Business Commons^™

A Work System Perspective On Adoption Entities, Adoption Processes, And Post-Adoption Compliance And Noncompliance, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This conceptual contribution responds to the invitation to the DIGIT 2015 Call for Papers “to reflect on and move forward from the dominant stream of research work on technology acceptance.” The dominant stream of research is basically about antecedents and correlates of adoption and continuation of use for hardware/software artifacts. This paper uses work system theory and several of its extensions to identify directions for adoption research that have been realized partially, but not nearly to the extent possible. It focuses on three general issues:

1) what adoption means in the context of work systems,

2) how adoption occurs, and …

Five Seemingly Insurmountable Challenges Related To Attaining Long-Term Value From Theorizing About Information Systems, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Recent articles such as Avison and Malaurent (2014) and Grover and Lyytinen (2015) question taken-for-granted assumptions about the centrality of theory in research published in leading journals and the near necessity of following repetitive scripts that sometimes are an obstacle to creativity. This paper goes a step further by providing examples and observations that illustrate five seemingly insurmountable challenges related to attaining long-term value from theorizing about information systems.

1) Divergent definitions of basic terms makes it extremely difficult to accumulate IS knowledge.

2) The IS discipline seems to take for granted that knowledge must take the form of theory. …

Using A Work System Metamodel And Usdl To Build A Bridge Between Business Service Systems And Service Computing, Steven Alter, Alistair Barros

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This paper explores the support for more comprehensive modeling of service systems than that possible through modeling methods developed through partial perspectives, with uncertainties about their wider suitability and need for integration with other methods in this domain. It responds to a Dual Call for Papers from INFORMS Service Science and IEEE Transactions on Service Computing requesting contributions that address the barely explored challenge of establishing links between business views of service systems and more technical views from service computing. Competing definitions of service reveal that most business views of service emphasize acts or outcomes produced for others, whereas a …

Beneficial Noncompliance And Detrimental Compliance: Expected Paths To Unintended Consequences, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This paper explores the possibility that compliance and noncompliance to process specifications, software usage procedures, business rules, and best practices could be beneficial or detrimental. After introducing different types of compliance and noncompliance, it uses a simple 2 x 2 matrix to postulate four types of situations: beneficial compliance, detrimental compliance, beneficial noncompliance, and detrimental noncompliance. It provides examples that illustrate subcategories within all four possibilities, thereby bringing into question the common assumption that compliance is beneficial and noncompliance is detrimental. It presents a model that explains decisions related to intentions toward compliance and noncompliance. It concludes with implications for …

Overcoming Silo Thinking In The Is Discipline By Thinking Differently About Is And It, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This essay challenges fundamental, silo-oriented assumptions about the IS discipline. It shows how work system theory and its extensions form a potential basis for overcoming that silo-orientation and finding and exploiting areas of overlap with other disciplines. Within the IS discipline, this paper shows how WST and extensions provide a basis for thinking differently about fundamental topics including the following: IS as a system-related discipline, system usage, sociotechnical systems, planned and emergent change in systems, system development and systems analysis and design, user participation and IS/IT projects, attaining value from IS and IT, IS success, business/IT alignment, and IS theories …

Sociotechnical Systems Through A Work System Lens :A Possible Path For Reconciling System Conceptualizations, Business Realities, And Humanist Values In Is Development, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This position paper describes an approach that might increase the likelihood that the sociotechnical perspective will take its proper place in today’s world. This paper questions the clarity of the traditional STS notion of joint optimization of a social system and technical system. It explains how the integrated system view in work system theory (WST) and the work system method (WSM) might provide a more straightforward way to describe, discuss, and negotiate about sociotechnical systems. Using WST/WSM to bypass the effort of separately describing and jointly optimizing social and technical systems might make it easier to engage effectively in discussions …

A Workaround Design System For Anticipating, Designing, And/Or Preventing Workarounds, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Idealized system design produces requirements reflecting management intentions and “best practices.” This paper proposes a workaround design system (WDS) for anticipating, designing, and/or preventing workarounds that bypass systems as designed. A WDS includes a process and an interactive “workaround design tool” (WDT) for identifying and evaluating foreseeable workarounds based on work system theory and a theory of workarounds. This paper summarizes the conceptual background and explains the form, use, and implications of the proposed WDS and WDT.

