Gender and IT in the Household: Evolving Patterns of Internet Use in the United States

Information technology (IT)—computers and related technologies—is the latest technology to enter the household. Like other technologies, gender is a major factor in its adoption and use as well as its perceived usefulness. Unlike prior household technologies, the computer's entry into the household has followed a different pattern. Early statistics revealed a vast gender divide, with men using computers and related technologies much more in the household. More recent statistics show a narrowing of the divide, perhaps even a reversal, particularly in the United States, with women outnumbering men in the access to and use of the Internet. In this article, the role of gender and its relationship with Internet use in the home are reviewed. In addition to overall adoption and access, the review focuses on specific Internet applications and examines the factors that contribute to gender differences in adoption and use of computers and Internet applications in the home.     

Gender-based differences in culture in the Indian IT workplace

Global outsourcing increases the complexity of managing IT projects. Gender adds another level of difficulty when managing IT projects. Understanding country and gender—level differences may improve chances for success. This paper provides opportunities to better understand underlying country and gender differences of Indian IT workers. We used Hofstede’s value surveys module to analyze gender differences and cultural preferences of 107 Indian IT workers. After correcting for problems with outliers, none of the mean differences between men and women were significant at the 95% level; at the 90% level, we found differences in uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation only. Our results suggest that women and men working in the IT industry may have more similarities in terms of national culture than differences by gender. To overcome possible differences in uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation, IT outsourcers to India should ensure adequate professional development opportunities, mentoring programs, and clearly explained career path opportunities. Further, a focus on policies and management strategies that capitalize on the national culture of India, including group work to take advantage of collectivist tendencies, and clearly defined hierarchical systems to take advantage of masculine orientation and high power distances, may allow foreign companies to attract and retain men and women, where in many cases, national culture trumps gender differences. Future research should collect more data from women and investigate the effect of regional differences on cultural perceptions.     

企业IT治理对IT绩效影响的实证研究

IT已经成为企业创造增值产品和服务的基础性平台。随着企业对信息、系统、通讯等信息及相关技术的日益依赖和随之而来的大量IT投资的同时,企业又面临着IT投资和运用过程的威胁和商业风险的规避问题。研究以IT运用为中间变量,构建IT治理与IT绩效之间的关系以及IT治理对IT绩效影响的理论模型,并用结构方程模型进行实证分析。结果表明,IT治理与IT绩效之间没有积极的直接关系,但通过IT运用中介作用,IT治理对IT绩效的各个维度具有积极的正向影响,因此IT治理是通过促进IT运用水平的提升从而获得相应的IT投资效果。该研究结果进一步完善了IT治理与组织绩效之间的相关理论,并对信息化建设路径的选择具有一定的实践意义。     

The ethical attitudes of information technology professionals: a comparative study between the USA and the Middle East

This paper aims at investigating comparatively the ethical orientation of information technology (IT) professionals in the Middle East and the United States. It tests for attitudes toward and awareness of ethically-related issues, namely intellectual property, privacy and other general ethical IT aspects. In addition, through a comparison between the two regions, this paper intends to examine whether differences in IT professional demographics and characteristics, including gender and academic level, have any impact on attitudes to business ethics. A t test is used to establish significant differences between the targeted samples, while an ANOVA F-test is conducted to determine significant differences among the sample countries on a group basis. The results show a general awareness of ethical issues concerning information technology, and no significant differences are found between the two samples. However, different ethical attitudes are reported among respondents in terms of their reactions to the targeted IT ethical aspects. On an individual sample basis, the results about gender support the claim that male and female respondents are different, while mixed results are revealed for the influence of academic level on attitudes towards IT ethics. For intellectual property, the results are significant regarding ethical attitude differences between Middle-Eastern professionals and their counterparts in the US, while no significance differences are reported in terms of privacy.     

关系与IT外包绩效:服务质量调节的中介作用

基于社会资本理论,从IT外包承接商视角深入分析关系对IT外包承接商绩效的作用机制,并在此基础上考察服务质量的中介作用和关系的调节作用。以237家IT外包承接商企业高层管理者的数据为样本,运用结构方程模型对所提假设进行实证检验。结果表明:关系对IT外包承接商绩效的直接作用并不显著,以服务质量为中介变量产生间接正向影响;关系对服务质量的中介作用具有负向调节作用,即在企业关系弱的条件下,服务质量对企业绩效的作用越显著,反之亦然。     

