A Rejoinder to Iivari (2016)

Juhani Ivari’s (2016) suggestions have merit as incremental steps that are directed towards fixing parts of a broken system—a system in which it often takes six to eight months to get an editorial decision on a paper, in which papers are rejected after five years and five rounds of reviews, and in which radically new ideas struggle to be published. Iivari’s suggestions all require the support of journal editors to be effective. These editors are embedded into a system that they have learned to navigate successfully. In fact, they may be too close to the system to make major changes to it. Perhaps people embedded in a review system in which they have been successful will not be able to develop viable solutions to a system that is really broken. Rather, it may be time for a radical change to the IS reviewing system that emanates from a groundswell of IS researchers who are suffering from the problems inherent in the existing malfunctioning system

DxR Case Study

FROM THE PREFACE TO THE CASE STUDY: In July 1998, Hurley Myers, President of DxR Development Group, stared at the gray plastoid brain lying on the desk before him. A prop for the medical multimedia software his firm developed, it also was a suitable metaphor for the many critical decisions that he faced. Complicating these decisions was his uncertainty regarding the intentions of his partner and biggest customer, a large pharmaceutical company. For the next six months, the customer had the option either to buy DxR out or to release it from its contractual obligations. If it chose the former, it might do so just to obtain the intellectual property rights controlled by DxR. This option might permit DxR to start up again in the medical education marketplace, but without its biggest customer and much of its intellectual property. With either the restart or release option, DxR would need to adapt to the major change in orientation. The change would encourage DxR to identify new customers and new product opportunities and create new strategic alliances. If any of these options resulted in further growth, Myers knew that some of his management team felt more rigorous procedures were necessary for software development and human resource management. Myers also felt that DxR\u27s pharmaceutical partner needed to be making greater use of the Internet for marketing, and perhaps distributing, DxR\u27s products

Remote, Mobile, and Blue-Collar: ICT-Enabled Job Crafting to Elevate Occupational Well-Being

Blue-collar remote and mobile workers (BC-RMWs) such as repair/installation engineers, delivery drivers, and construction workers, constitute a significant share of the workforce. They work away from a home or office work base at customer and remote work sites and are highly dependent on ICT for completing their work tasks. Low occupational well-being is a key concern regarding BC-RMWs. The objective of this research is to understand how BC-RMWs can use information and communication technology (ICT) to elevate their occupational well-being. Drawing from the job demands-job resources theoretical framework in occupational psychology, we theorize that the distinctive work characteristics faced by BC-RMWs can be viewed in the conceptual framing of job demands. We conceptualize BC-RMWs’ practices of ICT use as possible ways to gather resources to tackle these demands. We conducted a study of 28 BC-RMWs employed in two private sector firms (telecom service provision and construction industries) in the UK across 14 remote work sites. Based on our findings, we developed the concept of ICT-enabled job crafting and theorized how ICT-enabled job crafting by BC-RMWs can help them increase their job resources to tackle their job demands and consequently increase their occupational well-being. The empirical context of the paper, i.e., the study of BC-RMWs, provides further novelty because these kinds of workers and their distinctive and interesting work conditions have not received much attention in the literature

Team Climate and Media Choice in Virtual Teams

As work teams become more distributed, effective computer-mediated communication is increasingly impacting their performance. This study investigates how team climate influences communication frequency among team members and their use of different communication media. Data were collected in two information systems courses offered at an Austrian university in which 50 student teams developed web-based applications and conducted usability tests. A team climate framework based on task and social orientation was used to assess the teams’ performance and communication patterns. We found that both task and social dimensions of team climate were positively related to higher communication frequency as well as objective and subjective performance. Among other things, the results suggest that a task-oriented climate is especially linked to the use of e-mail, while social orientation is linked to the use of face-to-face meetings. We also found differences in communication patterns and performance across four different types of team climates (fully functioning, cozy, cold, and dysfunctional). The results underscore the importance of both task and social dimensions for a team to perform well. Our study contributes to both the academic literature that investigates factors affecting media choice and the practitioner literature that examines how to manage virtual teamwork effectively

An Exploratory Study of Patient Satisfaction and Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership is a theory of leadership in which the Servant Leader is motivated primarily by an intuitive desire to serve his/her followers. The leadership aspect is secondary. In this study, the concept of Servant Leadership was applied to the physician-patient relationship in a healthcare setting. The purpose of the research was to determine the satisfaction level of patients with their physicians. Questionnaires were mailed to one hundred randomly selected patients at a large mid-western outpatient clinic. Following are several of the questions included in the questionnaire. On the average, how long do you have to wait to see your physician? What is your level of trust with your physician? How well does your physician respond to your concerns? Does your physician tell you what you need to know? Do you feel that your physician would go the extra mile for you? Do you view physicians as leaders in the Clinic? The responses generally indicated high satisfaction with and a high level of trust in the physicians, and an indication that Servant Leadership is being practiced, although the respondents did not use that terminology. However, several respondents indicated that improvement is needed. Continuation of this research is important because physicians need to know what patients expect from them, and how they are performing in their patients\u27 eyes. Physicians are naturally seen as leaders. The decisions they make and how they behave affects their patients, the clinic as an organization, and the community in which the physicians practice. Patient satisfaction is an important tool for measuring quality of healthcare. Research that builds on or adds to previous research benefits patients and physicians alike. The goal of the researcher is to gather and present information that could be used to develop a model of Servant leadership, which could then be used in healthcare settings to enhance patient satisfaction and improve the quality of patient care

The Personal in the Policy Cascade

Policy change can cascade down from law and regulation, but Giddens’ structuration theory argues that it can also flow upward from everyday action. We all have the power to take immediate action in our professional lives to create the policies we want. We use the example of gender equality to show the daily choices that you as an IS academic can make that strengthen or change existing policies. You can enhance the voices of members of undervalued groups, reduce inequities in access to resources and positions of power, and create and enforce rules, regulations, and codes that encourage more equitable outcomes. Policy influences action, but action equally influences policy. Your everyday actions either reinforce existing policies and structures or undermine and change them. We should make these choices mindfully, with an understanding of the power we are wielding, the values we are enacting, and the society we are creating

Go for it: Where IS researchers aren’t researching

This viewpoint article describes two research topics under-researched by Information Systems (IS) researchers: Robotics and IT addiction. These topics offer great potential for IS researchers in terms of business and societal impacts and it would behoove IS researchers to study them more fully. The aspects of the research topics that are related to IS are discussed and potential research areas and questions are suggested

Go for it: Where IS researchers aren’t researching

This viewpoint article describes two research topics under-researched by Information Systems (IS) researchers: Robotics and IT addiction. These topics offer great potential for IS researchers in terms of business and societal impacts and it would behoove IS researchers to study them more fully. The aspects of the research topics that are related to IS are discussed and potential research areas and questions are suggested

The IS Core - VI: Further Along the Road to the IT Artifact

In one of the recent additions to the IS identity and diversity discussion, Alter questions the definition and relevance of IT artifact as defined by Benbasat and Zmud. In terms of definition, we believe that there is no substantial difference between Alter\u27s work system construct and IT artifact. However, when it comes to enhancing the relevance of and guiding the diversity in IT research, Alter\u27s boundary based approach may be less powerful than a core, IT-artifact based approach. Alter\u27s focus on systems, nonetheless, has it merits and therefore we suggest a possible convergence of Alter and Benbasat and Zmud\u27s constructs