The idea of WDS addresses significant gaps in practice and research. Designers should have methods for identifying likely obstacles and anticipating and evaluating …

Digital Or Printed Textbooks: Which Do Students Prefer And Why?, Michelle Millar, Thomas R. Schrier

Hospitality Management

Despite the fact the many textbook publishers offer several of their titles in digital format, the sale of e-textbooks have been less than stellar. This study investigates factors in the adoption of e-textbooks. Specifically, it examines students’ preferences toward printed versus electronic textbooks, and why they prefer one to the other. In general, students still prefer printed textbooks to electronic textbooks. The primary reason for their preference was because the students simply prefer print to digital. This study helps both textbook publishers and educators to better understand the reasons for e-textbook adoption and help determine ways to communicate the benefits …

Striving For Research Impact: The Peculiar Case Of The Ais Bright Ict Initiative, Jonathan P. Allen

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Strategy

The debate over the real-world impact of research continues in many applied disciplines, including ICT research. We propose that concepts from social informatics can be used to analyze and critique the visions put forward by ICT- based professional societies that are striving for more impactful and pro-social research. Using the recent case of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) ‘Bright ICT Initiative’, we seek to understand how a general desire for more social benefit and research impact translates into a specific problem definition (cybersecurity), and further translates into specific solutions (new internet protocols, a new global governance center). The analysis …

Information Systems Entrepreneurship: Building Interest In Technology Through An Online Business Course For Undergraduates, Mbas, And Executives, Jonathan P. Allen, Ryan Wright

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Strategy

This document describes the use of online business as an innovative tool for Information Systems and Entrepreneurship education. The nomination contained in this document was awarded the 2014 Innovation in Teaching Award by the Association for Information Systems. The document describes six unique and innovative features of the online business coursework, and provides evidence of educational effectiveness. A detailed list of course topics and learning objectives is included.

Information Systems, Dominant Paradigms, And Emerging Concepts: A Community Clustering Analysis Of The Highest Impact Topics In Information Systems Research, Jonathan P. Allen

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Strategy

We provide a preliminary analysis of how diverse IS research has been, based on the research topics that have had the highest impact, as measured by academic citations. Does IS have a dominant paradigm? Our analysis argues that the impact of IS research has been dominated by a single research paradigm, which we label as ‘IS acceptance’. When this analysis is repeated for the most recent decade, the highest impact topics are still dominated by ‘IS acceptance’, but are joined by three new topics, ‘IS and design’, ‘IS and strategy’, and ‘IS and expertise’. Our analysis maps the intellectual structure …

A Process Model Of Sport Fan Detachment, L. Martin, Michael M. Goldman

Sport Management

Within the field of sport marketing, scholarship to date has predominantly focused on the drivers of fan loyalty and allegiance, and the motivational aspects of fan behavior, at the expense of understanding the deterioration of the relationship between the sport consumer and sport team. Previous customer-brand relationship literature was integrated to propose and test a model of sport fan detachment. A qualitative study of lapsed season ticket holders was conducted to gain a deep understanding of the fan’s individual lived experience. The findings contribute a four-part sequential process of a breakdown trigger, iterative decline, disengagement incident, and exit phase, to …

Is The Grass Greener? Switching Costs And Geographic Proximity In The High Status Affiliations Of Professional Baseball, Nola Agha, J Cobbs

Sport Management

Professional baseball operates a tiered system of talent development facilitated by alliances between Minor League Baseball (MiLB) clubs and higher status Major League Baseball (MLB) parent teams. This study applies management theory to advance the literature on MiLB demand modeling by proposing and testing a new set of demand determinants based on interorganizational alliance principles. Team executives at the AA level should be alert to the high cost of switching team alliances and of changing to a parent club in closer geographical proximity. At the AAA level, affiliation with a winning MLB club exerts a positive effect on AAA demand.

A Compensating Differential Approach To Valuing The Social Benefit Of Minor League Baseball, Nola Agha, Dennis Coates

Sport Management

This research utilizes a compensating differential framework to measure the social benefits of minor league baseball teams. Consistent with findings at the major league level, individual housing observations from 138 metropolitan areas between 1993 and 2005 show that affiliated teams are associated with a significant 5.7% increase in rents in mid-sized markets ranging from 0.4 to 1.4 million people. On the other hand, independent teams and stadiums are associated with insignificant effects on rents. The positive effect of affiliated minor league teams suggests they are a valuable urban amenity that can contribute to local quality of life.

