{"title":"Product Differentiation in IT Industries: The Interplay between M&As and In-House Innovation and Exploitative Innovation Orientation","authors":"Kangkang Qi, Sumin Han, Yeasung Jeong, Pouya Rhamati, Anjana Susarla, V. Sambamurthy","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00828","url":null,"abstract":"Firms in IT industries are under constant competitive pressure from incumbent firms and startups to offer innovative products and services. This study explores the effect of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on firms’ product differentiation in IT industries. The unique characteristics of IT industries, namely hypercompetition, distributed innovation, modularity of products, and the tacit nature of knowledge, make M&As an attractive mechanism to enable IT firms to stay competitive. Drawing on product differentiation theory, we hypothesize a positive effect of M&As on product differentiation and suggest that this relationship is more potent in firms with higher in-house innovation, an exploitative innovation orientation, and under high levels of industry turbulence. We test our hypotheses using M&A transactions from 1996 to 2016 and a unique 10-K textual analysis-based measure of product differentiation. Using the difference-in-differences identification strategy, the following findings are supported: (1) M&As lead to higher product differentiation, (2) in-house innovation capability and exploitation-oriented innovation strategy positively moderate the positive effect of M&As. These results, which are robust to endogeneities and other robustness tests, contribute to theory and managerial practice by shedding light on the role of M&As as an essential mechanism for product innovation and the complementary role of in-house innovation capability and strategy for firms that intend to take advantage of M&As for creating a competitive edge through differentiating their products and services from competitors. These findings have important managerial value, providing an alternative narrative to the current view on M&As in IT industries as a means of absorbing and dismantling the competition.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"35 1","pages":"3"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81161572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Ramakrishnan, Shirley Gregor, Anup Shrestha, Jeffrey Soar
{"title":"Design Principles for Platform-Enabled Knowledge Commons with an Expository Instantiation","authors":"M. Ramakrishnan, Shirley Gregor, Anup Shrestha, Jeffrey Soar","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00824","url":null,"abstract":"Knowledge commons play a pivotal role in knowledge creation and sharing in the digital economy. The motivation for this research was the opportunity to develop a knowledge commons for IT service management (ITSM) practitioners. To obtain guidance to design the knowledge commons, we critically reviewed commons design principles (DPs) that were based on a well-established economics theory. We observed that the commons DPs had significant gaps when applied to IS practice. Hence, we developed an alternate set of DPs that we refer to as platform-enabled knowledge commons (PEKC) DPs that are relevant to IS practice. This paper discusses the development of PEKC DPs and applies them in instantiating an IS artifact, Service-Symphony. Service-Symphony is a purpose-built, public-facing knowledge repository developed for the benefit of ITSM practitioners and students. Our research followed the design science research (DSR) paradigm and contributes to the body of knowledge by establishing a multigrounded design theory comprising meta-requirements and DPs. To bridge theory and practice, we assessed the reusability of PEKC DPs through focus group interviews with IS architects. Our case study illustrates the complete life cycle of DPs covering conceptualization, initial formulation, iterative refinement, application to an important real-world instantiation, and evaluation by a group of independent IS practitioners.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"15 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78261063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Idris Adjerid, Corey M. Angst, Sarv Devaraj, N. Berente
{"title":"Does Analytics Help Resolve Equivocality in the Healthcare Context? Contrasting the Effects of Analyzability and Differentiation","authors":"Idris Adjerid, Corey M. Angst, Sarv Devaraj, N. Berente","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00805","url":null,"abstract":"Organizations are increasingly using data analytics to help make decisions and drive positive outcomes. But organizational scholarship has warned us that the sort of information processing associated with analytic capabilities, while effective for uncertainty reduction, may be less effective in equivocal contexts. Equivocality is evident when tasks are not easily analyzable (task analyzability) or when organizational departments are highly differentiated (differentiation). We hypothesize that analytics will be less effective in driving positive outcomes when equivocality is high because of low task analyzability. However, when an organization is more differentiated, resulting in high equivocality, we anticipate that analytics will be more effective in driving positive outcomes. To test this theory, we studied how clinical healthcare analytics influenced experiential quality (akin to patient satisfaction) in over 3,000 hospitals across nine years. Our results show that analytics capabilities, on average, do improve outcomes in terms of patient experiential quality, suggesting that analytics can reduce uncertainty, but we also found evidence for the moderating role of equivocality. Specifically, as task analyzability decreases (i.e., increasing equivocality), clinical healthcare analytics becomes less effective in improving experiential quality. However, when equivocality is high because of differentiation, there is a positive relationship between clinical healthcare analytics and experiential quality but only in larger hospitals. From a managerial perspective, this study has implications for boundary conditions of data analytics in organizations.