How can Blockchain technology support patent management? A systematic literature review

Patent management tasks involve many stakeholders from diverse disciplines and hierarchies as well as from inside and outside the organization. By drawing on the transaction cost and stakeholder theories, Blockchain technology offers new opportunities to rethink the way in which stakeholders are organized and collaborate. Although Blockchain technology receives considerable attention from both the public and academia, the question of how Blockchain technology leverages patent management in particular has so far been neglected, although it holds great promise. Consequently, this is what we choose to be our basic research question. In response to it, we conduct a systematic literature review, following a procedure in three steps. Out of an initial sample of 714 articles, we select 52 as being particularly relevant, and classify them in accordance with the dimensions of the 7D Patent Management Maturity Model. Three main foci regarding the use of Blockchain technology emerge – i.e. for the generation, the enforcement, and the exploitation of patents. This study contributes to scholarship and management by showing that Blockchain technology mitigates environmental and behavioral uncertainty, while stimulating new governance forms and business models by reorganizing or discarding stakeholders.     

How do journalists seek information from sources? A systematic review

In producing news stories, journalists depend on information obtained from sources. This paper reviews the literature on journalists’ information seeking. The 90 studies included in the review cover how journalists identify sources, interact with sources, interpret information, and manage sources. In addition to quality and accessibility, balance in the group of sources selected is an important criterion in journalists’ identification of sources. However, the importance journalists assign to balance stands in contrast to the frequent finding of bias in their source selections. In interactions with sources, the sources frequently provide ideas for new stories in addition to information for current ones. This finding shows how multiple instances of information seeking coexist and combine into a mesh of intersecting information-seeking processes. In interpreting information, journalists are acutely aware that sources may have an agenda or be misinformed. While journalists praise information checking, they regularly bypass it or replace direct checks for information quality with indirect checks, such as whether the source appears trustworthy. In managing sources, journalists engage in boundary work to regulate their relationship with sources. They also cultivate long-term relationships with selected sources. The review findings are discussed with respect to how journalism shapes journalists’ information seeking and what implications the findings have for information-behavior research in other domains.     

Why do people play games? A meta-analysis

During the last decade games have arguably become the largest form of leisure information systems (IS). However, today games are also increasingly being employed for a variety of instrumental purposes. Although games have garnered a substantial amount of research attention during the last decade, research literature is scattered and there is still a lack of a clear and reliable understanding of why games are being used, and how they are placed in the established utilitarian-hedonic continuum of information systems. To address this gap, we conducted a meta-analysis of the quantitative body of literature that has examined the reasons for using games (48 studies). Additionally, we compared the findings across games that are intended for either leisure or instrumental use. Even though games are generally regarded as a pinnacle form of hedonically-oriented ISs, our results show that enjoyment and usefulness are equally important determinants for using them (though their definitive role varies between game types). Therefore, it can be posited that games are multi-purpose ISs which nevertheless rely on hedonic factors, even in the pursuit of instrumental outcomes. The present study contributes to and advances our theoretical and empirical understanding of multi-purpose ISs and the ways in which they are used.     

Clinical and diagnostic utility of saliva as a non-invasive diagnostic fluid:?a systematic review

This systematic review presents the latest trends in salivary research and its applications in health and disease. Among the large number of analytes present in saliva, many are affected by diverse physiological and pathological conditions. Further, the non-invasive, easy and cost-effective collection methods prompt an interest in evaluating its diagnostic or prognostic utility. Accumulating data over the past two decades indicates towards the possible utility of saliva to monitor overall health, diagnose and treat various oral or systemic disorders and drug monitoring. Advances in saliva based systems biology has also contributed towards identification of several biomarkers, development of diverse salivary diagnostic kits and other sensitive analytical techniques. However, its utilization should be carefully evaluated in relation to standardization of pre-analytical and analytical variables, such as collection and storage methods, analyte circadian variation, sample recovery, prevention of sample contamination and analytical procedures. In spite of all these challenges, there is an escalating evolution of knowledge with the use of this biological matrix.Key words: saliva, non-invasive, biological markers, drug monitoring, oral health     

“Context” in healthcare information technology resistance: A systematic review of extant literature and agenda for future research

Resistance to Healthcare Information Technologies (HIT) continues to be a major challenge that hampers the realization of benefits. Attending to the noted significance of “context” in IT resistance, we carried out this review to understand how the “context” of healthcare in the extant HIT resistance literature has been studied. Based on a review of HIT resistance across 19 IS journals and 5 major IS conferences we organize and summarize the literature around the interaction of people, practice, and technology and provide several significant possibilities for future research.     