Supporting the free market: Information technology policy in Hong Kong

Economic policy in Hong Kong is frequently cited as a shining example of the laissez‐faire model for development, with minimal government intervention. However, the government has played a bigger role in the economy than is often recognized, responding to market failures, social problems, and the needs of the business community. Information technology (IT) policy in Hong Kong has mirrored the colony's laissez‐faire economic strategy, with little government effort to promote the production or use of IT products and services. Hong Kong has become an advanced user of IT in several economic sectors and an assembly site for personal computer hardware. However, like much of the manufacturing sector, the computer industry is moving much of its production to China, causing concern about the future of Hong Kong's economy. While some people feel that Hong Kong can flourish as a financial and business services center, others feel that this role will be diminished as the Chinese economy liberalizes and other centers develop in mainland China. They argue that Hong Kong needs to upgrade its technological capabilities and develop technology‐intensive activities such as R&D and software development to complement China's manufacturing activities. The government has begun to respond with limited measures to encourage R&D, train more scientists, engineers, and managers, and support technology start‐ups. Hong Kong has the potential to develop software and information services industries to serve the Chinese market. It also can apply IT to other sectors to maintain its leadership as a financial, business services, transportation, and communications center.     

IT artifact bias: How exogenous predilections influence organizational information system paradigms

Efforts in IS research have long sought to bridge the gap between the information technology (IT) function and strategic business interests. People perceive affordances (possibilities for action) in information technology artifacts differently as cognitive structures (schema) which bias individual focus. This study explores how an individual's tendency to perceive the ‘trees’ in an IT ‘forest’ (artifact preference) affects their assessment of efforts to achieve more effective IT outcomes. The effect is demonstrated using a relatively simple IT success model. Further, in a sample of 120 survey responses supported by ten semi-structured interviews, we demonstrate that job role and organizational IT complexity systematically impact artifact perception. A better understanding of IT artifact bias promises to help organizations better assess information systems.     

IT能力构建及其对企业和谐信息化的影响研究

基于和谐管理理论，对基于资源基础理论和动态能力理论的IT能力进行了重新构建，并进行了维度划分，阐述了其意义所在。基于和谐管理理论与和谐信息化体系理论，和谐信息化有了新内涵，提出了和谐信息化是企业信息化的绩效，也是企业信息化的一个发展方向。通过对华南地区281个中国企业样本的实证研究，验证了IT能力量表构建的信度和效度，实证结果表明，IT人物互动能力是实现企业和谐信息化的最重要因素，由此表明，企业更应注重IT人物互动能力的提升。案例研究也印证了此结论。在今后研究中，可以IT人物互动能力为和谐主题，分析其在企业信息化各阶段的具体表现，并制定科学的提升计划，以促使企业和谐信息化绩效的实现。     

信息技术赋能创业:IT 能力对创业绩效的影响

大数据、人工智能等新一代信息技术正不断渗透和改变着创业行为和结果,为新创企业发展带来机遇与挑战。目前,企业的信息技术能力对创业活动的影响研究仍处于探索阶段。本文基于创业机会理论与资源依赖理论,考察IT能力对创业绩效的影响机制,探讨创业机会识别与开发的中介作用以及数字化业务强度的调节作用。实证分析发现：IT设施运用能力、IT业务跨越能力和IT前瞻性立场等三种IT能力均有助于提升创业绩效;创业机会识别与开发在3种IT能力与创业绩效间扮演中介角色;数字化业务强度在IT能力和创业机会识别与开发间发挥正向调节作用,并进一步调节创业机会识别与开发在3种IT能力与创业绩效间的中介作用,即：数字化业务强度越高,创业机会识别与开发的中介效应越显著。本研究丰富了信息技术赋能创业的研究内容,有助于推进信息技术在创业理论与实践中的运用。     

Spillover of workplace IT satisfaction onto job satisfaction: The roles of job fit and professional fit

With information technology (IT) increasingly penetrating in workplaces, employee satisfaction with workplace IT becomes an integral part of work and significantly influences work-related outcomes. Scant attention, however, has been paid to whether and how employees’ IT satisfaction plays a role in generating job-related attitudinal changes among employees. Drawing upon satisfaction spillover theory, we developed and empirically tested a model to examine the relationship between individual satisfaction with workplace IT and job satisfaction. Specifically, we introduced two elements of user-task-technology fit—namely, job fit and professional fit—to examine the transition in employees’ satisfaction from the technological domain to overall satisfaction with work. We found that job fit not only mediated but also strengthened the effect of workplace IT satisfaction on job satisfaction, whereas professional fit did not play a moderating role in the relationship between workplace IT satisfaction and job satisfaction. The findings suggest that practitioners should emphasize workplace IT as a crucial ingredient of the work context and improve employee experiences with using IT. More importantly, the fit of IT with employees’ job and professional requirements is critical for this transition in satisfaction.     

