A profile of information systems research published in Information & Management

Information & Management (I&M) has been consistently regarded as one of the top academic journals in information systems (IS). In a spirit of introspection, this article profiles research published in I&M: we identified the most productive authors and universities associated with most research publications in I&M during the past 13 years (1992–2005). Based on a more detailed analysis of publications during the past 7 years, we determined the subject areas most often investigated and the research methodologies most often employed. Finally, we identified best practices by way of reporting the topics and methodologies used by the highly published authors. Our results indicate that while IS research is clearly dominated by US based universities, international researchers are beginning to make inroads. Furthermore, while the survey methodology is still dominant, interest in utilizing other methodologies is on the rise. Our findings should have implications for researchers, journal editors, universities, and research institutions.     

Profiling a decade of Information Systems Frontiers’ research

This article analyses the first 10 years of research published in the Information Systems Frontiers (ISF) from 1999 to 2008. The analysis of the published material includes examining variables such as most productive authors, citation analysis, universities associated with the most publications, geographic diversity, authors’ backgrounds and research methods. The keyword analysis suggests that ISF research has evolved from establishing concepts and domain of information systems (IS), technology and management to contemporary issues such as outsourcing, web services and security. The analysis presented in this paper has identified intellectually significant studies that have contributed to the development and accumulation of intellectual wealth of ISF. The analysis has also identified authors published in other journals whose work largely shaped and guided the researchers published in ISF. This research has implications for researchers, journal editors, and research institutions.

Splitting methods for decision tree induction: An exploration of the relative performance of two entropy-based families

Decision tree (DT) induction is among the more popular of the data mining techniques. An important component of DT induction algorithms is the splitting method, with the most commonly used method being based on the Conditional Entropy (CE) family. However, it is well known that there is no single splitting method that will give the best performance for all problem instances. In this paper we explore the relative performance of the Conditional Entropy family and another family that is based on the Class-Attribute Mutual Information (CAMI) measure. Our results suggest that while some datasets are insensitive to the choice of splitting methods, other datasets are very sensitive to the choice of splitting methods. For example, some of the CAMI family methods may be more appropriate than the popular Gain Ratio (GR) method for datasets which have nominal predictor attributes, and are competitive with the GR method for those datasets where all predictor attributes are numeric. Given that it is never known beforehand which splitting method will lead to the best DT for a given dataset, and given the relatively good performance of the CAMI methods, it seems appropriate to suggest that splitting methods from the CAMI family should be included in data mining toolsets. Kweku-Mauta Osei-Bryson is Professor of Information Systems at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he also served as the Coordinator of the Ph.D. program in Information Systems during 2001–2003. Previously he was Professor of Information Systems and Decision Analysis in the School of Business at Howard University, Washington, DC, U.S.A. He has also worked as an Information Systems practitioner in both industry and government. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Management Science & Information Systems) from the University of Maryland at College Park, a M.S. in Systems Engineering from Howard University, and a B.Sc. in Natural Sciences from the University of the West Indies at Mona. He currently does research in various areas including: Data Mining, Expert Systems, Decision Support Systems, Group Support Systems, Information Systems Outsourcing, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. His papers have been published in various journals including: Information & Management, Information Systems Journal, Information Systems Frontiers, Business Process Management Journal, International Journal of Intelligent Systems, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge & Data Engineering, Data & Knowledge Engineering, Information & Software Technology, Decision Support Systems, Information Processing and Management, Computers & Operations Research, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Applications of Management Science. Currently he serves an Associate Editor of the INFORMS Journal on Computing, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Computers & Operations Research journal. Kendall E. Giles received the BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 1991, the MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1993, the MS degree in Information Systems from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2002, and the MS degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University in 2004. Currently he is a PhD student (ABD) in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins, and is a Research Assistant in the Applied Mathematics and Statistics department. He has over 15 years of work experience in industry, government, and academic institutions. His research interests can be partially summarized by the following keywords: network security, mathematical modeling, pattern classification, and high dimensional data analysis.     

