Beyond Routine: Symbolic Adoption, Extended Use, and Emergent Use of Complex Information Systems in the Mandatory Organizational Context

Organizational investments in complex information systems (CIS) have reached a record high. However, the underutilization of these expensive CIS prevents organizations from achieving the advertised return on investment. This study attempts to address this issue from the perspective of extended use and emergent use. Extended use concerns using more of the technology features, while emergent use concerns applying the technology in a novel manner to support task performance. To study uses that surpass routine use, a special focus is placed on the motivational factor that drives these behaviors. Drawing upon the insights from information system (IS) infusion, the IS continuance model, and the symbolic adoption theory, this paper proposes a research model for understanding extended and emergent use in mandatory organizational contexts. The model was examined in two large manufacturing firms that had implemented CIS for at least two years. The results suggest that perceived usefulness, satisfaction, and symbolic adoption influence extended use, and that perceived usefulness, symbolic adoption, and extended use affect emergent use. More importantly, the concept of symbolic adoption offers a theoretical explanation for extended and emergent use from the motivational point of view. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed

Explaining Employees Extended Use of Complex Information Systems

Investments in complex information systems by organizations reached a record high of U.S.$26.7 billion in 2004. Yet, organizations seldom use these systems to the fullest extent and attain the expected return on investment. This paper addresses the issue of system underutilization by investigating Extended Use, which refers to using more system features to support one\u27s tasks. Extended Use was examined in the nomological networks of the IS Continuance (ISC) Model and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). A field survey was conducted in a large manufacturing firm that had successfully implemented a popular enterprise resource planning solution for more than 2 years. All paths in both ISC and TAM were statistically significant. A synthesized model was later proposed and examined in a post hoc analysis. The results indicate that the synthesized model, as compared to ISC and TAM, explained slightly higher variances in Extended Use, Perceived Usefulness (PU), and Satisfaction. Specifically, both Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) and PU both affected Extended Use. Interestingly, Satisfaction has no direct impact on Extended Use in the presence of PU and PEOU. In contrast to most technology acceptance research, PEOU has a stronger behavioral impact than that of PU. This research provides a framework that explains Extended Use and is one of the few studies that investigates IS use behavior that exceeds simple, shallow, and routine use

Vertex functions for d-wave mesons in the light-front approach

While the light-front quark model (LFQM) is employed to calculate hadronic transition matrix elements, the vertex functions must be pre-determined. In this work we derive the vertex functions for all d-wave states in this model. Especially, since both of $^3D_1$ and $^3S_1$ are $1^{--}$ mesons, the Lorentz structures of their vertex functions are the same. Thus when one needs to study the processes where $^3D_1$ is involved, all the corresponding formulas for $^3S_1$ states can be directly applied, only the coefficient of the vertex function should be replaced by that for $^3D_1$. The results would be useful for studying the newly observed resonances which are supposed to be d-wave mesons and furthermore the possible 2S-1D mixing in $\psi'$ with the LFQM.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, some typos corrected and more discussions added. Accepted by EPJ

Understanding User Satisfaction of Instant Messaging Usage: An Empirical Study

The current article examines user satisfaction with instant messaging in building and maintaining social relationships with friends, family members, and others. The research model integrates motivation theory with media capacity theories to explain how the attributes of media capacity (e.g., social presence and media richness) and users\u27 intrinsic and extrinsic motivations toward using instant messaging influence user satisfaction. Data were collected from a sample of 247 Chinese university students via an online survey. The results suggest that perceived enjoyment, perceived social presence, and perceived usefulness are key to user satisfaction. Perceived social presence and perceived media richness are positively associated with perceived enjoyment. It was also found that perceived enjoyment, perceived social presence, and perceived media richness have significant effects on perceived usefulness. Of interest, perceived enjoyment and perceived social presence have stronger effects on user satisfaction than perceived usefulness

The Contingent Effect of Personal IT Innovativeness and IT Self-Efficacy on Innovative Use of Complex IT

While organizational investment in complex information technologies (IT) keeps growing, these technologies are often applied at a superficial level and fail to attain the promised benefits. To further extract the value potential of complex IT, this study investigates employee users’ innovate with IT (IwIT), which is a post-acceptance behavior that refers to individual users’ applying IT in novel ways to support their task performance. Drawing on the information systems continuance (ISC) model, we propose a research framework with perceived usefulness (PU) and satisfaction (SAT) as the antecedents of IwIT. We further emphasize the contingent role of personal characteristics and include personal innovativeness with IT (PIIT) and information technology self-efficacy (ITSE) as the moderators of the framework. We validate the model with data from users of two complex ITs: enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business intelligence (BI) technologies. The results suggest that positioning personal factors as moderators significantly increases the explanatory power of the ISC model and offers a more comprehensive understanding about IwIT. Specifically, ITSE positively moderates the effect of PU, and negatively moderates the effect of SAT, on IwIT. The moderating role of PIIT, however, is subject to the specific type of IT of investigation