IT engagement as a blessing and a curse? Examining its antecedents and outcomes in organizations

Information technology (IT) engagement is defined as a need to spend more time using IT. Practice-based examples show that IT engagement can have adverse effects in organizations. Although users can potentially get more work done through IT engagement, observations show that the users might jeopardize their well-being and hamper their work performance. We aimed to investigate this complexity in the research on IT engagement by examining its potential antecedents and outcomes in organizations. Considering the potentially mixed outcomes, we developed a model to examine the effects of IT engagement on personal productivity and strain. We also aimed to explain the antecedents of IT engagement by drawing on the collective expectations for IT use. In particular, we examined the extent to which normative pressure on IT use drives users’ information load and IT engagement. Finally, we sought to understand whether users’ attempts to avert dependency on IT use reduced their IT engagement. Several hypotheses were developed and tested with survey data of 1091 organizational IT users. The findings help explain the role of normative pressure as a key driver of IT engagement and validate the positive and negative outcomes of IT engagement in organizations.     

Patterns of co-alignment in information-intensive organizations: business performance through integration strategies

Information technology (IT) has transformed business practices in the last several decades: operations, product strategies, distribution, and customer service have become increasingly dependent on IT. Moreover, IT has changed its orientation from that of pure operational utility in the 1960s and 1970s to that of a competitive weapon in the 1990s and today. These phenomena have affected the way modern organizations are managed, as well as the way IT affects the strategic activities of an organization's value-chain.In particular, aligning an organization's business and IT strategies in order to deliver higher business performance presupposes a strategic business opportunity to which information systems technology is integral. In other words, Strategic Alignment between business and IT can have a positive business impact only if we see an organization's IT components as parts of a well-integrated organizational system. If business strategy is viewed separately from IT strategy or IT strategy is viewed only as a “support” tool, then there is little likelihood that the above positive impact of strategic alignment can take place.This research suggests, develops and tests a strategic co-alignment model by examining three types of integration that impact the planning process and the overall performance of information-intensive organizations: technological integration (TI), functional integration and strategic integration (SI).The results of this research yield some useful set of guidelines for theory building for IS, as well as for the business practice aspect of IS: most interesting is the role of consistency (co-alignment) between an organization's business and strategic information systems plans to improve overall firm performance. Other recommendations include having a high degree of involvement of IS executives in corporate planning, the use of outsourcing services to promote organizational systems integration, and the importance of internal coordination mechanisms to facilitate both systems consistency and lower transaction costs. Finally, this study has employed cluster analysis and discriminant analysis to interpret the research findings.     

Information management for the internationalization of SMEs: An exploratory study based on a strategic alignment perspective

The ability to internationalize has become a competitive necessity for many SMEs, enabling their survival and access to larger markets. From an IS research perspective, one important issue is the strategic role played by the firm's IT capabilities in responding to greater environmental uncertainty and correspondingly greater information requirements, and in enabling the firm's internationalization performance. Given that such a major aspect of the influence of IT on the performance of SMEs has so far been ignored, the following research question is posed: to what extent does the match between the IT capabilities and information requirements of SMEs contribute to their internationalization performance? Our research model and hypotheses are based on Tushman and Nadler's information processing model. In revisiting this model, the aim was to show its continued relevancy and extend its domain of applicability. In order to answer the research question, we conduct a survey-based empirical study of 174 Canadian SMEs that have internationalized their activities. Our results show that a better match between IT capabilities and information requirements does indeed exert a positive influence on internationalization performance. We also find that the SMEs’ IT capabilities are influenced externally by the environmental uncertainty and internally by their internationalization mode.     

Decision execution mechanisms of IT governance: The CRM case

Employing the literature on IT governance and the structuration theory of technology assimilation, this research develops a conceptual model to examine decision execution mechanisms of IT governance in post-adoption stages of CRM diffusion, i.e. CRM use, impacts on business processes, and impacts on firm performance. While the literature mainly addresses the forms and contingencies of IT governance structures for decision making, we focus on IT governance mechanisms for decision execution, that is, the role of top management, business managers and IT managers in post-adoption stages of technology diffusion and how these groups are held accountable for their role. We conceptualize decision execution mechanisms of IT governance as including two dimensions: vertical advocacy from top management and horizontal coordination between business and IT managers. Decision execution mechanisms are assumed to facilitate CRM use and value creation. We analyze a dataset of 82 Chinese firms to examine the model and associated hypotheses. Our results show that: (1) decision execution mechanisms, including both vertical advocacy and horizontal coordination, significantly contribute to the three stages of CRM diffusion; (2) vertical advocacy has a notably greater effect on CRM use and firm performance gains than horizontal coordination, which has a greater effect on process gains. (3) CRM use creates operational and strategic benefits in customer-oriented business processes, which further improves firm performance. These findings have important implications for understanding how IT governance shapes the diffusion of CRM technology.     

