Network effects are the grounding of many highly successful business models in the contemporary commerce with online aspects. Although such effects are more frequently claimed than realized, the super-linear value increase with each additional customer is a powerful means for the platforms to expand their market (and other) power with their size. There are several kinds of network effects, they vary in their degree, and they are not always positive. Being able to estimate the magnitude of such effects is of a great moment as we witness the entrenchment and the expansion of the leading platforms in several industry segments. These effects, particularly if data-based, also allow the platforms to cross the boundaries of their industries. Indeed, today’s regulatory debates turn to a large degree on our ability to assess network effects in specific cases. The first paper of the issue makes a significant contribution to this ability. Oliver Hinz, Thomas Otter, and Bernd Skiera propose and test a new model for the estimation of network effects in two-sided markets, the common seller-buyer marketplaces these days prominently realized by large intermediary platforms. Positive network effects present themselves both in the increased ability to attract new customers and in the increased activity of the existing ones. Supported by a more granular data set, the influx-outflow model offered here includes both same-side and cross-side effects and accounts not only for the acquisition of new actors on the platform but also for their inactivity or exit. The cumulating data and other advantages of bigness affect market entry and the capacity of autonomous growth of the relatively successful more recent entrants, leading to market distortions, and this research should be studied carefully and built upon. The ability of enhanced estimation will also be, perhaps ironically, of advantage to the principal beneficiaries of the network effects. As the authors build on the prior work, so this contribution will be a foundation of further research in this important area.
With behavioral economics, we learn ever more about the homo economicus as an actual human being as opposed to a utility-maximizing stick figure the Latin designation has come to stand for. We know that an individual’s willingness to pay is not a fixed number, but rather a contingent amount influenced by some the four Ps of classical marketing. How can this amount be affected in e-commerce by priming in the form of digital nudging? This is the question tackled empirically by Alan R. Dennis, Lingyao (Ivy) Yuan, Xuan Feng, Eric Webb, and Christine J. Hsieh in the next paper. The authors compare the effects of two forms of nudging: numeric and semantic (via prior exposure to related products). A nudge can be delivered online in the form of an advertisement. The analysis is conducted in the terms of System 1 (automatic) and System 2 (deliberate) cognitions. The authors find significant impacts of anchoring via digital nudging, with several contingent and differential effects with respect to the type of nudging and the nature of the price (fixed versus discovered in an auction).
The digitalization of our world spells profound changes to our labor markets, the availability of human labor places, and the nature of human labor. Two papers investigate different aspects of this. David Durward, Ivo Blohm, and Jan Marco Leimeister focus on crowd work, conducted by extra-organizational individuals reached, selected, and organized online. In the context of the developed economies, the authors take the perspective of crowd workers and inquire into their satisfaction and identification with crowd work in dependence on financial compensation and the task characteristics. Deploying the self-determination theory of human motivation, the researchers use the data of several crowd working platforms to tease out the dependencies between these two aspects of crowd work, where fractured tasks and low pay often sap workers’ motivation. Contributing to the theory of IT-based work, the authors also have advice to offer to the designers of crowd working platforms.
Software permeates our economic and personal life. A thick understanding of software development processes and habitus is therefore of key importance. Here, Shahla Ghobadi and Lars Mathiassen present the results of a qualitative study of software developers who are what the authors term precocious users of social networking, in other words, individuals whose social activities have revolved around these facilities since early age. What are the distinct expectations of these generational cohorts? How do they perceive the product- and process-related objectives of software development? This research accomplished several ends. The usefulness of the generational perspective on the workforce is affirmed. The co-evolutionary view, in which the social context created in part by the powerful new tools evolves together with the expectations and norms of the new digital workforce, has yielded a more granular understanding of this workforce. We can hope that this understanding will lead to more robust software, greater developer satisfaction, and societal good beyond those.
In the next paper, Mario Silic and Paul Benjamin Lowry address the perennial problem of compliance with the organizational IS security by gamifying security training, relying on established theories of motivation and learning. They also deploy the hedonic-motivation system adoption model, co-proposed earlier by one of the authors. Thus, if the sometimes dreary training process can bring fun or even joy to the learners, and they can be motivated to learn, corporate security can be significantly enhanced. Notably, the authors use a field experiment to test the relevant propositions. Indeed, they apply a design-science approach to move from the proof-of-concept to the proof-of-value of the gamified training system. They also set out the procedure for establishing proof-of-use in a broader testing. This is a very promising approach that may be applied more broadly in IT-based organizational training.