Why do People Pay for Information?

This paper investigates the situations where there are incentives for people to pay a premium over the channel costs for information content. It concludes that there are at least four: premium low relative to channel costs and monopoly, which are less interesting as they are not specific to information; where the information need is idiosyncratic; and where the quality of the information source is critical.     

Why do urban legends go viral?

Urban legends are a genre of modern folklore, consisting of stories about rare and exceptional events, just plausible enough to be believed, which tend to propagate inexorably across communities. In our view, while urban legends represent a form of “sticky” deceptive text, they are marked by a tension between the credible and incredible. They should be credible like a news article and incredible like a fairy tale to go viral. In particular we will focus on the idea that urban legends should mimic the details of news (who, where, when) to be credible, while they should be emotional and readable like a fairy tale to be catchy and memorable. Using NLP tools we will provide a quantitative analysis of these prototypical characteristics. We also lay out some machine learning experiments showing that it is possible to recognize an urban legend using just these simple features.     

A fad or future of IT?: A comprehensive literature review on the cloud computing research

Cloud computing is now a global trend and during the past decade, has drawn attention from both academic and business communities. Although the evolution of cloud computing has not reached the maturity level, there is still adequate research about the topic. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the development and evolution of cloud computing over time. A content analysis was conducted for 236 scholarly journal articles, which were published between 2009 and 2014 in order to (i) identify the possible trends and changes in cloud computing over the six years, (ii) compare publishing productivity of journals about the cloud computing subject, and (iii) guide future research about cloud computing. The results show that the majority of the cloud computing research is about “cloud computing adoption” (19%), and it was followed by the “legal and ethical issues” of cloud computing (15%). It is also found that “cloud computing for mobile applications” (6%), “benefits & challenges of cloud computing” (5%) and “energy consumption dimension of cloud computing” (4%) are the least attention-grabbing themes in the literature. However, “cloud computing for mobile applications” and “energy consumption dimension of cloud computing” themes have become popular in the last two years, so they are expected to be trendy topics of the near future. Finally, another finding of this study is that the majority of the articles were published by engineering, information systems or technical journals such as “IT Professional Magazine”, “International Journal of Information Management” and “Mobile Networks and Applications”. It seems as if this topic is generally ignored by the managerial and organizational journals even though the impact of cloud computing on organizations and institutions is immense and is in need of investigation.     

How do foreign firms patent in emerging economies with weak appropriability regimes? Archetypes and motives

Foreign firms patent in emerging economies with weak appropriability regimes at an increasing rate. This phenomenon constitutes a paradox since in such a setting foreign firms should have weak incentives to patent. In an attempt to resolve this paradox, we conducted an inductive analysis of 11 foreign firms that patent in such a setting, using the case of China as our empirical context. We identify four archetypes of foreign firms and three key antecedents the interaction of which determines which archetype a firm can be subsumed under.Our study complements the developed-economy focus of the extant appropriation literature by adding an international perspective. We extend previous econometric studies by identifying salient factors on the firm level that determine the extent to which a foreign firm patents in emerging economies with a weak appropriability regime, highlighting that the extent of a firm's motivation to maintain its freedom to operate can supersede imitability concerns. We also comment on the practical implications of these contributions for managers of foreign firms. Highlighting a structural conflict of interest between foreign firms from developed economies and the development goals of an emerging economy, we point to the generalizability of our results to a wide range of other emerging economies worldwide.     

Why do commercial companies contribute to open source software?

Many researchers have pointed out that the open source movement is an interesting phenomenon that is difficult to explain with conventional economic theories. However, while there is no shortage on research on individuals’ motivation for contributing to open source, few have investigated the commercial companies’ motivations for doing the same. A case study was conducted at three different companies from the IT service industry, to investigate three possible drivers: sale of complimentary services, innovation and opensourcing (outsourcing). We offer three conclusions.     

