SHARING BEHIND THE SCENES: UNDERSTANDING USER BYPASSING BEHAVIOR IN SHARING ECONOMY

Sharing economy platforms facilitate people’s sharing of underutilized resources by adding value to their users, such as reducing transaction costs and building trust. However, it is discovered by practitioners that users may actually bypass, or “disintermediate”, the platforms to strike direct deals on their own. This phenomenon motivates this research-in-progress to understand sharing economy user bypassing behaviour. Specifically, we investigate their motivations of bypassing and behavioral strategies of overcoming trust barriers. Drawing insights from disintermediation literature, we conduct a single case study on Airbnb, a renowned accommodation sharing platform. Our preliminary findings show that Airbnb hosts have non-economic motivation to bypass the platform, and they are able to overcome trust barriers through leveraging the unbundling of intermediary functions. Upon completion of the research, the study is expected to make three theoretical contributions: uncovering the loopholes in sharing economy business models, augmenting predominant economic view of disintermediation, and proposing a “spillover effect” of embedded relationship on economic action

Re-strategizing Product-related Decisions in Response to Platform Owner’s Entry

By offering products on self-owned platform marketplace, platform owner enters complementary market and poses competition that would trigger complementors to revise their product portfolio. Building on past works, we distinguish between three product-related decisions: new product launch, product variety and product differentiation. Using two-year data from Amazon.com, we empirically test how complementors re-strategize product-related decisions in response to platform owner’s entry. We find that complementors decrease new product launch, and revise their product portfolio by reducing product variety but increasing product differentiation (i.e., position away) from platform owner. Furthermore, we show that complementors agglomerate together, offering products with lower differentiation from one another. Our results inform about the implications of platform owner’s entry on complementors’ products. We call for potential mechanisms to incentivize complementors’ efforts in new products and direct complementors to specialize and agglomerate in products complementing platform owner’ product offerings

How people react to the ‘also recommended’ section of online stores

Retailers can take advantage of recommendation networks to drive product demand, write Zhijie Lin, Khim-Yong Goh and Cheng-Suang Hen

IT Investment: The Unexpected Effects on Entrepreneurial Spawning

Despite the growing interests in entrepreneurial spawning, whereby employees leave an incumbent to become entrepreneurs, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of firm strategies on the process. However, IS literature has documented various influences of IT on firms. This study attempts to bridge these two streams of research by investigating the impact of IT investment (as a form of firm strategy) on entrepreneurial spawning. Drawing upon the IT-agility theoretical lens, we propose that IT investment may impede firms’ entrepreneurial spawning. In addition, firms with higher IT investment are less adversely affected by spawns. We devise thorough empirical strategies to analyze Fortune 500 manufacturing firms from 1990 to 2006. Our study potentially contributes to the current research in entrepreneurship and business value of IT, and sheds novel insights on the retention of talents, exploitation of internal innovations and deterrence of potential competition

The Medium Matters: Effects on What Consumers Talk about Regarding Movie Trailers

Entertainment consumers are known to consult others’ opinions to make consumption decisions via social media. However, little research has investigated whether various configurations of communication media design features affect what consumers talk about regarding movie trailers. To address the research question, we integrate past research on psychological drivers of interpersonal communication and computer-mediated communication to propose that different commentary presentation of social media would affect the relative importance of communication motivations, which in turn shapes the specific messages communicated (i.e., valence, informational content, and emotional content). We propose two studies to test our research model and hypotheses. We hope to contribute to the literature by empirically investigating the creation of specific types of messages, elucidating the role of configuration of social media design features in shaping the messages communicated, and highlighting the impacts of interface design on achieving interpersonal communication goals

Winning over Grassroots Consumers: An Empowerment Perspective of Yu’E Bao

Recent years have witnessed the great potential of technological innovations in helping developing economies tackle financial exclusion, a key obstacle in reducing poverty and accelerating economic growth. Yet, the way that technology innovations should be designed and utilized to deliver inclusive finance has remained obscure. In this study, we undertook an in-depth qualitative case study of Yu’E Bao, an online market fund, which has revolutionized the online finance sector in China. The incredible feat of Yu’E Bao has made financial institutions in China start focusing on potential cumulative wealth of the large population of financially underserved “grassroots consumers”. Drawing insights from empowerment theory, we explicate the mechanisms through which an IT-enabled innovation can successfully engage and leverage the financially underprivileged population to progress towards financial inclusion. Our findings underline important theoretical, economic and societal contributions, viz. exploitation of empowerment mechanisms, acknowledgment of grassroots’ economic potential, and IT-enabled financial inclusion

