A Case for AIS Cases: Development of a New Graduate Course on Year 2000 Compliance Projects

As organizations increasingly rely upon complex, interdependent accounting systems and processes, the heretofore tradition- bound discipline of accounting is undergoing rapid and turbulent change. This gives rise to a need to infuse the accounting curriculum with course materials and experiences that introduce students to new techniques, best practices, and emerging issues, while also helping students to develop durable and transferable competencies to meet tomorrow’s challenges. There is also a need to integrate such material across the curriculum, by incorporating emerging accounting issues in (for example) MIS or project management courses

Clinicians’ Emotions and TeleStroke Use

Telemedicine has been available and in use for over fifty years yet by most accounts it has fallen short of its promised impact on healthcare. While legal and reimbursement issues continue to plague the spread of telemedicine use, the technology has continued to improve. We feel there are additional dimensions that play a key role in the use of telemedicine; in particular, we believe that doctors’ and nurses’’ emotional state during use of a telemedicine system has a significant impact on how telemedicine is used. What are the main drivers that give rise to these emotions? How do they impact the use of telemedicine? What changes in the business process can mitigate the negative impact of these emotions? We investigate these research questions by conducting an embedded case study utilizing interview data and archival documents to gain insight into the emotional components at play during TeleStroke consultations

Managing the Internet Payment Platform Project

This case examines issues in the assessment and adoption of Internet technologies in a federal U.S. government context, and describes in detail a pilot project to determine the feasibility of adopting an ASP solution to support procurement by multiple federal agencies using a variety of different legacy transaction systems. The pilot test of the Internet Payment Platform (IPP) by the eMoney group of the United States Treasury’s Financial Management Service involved three federal agencies and subsets of their suppliers. Participants saw many benefits from their use of the IPP, but agreed that for full-scale operation it needed to be modified to better fit the government procurement context. The project manager is weighing the pros and cons of conducting another pilot test using the same commercial software as before, or obtaining and customizing a new commercial package, or building a new system from scratch

DEPLOYING RESOURCES TO SAVE LIVES: PARTNERS TELE-STROKE SERVICE

Innovative ICT applications such as patient-present telemedicine consultation services can save lives, yet following pilot-testing few have achieved long-term viability. Partners Health Care’s TeleStroke service, in full operation, is financially self-sustaining. Interviews with clinical, technical and administrative personnel at Partners and two “spoke” hospitals revealed practical lessons learned. Analysis through the lens of the Resource Based View reveals that many valuable assets and capabilities that Partners and its spoke hospitals developed are necessary for a successful TeleStroke program yet could be acquired or copied (they are not rare or inimitable). We note further that Partners’ overriding goal for TeleStroke is to achieve clinical success in its catchment area, without depleting financial resources; competitive advantage is sought within the catchment area but not beyond it. Resource analysis reveals that other institutions could develop successful telemedicine services for acute stroke care, since the needed assets are readily available, most of the capabilities can be imitated, and viable substitutes are limited. We contend that the lessons learned in this case study -- about the effective deployment of assets and capabilities -- are broadly applicable to other settings, in health care and other industries

Can Digital Badging Support an Inclusive New Normal in Higher Education?

This call for research considers how digital badging could help universities serve their students better and more flexibly, especially during crises (whether caused by public health issues, social unrest, or natural disasters). Touted as a means to recognize academic achievements and skills of both traditional and non-traditional students, digital badging can support personalized learning pathways by enabling individualized portfolios of micro-credentials. Also, badges can signify mastery at more granular levels than end-of-term course grades. In this review, we identify known digital badging opportunities and threats and consider a proposed micro-credentialing system based on college course modules rather than full courses. We then articulate directions for further research, guided by the theory of IT options and debt and the theory of complementary resources

INFOSEC in a Basket, 2004-2013

Topical and methodological diversity are key strengths of Information Systems (IS) research. To the extent that an IS sub-field such as IS security (hereafter, InfoSec) employs varied methods to examine various topics, the sub-field can claim strength through diversity. We conducted a systematic review of ten years of 85 InfoSec studies published in the IS Senior Scholars Basket of eight journals. We find that InfoSec researchers have employed a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods to study a variety of topics; that some journals published papers based on some methods and InfoSec topics more than others; that many methods are underutilized as applied to some topics; and that topics addressing the organizational/managerial and inter-organizational levels of analysis are understudied. We conclude that InfoSec research is maturing, yet abundant opportunities still exist to conduct further research aimed at building stronger theories and offering stronger implications for InfoSec practice

Why Cooperate? Ethical Analysis of InfoSec Vulnerability Disclosure

Vendors, security consultants and information security researchers seek guidance on if and when to disclose information about specific software or hardware security vulnerabilities. We apply Kantianism to argue that vendors and third parties (InfoSec researchers, consultants, and other interested parties) have an ethical obligation to inform customers and business partners (such as channel partners or providers of complementary products and services) about specific software vulnerabilities (thus addressing if disclosure should occur). We apply Utilitarianism to address the question of when disclosure should occur. By applying these two philosophical perspectives we conclude that to maximize social welfare, vendors should release software fixes as soon as possible, and third parties should adopt a coordinated disclosure policy to avoid placing customers and business partners at unnecessary risk

Mining Data to Catch Tax Cheats

This teaching case covers technical and non-technical concerns about data mining enabled by the creation of a data warehouse by the California Franchise Tax Board (CFTB). CFTB used data mining to analyze data collected from federal, state and municipal agencies and other organizations to identify residents who under-report income or fail to file tax returns. The case presents different stakeholders’ privacy, financial, technical and political concerns regarding the use of data obtained from an array of sources. The case is aimed at an undergraduate or MBA/MS course on IS Management, Data Management/Warehousing or Information Privacy. It could also be used to study IT and public policy, or E-government. It provides an opportunity for students to consider how social and political factors interact with technical challenges in inter-enterprise relationships. It also offers an opportunity to consider the value of data in relation to both the financial and non-financial costs of obtaining it

An Agile IT-Enabled Social Startup

In an IT-enabled hybrid social startup, how and why does the social entrepreneur respond to conflicting commercial versus social norms and practices, as well as IT innovation challenges? We conducted an exploratory single-case study of an IT-enabled hybrid social startup consisting of a charitable pharmacy, two non-profit consortia, and two for-profit IT businesses, all co-founded by a pharmacist/social entrepreneur (with partners) who aimed to distribute donated “wasted” medications to needy patients. The two for-profit organizations were designing a blockchain and complementary web and mobile applications for secure, cost-effective donated-drug distribution, for use by this entrepreneur’s charitable pharmacy and other organizations committed to matching donors with needy patients. Study findings suggests that multiple forms of IT agility, multiple forms of business agility, and a unique form of social-commercial agility help an IT-enabled hybrid social startup persist, despite financial and other challenges