The 10 most-cited articles in Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 2022

Conversational agents (CAs), described as software with which humans interact through natural language, have increasingly attracted interest in both academia and practice because of improved capabilities driven by advances in artificial intelligence and, specifically, natural language processing. CAs are used in contexts such as peoples private lives, education, and healthcare, as well as in organizations to innovate or automate tasks for example, in marketing, sales, or customer service. In addition to these application contexts, CAs take on different forms in terms of their embodiment, the communication mode, and their (often human-like) design. Despite their popularity, many CAs are unable to fulfill expectations, and fostering a positive user experience is challenging. To better understand how CAs can be designed to fulfill their intended purpose and how humans interact with them, a number of studies focusing on human-computer interaction have been carried out in recent years, which have contributed to our understanding of this technology. However, currently, a structured…

Over the past twenty years, the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) has gained prominence in the IS field as a theoretical perspective from which to explain competitive advantage in turbulent environments. While there are quite a few review studies of dynamic capabilities (DCs) in the strategic management domain, research on DCs in the IS area has not been synthesized nor critically analyzed. The result is that the role that IT plays in the DCV remains largely ambiguous, and the way we think and conduct IS research on DCs is unquestioned. Addressing this, we conducted a critical review of DCs in IS research based on 136 papers. Our review provides a synthesis of contemporary knowledge on DCs that emphasizes the role of IT in this research, and a critical analysis of the assumptions underlying this literature. In addition, we develop a minimum DC definition for future research as a solution to the conceptual issues that we uncovered via the critical analysis. We further leverage the remaining findings of our critical review by providing a detailed research agenda for future…

Information security is one of the important domains of information systems research today, with protection motivation theory (PMT) one of its most influential theoretical lenses. However, empirical findings based on PMT are often inconsistent and inconclusive. To reconcile these inconsistent findings, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the relationships among PMT constructs while also considering additional contextual constructs that are not specified in PMT. Ninety-two published studies were meta-analyzed and estimated using structural equation modeling. Our results provide support for three of the five predictors of security motivation intention, as postulated by PMT, mixed support for perceived vulnerability, and no support for response cost. We found that coping appraisal variables of response efficacy and self-efficacy have the largest average effects on security behavior. In addition, cultural attributes of collectivism and individualism moderated some of the pairwise correlations, PMT-theoretic relationships were generally stronger in personal contexts than in…

It goes without saying that digital technologies have been forming an increasingly crucial component of companies’ value offerings in recent times. In many industries, this trend has led to converging markets, where traditional firms compete and collaborate with software firms and digital startups. One central competitive factor in these markets is the ability to capitalize on digital options faster than the competition. Prior research on agility in this context has advanced our knowledge on managerial and employee behaviors, as well as structures supporting such behaviors, to enable agility both in traditional and software firms. The challenge for firms in digitally converging markets is that agility now requires a combination of organizational and IS development agility—perceiving these concepts as separate entities is no longer appropriate or instructive. Building on prior work on agile behaviors and structures, and published cases on digital firms, we develop an integrative conception of digital agility in line with the realities of the digital era.

Much information systems research on data science treats data as preexisting objects and focuses on how these objects are analyzed. Such a view, however, overlooks the work involved in finding and preparing the data in the first place, such that they are available to be analyzed. In this paper, we draw on a longitudinal study of data management in the oil and gas industry to shed light on this backroom data work. We find that this type of work is qualitatively different from the front-stage data analytics in the realm of data science but is also deeply interwoven with it. We show that this work is unstable and bidirectional. That is, the work practices are constantly changing and must simultaneously take into account what data might be possible to access as well as the potential future uses of the data. It is also a collaborative endeavor involving cross-disciplinary expertise that seeks to establish control over data and is shaped by the epistemological orientation of the oil and gas domain.

Incumbent companies across industries such as banking, insurance, and enterprise software have begun transforming their existing product platform ecosystems into innovation platforms ecosystems to increase generativity in their ecosystems. Such ecosystem transformations not only entail technological challenges as the underlying platform technology changes but also organizational challenges in that ecosystem actors such as partners and customers need to become part of the transformed ecosystem. To study how incumbent companies can govern ecosystem transformations successfully, we interpret ecosystems as organizational fields and ecosystem transformations as changes to the fields’ institutional infrastructure. Based on a multiyear, grounded theory study of the transformation of SAP’s on-premises ERP system, we first identify institutionalization challenges that arise when institutional infrastructure is changed during an ecosystem transformation. We then show how field-level governance mechanisms address these challenges and how the new institutional infrastructure gains legitimacy…

Although there is a growing understanding of theory building in the information systems (IS) field, what constitutes IS theory remains the subject of intense debate. Following Weick recommendation to focus on the products of theorizing rather than on what theories are, we assemble and analyze 12 products (question, paradigm, law, framework, myth, analogy, metaphor, model, concept, construct, statement, and hypothesis) that are rarely discussed together in any depth in the IS field and combine them into a coherent theorizing framework. Drawing on Foucault thesis of discursive formation we characterize the unique role of each product in IS theorizing and illustrate the usefulness of the framework in relation to both classical IS theorizing in the form of media richness theory as well as next-generation theorizing.

There are both formal and informal cries that UTAUT and, by association, the stream of research on technology adoption has reached its limit, with little or no opportunities for new knowledge creation. Such a conclusion is ironic because the theory has not been sufficiently and suitably replicated. It is possible that misspecifications in the various replications, applications, and extensions have led to the incorrect conclusion that UTAUT is more robust than it really is, leaving limited opportunities for future work. Although work on UTAUT has included important variables, predictors, and moderators, absent a faithful use of the original specification, it is impossible to assess the true nature of the effects of the original and additional variables. The present meta-analysis uses 25,619 effect sizes reported by 737,112 users in 1,935 independent samples to address this issue. Consequently, we develop a clear current state-of-the-art and revised UTAUT that extends the original theory with new endogenous mechanisms from different, other theories (i.e., technology compatibility,…

Algorithmic decision-making systems (ADMS) are increasingly being used by public and private organizations to enact decisions traditionally made by human beings across a broad range of domains, including business, law enforcement, education, and healthcare. Their growing prevalence engenders profound ethical challenges, which, we maintain, should be examined in a structured and theoretically informed fashion. However, much of the ethical exploration of ADMS within the IS field draws upon an atheoretical application of ethics. In this paper, we argue that the “big three” ethical theories of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics can inform a structured comparative analysis of the ethical significance of ADMS. We demonstrate the value of such an approach through an illustrative case study of an ADMS in use by an Australian bank. Building upon this analysis, we address four characteristics of ADMS from the three theoretical perspectives, provide guidance on the contexts within which the application of each theory might be particularly fruitful, and highlight the advantages of…

Blue-collar remote and mobile workers (BC-RMWs) such as repair/installation engineers, delivery drivers, and construction workers, constitute a significant share of the workforce. They work away from a home or office work base at customer and remote work sites and are highly dependent on ICT for completing their work tasks. Low occupational well-being is a key concern regarding BC-RMWs. The objective of this research is to understand how BC-RMWs can use information and communication technology (ICT) to elevate their occupational well-being. Drawing from the job demands-job resources theoretical framework in occupational psychology, we theorize that the distinctive work characteristics faced by BC-RMWs can be viewed in the conceptual framing of job demands. We conceptualize BC-RMWs’ practices of ICT use as possible ways to gather resources to tackle these demands. We conducted a study of 28 BC-RMWs employed in two private sector firms (telecom service provision and construction industries) in the UK across 14 remote work sites. Based on our findings, we developed the concept of…