Journal of Management Information Systems

Volume 28 Number 1 2011 pp. 5-12

Editorial Introduction

Zwass, Vladimir

ABSTRACT:

The Special Section on Applied Science Research in Information Systems that opens this issue of the Journal reminds us, very usefully, that our field is expected to inform the decision makers who solve problems and run teams, organizations, and, indeed, countries. The knowledge we produce and elaborate is the ever-higher foundation for the never-ending quest---and it also needs to be the source of practical insights. Each of the papers in the Special Section tackles a real problem and demonstrates how our field contributes to its solution, while also accumulating models, techniques, and insights to solve future problems and generate new theories. The Guest Editors of the Special Section, Robert O. Briggs, Jay F. Nunamaker Jr., and Ralph Sprague, will introduce these papers to you, helping you see them through their  lens of ‘the last’ mile in information systems (IS) research.

Having dispensed with the productivity paradox, if there ever was one, we now see more profound effects of information technology (IT), and we see them in a more textured way. Kunsoo Han, Young Bong Chang, and Jungpil Hahn empirically demonstrate here significant spillovers from IT investments by supplier industries to those downstream in the supply chains. The more competitive and IT-intense downstream industries benefit more, and as seen before in other IT productivity studies, there is a learning period. This study is important in demonstrating another, and weighty, category of value rendered by the proper deployment of IT.

In a study that ranges over wide swaths of our cultural heritage, Fatemeh ‘Mariam’ Zahedi and Gaurav Bansal investigate the cultural content of Web site images. Using the research methodology of grounded theory, the authors develop a theory of Web-image signifiers classified into five categories, which they proceed to test in a quantitative study, rooted in the Hofstede cultural attributes. Echoing the theme of the Special Section, the results of the study are immediately useful in Web site design, particularly as cross-cultural audiences are addressed, we hope, with increased frequency. Beyond that, the extensive study forms a foundation for further research into cultural signification on the Web and elsewhere.

IS move into the ever-expanding domains of our lives. Automated decision aids are used to assess the credibility of statements made in a variety of contexts that include negotiation and auditing. The credibility of the automated credibility assessments is, of course, in question. Here, Matthew L. Jensen, Paul Benjamin Lowry, and Jeffrey L. Jenkins present a theory-based design of a decision aid based on both automated linguistic analysis and on the elicitation and analysis of perceptual cues. Fine-grained conclusions are reached with respect to the contribution of each of the analyses to the accuracy of the assessment and to the acceptance of the aid’s recommendations, adding to our knowledge in the detection of deception.

The contemporary IS environment is frequently characterized by constant software modifications, as agile IS are aimed at new business opportunities. Agile systems development methods include a broad range of methodologies and techniques that result in frequent system releases and a user environment of permanent change. These methods have been extensively studied from the developers’ point of view. It behooves our discipline to study their effects from the users’ vantage point. This is what the authors of the next paper in the issue, Weiyin Hong, James Y.L. Thong, Lewis C. Chasalow, and Gurpreet Dhillon, have done. Utilizing several theories of acceptance, use, and continuance, they investigate the users’ intentions to continue using the new systems, as well as to use the newly released features as a proxy for the systems’ success. The authors develop and validate a model of agile systems’ acceptance that takes into account the cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions of users’ attitudes. Based on this, the researchers also offer specific advice to the developers and organizational implementers of agile systems, which have become the not-so-new normal in many environments.

The issue concludes on a strong note by an emergent special section on virtual teams (VTs). VTs have become integral to the functioning of many organizations, and we have seen a flowering of research aiming to learn about them. In the first of three papers, Saonee Sarker, Manju Ahuja, Suprateek Sarker, and Sarah Kirkeby investigate how communication and trust influence the outcomes in the operation of a VT. Notably, the authors use social network analysis to compare competing models that can explain the interrelationships among the constructs conditioning the performance of individuals in such teams. The result that emerges to inform both theory and practice is trust as the sine qua non of the VTs’ performance outcomes.

Ananth Chiravuri, Derek Nazareth, and K. (Ram) Ramamurthy study the process of knowledge capture in the context of global VTs of experts. The authors focus on the management of conflict and the generation of consensus. Cognitive, task-based conflict is unavoidable if a team is to generate creative solutions. This conflict is also more difficult to manage in the absence of continuing face-to-face communications. In an extensive field experiment, the authors compare two well-known cognitive consensus-generation techniques, Delphi and repertory grid. Although the better-known Delphi is found to perform better in the short run, the use of repertory grid produced more and higher-quality knowledge in the long run. The result is of obvious importance to practice.

