The 10 most-cited articles in Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 2016

The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) is a little over a decade old and has been used extensively in information systems (IS) and other fields, as the large number of citations to the original paper that introduced the theory evidences. In this paper, we review and synthesize the IS literature on UTAUT from September 2003 until December 2014, perform a theoretical analysis of UTAUT and its extensions, and chart an agenda for research going forward. Based on Weber’s (2012) framework of theory evaluation, we examined UTAUT and its extensions along two sets of quality dimensions; namely, the parts of a theory and the theory as a whole. While our review identifies many merits to UTAUT, we also found that the progress related to this theory has hampered further theoretical development in research into technology acceptance and use. To chart an agenda for research that will enable significant future work, we analyze the theoretical contributions of UTAUT using Whetten’s (2009) notion of cross-context theorizing. Our analysis reveals several limitations that lead…

In this paper, we extend the guidelines of Venkatesh et al. (2013) for mixed-methods research by identifying and integrating variations in mixed-methods research. By considering 14 properties of mixed-methods research (e.g., purposes, research questions, epistemological assumptions), our guidelines demonstrate how researchers can flexibly identify the existing variations in mixed-methods research and proceed accordingly with a study design that suits their needs. To make the guidelines actionable for various situations and issues that researchers could encounter, we develop a decision tree to map the flow and relationship among the design strategies. We also illustrate one possible type of mixed-methods research in information systems in depth and discuss how to develop and validate meta-inferences as the outcomes of such a study.

Business digitalization is changing the competitive landscape in many industries. Digitally savvy customers are demanding more while threats of digital disruptions from new entrants are rising. This article describes how DBS, a large Asian bank, responded to digital threats and opportunities by adopting a digital business strategy. It identifiesthe capabilities needed and provides lessons for organizations aspiring to pursue a successful digital business strategy.Click here for podcast summary (mp3)Click here for free 2-page executive summary (pdf)Click here for free presentation slides (pptx)

Agile software-development advocates claim that an important value proposition of agile methods is that they make people more motivated and satisfied with their jobs. While several studies present anecdotal evidence that agile methods increase motivation and satisfaction, research has not theoretically explained or empirically examined how agile development practices relate to team members’ feelings about their work. Drawing on the management and software-development literature, we articulate a model of job design that connects agile development practices to perceptions of job characteristics and, thereby, improve agile team members’ job satisfaction. Using data collected from 252 software-development professionals, we tested the model and found a positive relationship between agile project-management and software-development practices and employees’ perceptions of job characteristics. Further, we found direct effects between agile development-practice use and job satisfaction. Finally, we found interaction effects between the use of agile project-management and software-development…

Advancements in Internet and digital technologies have enabled a new work form of open sourcing, which we refer to as the crowdsourcing work environment (CSWE).This new form of work has the potential to disrupt and transform the nature of traditional work.However, our understanding of this new work form is still in its incipient stage.To enhance our understanding, this study captures crowdworkers' perceptions to explore the characteristics of the crowdworkers, crowdsourcing jobs, and the crowdwork environment that collectively drive the crowdworkers to participate in open source work.Guided by the job characteristic theory and work value perspectives, we used the revealed causal mapping method to analyze narratives by 55 crowdworkers registered on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk).Our data analysis uncovered nine main constructs, 22 key concepts, and 815 causal-effect linkages surrounding CSWE that could guide our theoretical understanding of this emerging phenomenon.Individual needs and the crowdwork context emerged as the major factors motivating individuals' initial participation in…

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of current research in IS on the design and govern-ance of platform ecosystems. To this end, we conduct a literature review of relevant journals and con-ferences. We show that platform ecosystems have been analysed from two different perspectives: tech-nology- and market-oriented. Thereby, most studies take on the viewpoint of the platform owner. Fur-thermore, we summarize key concepts on the design and governance of platform ecosystems that have been discussed in literature. As most relevant concepts we identify the definition of roles, pricing, boundary resources and openness. Based on this analysis, we derive issues for future research: the integration of market- and technology-oriented perspectives, an individual level of analysis to include complementors and end-users and the role of data as boundary resource in platform ecosystems. This paper contributes to the understanding of platform ecosystems in IS literature by structuring existing research with regard to different perspectives and concepts and by providing starting points…

In this study, we examine consumers’ cultural background as an antecedent of online review characteristics. We theoretically propose and empirically examine the effect of cultural background (specifically individualism (versus collectivism)) on consumers’ tendency to conform to prior opinion and review texts’ emotionality. We also examine how conformity and emotionality relate to review helpfulness. We test our hypotheses using a unique dataset that combines online restaurant reviews from TripAdvisor with measures of individualism/collectivism values. We found that consumers from a collectivist culture were less likely to deviate from the average prior rating and to express emotion in their reviews. Moreover, individuals perceived those reviews that exhibited high conformity and intense emotions to be less helpful. We also present several important implications for managing online review platforms in light of these findings, which reflect the previously unidentified drivers of systematic differences in the characteristics of online reviews.

Mindfulness is an important emerging concept in society. This research posits that a user’s mindful state when adopting a technology is a crucial factor that determines how the technology will fit the task context at the post-adoption stage and, thus, has profound influence on user adoption and continued use of technology. Based on the mindfulness literature, we conceive of a new concept (mindfulness of technology adoption (MTA)) as a multi-faceted reflective high-order factor. We develop a MTA-TTF (task-technology fit) framework and integrate it into the cognitive change model to develop a research model that delineates the mechanisms through which MTA influences user adoption and continued use of technology. We examined the model via a longitudinal study of students’ use of wiki systems. The results suggest that mindful adopters will more likely perceive a technology as useful and choose a technology that turns out to fit their tasks. Hence, mindful adopters are likely to have high disconfirmation, perceived usefulness, and satisfaction at the post-adoption stage. The findings…

An increasing number of firms are responding to new opportunities and risks originating from digital technologies by introducing company-wide digital transformation strategies as a means to systematically address their digital transformation. Yet, what processes and strategizing activities affect the formation of digital transformation strategies in organizations are not well understood. We adopt a phenomenon-based approach and investigate the formation of digital transformation strategies in organizations from a process perspective. Drawing on an activity-based process model that links Mintzberg’s strategy typology with the concept of IS strategizing, we conduct a multiple-case study at three European car manufacturers. Our results indicate that digital transformation strategies are predominantly shaped by a diversity of emergent strategizing activities of separate organizational sub-communities through a bottom-up process and prior to the initiation of a holistic digital transformation strategy by top management. As a result, top management’s deliberate strategies seek to…

This study examines overconfidence in phishing email detection. Researchers believe that overconfidence (i.e., where one’s judgmental confidence exceeds one’s actual performance in decision making) can lead to one’s adopting risky behavior in uncertain situations. This study focuses on what leads to overconfidence in phishing detection. We performed a survey experiment with 600 subjects to collect empirical data for the study. In the experiment, each subject judged a set of randomly selected phishing emails and authentic business emails. Specifically, we examined two metrics of overconfidence (i.e., overprecision and overestimation). Results show that cognitive effort decreased overconfidence, while variability in attention allocation, dispositional optimism, and familiarity with the business entities in the emails all increased overconfidence in phishing email detection. The effect of perceived self-efficacy of detecting phishing emails on overconfidence was marginal. In addition, all confidence beliefs poorly predicted detection accuracy and poorly explained its variance, which…