Exploring a typology of technology-intensive firms: when is a rose a great rose?

Previous research has contributed to our understanding of technology-intensive firms by proposing alternative typologies or classifications of these firms. This study explores the Koberg typology that characterizes firms by growth stage and production technology into four types of organizations: Embryonic, Start-up, Growth, and Mature Multiline. We propose that, consistent with the typology, firms in each type will differ in strategy, structure, practices, and leadership and that performance is contingent on the fit between organizational factors and typology type. In a study of 377 technology-intensive firms, we find support for differences among organizations in organizational variables by typology type. The characteristics of the organizations as well as the typology are significant in explaining organizational performance. However, except for organizational structure, the firm characteristics that are related to performance do not significantly vary by type. The results are discussed in the context of theory development and managerial implications.     

Why do people use mobile payment technologies and why would they continue? An examination and implications from India

Mobile payment technology continues to spread across the globe, but its diffusion has not been uniform. Its low usage in developing economies is of particular concern to policymakers since this technology has the potential to enable financial inclusion. In this study, in order to develop policy interventions for greater usage, we comparatively analyze factors impacting actual usage and future use intention. India, with its uneven trajectory of mobile payments, gives us an appropriate field to investigate citizens’ usage behaviour. Considering users’ perceptions of both positive and negative attributes of the technology, we develop research models under the umbrella of the valence framework. We utilize technology affordances and constraints theory (TACT) to refine the research models through an understanding of various innovative uses. To test the valence-TACT models, we collect survey responses of 551 citizens across four Indian cities. The results from the models show how certain factors, such as convenience, reflection, and security, have different impacts on actual usage and future use intention, respectively. These findings have implications for critical issues like security, risk, and digital literacy, and can help in the design of policy recommendations for enhancing the use of mobile payments, thereby impacting financial inclusion for all. The valence-TACT model provides a theoretical contribution to mobile payment and innovation literature and also offers several policy insights.     

Why do incumbents fund startups? A study of the antecedents of corporate venture capital in China

Established firms are instrumental in funding entrepreneurial ventures, a practice known as corporate venture capital (CVC). Yet, our knowledge of the reasons firms engage in CVC is calibrated mainly on data from the United States and Europe. Such a restricted focus limits our understanding of CVC practices and objectives. Accordingly, we adopt an abductive approach to study the antecedents of CVC in China. The country is a vibrant entrepreneurial setting, second only to the USA in total startup numbers and funding amounts. We construct a comprehensive data of Chinese CVCs during the late 2010s by integrate Chinese and international databases. Cross-industry analyses of CVC patterns underscore a novel objective; one that is predominantly associated with harnessing growth through market expansion rather than the prevailing view of CVC as a window on technology. The findings mirror the features of the Chinese setting, where entrepreneurs profit from the dramatic expansion in economic activity and serve as a vehicle to leverage the global innovation frontier.     

Understanding envy and users’ responses to envy in the context of social networking sites: A literature review

Envy is an ancient theme of interest and various academic disciplines researched the topic in the last decades. With the advance of technologies and the popularity of social networking sites (SNSs), there is a need to comprehend what is new and unique about envy in the SNS environment. To contribute to an improved understanding of this phenomenon, we investigate academic research on envy in the context of SNSs. Particularly, in this work, we review and clarify the concept of envy in the SNS context and how users respond to envy they experienced in an SNS environment. This allows us to (1) better comprehend the conceptualization and theorization of envy in the SNS context, and to (2) identify particularities of users’ responses to envy. Based on our analysis, we observe that there exists a need to contextualize definition, operationalization and theorization further. Responses to SNS-induced envy mirror findings from the offline context with purchase intentions as an interesting and relevant behavioral response for the SNS context, since most revenues are generated by advertisement on these sites. We provide directions for future investigations on the phenomenon of SNS-induced envy.     

Science or graduates: How do firms benefit from the proximity of universities?

