The Interactivity of Internet-Based Communications: Impacts on E-Business Consumer Decisions

Various Internet-based technologies have been used to offer online customer service. Common to these technologies is their ability to support interactive communication in exchanges with customers. This paper examines the impacts of communications interactivity on customer decision behaviors. We propose that interactivity can improve customer satisfaction and trust through perceptions of responsiveness and mutuality, which further increase customer intentions to buy. We are in the process of developing, operationalizing, and testing a model of interactivity impacts to examine these relationships. The research uses experiments to collect data and PLS to analyze the data

The Critical Role of Historiography in Writing IS History

Insightful histories of an academic field can only be written when there is sufficient raw material to serve as “grist for the mill” for historians. This is the first task for those who are monumentally interested in preserving the origins of a field from the ravages of time is to collect artifacts—written, verbal, visual, and physical—that can later be used in historical inquiries. But the critical perspective to know what to collect and how much to collect is served by historiography, the science that elaborates on the variety of methods and procedures that historians use. A simple but incomplete set of these variations include: political history, intellectual history, cultural history, and social history. Each of these viewpoints brings with it a different set of assumptions about what is important and, although there is considerable overlap among them, each brings a different set of requirements for artifactual evidence. Historiography should not be overlooked when the field of information systems begins an all-out effort to collect data about the history of the field

An International Model for IS PhD Program in Low-Income Countries

The objective of this panel is to disseminate a viewpoint in the delivery of an IS PhD in low-income countries and to foster debate in creating an international model. Over three dozen faculty from 18 universities across the globe have come together to deliver the IS PhD at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. The program was launched in 2008. All nine courses are scheduled for delivery by the international faculty in cooperation with local faculty. Course work will be completed in July 2009. This panel will discuss the model used in Ethiopia with the intention of fostering debate on creating an international model for IS PhD programs

A Practical Guide To Factorial Validity Using PLS-Graph: Tutorial And Annotated Example

This tutorial explains in detail what factorial validity is and how to run its various aspects in PLS. The tutorial is written as a teaching aid for doctoral seminars that may cover PLS and for researchers interested in learning PLS. An annotated example with data is provided as an additional tool to assist the reader in reconstructing the detailed example

The Critical Role of External Validity in Advancing Organizational Theorizing

The information systems field needs strong cumulative traditions to advance IS theory building and better explain real-world phenomena. Despite the hegemony of theory in our major journals and major improvements in methodology over the years, the field has yet to achieve strong cumulative traditions beyond a few limited areas. In this paper, we propose a methodology for building such traditions by relying on the framework of external validity that Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2002) suggest. Our methodology classifies accumulated knowledge into four types, highlights several evolutionary pathways for theory building, and explains how researchers can apply it to extend their own theory. To examine the appropriateness of our typology of accumulated knowledge across the IS and management fields, we conducted a literature review of the empirical research in major IS and management journals over a recent two-year period and coded it according to relevant characteristics of Cronbach’s UTOS (i.e., units, treatments, outcomes, and settings). The technology acceptance model, IS success model, and resource-based view literatures illustrate how to apply the methodology. This evidence leads us to believe that establishing a cumulative tradition is well within the IS community’s grasp

CONTROLLING COMPUTER ABUSE: AM EMPIRICAL STUDY OF EFFECTIVE SECURITY COUNTERMEASURES

Considerable evidence has come to light that information systems are vulnerable to dangerously high and persistent abuse and that managers perceive this threat to be high. The organizational response to abusive potential has been to implement a computer security administrative unit with the charge of deterring and preventing computer abuse. Exactly how effective are the countermeasures employed by these units? This victimization survey of 1,211 randomly selected DPMA organizations has determined that computer abuse can be controlled through a set of deterrent administrative procedures and through preventive security software. Understanding these relationships should greatly assist IS managers in allocating resources to the security function and in disseminating this pertinent information to top management

E-Health: Value Proposition and Technologies Enabling Collaborative Healthcare

E-health, enabled by ubiquitous computing and communication technologies, is facilitating a fundamental shift in the age old praxis of healthcare. It is revolutionizing healthcare in the 21st century in much the same way as the arrival of modern medicine and vaccines did in the 19th century. E-health lies at the intersection of diverse disciplines including healthcare, computer science, information systems, economics, and political science. The broad impact of E-health on diverse domains, complexity of supporting technologies, and the dizzying interplay of theories bridging multiple disciplines creates a rich problem space for information system researchers and calls on to conduct cross-disciplinary research. In the current paper we present salient characteristics of e-health and discuss its value proposition. The value proposition of e-health presents the entire range of processes supporting the healthcare sector. We also present research opportunities as e-health takes center stage in the delivery of healthcare

The Love of Art vs. Website Design: An Application of Bourdieu\u27s Theory in Online Environments

Several IS studies have shown that well-designed websites positively influence users, capturing visitor attention and encouraging return behaviors. However, little attention has been paid to non commercial and cultural websites such as museum websites. This study draws on human-computer interaction literature and sociology of culture to determine the influence of website design on museum visitor intentions. Two free-simulation experiments were conducted with American and French college students who were invited to visit a museum website and express their opinions through a web questionnaire. The results suggest that website design can encourage museum visits, actualizing in this way the list of factors identified by Bourdieu and Darbel (1969). However, the socio-cultural factors, namely prior experience, museum interest and subjective norms, still play an important role that balance IT effects