The compass of the last paper transcends the VT focus, as it ranges over the influence of different levels of IT mediation on social networks in organizations. VTs emerge here as one of the possible configurations in virtual work design. Ayoung Suh, Kyung‑shik Shin, Manju Ahuja, and Min Soo Kim unpack the group-level virtuality attributes into geographic dispersion, temporal dispersion, and technological support and empirically study them in conjunction with the use of personal and communal IT in individual-level virtuality. The prism of social network formation helps the authors to arrive at conclusions and recommendations that can lead to higher effectiveness of VTs, and of technology-mediated work in general.

As we start the new JMIS volume, it is my duty and it brings me great pleasure to acknowledge the contribution of our referees, the primary guarantors of the Journal’s quality. On behalf of our Editorial Board, thanks go to:

Niv Ahituv

Hyung Jun Ahn

Pervaiz Alam

Muhammad Aljukhadar

Gove Allen

Omar Alnuaimi

Paul Alpar

Kemal Altinkemer

Naveen Amblee

Hayward P. Andres

Corey Angst

Ofer Arazy

Kursad Asdemir

Norman Au

Yoris Au

Benoit A. Aubert

Peter van Baalen

Barbro Back

Akhilesh Bajaj

Dirk Baldwin

Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay

Gaurav Bansal

Ravi Bapna

Indranil R. Bardhan

Reza Barkhi

Henri Barki

Stuart J. Barnes

Anitesh Barua

Richard Baskerville

Dinesh Batra

Skip Benamati

Michel Benaroch

Raquel Benbunan-Fich

François Bergeron

Ganesh Bhatt

Anol Bhattacherjee

Jesse Bockstedt

Wai Fong Boh

Indranil Bose

Nicola Breugst

Glenn J. Browne

Sebastian Bruque

Scott Buffett

Judee Burgoon

Andrew Burton-Jones

Ashley Bush

Terry A. Byrd

Jinwei Cao

Sven Carlsson

Erran Carmel

Susy Chan

Yolande E. Chan

Hsin-Lu Chang

Jerry Cha-Jan Chang

Mohamed Hédi Charki

Patrick Chau

Daniel Chen

Hong-Mei Chen

Hsinchun Chen

Jianqing Chen

Jin Chen

Kay-Yut Chen

Kuan Chen

Li Chen

Yuanyuan Chen

Hsing Kenneth Cheng

Lei Chi

Robert T.H. Chi

Roger Chiang

Benjamin Chiao

Ananth Chiravuri

Alina M. Chircu

Jong-min Choe

H. Michael Chung

Wingyan Chung

Theodore H. Clark

Randolph Cooper

Kevin Crowston

Dianne Cyr

Qizhi Dai

Ronald Dattero

Gregory Dawson

Sergio De Cesare

Jason Dedrick

Chrysanthos Dellarocas

Didem Demirhan

Sarv Devaraj

Rajiv M. Dewan

Debabrata Dey

Soussan Djamasbi

Wenjing Duan

Peter Duchessi

Deborah E. Dunkle

Alexandra Durcikova

Kaushik Dutta

Robert Easley

Christophe Elie-Dit-Cosaque

Omar A. El Sawy

Mike Eom

Sean B. Eom

Tae-In Eom

J. Alberto Espinosa

Ming Fan

Patrick Fan

Xiaofen Fang

Yulin Fang

Steven Feiner

Jane Feng

Daniel R. Fesenmaier

Eliezer M. Fich

Edmond P. Fitzgerald

Jerry Fjermestad

Chris Forman

Chiara Francalanci

Mark Fuller

Brent Furneaux

John Gallaugher

Dale Ganley

Gordon Gao

Edward J. Garrity

Judith Gebauer

Michiel van Genuchten

Joey George

Anindya Ghose

Janis L. Gogan

Kim Huat Goh

Thomas Goh

Jahyun Goo

Dale Goodhue

Anand Gopal

Ram D. Gopal

Nelson Granados

Dawn G. Gregg

Ulrike Gretzel