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"33 1","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82548243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Design of Social Inclusion Interventions: A Paradox Approach","authors":"Daniel Curto-Millet, Almudena Cañibano","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00795","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00795","url":null,"abstract":"Are social inclusion and social exclusion opposed? Through a three-year ethnography of an open source civic crowdsourcing platform aiming for generalized social inclusion, we show they are not. We argue that social inclusion and exclusion have a paradoxical relationship: ongoing tensions exist between them, and information systems shape those tensions. We find that design choices have crucial influence over the capacity of information system interventions to include and exclude and propose a framework for designing IS-based social inclusion interventions. The framework encompasses four types of strategies (positive discrimination, integrative oscillation, equitability and iterative inclusivity) for managing the paradoxical link between inclusion and exclusion through IS design. We also present the notion of “collectives” as a new way of thinking about exclusion criteria.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"52 1","pages":"7"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75485456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Avoiding the Diffusion of Responsibility in Social Networking Groups: A Field Experiment on Responses to Online Help-Request Referrals","authors":"Nan Feng, Zhongtao Hu, Yi Wu, Ben C. F. Choi","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00781","url":null,"abstract":"Help-request referral (HRR) campaigns are being increasingly adopted by online service providers to attract online traffic and engage new users. In these campaigns, participants are required to collect a specific amount of help from their social network in exchange for attractive rewards. Participants often face challengesin obtaining positive feedback from their social networking groups due to the diffusion of responsibility. Based on the triangle model of responsibility, this study proposes and empirically tests a research model that examines two key determinants (i.e., request personalization and relational closeness) of recipients’ perceived responsibility that further shape their responses to HRR. Our field experiment empirically supports the research hypotheses. Overall, this study enriches the literature on online social referrals by focusing on HRR, where social referrals are broadcasted and senders reap referral benefits. The study also provides practical insights for HRR designers and social networking service providers.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"16 1","pages":"6"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81505662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Inclusion: The Use of Social Media and the Impact on First-Generation College Students","authors":"Ester S. Gonzalez, Xuefei Deng","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00792","url":null,"abstract":"Social inclusion has become a pressing issue for organizations wishing to close the inequality and disparity gaps associated with underrepresented or disadvantaged groups. The challenge is becoming particularly critical in higher education institutions suffering from low retention rates and low graduation rates among first-generation college students (FGCS). In response to the challenges imposed by the notion of social inclusion, some universities and colleges are exploring the use of social networking technologies such as social media (SM) in ways that can impact social inclusion. In order to improve the understanding of how social networking technology affects the social inclusion of FGCS, we conducted a case study in a public, Hispanic-serving institution in the United States. We used technology affordance theory to reveal various affordances actualized by FGCS and various outcomes resulting from those affordances. To explain how the actualization of different strands of affordance produces certain outcomes, our analysis of 102 FGCS’ narratives followed an established five-step framework for identifying generative mechanisms, revealing three SM user types—Community Builders, Scholars, and Information Seekers—and four actualized affordances, namely interconnection, inspiration, insightfulness, and intense comfort, which are conceptualized into three generative mechanisms: identity booster, academic growth, and self-care. Our results provide insights into SM usage for social inclusion outcomes. By revealing how technology use can promote social engagement and mitigate exclusion experienced by FGCS, this study contributes to the broad social inclusion research on technology and disadvantaged communities.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"20 1","pages":"5"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73934977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Positive or Negative Reviews? Consumers' Selective Exposure in Seeking and Evaluating Online Reviews","authors":"Zhanfei Lei, Dezhi Yin, Han Zhang","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00823","url":null,"abstract":"How and why positive and negative reviews influence product sales differently has critical implications for both research and businesses. Although earlier online word-of-mouth research empirically documented that negative reviews influence product sales to a greater extent than positive reviews (i.e., a negativity bias), later research has revealed that positive reviews are generally more helpful (i.e., a positivity bias). We propose that an answer to this conundrum may be that negative reviews get more exposure than positive reviews. As consumers are often overwhelmed by the massive number of online reviews, they need to be selective when searching for reviews. This research investigates consumers’ preference for positive vs. negative reviews during both the information-seeking and information-evaluation stages of their decision-making process. Drawing on the motivated reasoning literature, we propose that consumers exhibit a negativity bias when they search for reviews to read but manifest a confirmation bias when they evaluate the helpfulness of reviews. We conducted three experiments and found consistent support for these hypotheses. Our findings expand the current understanding of consumers’ processing of online reviews to the information-seeking stage, reveal differential biases at different stages, demonstrate a possible explanation for the negativity bias in product sales, and provide important practical implications.