This paper examines the impact of universities on the technological performance of adjacent firms. We extend existing research by jointly analyzing, and comparing, the effects of education (graduates) and scientific research (publications) activities of universities on firms’ technological performance. Adopting the knowledge production framework, our study is conducted at the level of 101 Italian territorial areas (provinces) and four industries. Overall, fixed-effect panel data models reveal a positive effect of both university graduates and scientific publications on the technological performance of firms. At the same time, considerable industry differences are observed. While the provision of university graduates positively affects firm performance in all industries under study, additional effects for scientific research are only observed in electrical and pharmaceutical industries that are science-intensive and where the scientific knowledge base is changing rapidly over time. The observation that spillovers from academia into the industrial texture of provinces rely on education and research in an industry-specific manner is relevant to the design of appropriate research and innovation policies.     

E-commerce product review sentiment classification based on a naïve Bayes continuous learning framework

Although statistical learning methods have achieved success in e-commerce platform product review sentiment classification, two problems have limited its practical application: 1) The computational efficiency to process large-scale reviews; 2) the ability to continuously learn from increasing reviews and multiple domains. This paper presents a continuous naïve Bayes learning framework for large-scale and multi-domain e-commerce platform product review sentiment classification. While keeping the high computational efficiency of the traditional naïve Bayes model, we extend the parameter estimation mechanism in naïve Bayes to a continuous learning style. We furthermore propose ways to fine-tune the learned distribution based on three kinds of assumptions to better adapt to different domains. Experimental results on the Amazon product and movie review sentiment datasets show that our model can use the knowledge learned from past domains to guide learning in new domains, and has a better capacity of dealing with reviews that are continuously updated and come from different domains.     

Information technology and privacy: conceptual muddles or privacy vacuums?

Within a given conversation or information exchange, do privacy expectations change based on the technology used? Firms regularly require users, customers, and employees to shift existing relationships onto new information technology, yet little is known as about how technology impacts established privacy expectations and norms. Coworkers are asked to use new information technology, users of gmail are asked to use GoogleBuzz, patients and doctors are asked to record health records online, etc. Understanding how privacy expectations change, if at all, and the mechanisms by which such a variance is produced will help organizations make such transitions. This paper examines whether and how privacy expectations change based on the technological platform of an information exchange. The results suggest that privacy expectations are significantly distinct when the information exchange is located on a novel technology as compared to a more established technology. Furthermore, this difference is best explained when modeled by a shift in privacy expectations rather than fully technology-specific privacy norms. These results suggest that privacy expectations online are connected to privacy offline with a different base privacy expectation. Surprisingly, out of the five locations tested, respondents consistently assign information on email the greatest privacy protection. In addition, while undergraduate students differ from non-undergraduates when assessing a social networking site, no difference is found when judging an exchange on email. In sum, the findings suggest that novel technology may introduce temporary conceptual muddles rather than permanent privacy vacuums. The results reported here challenge conventional views about how privacy expectations differ online versus offline. Traditionally, management scholarship examines privacy online or with a specific new technology platform in isolation and without reference to the same information exchange offline. However, in the present study, individuals appear to have a shift in their privacy expectations but retain similar factors and their relative importance??the privacy equation by which they form judgments??across technologies. These findings suggest that privacy scholarship should make use of existing privacy norms within contexts when analyzing and studying privacy in a new technological platform.     

Under what conditions do firms benefit from the research efforts of other organizations?

Although R&D spillovers play a key role in the battle for technological leadership, it is unclear under what conditions firms build on and benefit from the discoveries of others. The study described here empirically examines this issue. The findings indicate that, depending on technological opportunities, firm size and competitive pressure, the net impact of R&D spillovers on productivity can be either positive or negative. Specifically, we find that although spillover effects are positively associated with the technological opportunities that a firm faces, this relationship is reversed when firm size is considered. Whilst external R&D affects large self-reliant firms negatively, its impact on the productivity of smaller firms (who usually introduce incremental innovations that are characterized by a strong reliance on external technologies) is positive, and even higher than that of their own R&D. We also demonstrate that the economic payoff for firms’ own R&D is lower when they face intense competition. In cases of low-appropriability, however, spillover effects are more positive, allowing firms to increase their performance using the inventions of others.