Turnover intentions of Indian IS professionals

One of the major challenges facing the Indian IT services industry is the high rate of turnover among Indian IS professionals. Turnover rates have been reported as high as 100% annually. Despite the serious problem, we are unaware of any academic research that has studied the determinants of turnover among Indian IS professionals. We aim to contribute to the literature by understanding Turnover Intentions of Indian IS professionals. We developed an initial model of Turnover Intentions based on the IS and Organizational Behavior literatures. The most commonly identified determinants of Turnover Intentions in these literatures were Organizational Commitment (emotional attachment to an organization) and Job Satisfaction. However, the research that identified these determinants was primarily tested on Western workers. We assessed the applicability of this model by interviewing 25 Indian IS professionals. We found strong support that Job Satisfaction affects Turnover Intentions among Indian IS professionals. However, Organizational Commitment was found to be a troublesome construct. Many Indian participants did not relate to the concept of an emotional attachment to an organization. Instead, they talked in terms that better mapped to the construct Organizational Satisfaction. The interviews also uncovered another important determinant of Turnover Intention: Social Norms. Social Norms, as evidenced by significant family pressure to reside in the same city as the employee’s family, emerged as a major reason for Turnover Intentions. Our revised model identifies Job Satisfaction, Organizational Satisfaction, and Social Norms as the main determinants of Turnover Intentions among Indian IS Professionals. We also identify four implications for practice. The most worrisome implication for Western clients is that Indian IS professionals do not like performing routine IT maintenance work or merely programming from predefined specifications—the bulk of work sent offshore. Indian IS professionals preferred client-facing activities, design and development work.

Invited Viewpoint: How well does the Information Systems discipline fare in the Financial Times’ top 50 Journal list?

This paper investigates the performance of the Information Systems (IS) discipline as reflected in the scholarly impact of the three IS journals that are included in the Financial Times’ top 50 journals (FT50), the four IS journals in the top tiers of the Chartered Association of Business Schools’ Academic Journal Guide (CABS AJG), and the eight journals that comprise the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Senior Scholars' Basket of Journals (AIS Basket). Journal lists, when framed as a form of ‘strategic signaling’, are used to by institutions to communicate values and priorities to scholars. Through strategic signaling, journal lists are performative and have the potential to shape and constrain research activity. Given the strategic and performative role of journal lists, it is important that the journals that constitute those lists have substantial impact. To measure the scholarly impact of journals we propose a new measure, the HMJ index, which comprises an equally-weighted combination of journal H-index, median citations per article, and Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Using the HMJ index, the results show that all eight AIS Basket journals are performing at a level that is commensurate with the other journals that make up the FT50. The results further show substantial differences between the FT50 journals, such as the number of articles published per annum. Implications for IS scholars, IS groups, and the IS discipline are identified, together with recommendations for action.     

Re-examining the causal structure of information technology impact research

About 20 years ago, Markus and Robey noted that most research on IT impacts had been guided by deterministic perspectives and had neglected to use an emergent perspective, which could account for contradictory findings. They further observed that most research in this area had been carried out using variance theories at the expense of process theories. Finally, they suggested that more emphasis on multilevel theory building would likely improve empirical reliability. In this paper, we reiterate the observations and suggestions made by Markus and Robey on the causal structure of IT impact theories and carry out an analysis of empirical research published in four major IS journals, Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ), Information Systems Research (ISR), the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS), and Information and Organization (I&O), to assess compliance with those recommendations. Our final sample consisted of 161 theory-driven articles, accounting for approximately 21% of all the empirical articles published in these journals. Our results first reveal that 91% of the studies in MISQ, ISR, and EJIS focused on deterministic theories, while 63% of those in I&O adopted an emergent perspective. Furthermore, 91% of the articles in MISQ, ISR, and EJIS adopted a variance model; this compares with 71% from I&O that applied a process model. Lastly, mixed levels of analysis were found in 14% of all the surveyed articles. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Strategic dependence on the IT resource and outsourcing: A test of the strategic control model