Can Social Capital be Transferred Cross the Boundary of the Real and Virtual Worlds? An Empirical Investigation of Twitter

Micro-blogs like Twitter are playing increasingly important roles in social life. Some key users of Twitter have drawn huge attention from other people. Their opinions have had significant influence on the rest of Twitter users. In other words, these people are highly reputable and have more social capital in the Twitter world. But what factors contribute to the social capital in a part of the virtual world like Twitter is still largely unknown. This paper investigates the source of social capital in the Twitter world. We identify two types of sources that influence a user’s social capital in the Twitter world: (1) inherited capital from outside the Twitter world; and (2) social activities conducted within the Twitter world. The results show that both inherited capital from outside, and activities within, the Twitter world, have positive influence on a user’s social capital in the Twitter world. Our results suggest that social capital can be transferred from the real world to the virtual one. Meanwhile the inherited social capital of a user from outside the Twitter world significantly impacts the level of activities the user undertakes in the Twitter world. For ordinary people, inherited social capital positively associates with the level of their social activities in the Twitter world. But for the most well known Twitter users, who are usually celebrities, this relationship is negative. Implications for research and practice are further discussed

A molecular dynamics study on the equilibrium magnetization properties and structure of ferrofluids

We investigate in detail the initial susceptibility, magnetization curves, and microstructure of ferrofluids in various concentration and particle dipole moment ranges by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We use the Ewald summation for the long-range dipolar interactions, take explicitly into account the translational and rotational degrees of freedom, coupled to a Langevin thermostat. When the dipolar interaction energy is comparable with the thermal energy, the simulation results on the magnetization properties agree with the theoretical predictions very well. For stronger dipolar couplings, however, we find systematic deviations from the theoretical curves. We analyze in detail the observed microstructure of the fluids under different conditions. The formation of clusters is found to enhance the magnetization at weak fields and thus leads to a larger initial susceptibility. The influence of the particle aggregation is isolated by studying ferro-solids, which consist of magnetic dipoles frozen in at random locations but which are free to rotate. Due to the artificial suppression of clusters in ferro-solids the observed susceptibility is considerably lowered when compared to ferrofluids.Comment: 33 pages including 12 figures, requires RevTex

Innovate with Complex Information Technologies: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Examination

Complex information technologies (CITs), such as ERP packages, have become the core component of modern organizations. Corporate investments in CITs have soared to a record high. Firms need to creatively apply the technologies in order to adapt to the ever-changing environments and realize the full potential of the technologies. We approach this issue from the perspective of ‘Innovate with IT’, a post-acceptance usage behavior that describes innovative use of information technologies to support individual task performances. Drawing upon the IS Continuance (ISC) model, as well as the managerial and individual factors that facilitate higher level IT use, a model is theoretically developed to understand employees’ novel use of CITs. A field study was conducted in a large manufacturing firm using ERP packages to empirically validate the model. The results suggest that the ISC model, personal propensity toward IT innovations, and management support jointly nurture employees’ creative use of complex technologies

Whole-Genome Sequence of the 1,4-Dioxane-Degrading Bacterium Mycobacterium dioxanotrophicus PH-06

We report here the complete genome sequence of Mycobacterium dioxanotrophicus PH-06, which is capable of using 1,4-dioxane as a sole source of carbon and energy. The reported sequence will enable the elucidation of this novel metabolic pathway and the development of molecular biomarkers to assess bioremediation potential at contaminated sites

Orientational order in dipolar fluids consisting of nonspherical hard particles

We investigate fluids of dipolar hard particles by a certain variant of density-functional theory. The proper treatment of the long range of the dipolar interactions yields a contribution to the free energy which favors ferromagnetic order. This corrects previous theoretical analyses. We determine phase diagrams for dipolar ellipsoids and spherocylinders as a function of the aspect ratio of the particles and their dipole moment. In the nonpolar limit the results for the phase boundary between the isotropic and nematic phase agree well with simulation data. Adding a longitudinal dipole moment favors the nematic phase. For oblate or slightly elongated particles we find a ferromagnetic liquid phase, which has also been detected in computer simulations of fluids consisting of spherical dipolar particles. The detailed structure of the phase diagram and its evolution upon changing the aspect ratio are discussed in detail.Comment: 35 pages LaTeX with epsf style, 11 figures in eps format, submitted to Phys. Rev.