A Theoretical Comparison Of The Economic Impact Of Large And Small Events, Nola Agha, M Taks

Sport Management

In response to the increasing debate on the relative worth of small events compared to large events, we create a theoretical model to determine whether smaller events are more likely to create positive economic impact. First, event size and city size are redefined as continuums of resources. The concepts of event resource demand (ERD) and city resource supply (CRS) are introduced, allowing for a joint analysis of supply and demand. When local economic conditions are brought into the analysis, the framework determines how a city resource deficiency or surplus affects the economic impact of an event. This resource-based approach assists …

Tracking The Dollars: How Economic Impact Studies Can Actually Benefit Managerial Decision Making, Daniel A. Rascher, Michael M. Goldman

Sport Management

Almost every month brings another attention-grabbing headline about a city or country considering a bid for a major sporting or entertainment event. Politicians, business executives, and excited fans weigh in about the possible costs and benefits, with limited numbers provided about the possible economic impact, and even less said about how these numbers were calculated. Most recently, LeBron James’ return to Cleveland was estimated by Bloomberg to boost the city’s economy by $215 million annually, while Cuyahoga County’s projections were more than double this number. A concert of Jay-Z and Beyonce in Baltimore in 2013 was estimated by the local …

Risk Decomposition For Fund Managers, Matthew Dixon

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This paper describes a methodology extension for decomposing non-linear portfolio risk by fund manager which we refer to as "Manager Component Value-at-Risk". The approach is well suited to funds holding any asset class or instrument type including derivatives. This decomposition approach is additive and fully captures the correlations between instrument returns and thus is well suited for decomposing risk by manager. We provide an example from a representative CTA portfolio that demonstrates superiority of the decomposition approach over other common practices for risk decomposition. The core methodology is implemented in R and made available to readers.

How Should Business Informatics Integrate Service, Process, Work System, And Enterprise Orientations?, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Current research related to the subject matter of business informatics reflects divergent orientations that are fundamentally about representing, analyzing, and designing services or processes or work systems or enterprises. After summarizing those four orientations and citing typical exemplars, this paper identifies a variety of paths toward greater integration between different orientations within business informatics. It identifies central topics for each orientation along with areas in which each orientation provides ideas that complement other orientations and reveal possible synergies. Both the approach for identifying potential synergies and the proposed synergies themselves could encourage greater integration within business informatics.

The Concept Of “It Artifact” Has Outlived Its Usefulness And Should Be Retired Now, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Vastly inconsistent definitions of the term “the IT artifact” in leading journals and conferences demonstrate why it no longer means anything in particular and should be retired from the active IS lexicon. Examples from the literature show why artifact-cousins, such as the IS artifact, sociotechnical artifact, social artifact, and ensemble artifact should be used with great care, if not retired as well. Any void created by these retirements could be filled through the following approaches: 1) relabeling with simple terms that are immediately understandable, 2) adopting guidelines for making sense of the whole X-artifact family, and 3) sidestepping the IT …

Work System Theory As A Platform: Response To A Research Perspective Article By Niederman And March, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This article responds to “Taking the Work System Theory Forward” (Niederman and March, 2014), a JAIS research perspective article about an article on work system theory (Alter, 2013e). The research perspective article recognizes value in the work system approach, suggests that WST is not a proper theory, and suggests areas for related theory development.

After summarizing the main ideas in WST, this article explains disagreements between Niederman and March (2014) and Alter (2013e), hereafter called N&M and the WST article, regarding what WST is and what WST should become. It notes that N&M interprets basic ideas in WST differently than …

Connecting People And Ideas From Around The World: Global Innovation Platforms For Next-Generation Ecology And Beyond, P. Søgaard Jørgensen, F. Barraquand, V. Bonhomme, T. J. Curran, E. Cieraad, T. G. Ezard, L. Gherardi, R. A. Hayes, T. Poisot, R. Salguero-Gómez, Lucía Desoto, B. Swartz, J. M. Talbot, B. Wee, Naupaka B. Zimmerman

Biology Faculty Publications

We present a case for using Global Community Innovation Platforms (GCIPs), an approach to improve innovation and knowledge exchange in international scientific communities through a common and open online infrastructure. We highlight the value of GCIPs by focusing on recent efforts targeting the ecological sciences, where GCIPs are of high relevance given the urgent need for interdisciplinary, geographical, and cross-sector collaboration to cope with growing challenges to the environment as well as the scientific community itself. Amidst the emergence of new international institutions, organizations, and meetings, GCIPs provide a stable international infrastructure for rapid and long-term coordination that can be …