Using resource dependency theory (RDT), this research analyzes how organizations control their information technology resources to improve organizational performance. According to RDT, organizations must manage their dependency on external organizations and limit external dependencies when resources are considered critical. The current study proposes and tests a portion of a Strategic Control Model positing that managers seek to control important, strategic resources in order to create value for the firm and to avoid dependency on external entities. Utilizing a research design that captured extensive quantitative data on the control of IT functions and services, the research team gathered 5 years of data on 54 business units (BUs) in 27 global companies located in seven countries. Study examined the linkages of these 54 BUs to firm performance. Locating the Extent of Control within the firm in cases where the firm depends on IT as a strategic resource proves to be a good explanation for effective decisions leading to higher performance. Viewing IT as a strategic resource alone does not lead to positive business unit outcomes, but the moderating influence of Extent of Control is found to establish the complex statistical relationship with business unit performance. For these reasons, it is critical that a theoretically grounded firm-wide process for decisions on locating IT control is in place to capture business value.

Auto-generation of IEC standard PLC code using t-MPSG

The objective of this paper is to reduce the development time of a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) by automating the task of code generation. For this purpose, we applied t-MPSG (Timed-Message Based Part State Graph). The t-MPSG is an extended finite state automata used to model and generate an execution module for a real-time shop floor controller system. In our proposed method, t-MPSG is used to model the formal specification of the controller system that can be translated into textual structure. After the verification of the t-MPSG model, it can be used as an input to the plc-builder tool. The plc-builder tool is an extended version of a conventional MPSG simulator. It can be used to translate the textual structure of the t-MPSG into an IEC standard PLC code. Finally, the generated code can be downloaded to a PLC emulator or a PLC device for the purpose of simulation and execution. The similarity in the hierarchical structure of the t-MPSG and the IEC standard PLC program has made it convenient to transform from one form to another. Furthermore, an illustration of the methodology to auto-generate IEC standard PLC code using t-MPSG is explained with a suitable example. Recommended by Editorial Board member Young Soo Suh under the direction of Editor Jae Weon Choi. This work was partially supported by Defense Acquisition Program Administration and Agency for Defense Development under the contract (UD080042AD). Devinder Thapa is a Postdoc Research Fellow in the Department of Industrial & information systems at Ajou University, Korea. He completed his Ph.D. from Ajou University in Industrial and Information Systems Engineering. His area of research is related to manufacturing automation and intelligent decision support systems. Chang Mok Park is a Professor in the Department of Technology & Systems Management at Induk Institute of Technology. He completed his Ph.D. in 2002 from Ajou University in Industrial Engineering. His research interest is related to manufacturing optimization, discrete event system simulation and signal analysis. Sang C. Park is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial & Information Systems Engineering at Ajou University. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from KAIST in 1994, 1996, and 2000, respectively, all in Industrial Engineering. His research interests include geometric algorithms in CAD/CAM, process planning, engineering knowledge management, and discrete event system simulation. Gi-Nam Wang is the Head and a Professor in the Department of Industrial & Information Systems Engineering at Ajou University, Korea. He completed his Ph.D. in 1992 from Texas A&M University, in Industrial Engineering. He has worked as Visiting Professor at University of Texas at Austin during 2000–2001. His area of research is related to Intelligent Information & manufacturing systems, system integration & automation, e-Business solutions and image processing.     

