacy (C4)” and “Universal unavailability of Internet (C8)” as the key driving challenges coming on the way of using DFS

INFORMATION SYSTEMS OUTSOURCING: A MIXED INTEGER PROGRAMMING ANALYSIS

In the recent past, the trend toward outsourcing has become a major information systems phenomenon. Outsourcing is the subcontracting of various information systems subfunctions such as managing of data centers, operations, hardware support software maintenance, and even application software by user-firms to either incumbent vendors or outside vendors. Outsourcing is therefore emerging as a key approach for managing infonnation systems functions. In this research, we investigate the outsourcing bidding process pertinent to the selection of one subcontractor by a userfirm. We analyze bidding situations where the bidders have different levels of expertise and cost structures. The theoretical foundations for this research lie iii the theory of mechanism design (Myerson 1983), as well as the theory of imperfect information (Philips 1988) and incentive design (Ledyard 1989; McAfee 1986). We build a mixed integer programming model to represent what happens in an outsourcing bidding context involving a user-firm, an incumbent firm, and a challenger firm and explore the implications. The analysis is conducted over two different time horizons called the ex ante and the ex post periods. Two mixed-integer programming models are presented for two time horizons (in developing the model, we follow Kreps 1990). To reflect the different levels of expertise and cost structures of bidders, a discrete probability distribution is assigned to each bidder to approximate a bidder\u27 s true cost. A bidder\u27s true cost is private information, but its probability distribution is assumed to be common knowledge. An incumbent firm is assumed to have cost advantages over other bidders as a result of being familiar with the information needs of the user-firm. Therefore, the incumbent firm is assigned a cost probability distribution that is skewed toward low cost. The competing bidder\u27s cost structure is skewed toward high cost. The objective function of each model is formulated so as to minimize the expected cost subject to participation, and truthtelling constraints. Participation constraints indicate that each bidder participates only if a positive profit is given by the user-firm. Truth-telling constmints denote that each bidder prefers telling the truth to misrepresentation. The preliminary results of the models suggest that a policy of awarding incentives and levying penalties needs to be followed by the user firm. The results show that in order to induce the bidders to behave truthfully, some penalties would have to be levied and incentives would have to be provided. For example, if both the incumbent bidder and the challenger bid the same. the challenger is awarded the bid. If the incumbent firm is found to be inflating quotes, a penalty would have to be levied against the incumbent in the sense that the contract would be awarded to the challenger. Finally, in order to reward the bidder who quotes the true costs, subsides would have to be awarded. Thus, the models provide theoretical justification and guidelines for bidding behavior practices in the real world. Interestingly, both the ex-ante and ex-post models based on Krep\u27s assumptions show identical results. Implications of this finding need to be further explored in future research

ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE (SNS) USE AT THE CAMPUS EMERGENCIES

Recent crisis incidents that have happened at university campuses show the critical importance of information sharing and communication during emergencies. Social networking sites (SNS) are potential communication media which can be used by students’ during such events. This researchin- progress articulates the motivational factors (perceived risk, perceived reward expectations, perceived trust in information accuracy, and perceived usefulness) determining the intention to use online social networking sites during emergencies. The paper ends with the research plan and methodologies to be used as well as the possible implications of this research. This paper will contribute to our understanding of the students’ use of SNS at campus emergencies, while implications will be of great interest to university administrations and emergency departments

Unpacking Privacy Paradox: A Dual Process Theory Approach

Prior studies showed that some users tend to act against their stated privacy concerns (a phenomenon commonly known as privacy paradox). In this study, we adopt the dual process theory as our theoretical basis to account for conscious and unconscious modes of individual decision making processes to examine privacy paradox in order to gain an understanding of the reasons which cause inconsistency between privacy concern and information disclosure. We also posit that privacy paradox can occur due to the conscious mode (affected by bounded rationality) as well as unconscious biases

Managing Security Service Providers: Issues in Outsourcing Security

The issue of trust and risk in outsourced relationships was extended beyond traditional outsourcing models with the introduction of Application Service Providers (ASPs). As ASPs evolve, Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) have emerged as external providers of security for firms facing increasing information assurance threats. This research-in-progress paper develops a conceptual model of MSSP adoption; it investigates variables that affect the adoption and management of the relationship (trust, risk, reputation and relationships with vendors)

An Examination of Trust Effects and Pre-Existing Relational Risks in eGovernment Services

This study brings to attention distinct characteristics of government-citizen relationships that should be addressed when modeling citizens’ G2C service usage behavior and calls for an e-government user acceptance model. Earlier studies on G2C service adoption have shown that private sector-oriented models can result in inconsistent findings when applied to different service types or circumstances. This paper argues that government-citizen relationships often go beyond underlying assumption of user acceptance models applied across different areas, and that a more generalizable model for various egovernment services is essential for understanding and improving citizens’ e-government service acceptance. This argument is further developed by an empirical examination of a government-citizen relationship where use of an e-government service requires citizens to transmit highly sensitive information, but trustworthiness of the authority does not affect citizens’ use of the service

AN EXPLORATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN EXTREME EVENTS: RUMOR THEORY AND TWITTER DURING THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE 2010

Due to its rapid speed of information spread, wide user bases, and extreme mobility, Twitter is drawing attention as a potential emergency reporting tool under extreme events. However, at the same time, Twitter is sometimes despised as a citizen based non-professional social medium for propagating misinformation, rumors, and, in extreme case, propaganda. This study explores the working dynamics of the rumor mill by analyzing Twitter data of the Haiti Earthquake in 2010. For this analysis, two key variables of anxiety and informational uncertainty are derived from rumor theory, and their interactive dynamics are measured by both quantitative and qualitative methods. Our research finds that information with credible sources contribute to suppress the level of anxiety in Twitter community, which leads to rumor control and high information quality