Robert K. Griffin

Michael D. Grigoriades

Bin Gu

Kemal Guler

Zhiling Guo

Saurabh Gupta

Nicole Haggerty

Jungpil Hahn

Ingoo Han

Kunsoo Han

Paul Hart

Matthias Häsel

Khaled Hassenein

Jun He

Raymond Henry

Traci Hess

Alan R. Hevner

Starr Roxanne Hiltz

Richard Hoffman

Weiyin Hong

John A. Hoxmeier

Pei-fang Hsu

Jeffrey Hu

Nan Hu

Paul Hu

Qing Hu

Ming-Hui Huang

Wayne Huang

Kai Lung Hui

Wendy Hui

Ard Huizing

Yujong Hwang

Ghiyong Im

Gretchen I. Irwin

Varghese Jacob

Bharat A. Jain

Radhika Jain

Jeevan Jaisingh

Matthew Jensen

Bao-Jun Jiang

James J. Jiang

Zhengrui Jiang

Alice Johnson

Eric Johnson

Emmanuel Josserand

Surinder Kahai

Ajit Kambil

Arnold Kamis

Gerald Kane

Keumseok Kang

Atreyi Kankanhalli

Karthik Kannan

P.K. Kannan

Jahangir Karimi

Evangelos Katsamakas

Michael Kattan

Timothy Kayworth

Weiling Ke

William J. Kettinger

Moutaz Khouja

Melody Y. Kiang

Sia Siew Kien

Byung Cho Kim

Dan J. Kim

Dongmin Kim

Young-Gul Kim

Ruth King

Rajiv Kishore

Gary Klein

Richard Klein

Cenk Kocas

Chang Koh

Rajiv Kohli

Tobias Kollman

Sherrie Komiak

Praveen K. Kopalle

Marios Koufaris

Kenneth A. Kozar

Ramayya Krishnan

Gillian Ku

Uday Kulkarni

Akhil Kumar

Ram Kumar

Jason Kuruzovich

Atanu Lahiri

Karim Lakhani

Simon S.K. Lam

Guido Lang

Karl R. Lang

Nancy Lankton

Kai R. Larsen

Tor J. Larsen

Gwanhoo Lee

Heeseok Lee

Ho Geun Lee

Jungwoo Lee

Matthew Lee

Thomas Lee

Yang Lee

Yen-Hsien Lee

Christine Legner

Jan Marco Leimeister

Natalia Levina

Chen Li

Dahui Li

Jiexun Li

Na Li

Ting Li

Xiaotong Li

Xin Li

XinXin Li

Ting-Peng Liang

Paul Licker

John Lim

Fu-ren Lin

Lihui Lin

Ming Lin Yihwa

Irene Liou

Jacqueline Lipton

Ying Liu

Yipeng Liu

Alexandre Lopes

Paul B. Lowry

Henry C. Lucas Jr.

Mark Lycett

Jane M. Mackay

Simha R. Magal

Pruthikrai Mahatanankoon

M. Adam Mahmood

Bin Mai

Yogesh Malhotra

Arti Mann

Michael V. Mannino

Ji-Ye Mao

Salvatore T. March

Kent Marett

Likoebe M. Maruping

Jerrold H. May

William McCarthy

Roy McKelvey

Harrison McKnight

Ephraim R. McLean

Nirup Menon

Shaila Miranda

Dinesh Mirchandani

Abhay Nath Mishra

Sunil Mithas

Prasenjit Mitra

William Money

Ali R. Montazemi

Ramiro Montealegre

Jolene Morrison

Benjamin Mueller

Michael D. Myers

Peter P. Mykytyn Jr.

Barin N. Nag

Fiona Nah

Derek Nazareth

Matthew Nelson

R. Ryan Nelson

Boon Siong Neo

Derrick Neufeld

Michael Newman

Ralitza Nikolaeva

Mark Nissen

Dmitri Nizovtsev

Oded Nov

Lih-Bin Oh

Wonseok Oh

Bob O’Keefe

Lorne Olfman

James Oliver

Benoit Otjacques

Peter Otto

Yasin Ozcelik

Zafer D. Ozdemir

Carl Pacini

Raymond R. Panko

Gautam Pant

Manoj Parameswaran

Michael Parent

Insu Park

Sungjune Park

Craig Parker

Bhavik K. Pathak

Ravi Patnayakuni

Souren Paul

David J. Pauleen

Paul A. Pavlou

Kenneth Peffers

Robin Pennington

Roger A. Pick

Selwyn Piramuthu

Huseyin Polat

Jean-Charles Pomerol

Jaana Porra

Gerald Post

John H. Prager

David Preston

Sandeep Purao

Wen Guang Qu

Arik Ragowsky

T.S. Ragu-Nathan

Arun Rai

Rex Kelly Rainer Jr.