Information Systems Use: Construct conceptualization and scale development

Information Systems Use (ISU) is an essential part of the human behaviors in utilizing computers in organizations. The construct has been widely used to measure IS adoption or IS success. However, few studies attempt to understand ISU in a job and organizational setting where employees use various types of IS for different tasks. To better understand ISU, it is necessary to contextualize the construct in users’ overall work related activities. We classified the overall IS/IT use in an organization into three different types of IS; Information Reporting Systems (IRSs), Decision Support Systems (DSSs), and Group Support System (GSSs). Based on this classification, we developed four items for each type of ISU behaviors. The resulting ISU instrument was tested using a dataset of 231 responses collected in a survey. Both exploratory factor analysis and PLS are employed to successfully establish reliability, convergent/discriminate validity, and predictive validity. The contribution of this research is to provide better and more robust measurements for the ISU construct, which should help to lay a firmer foundation for further research on IS success.     

Relaxed stability condition and state feedback H ∞ controller design for T-S fuzzy systems

In this paper, a fuzzy Lyapunov approach is presented for stability analysis and state feedback H _∞ controller design for T-S fuzzy systems. A new stability condition is obtained by relaxing the ones derived in previous papers. Then, a set of LMI-based sufficient conditions which can guarantee the existence of state feedback H _∞ controller for T-S fuzzy systems is proposed. In comparison with the existing literature, the proposed approach not only provides more relaxed stability conditions but also ensures better H _∞ performance. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown through two numerical examples. Recommended by Editor Young-Hoon Joo. Xiao-Heng Chang received the B.E. and M.S. degrees from Liaoning Technical University, China, in 1998 and 2004, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Northeastern University, China, in 2007. He is currently a Lecturer in the School of Information Science and Engineering, Bohai University, China. His research interests include fuzzy control and robust control as well as their applications. Guang-Hong Yang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Northeast University of Technology, China, in 1983 and 1986, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Control Engineering from Northeastern University, China (formerly, Northeast University of Technology), in 1994. He was a Lecturer/Associate Professor with Northeastern University from 1986 to 1995. He joined the Nanyang Technological University in 1996 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. From 2001 to 2005, he was a Research Scientist/Senior Research Scientist with the National University of Singapore. He is currently a Professor at the College of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University. His current research interests include fault-tolerant control, fault detection and isolation, nonfragile control systems design, and robust control. Dr. Yang is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems (IJCAS), and an Associate Editor of the Conference Editorial Board of the IEEE Control Systems Society.     

Privacy preservation for data cubes

A range query finds the aggregated values over all selected cells of an online analytical processing (OLAP) data cube where the selection is specified by the ranges of contiguous values for each dimension. An important issue in reality is how to preserve the confidential information in individual data cells while still providing an accurate estimation of the original aggregated values for range queries. In this paper, we propose an effective solution, called the zero-sum method, to this problem. We derive theoretical formulas to analyse the performance of our method. Empirical experiments are also carried out by using analytical processing benchmark (APB) dataset from the OLAP Council. Various parameters, such as the privacy factor and the accuracy factor, have been considered and tested in the experiments. Finally, our experimental results show that there is a trade-off between privacy preservation and range query accuracy, and the zero-sum method has fulfilled three design goals: security, accuracy, and accessibility. Sam Y. Sung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, School of Computing, National University of Singapore. He received a B.Sc. from the National Taiwan University in 1973, the M.Sc. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Minnesota in 1977 and 1983, respectively. He was with the University of Oklahoma and University of Memphis in the United States before joining the National University of Singapore. His research interests include information retrieval, data mining, pictorial databases and mobile computing. He has published more than 80 papers in various conferences and journals, including IEEE Transaction on Software Engineering, IEEE Transaction on Knowledge & Data Engineering, etc. Yao Liu received the B.E. degree in computer science and technology from Peking University in 1996 and the MS. degree from the Software Institute of the Chinese Science Academy in 1999. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include data warehousing, database security, data mining and high-speed networking. Hui Xiong received the B.E. degree in Automation from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China, in 1995, the M.S. degree in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, in 2000, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, in 2005. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems in the Management Science & Information Systems Department at Rutgers University, NJ, USA. His research interests include data mining, databases, and statistical computing with applications in bioinformatics, database security, and self-managing systems. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM. Peter A. Ng is currently the Chairperson and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas—Pan American. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas–Austin in 1974. Previously, he had served as the Vice President at the Fudan International Institute for Information Science and Technology, Shanghai, China, from 1999 to 2002, and the Executive Director for the Global e-Learning Project at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2000–2003. He was appointed as an Advisory Professor of Computer Science at Fudan University, Shanghai, China in 1999. His recent research focuses on document and information-based processing, retrieval and management. He has published many journal and conference articles in this area. He had served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal on Systems Integration (1991–2001) and as Advisory Editor for the Data and Knowledge Engineering Journal since 1989.     

