Peer Review in the Age of Generative AI

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), including recent generative forms, are significantly impacting our lives and work. A key aspect of our work as IS researchers is the publishing of research articles, for which peer review serves as the primary means of quality control. While there have been debates about whether and to what extent AI can replace researchers in various domains, including IS, we lack an in-depth understanding of how AI can impact the peer review process. Considering the high volume of submissions and limited reviewer resources, there is a pressing need to use AI to augment the review process. At the same time, advances in AI have been accompanied by concerns about biases introduced by AI tools and the ethics of using them, among other issues such as hallucinations. Thus, critical issues to understand are: how can AI augment and potentially automate the review process, what are the pitfalls in doing so, and what er the implications for IS research and peer review practice. I will offer my views on these issues in this opinion piece

Affect between Humans and Conversational Agents: A Review and Organizing Frameworks

Conversational agents (CAs), which communicate naturally with humans, are being developed and employed for a variety of tasks. Interactions between humans and CAs induce affect, which is vital to the adoption and performance of CAs. Yet, there is a lack of cumulative understanding of existing research on affect in human-CA interaction. Motivated thus, this article presents a systematic review of empirical IS and HCI studies on such affect, its antecedents and consequences. Besides conducting descriptive analysis of the studies, we also divide them into two broad categories – emotion-related, and those related to other (more persistent) affective responses. We present organizing frameworks for both categories, which complement each other. Through the review and frameworks, we contribute towards attaining a holistic understanding of extant research on human-CA interaction, identifying gaps in prior knowledge, and outlining future research directions. Last, we describe our plan for extending this work to gain additional insights

Understanding the Effect of Physicians’ Practice on the Use of Healthcare IS

Healthcare information systems (IS) such as Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems have the potential to improve efficiency of healthcare, lower costs, and reduce medication errors. However, previous studies have also described various issues arising from the use of these systems. A key issue pertains to physician resistance to CPOE, causing low usage or the abandonment of system implementations. Despite considerable research on CPOE, there is still a lack of understanding about the acceptance and use of these systems by physicians. This paper aims to address this gap by applying the theoretical perspective of professionalism, a type of institutional logic to understand this phenomenon. We thereby develop a model to explain the impact of physicians’ professional practice arrangements and seniority on their usage of CPOE. The model will be tested using the survey method by collecting data from physicians on their use of CPOE. Objective measures to determine system usage will be utilized if available. In this manner, this study intends to contribute to research and practice on the use of healthcare IS

CA Humor: Its Role in Service Recovery and Continued Use

Conversational agents (CAs) for customer service are gaining popularity, but frequently suffer from service failures. Thus, designing effective CA service recovery strategies is crucial for their adoption and continued use. Here, prior work has mostly examined symbolic recovery strategies of CA apology, empathy, and appreciation. Another such strategy, CA humor, can potentially mitigate service failures, but there is limited understanding of its role. Motivated thus, we draw on attribution theory to explain the role of CA humor in service recovery from a responsibility attribution perspective. We propose a theoretical model where CA humor influences customer’s responsibility attribution for failure via CA’s perceived intelligence and perceived enjoyment, which in turn impacts CA service satisfaction and continued usage intention. We design a lab experiment to test the model. We contribute to research on CA’s- adoption and continued use for customer service by explicating the role of a novel recovery strategy i.e., CA humor, which will be tested in our future work

How Do Perceptions of Virtual Worlds Lead to Enhanced Learning? An Empirical Investigation

Virtual worlds are receiving increasing attention as a promising technology to engage students in learning. However, the use of these technologies for educational purposes is currently hampered by a lack of understanding of how better learning can be achieved in such environments. Thus motivated, this study uses the lenses of flow and social translucence of technology theories to model the individual and technology-related perceptions that influence learning outcomes. Our results show that better learning is associated with learners’ flow experience variables (concentration and enjoyment) as well as a sense of presence (social and telepresence) in the virtual world. Further, the flow experience variables are influenced by the social and telepresence felt by participants, directly or indirectly via social norms. Unique to the virtual world environment, the three-dimensional realism experienced by learners is important in shaping their presence perceptions. The findings provide implications for both research and practice in this area

Information Systems for Large-Scale Event Management: A Case Study

Information systems (IS) have considerable use in supporting large-scale communication and coordination. This is especially important in contexts such as major event and crisis management which have complex requirements on people and technology. IS facilitate the dissemination of real-time information and coordination among decision makers, and thereby the management of the entire event. This paper describes a case of management and deployment of IS for a large-scale event as an exemplar in this area. Singapore won the bid to host a major international event, the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, collectively known as S2006. However, there were complex requirements and daunting challenges to be overcome in managing such a high-profile and large-scale event. The paper describes how the Committee in charge delivered the IT infrastructure and systems for this large-scale event with 23,700 participants from 184 countries. It suggests several lessons for IT executives in charge of managing large-scale events, mainly for planned (e.g., sports events) and to someextent for unplanned (e.g., Japan tsunami or BP oil spill crisis) events. Particularly, it highlights the need for advance preparedness, use of IS for situation awareness, cultivating relationships for communication and coordination, and the importance of vendor management and project management skills. These lessons are valuable for IS deployment for large-scale communication and coordination for future mega-events and to some degree for preparedness for unforeseen events. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol4/iss3/3

Value Cocreation for Service Innovation: Examining the Relationships between Service Innovativeness, Customer Participation, and Mobile App Performance

Service innovation is critical to firms’ competitive advantage and, thus, firms desire to make their services increasingly innovative. However, the relationship between the innovativeness and performance of a new service is unclear. Conflicting findings and the related literature suggest that service innovativeness is multidimensional and its impact on performance could be nonlinear. However, limited research has studied these aspects, both theoretically and empirically. Furthermore, prior research has mainly considered customers as inputs to value creation, which may not capture their precise role. Drawing on service-dominant logic, we propose two dimensions of service innovativeness, namely novelty and intensity, which differentially influence the performance of a new service. We further posit that customers are part of the value cocreation process, thereby directly and indirectly affecting new service performance. The model was tested using a panel dataset of 234 mobile apps over 14 months. Results indicate important asymmetries in the impacts of novelty and intensity on mobile app performance: novelty shows a curvilinear relationship with mobile app performance whereas intensity shows a positive linear relationship. Furthermore, customer participation positively impacts mobile app performance and positively moderates the effects of intensity and novelty on mobile app performance

Affect between Humans and Conversational Agents: A Review and Future Research Directions

Conversational agents (CAs) are digital artifacts which communicate with humans through natural language for performing a variety of tasks. When humans interact with CAs, affective responses e.g., emotions, are seen to influence both CA adoption and performance. Despite the vital role of affect in human-CA interaction, understanding of its antecedents, affective outcomes, and their relationships from prior research is nascent and segregated. Motivated thus, we review empirical studies on affect in human-CA interactions, classify them in terms of affective outcomes, and identify corresponding antecedents. We further analyze the relationships between antecedents and outcomes and highlight significant relationships as well as inconsistent findings. Drawing on the review, we propose future research directions for this area. We contribute by developing a deeper understanding of research on affect between human and CAs, identifying gaps in prior knowledge, and outlining future research directions. Additionally, we lay out our plans for extending this work

Understanding contribution and seeking behaviour in electronic knowledge repositories

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