Online communities suffer, decline, or cease due to member inactivity. Jungwon Kuem, Lara Khansa, and Sung S. Kim contribute to our theory-based understanding of what can be done about it. They define prominence of the community in the members’ thoughts and feelings as a construct different from and complementary to the members’ engagement in the community. The authors analyze the differences between the two constructs in the context of self-determination theory, operationalize the new construct, and test their model with the data collected from a highly popular social networking platform. The prominence-engagement model proposed by the researchers displays stronger explanatory power than the engagement-only approach to the antecedents of the members’ active contribution to the community. The obvious theoretical contribution is accompanied by guidance to platform offerors.
We know full well that malicious hackers are a bane of our existence. The authors of the next paper, Ravi Sen, Ajay Verma, and Gregory R. Heim find a silver lining (or, rather, a silver patch). In a formal modeling of the software marketplace, they show that the presence of such hackers may result in a competitive marketplace where their absence could lead to a monopoly. Beyond that, in their two-platform model the authors establish that — under the circumstances they describe — software platform under hacker attack may drive a more secure platform out of business. There is an experiential and intuitive backing for the authors’ contention, and they present it. They also draw up regulatory implications in their conclusions.
IT-enabled collaborative innovation by multiple firms can bring in truly valuable fruit owing to the multiple kinds of diversity. This fruit is also difficult to reach for — again, due to the diversity and what the authors term knowledge distance. What capabilities need to be honed and actualized by the partnering firms to support such collaboration and counteract this distance? Tingru Cui, Yu Tong, Hock-Hai Teo, and Jizhen Li address this question in their multi-method research work where they develop and test a model with the data from 258 firms. The authors focus on the IT capabilities in dyadic collaboration arrangements. They address both the product and the process aspects and offer both a theoretical contribution and managerial advice based on it. The rich qualitative data makes for a rich paper.
Many IT platforms deliver their services via application programming interfaces (APIs). As assert the authors of the next paper, Jochen Wulf and Ivo Blohm, we still need a unifying theory of the design of such interfaces in order to deliver strategic results to the platforms. Based on their survey-based data collection, the authors proceed to develop a model of the interaction between the three archetypal API designs they identify and the two value creation strategies: production economies of scope and innovation. Combined with cloud computing, the API paradigm for platforms will see further and more intensive deployment. No doubt, the present work will see further expansion and refinement.
As a relatively new form of fintech, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending is a form of crowdsourcing of money that — if implemented properly — can bring high returns to lenders and, as compared to the alternatives, low cost to borrowers. The “if” is the risk, and the proper implementation turns on the assessment of that risk. In the concluding paper of the issue, Zhao Wang, Cuiqing Jiang, Huimin Zhao, and Yong Ding present and evaluate empirically a novel method of credit risk evaluation in the domain. They use text mining to automatically extract semantically meaningful soft factors from the loan-request descriptions. When combined with the hard factors generally used in credit assessment, the mined and processed soft factors show superior performance with respect to the current methods. Lowering the risk of funding in P2P marketplaces lowers the prevailing interest rates, assists in the securitization of loans, and expands the domain. We have here a novel mining technique, a superior credit assessment method, and a way to broaden the use of peer-to-peer lending owing to an increased trust in the overall system.
As we enter the new publication year, we are welcoming the new members of JMIS Editorial Board: Indranil R. Bardhan (University of Texas at Austin), Geneviève Bassellier(McGill University), Line Dubé (HEC Montréal), Janis L. Gogan (Bentley University), Lara Khansa (Virginia Tech), Fei Ren (Peking University), Yuqing Ren (University of Minnesota), and Carsten Sørensen (London School of Economics and Political Science). The long-term service of Nabil R. Adam, Robert O. Briggs, John C. Henderson, and Tosiyasu L. Kunii, who are leaving the Board, is being recognized and acknowledged.