A literature review of electronic marketplace research: Themes, theories and an integrative framework

In this paper, we presented a literature review of the current status of electronic marketplace (EM) research. It consists of 109 journal articles published in 19 journals that are appropriate outlets for electronic commerce research. The results show that an increasing volume of EM research has been conducted from diverse theoretical perspectives. Based on content analysis, we identified eight research themes, five types of methodologies and six categories of background theories which most EM researches were grounded in. By combining research themes and the patterns of the background theories, an integrative framework of EM was proposed to represent the paradigms of EM researches. The framework shows that EM phenomena can be addressed from three perspectives: information systems, inter-organizational/social structure and strategic management perspectives. This framework suggests a parsimonious and cohesive way to explain key EM research issues such as EM adoption, success and impact.

A Systematic Review of Recent Developments in IT Outsourcing Research

Incomplete conceptualization of the information technology outsourcing (ITO) literature represents a challenge for navigating extant research and engaging into purposeful academic discourse. We extend the analysis of empirical findings on determinants of ITO decisions, outcomes, and governance. We identify increasing levels of research maturity, analyze effects of 38 new independent variables, highlight contradictory findings, and observe increasing interest in emerging topics such as innovation through ITO and multisourcing.

Abbreviations: AIS: Association for Information Systems; ASP: Application Service Provision; EBIT: Earnings Before Interest and Taxes; CIO: Chief Information Officer; IS: Information Systems; IT: Information Technology; ITO: Information Technology Outsourcing; OTH: Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule/East Bavarian Technical University; PPE: Profit Per Employee; R&D: Research & Development; ROA: Return on Assets; TCO: Total Cost of Ownership; TU: Technische Universität/Technical University     

Fuzzy risk analysis based on the ranking of generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers

In this paper, we present a new method for fuzzy risk analysis based on the ranking of generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. The proposed method considers the centroid points and the standard deviations of generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers for ranking generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. We also use an example to compare the ranking results of the proposed method with the existing centroid-index ranking methods. The proposed ranking method can overcome the drawbacks of the existing centroid-index ranking methods. Based on the proposed ranking method, we also present an algorithm to deal with fuzzy risk analysis problems. The proposed fuzzy risk analysis algorithm can overcome the drawbacks of the one we presented in [7]. Shi-Jay Chen was born in 1972, in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. He received the B.S. degree in information management from the Kaohsiung Polytechnic Institute, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and the M.S. degree in information management from the Chaoyang University of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan, in 1997 and 1999, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree at the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, in October 2004. His research interests include fuzzy systems, multicriteria fuzzy decisionmaking, and artificial intelligence. Shyi-Ming Chen was born on January 16, 1960, in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in June 1991. From August 1987 to July 1989 and from August 1990 to July 1991, he was with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Fu-Jen University, Taipei, Taiwan. From August 1991 to July 1996, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. From August 1996 to July 1998, he was a Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. From August 1998 to July 2001, he was a Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. Since August 2001, he has been a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, in 1999. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Republic of China, in 2003. He has published more than 250 papers in referred journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. His research interests include fuzzy systems, information retrieval, knowledge-based systems, artificial intelligence, neural networks, data mining, and genetic algorithms. Dr. Chen has received several honors and awards, including the 1994 Outstanding Paper Award o f the Journal of Information and Education, the 1995 Outstanding Paper Award of the Computer Society of the Republic of China, the 1995 and 1996 Acer Dragon Thesis Awards for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 1995 Xerox Foundation Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 1996 Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 1997 National Science Council Award, Republic of China, for Outstanding Undergraduate Student's Project Supervision, the 1997 Outstanding Youth Electrical Engineer Award of the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering, Republic of China, the Best Paper Award of the 1999 National Computer Symposium, Republic of China, the 1999 Outstanding Paper Award of the Computer Society of the Republic of China, the 2001 Institute of Information and Computing Machinery Thesis Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 2001 Outstanding Talented Person Award, Republic of China, for the contributions in Information Technology, the 2002 Institute of information and Computing Machinery Thesis Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the Outstanding Electrical Engineering Professor Award granted by the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering (CIEE), Republic of China, the 2002 Chinese Fuzzy Systems Association Best Thesis Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 2003 Outstanding Paper Award of the Technological and Vocational Education Society, Republic of China, the 2003 Acer Dragon Thesis Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Supervision, the 2005 “Operations Research Society of Taiwan” Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision, the 2005 Acer Dragon Thesis Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Supervision, the 2005 Taiwan Fuzzy Systems Association Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Supervision, and the 2006 “Operations Research Society of Taiwan” Award for Outstanding M.S. Thesis Supervision. Dr. Chen is currently the President of the Taiwanese Association for Artificial Intelligence (TAAI). He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a member of the ACM, the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA), and the Phi Tau Phi Scholastic Honor Society. He was an administrative committee member of the Chinese Fuzzy Systems Association (CFSA) from 1998 to 2004. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part C, an Associate Editor of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine, an Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Applied Intelligence, an Editor of the New Mathematics and Natural Computation Journal, an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Fuzzy Systems, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, an Editorial Board Member of the WSEAS Transactions on Systems, an Editor of the Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, an Associate Editor of the WSEAS Transactions on Computers, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Applications, an Editorial Board Member of the Advances in Fuzzy Sets and Systems Journal, an Editor of the International Journal of Soft Computing, an Editor of the Asian Journal of Information Technology, an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Intelligence Systems Technologies and Applications, an Editor of the Asian Journal of Information Management, an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Control, and an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology. He was an Editor of the Journal of the Chinese Grey System Association from 1998 to 2003. He is listed in International Who's Who of Professionals, Marquis Who's Who in the World, and Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering.     

The rise and fall of the competitive local exchange carriers in the U.S.: An institutional perspective

The debacle of the telecommunications industry at the turn of the millennium resulted in significant consequences for investors, workers, financial institutions, telecom companies, and the economy in general worldwide. In the midst of the telecom bubble, the CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) adopted similar or identical business plans and saturated the market, which resulted in destructive competition. In this study, we investigate the isomorphic business models of the CLECs from the perspectives of the new institutional theory. We argue that the combined coercive, mimetic, and normative institutional forces exerted on the companies by the actors who controlled the funding, managed the business, and provided the information fashioned the isomorphic CLEC business models, which in turn contributed to the demise of these companies and thus the burst of the telecom bubble. Evidence of the institutional influences on CLECs and the actors exerted the influences are presented and their consequences are discussed. Qing Hu is Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Information Technology & Operations Management at Florida Atlantic University. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from the University of Miami. His research interests include economics of information technology (IT), IT strategy and management, and information security. His work has been published in leading academic journals including Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Communications of the AIS, California Management Review, and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. He also serves as associate and guest-editors for a number of IS journals and major conferences. C. Derrick Huang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Technology & Operations Management in the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University. Previously, as a practitioner, he held executive-level positions in the area of marketing and strategic planning in a number of high-tech companies. Dr. Huang’s research interest lies in the business value and strategic impact of information technology in organizations, and his current focus is on the economics and management of information security investments. He holds Ph.D. from Harvard University.     