Business process management and IT management: The missing integration

The importance of business processes and the centrality of IT to contemporary organizations’ performance calls for a specific focus on business process management and IT management. Despite the wide scope of business process management covering both business and IT domains, and the profound impact of IT on process innovations, the association between business process management and IT management is under-explored. Drawing on a literature analysis of the capabilities of business process and IT governance frameworks and findings from a case study, we propose the need for horizontal integration between the two management functions to enable strategic and operational business—IT alignment. We further argue that the role of IT in an organization influences the direction of integration between the two functions and thus the choice of integration mechanisms. Using case study findings, we propose that IT as a business enabler respectively calls for sequential and reciprocal integrations at strategic and operational planning levels. Drawing on logical reasoning, we suggest that IT as a strategic driver necessitates reciprocal integration at both levels.     

企业联盟中IT整合能力对IT关系能力的影响

本文结合我国的企业联盟实践和相关理论,提出了IT能力的概念,并运用实证方法验证了IT整合能力对IT关系能力的影响。结构方程模型的结果表明,在IT整合能力中,IT集成能力正向影响IT管理能力;在IT关系能力中,IT与业务关系正向影响外部IT联系;且IT整合能力对IT关系能力具有正向影响,IT集成能力通过IT管理能力的部分中介作用正向影响IT关系能力;IT管理能力通过IT与业务关系的部分中介作用正向影响外部IT联系。该研究不仅为基于联盟的IT能力提供了理论基础,也对企业经理管理联盟中的IT活动具有一定的参考价值。     

后危机时代中美信息技术投资替代作用的结构特征——基于CES Copula 贝叶斯估计方法

技术进步是当今经济增长的主要推动力,信息技术投资亦是各个国家提高经济效率的主要手段和投资方向。本文旨在分析信息技术对传统资本、劳动力的交互作用是否会随着投资强度和发展阶段而改变,通过Copula贝叶斯估计法,利用经验数据对比,分析我国与美国在信息技术,资本、劳动力投资交互作用的结构性特征,经过对比发现,我国信息技术对我国资本、劳动力的替代效应明显弱于美国,且呈现中心区域增强的替代作用。信息技术投资替代性的结构性差异值得我们深入研究,以免过高或低的估计信息技术价值,对于国家层次的信息技术投资决策具有重要作用。     

运用信息技术能力获取竞争优势的框架与路径研究

是信息技术能力而不是信息技术在为企业带来竞争优势。本文根据企业资源理论,从获取竞争优势的角度审视了信息技术能力这一概念,提出了其四类载体、五个层次及以其为基础获取竞争优势的三类路径模式,为我国那些陷入"IT投资困境"中的企业提供了新的理论视角。     

Achieving top management support with business knowledge and role of IT/IS personnel

The business-IT gap is still present in many companies and IT/IS professionals often impute the responsibility for this to management and claim they lack top management's support for their initiatives. The aim of this paper is to show how IT/IS personnel can achieve top management support. Based on more than 50 in-depth interviews with CIOs and CEOs in the last 10 years we hypothesize that top management support can be attained with the business and managerial knowledge and skills of IT/IS personnel as well as with the business-oriented role of the IT/IS department. The impact was empirically tested via structural equation modeling (SEM) using data from 152 Slovenian companies with more than 50 employees. Based on findings some implications for top managers and IT/IS professionals are given, especially for CIOs, on how IT/IS personnel can contribute to bridging the gap.     

Examining an extended duality perspective regarding success conditions of IT service

IS research predominantly presumes that the success factors of IT service have one-dimensional influences: the higher (or lower), the better. Sporadic arguments, however, have been made that, depending on the antecedent, such a monolithic premise may not sustainable. Despite the rich evidence of the dichotomous role of success factors on measured consequences in non-IS fields, especially in the marketing discipline, theoretical and empirical efforts to examine this duality have received limited attention in IS research. Especially, no previous IS study took the extended duality position in which the role of success conditions can be any of pure enabler, pure inhibitor, asymmetric bi-directional influencer or symmetric bi-directional influencer . The extended duality becomes the theoretical thesis of this research, setting it apart from the scant IS research that viewed duality through the rather simplified lens of statistical significance in each direction. To test the validity of the extended duality theory in the IT service context, cross-sectional survey data were gathered on post-adoption usage of mobile data services (or MDS), the most prevalent form of IT service. Frequently used success conditions of IT service – system quality, information quality, economic value and self-efficacy – are chosen as the explanatory variables. The analysis suggests that success conditions of IT service can have a highly divergent and diversified form of duality effects on measured outcomes. The findings have important practical and theoretical implications to practitioners and researchers.