Empowerment of Grassroots Consumers: A Revelatory Case of a Chinese Fintech Innovation

The recent emergence of financial technology (fintech) innovations offers a promising resolution to financial exclusion via mechanisms that empower financially underprivileged individuals to gain access rights in the traditional financial industry. However, academic research has provided little guidance on how to strategize the IT-enabled empowerment mechanisms for fintech innovations to realize both business success and financial inclusion. In this study, we conduct an in-depth revelatory case study on a novel Chinese fintech innovation, Yu’E Bao, a bellwether for the dramatic transformation of China’s financial industry through the successful empowerment of a large population of financially underprivileged individuals (i.e., “grassroots consumers,” translated from “cao gen” in Chinese). Through our systematic qualitative analysis of news articles collected since the product launch, we derive a two-stage theoretical model, examined through the lens of empowerment, and unravel the mechanisms underlying fintech innovation’s empowerment process on grassroots investment consumers. Most importantly, we elucidate a duality of empowerment through which the catalyst for Yu’E Bao’s success becomes an impediment to Yu’E Bao’s further development. Our study contributes to the literature on information technology-enabled empowerment, empowerment, and fintech. We also elucidate critical implications for various stakeholders, such as governments, policy makers, fintech practitioners, and product designers

Willingness to Continue with Software Projects: Effects of Feedback Direction and Optimism under High and Low Accountability Conditions

The willingness of managers to continue with software projects can be both beneficial and troubling. Management optimism can help bring promising projects to fruition, but can also cause valuable resources to be expended on faltering projects. This study examines three factors that can affect the willingness of managers to continue with software projects: feedback direction, feedback optimism, and accountability. Feedback direction is the objective information reflecting project prospects. Feedback optimism is the subjective mode with which the objective information has been framed. Accountability is the extent to which the manager feels responsible for project outcomes. Results of a study that manipulated these three factors showed that the effects of feedback direction and feedback optimism on willingness to continue with software projects were additive (either factor alone affected willingness to continue with software projects) when accountability was high but were interactive (both factors jointly affected willingness to continue with software projects) when accountability was low. These findings have useful implications for practice and further research

EXPECTATION SHORTFALL IN THE HIGHLY SPECIALIZED B2B IT INNOVATION

Expectation shortfall is a common occurrence in outsourcing. Prior literature suggests that strategies such as strict contract terms and proper evaluation of the vendor capabilities are adopted to avoid expectation shortfall. However, in the case of highly specialised technical products custom made to vendor requirements (i.e., B2B IT innovation), traditional strategies in managing outsourcing projects may not work as expected. This is mainly due to the complexity of the product requirements and the inability to assess the scope of the project in depth at the beginning. In this research, we adopt the vendor’s perspective to better understand how organizations in the highly specialized B2B IT innovation handle outsourced projects to avoid expectation shortfall. We uncover a dynamic innovation process which the client and the vendor go through. In addition, we suggest strategies to achieve B2B IT innovation in a win-win scenario while elucidating reasons of failure

Effects of Government R&D Grants on IT Entrepreneurial Firm Performance: A New Perspective on Exploration vs. Exploitation

Governments keep subsidizing R&D of IT entrepreneurial firms greatly. However, the effect of these grants remains unclear. Acknowledging this gap, this study provides a nuanced perspective to understand the influence of government R&D grants on IT entrepreneurial firm performance. Based on the literature on organizational learning, we categorize government R&D grants into two types: explorative vs. exploitative. Moreover, drawing on resource complementarity theory, we articulate how the two types of government R&D grants interact with firms’ private R&D resources. In particular, we hypothesize that in the innovation stage, government explorative R&D grants complement a firm’s internal exploration in influencing innovation performance, but substitute a firm’s external exploration. We further posit that in the commercialization stage, government exploitative R&D grants complement a firm’s innovation performance and internal exploitation in impacting financial performance, but substitute a firm’s external exploitation. We advance a theory of public-private R&D interaction for IT entrepreneurial firms