Social influence process in the acceptance of a virtual community service

This study investigates the effect of subjective norms, tendency to social comparison, and social identity on behavioral intention to use an Avatar service. Use of a virtual community service can be regarded as social behavior or a behavior affected by social factors. This study relies on the link between subjective norms and behavioral intention in the theory of reasoned action, social identity theory, and social comparison literature. The proposed model was tested using survey data with the results lending support for the proposed model. The implications from this study are expected to contribute to the literature by shedding light on the social influence process in two ways. First, this study unveils how social factors including subjective norms, social identity, and tendency to social comparison affect behavioral intention to use a specific service from virtual communities. Second, this study will aid managers and academics to further understand the social nature of customer behavior with regard to using virtual community services and thus provide insight for the development of technology driven e-commerce. Jaeki Song is Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Quantitative Sciences at the Rawls College of Business Administration at Texas Tech University. His research interests include electronic commerce, web design, information systems strategy, and technology adoption. His work has appeared in Management Science, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Information & Management, and International Journal of Information Management. He also has published book chapters on Global Information Technologies and Electronic Commerce. Yong Jin Kim is Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the School of Management at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He holds a Ph.D. in MIS from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has 10 year industry experience. His research interests are in knowledge management, technological innovation, IS success, e-business, and information technology valuation. He has published papers in outlets such as MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, International Journal of Information Management, JITTA, and Knowledge and Process Management. He also has published book chapters on IS Success and e-learning.     

A US Client’s learning from outsourcing IT work offshore

Based on 45 interviews and significant documentation, we explore the offshore outsourcing experiences of a US-based biotechnology company. This company offshore outsourced 21 IT projects to six suppliers in India. Senior managers and the official documents from the Program Management Office consistently reported that offshore outsourcing was successful in reducing the company’s IT costs. But interviews with knowledgeable participants actually managing the projects suggest that many projects were not successful in meeting cost, quality, and productivity objectives. We found evidence that this company’s offshore strategy to simply replace domestic contractors with cheaper, offshore suppliers was a poor fit with its social and cultural contexts. Specifically, we found that strong social networks between the company’s internal IT employees and domestic contractors were not easily replicated with offshore suppliers. Furthermore, the internal project management processes were often incompatible with offshore suppliers’ processes. This paper also analyzes seven project characteristics that differentiate highly-rated projects from poorly-rated projects. These project characteristics are type of IT work, size of supplier firm, location of supplier employees (onsite/offshore), dollar value of the contract, duration of the project, timing of the project, and client unit managing the project. The paper concludes with four overall insights for clients and suppliers.

Ruminations of an Editor-in-Chief

The Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) was first published December 1991 by Robert (Bob) D. Galliers, its Founding Editor-in-Chief (EiC). Early on Bob invited me to join the JSIS International Editorial Board¹ (the Board then being more operational, with members serving as quasi-AEs, an arrangement we’ve reinstituted more recently). I became Pacific Asia Region Editor in 2003, with JSIS shifting from region editors to Senior Editors in 2007, in which role I served the journal through the end of 2018. Mid-2018 Bob and Sirkka (Sirkka Jarvenpaa joined as co-EiC in 2000) jointly decided it was time; and announced they would both step down from their co-EiC roles at the end of that year. In September 2018, I was endorsed by Bob and Sirkka, the Senior Editors and Elsevier, to succeed Bob and Sirkka and assume the role of Editor-in-Chief of JSIS commencing 1 January 2019. I served as Editor-in-Chief through 1 July 2021 after which Yolande Chan and I served as co-Editors-in-Chief. Now the end of 2022, I am stepping down from operational involvement with the journal. In this my final editorial I focus on my time as EiC, also reflecting on my almost 3 decades with the journal. I much appreciate being invited to write these brief ruminations and am honoured to be included amongst the journal’s Emeritus, along with the esteemed Robert Galliers and Sirkka Jarvenpaa.