The opening of the 37th JMIS volume is also an occasion to offer tanks to the Journal’s referees, the primary guarantors of the quality of the papers we publish. Here are the names of our reviewers:
Marc Adam
Ashish Agarwal
Manju Ahuja
Hyung Jun Ahn
JaeHyeon Ahn
Tolga Akcura
Eleftherios Alamanos
Oliver Alexy
Muhammad Aljukhadar
Paul Alpar
Kemal Altinkemer
Naveen Amblee
Bonnie Anderson
Corey Angst
Ofer Arazy
Kursad Asdemir
Yoris Au
Hyunmi Baek
Qing Bai
Akhilesh Bajaj
Hillol Bala
Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay
Youngsok Bang
Gaurav Bansal
Qing Bao
Reza Barkhi
Henri Barki
Jordan Barlow
Richard Baskerville
Genevieve Basselier
Dinesh Batra
Daniel Beimborn
D. France Belanger
Skip Benamati
Michel Benaroch
Hind Benbya
Victor Benjamin
Alexander Benlian
François Bergeron
Ganesh Bhatt
Sudip Bhattacharjee
Tammo Bijmolt
David Biros
Ivo Blohm
Jesse Bockstedt
Riccardo Bonazzi
Antal van den Bosch
Indranil Bose
Laura Brandimarte
Tobias Brandt
Nicola Breugst
Glenn J. Browne
Sebastian Bruque
Scott Buffett
Judee Burgoon
Andrew Burton-Jones
Ashley Bush
Brian Butler
Terry A. Byrd
Sonia M. Camacho
Jinwei Cao
Lan Cao
Hasan Cavusoglu
Ron Cenfetelli
Hsin-Lu Chang
Young Bong Chang
Mohamed-Hédi Charki
Sutirtha Chatterjee
Michael Chau
Patrick Chau
Aihui Chen
Andrew Chen
Daniel Chen
Guoqing Chen
Hailiang Chen
Hong-Mei Chen
Hsinchun Chen
Jianqing Chen
Jin Chen
Kay-Yut Chen
Kuan Chen
Li Chen
Min Chen
Rui Chen
Wei Chen
Hsing Kenneth Cheng
Xusen Cheng
Yi Cheng
Christy M.K. Cheaung
Mike Cheung
Roger Chiang
Benjamin Chiao
Ananth Chiravuri
Chaochang Chiu
Jong-min Choe
Ben Choi
H. Michael Chung
Sunghun Chung
Wingyan Chung
Theodore H. Clark
Randolph Cooper
Kevin Craig
Robert E. Crossler
Kevin Crowston
Qizhi Dai
John D’Arcy
Elizabeth Davidson
Gregory Dawson
Jason Dedrick
Benedict Dellaert
Chrysanthos Dellarocas
Haluk Demirkan
Tianjie Deng
Xuefei Deng
Amit Deokar
Sarv Devaraj
Rajiv Dewan
Debabrata Dey
Jens Dibbern
Indika Dissanayake
Su Dong
Tianxi Dong
Quanzhou Du
Line Dubé
Peter Duchessi
Robert Easley
Dana Edberg
Christophe Elie-Dit-Cosaque
Aaron Elkins
Mike Eom
Sean B. Eom
J. Alberto Espinosa
Andrea Everard
Kelly Fadel
Ming Fan
Patrick Fan
Xiao Fang
Yu-Hui Fang
Yulin Fang
Dennis Fehrenbacher
Rei Fen
Jane Feng
Xuan Feng
Daniel R. Fesenmaier
Thomas A. Fischer
Jerry Fjermestad
Chris Forman
Chiara Francalanci
Shixuan Fu
Johann Füller
Brent Furneaux
John Gallaugher
Gordon Gao
Hong Gao
Monica Garfield
Rajiv Garg
Ina Garnefeld
Ruyi Ge
Hosssein Ghasemkhani
Abhijeet Ghoshal
Janis L. Gogan
Kim Huat Goh
Thomas Goh
Sigi Goode
Dale Goodhue
Anand Gopal
Ram D. Gopal
Peter Gray
Dawn G. Gregg
Shirley Gregor
Ulrike Gretzel
Robert K. Griffin
Michael D. Grigoriades
Xitong Guo
Xunhua Guo
Yue Guo
Zhiling Guo
Saurabh Gupta
Nicole Haggerty
Jungpil Hahn
Kunsoo Han
Ingoo Han
Lin Hao
Andrew Hardin
Taha Havakhor
Matthew Hashim
Irina Heimbach
Cheng-Suang Heng
Hemantha Herath
Tejaswini Herath
Traci Hess
Alan R. Hevner
Oliver Hinz
Chad (Yi-Chun) Ho
Susanna Ho
Christian P. Hoffmann
Richard Hoffman
Jason Hong
Kevin Hong
Weiyin Hong
Yili (Kevin) Hong
Zhe Hong
John A. Hoxmeier
Jove Hou
Jeffrey Hu