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"37 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82054071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effectiveness of Highlighting Different Communication Orientations in Promoting Mobile Communication Technology at Work vs. at Home: Evidence from a Field Experiment","authors":"C. Phang, Zheng Fang, C. Liao","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00803","url":null,"abstract":"With the development of mobile communication technologies, people can now engage in seamless communications with family members and coworkers at both home and work. When promoting a new mobile communication technology (e.g., the 5G network), firms may be tempted to emphasize how the technology can strengthen communication both within and across the two domains with the hope of improving purchase rates. Yet research has suggested that people may perceive mobile communication differently depending on whether those they are communicating with others who belong to the same domain. Thus, the promotion of the technology to potential users should perhaps consider users’ location domain and their communication targets. Through a field experiment, we show that when promoting mobile communication technology in the home domain, highlighting prevention-focused communication promotes greater purchase rates. However, at work, when coworkers are the target of communication, highlighting promotion-focused communication works better. These findings can not only help practitioners design more effective promotional messages in promoting mobile communication technologies but also contribute to the understanding of nuanced differences in the nature of mobile communication that make it more appealing to users in different within- and cross-domain communication scenarios.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"3 1","pages":"4"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75281555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the Effectiveness of Smart Metering Technology Adoption: Evidence from the National Rollout in the United Kingdom","authors":"Jaeung Sim, Junyeong Lee, D. Cho","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00786","url":null,"abstract":"In response to the burgeoning threats of climate change to humanity, numerous governments, such as those of the United States and most European countries, have launched rollout programs for the distribution of smart metering technology (SMT). Despite this notable recent investment, questions of whether and why SMT adoption facilitates the reduction of households’ energy demands remain relatively unexplored. Building on cognitive dissonance theory, we propose a research model for SMT adoption, residential energy-saving behaviors, and moderating factors. We then empirically test the model using a rich household dataset from the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2016. Our results show that SMT adoption is positively associated with energy-saving behaviors, while energysaving motivations substantially moderate this association—a lower level of concern about saving energy / a higher level of concern about climate change amplifies this effect. Importantly, we find that SMT usage positively moderates this relationship, but this marginal gain decreases in technology usage intensity. Our findings contribute to the information systems literature by showing a consequence of new technology adoption along with the role of cognitive dissonance in promoting intended objectives and identifying potential moderating effects. We discuss actionable insights for policymakers and utility firms.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"5 1","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81581289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shaoxiong Fu, Zhao Cai, E. Lim, Yong Liu, C. Tan, Yanqing Lin
{"title":"Unraveling the Effects of Mobile Application Usage on Users' Health Status: Insights from Conservation of Resources Theory","authors":"Shaoxiong Fu, Zhao Cai, E. Lim, Yong Liu, C. Tan, Yanqing Lin","doi":"10.17705/1jais.00808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00808","url":null,"abstract":"Numerous studies have documented adverse consequences arising from increased technology usage and advocated for a reduction in such usage as a plausible remedy. However, such recommendations are often infeasible and oversimplistic given mounting evidence attesting to users’ growing reliance on technology in both their personal and professional lives. Building on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we construct a research model to explain how mobile application usage, as delineated by its breadth and depth, affects users’ nomophobia and sleep deprivation, which can have negative impacts on users’ health status. We also consider the moderating influence of physical activity in mitigating the effects of mobile application usage on users’ health. We validated our hypotheses via data collected by surveying 5,842 respondents. Empirical findings reveal that (1) nomophobia is positively influenced by mobile application usage breadth but negatively influenced by mobile application usage depth, (2) sleep deprivation is negatively influenced by mobile application usage breadth but positively influenced by mobile application usage depth, and (3) sleep deprivation and nomophobia negatively impact users’ health status, whereas (4) physical activity attenuates the impact of mobile application usage on sleep deprivation but not nomophobia. The findings from this study not only enrich the extant literature on the health outcomes of mobile application usage by unveiling the impact of mobile application usage patterns and physical activity on users’ health but they also inform practitioners on how calibrating usage breadth and depth, along with encouraging physical activity, can promote healthy habits among users.","PeriodicalId":51101,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Association for Information Systems","volume":"35 1","pages":"5"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89120942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}