Antecedents to Electronic Commerce

Uses and gratifications theory has proven useful in past examinations of new media innovations and customer adoptions and usage patterns, and this study builds from that research tradition to provide an understanding of consumer motivations for commercial Web site access and use. Preliminary results indicate that individuals are most motivated to access and use a site by the informational content the site provides as opposed to the experiential processes of browsing which might be enhanced or delivered through the site

Memory enhances the mere exposure effect

The fact of having already encountered something encourages future preference, a phenomenon known as the mere exposure effect (MEE). There is a widely accepted view that recognition inhibits the MEE. Here this view is contested and the generality of the findings upon which it is based questioned. New evidence is presented from a systematic investigation of the moderating influence of recognition memory on the MEE, using brand logo stimuli and methods that make the results directly applicable to marketing practice. It is shown that recognition, whether correct or mistaken, enhances, rather than inhibits, the likelihood of preference

The Role of “Eyes of Others” in Security Violation Prevention: Measures and Constructs

Security research recognizes the effect of “being seen” in reducing the likelihood of security violations in the workplace. This has typically been construed in the context of formal monitoring processes by employers, but there is an emerging notion that workers care about what their workplace colleagues think of them and their activities. We leverage this idea of the “Eyes of Others” in motivating pro-security behaviors to apply to security contexts. We find that, for a set of worker self-perceptions including Morality and Self-Consciousness, the likelihood of engaging in mundane workplace security violations is impacted by the knowledge that coworkers are watching. This has important implications for novel expansions of deterrence research in IS Security, going forward

Spyware: The Ghost in the Machine

Computer users face a new and growing threat to security and privacy. This threat is not in the form of direct attacks by viruses or hackers, but rather by indirect infiltration in the form of monitoring programs surreptitiously installed on computers. These monitoring applications are called spyware, and serve to record and transmit a user\u27s computer uses and behaviors to third parties. Frequently used by marketers to harvest customer data for segmentation and targeting purposes, spyware can serve to direct targeted advertising to user\u27s computers. Spyware is often legally used since installations can be authorized as part of the licensed clickwrap agreement that users agree to when downloading free utility and file sharing programs from the Internet. In some cases, spyware is installed as part of legitimate computer applications provided by business to their customers, to provide updating and communicative functionality to application users. It appears that the ability to monitor remotely and communicate with computers is an opportunity attractive enough to attract the attention of third parties with non-legal intentions. This article focuses on the roles and functions of spyware, its use in both legitimate and non-legitimate ways, and a range of preventions and protections for avoiding and removing spyware that has been installed on end user computers

Geopolitical Factors Impacting ICT4D: Comparing Singapore with Vietnam

ICT4D research orients to the empowerment of underdeveloped populations through the provision of Internet technologies, with an eye toward technology-supported economic development. Any development effort of this sort, however, faces geopolitical barriers to entry. In order to technologically enable a population, governmentally sponsored national infrastructure initiatives are required and these typically involve outside consultation, economic support and direct partnership to succeed. Yet, geopolitical forces may militate against this taking place. We consider the contrasting examples of Singapore and Vietnam as instances of national information infrastructure initiatives that were attempted and either succeeded or failed based upon geopolitical considerations. The result is a cautionary tale for scholars interested in ICT4D, in as much as the success of a particular project is dependent not only upon technological factors, but political and cultural ones as well

Journal Rakings 2008: A Synthesis of Studies

New journal rankings studies seem to be almost as prevalent as new MIS journals, recently. As doctoral students in our field become new colleagues and approach the publication process for tenure and promotion, they are in need of guidance in the selection of publication outlets at which to target their work as emerging scholars. Moreover, our colleagues in IS frequently publish in allied disciplines, and can benefit from guidance on the relative rankings of non-IS journals for use in their evaluation and promotions processes. In the past 5 years, numerous articles presenting alternative journal ranking schemes have been published, yet there are often contradictions and oversights between individual studies, with little attempt to synthesize between various ranking schemes, and across related disciplines of research. With the burgeoning number of ISrelated and IS-friendly research journals, a clear need exists for a synthesis across ranking studies in order to provide a broadly consistent and converged listing of journals suitable for the interdisciplinary IS researcher’s publication requirements. This study provides this synthesis, combining in an informal meta-analysis the results of the leading journal rankings in recent years, using the degree of agreement and consistency between ranking studies for determining relative rankings of journals across a variety of fields

Treatment update: thiazolidinediones in combination with metformin for the treatment of type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is characterized by excessive hepatic gluconeogenesis, increased insulin resistance and a progressive inability of pancreatic beta cells to produce sufficient insulin. DM2 evolves as a progression from normal glucose tolerance, to impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) to frank diabetes mellitus, reflecting the establishment of insulin resistance and beta cell dysfunction. Insulin resistance not only contributes to impaired glycemic control in DM2, but to the development of hypertension, dyslipidemia and endothelial dysfunction. Cardiovascular disease is the primary morbidity for patients with DM2. The onset of insulin resistance and cardiovascular insult likely occurs well before the onset of IGT is detected clinically. Biguanides and thiazolidinediones (TZDs) are two classes of oral agents for the management of DM2 that improve insulin resistance, and thus have potential cardiovascular benefits beyond glycemic control alone. Metformin additionally inhibits hepatic gluconeogenesis. The combined use of two of these agents targets key pathophysiologic defects in DM2. Single pill combinations of rosiglitazone/metformin and pioglitazone/metformin have recently been approved for use in the US and Europe. This article reviews the clinical data behind the use of metformin in combination with TZDs for the management of diabetes, its impact on vascular health, side effects and potential mechanisms of action for combined use

Additive Factors Do Not Imply Discrete Processing Stages: A Worked Example Using Models of the Stroop Task

Previously, it has been shown experimentally that the psychophysical law known as Piéron’s Law holds for color intensity and that the size of the effect is additive with that of Stroop condition (Stafford et al., 2011). According to the additive factors method (Donders, 1868–1869/1969; Sternberg, 1998), additivity is assumed to indicate independent and discrete processing stages. We present computational modeling work, using an existing Parallel Distributed Processing model of the Stroop task (Cohen et al., 1990) and a standard model of decision making (Ratcliff, 1978). This demonstrates that additive factors can be successfully accounted for by existing single stage models of the Stroop effect. Consequently, it is not valid to infer either discrete stages or separate loci of effects from additive factors. Further, our modeling work suggests that information binding may be a more important architectural property for producing additive factors than discrete stages