Vandana Ramachandran

K. Ramamurthy

Arkalgud Ramaprasad

B. Ramesh

Richard G. Ramirez

H.R. Rao

R. Ravichandran

Gautam Ray

Louis Raymond

Blaize Horner Reich

Bruce Reinig

Yuqing Ren

Paul Resnick

Hyuen-Suk Rhee

William B. Richmond

Christoph Riedl

Lionel Robert

Daniel Robey

Michael Rogich

Nicholas C. Romano Jr.

Sherry D. Ryan

Young U. Ryu

Khawaja Saeed

Otavio Sanchez

G. Lawrence Sanders

Radhika Santhanam

Pallab Sanyal

Suprateek Sarker

Surendra Sarnikar

Carol Saunders

Gregory Schechtman

George Schell

Petra Schubert

Judy Scott

Ravi Sen

Sylvain Sénécal

Nainika Seth

Vikram Sethi

Theresa M. Shaft

Michael Shaw

Jim Sheffield

Hong Sheng

Morgan M. Shepherd

Michael Shields

Choon Ling Sia

Siew Kien Sia

Keng Siau

Mark Silver

Param Vir Singh

Atish P. Sinha

Sumit Sircar

H. Jeff Smith

Toni M. Somers

Jai-Yeol Son

Jaeki Song

Ryan Sougstad

Scott Spangler

William E. Spangler

Rajendra P. Srivastava

Thomas F. Stafford

Stephen Standifird

Sandy Staples

Eric W. Stein

Dick Stenmark

Diane M. Strong

Besiki Stvilia

Mani Subramani

Arun Sundararajan

Shankar Sundaresan

Tae Kyung Sung

Ali Tafti

Paul P. Tallon

Vaughn Tan

Yao-Hua Tan

Xinlin Tang

Mohan R. Tanniru

Monideepa Tarafdar

Nolan Taylor

Gary F. Templeton

Hock Hai Teo

Thompson Teo

Jason B. Thatcher

Matthew Thatcher

Dominic Thomas

Ron Thompson

James Y.L. Thong

Amrit Tiwana

Leon van der Torre

Gregory E. Truman

Yanbin Tu

Ilkka Tuomi

Ofir Turel

Tuure Tuunanen

N.S. Umanath

Andrew Urbaczewski

Rustam Vahidov

Anthony Vance

Viswanath Venkatesh

Goetz Viering

Padmal Vitharana

Douglas Vogel

Roumen Vragov

Steven Walczak

Zhiping Walter

Bin Wang

Eric T.G. Wang

Jingguo Wang

Michael S. Wang

Qiu-Hong Wang

Shouhong Wang

Sophia Wang

Weiquan Wang

Yinglei Wang

Y. Richard Wang

Molly Wasko

Mary Beth Watson-Manheim

Sunil Wattal

Thomas Weber

Chih-Ping Wei

Charles E. Wells

John Wells

Larry West

J. Christopher Westland

Jonathan Whitaker

Michael E. Whitman

Jeffrey L. Whitten

George Widmeyer

Rolf Wigand

Fons Wijnhoven

Christopher Wolfe

Charles A. Wood

Hans Wortmann

Ryan Wright

Dazhong Wu

Mu Xia

Weidong Xia

Mingdi Xin

Heng Xu

Hongjiang Xu

Lizhen Xu

Peng Xu

Christopher Yang

Oliver Yao

Ulku Yaylacicegi

Byungjoon Yoo

Yufei Yuan

Fatemeh Zahedi

Dongsong Zhang

Han Zhang

Jennifer Zhang

John Zhang

Michael Zhang

Ping Zhang

Zuopeng Zhang

Huimin Zhao

Kexin Zhao

J. Leon Zhao

Dmitry Zhdanov

Lina Zhou

Yilu Zhou

Zhongyun Zhou

Hongwei Zhu

Youlong Zhuang

J. Christopher Zimmer

Moshe Zviran

Let us now turn our attention to the papers.

Vladimir Zwass

Editor-in-Chief