Nan Hu
Paul Hu
Qing Hu
Yuheng Hu
Chun-Yao Huang
Ming-Hui Huang
Shiu-Li Huang
Wayne Huang
Xiaowen Huang
Thomas Huber
Kai Lung Hui
Wendy Hui
Ard Huizing
Ghiyong Im
Gretchen I. Irwin
Anja Ischebeck
Varghese Jacob
Bharat A. Jain
Hemant Jain
Jeevan Jaisingh
Tabitha James
Dietmar Jannach
Jeff Jenkins
Matthew Jensen
James J. Jiang
Qiqi Jiang
Yang Jiang
Zhengrui Jiang
Zhenhui Jiang
Gong Jing
Monica Johar
Alice Johnson
Eric Johnson
Emmanuel Josserand
Surinder Kahai
Arnold Kamis
P.K. Kannan
Maurits Kaptein
Prasanna Karhade
Jahangir Karimi
Sabrina Karwatzki
Michael Kattan
Timothy Kayworth
Weiling Ke
Mark Keith
William J. Kettinger
Lara Khansa
Moutaz Khouja
Melody Y. Kiang
Antino Kim
Byung Cho Kim
Dan J. Kim
Dongmin Kim
Hee-Woong Kim
Keongtae Kim
Kihoon Kim
Seung Hyun Kim
Sung S. Kim
Taekyung Kim
Young-Gul Kim
Ruth King
Rajiv Kishore
Brent Kitchens
Giban Khuntia
Gary Klein
Richard Klein
Sven Kleinknecht
Stefan Knoll
Cenk Kocas
Chang Koh
Rajiv Kohli
Tobias Kollman
Praveen K. Kopalle
Kenneth A. Kozar
Oliver Krancher
Ramayya Krishnan
Kevin Kuan
Akhil Kumar
Naveen Kumar
Ram Kumar
Subodha Kumar
Jason Kuruzovich
Hyeokkoo Eric Kwon
Juhee Kwon
Ohbyung Kwon
Atanu Lahiri
Karl R. Lang
Nishtha Langer
Kai R. Larsen
Michael Lash
Benjiang Lee
Brian Lee
ByungJoon Lee
Byungtae Lee
Daniel Lee
Dong-Joo Lee
Gene Moo Lee
Goonwoong Lee
Gwanhoo Lee
Heeseok Lee
Ho Geun Lee
Hyung Koo Lee
Jong Seok Lee
Jungwoo Lee
Thomas Lee
Yang Lee
Youngjin Lee
Pierre-Majorique Léger
Christine Lehrer
Dorothy Leidner
Chen Li
Dahui Li
Jiexun Li
Mengxiang Li
Seth Li
Shengli Li
Ting Li
Weifeng Li
Xiaobai Li
Xiaotong Li
Xin Li
XinXin Li
Xitong Li
Yan Li
Chen Liang
Huigang Liang
Nan (Peter) Liang
Ting-Peng Liang
Paul Licker
John Lim
Shi Ying Lim
Aleck Lin
Fu-ren Lin
Mei Lin
Zhijie Lin
Charles Zhechao Liu
De Liu
Jun Liu
Ying Liu
Yipeng Liu
Alexandre Lopes
Paul B. Lowry
Benjiang Lu
Jingdu Lu
Yixin Lu
Henry C. Lucas, Jr.
Andy Luse
Christoph Lutz
Mark Lycett
Kristina McElheran
Jane M. Mackay
Dan Ma
Xiao Ma
Ephraim R. McLean
Massimo Magni
Pruthikrai Mahatanankoon
M. Adam Mahmood
Bin Mai
Feng Mai
Ronald Maier
Yogesh Malhotra
Deepa Mani
Ravi Mantena
Kent Marett
Panos Markopoulos
Likoebe M. Maruping
Anne P. Massey
Lars Mathiassen
Sabine Matook
Kurt Matzler
Xiaowei Mei
Martin Meissner
Nigel Melville
Philip Menard
Nirup Menon
Thomas Meservy
Shaila Miranda
Dinesh Mirchandani
Abhay Nath Mishra
Stephanie Missonier
Kannan Mohan
William Money
Ali R. Montazemi
Ramiro Montealegre
Alan Montgomery
Greg Moody
Jolene Morrison
Oliver Mueller
Barin N. Nag
Fiona Nah
Guofang Nan
Ravi Narayanaswamy
Derek Nazareth
Matthew Nelson
R. Ryan Nelson
Boon Siong Neo
Derrick Neufeld
Dirk Neumann
Dorit Nevo
Saggi Nevo
Michael Newman
Tingting Nian
Mark Nissen
Dmitri Nizovtsev
Oded Nov
Jeong-ha Oh
Joo Hee Oh
Lih-Bin Oh
Onook Oh
Wonseok Oh
Bob O’Keefe
Lorne Olfman
James Oliver
Nadia Olivero
Bob Otondo
Peter Otto
Eric Overby
Zafer D. Ozdemir
Asil Oztekin
Gautam Pant
Manoj Parameswaran
Michael Parent
Insu Park
SungJune Park
Craig Parker
Bhavik K. Pathak
Praveen Pathak
Ravi Patnayakuni
Souren Paul
David J. Pauleen
Kenneth Peffers
Robin Pennington
Christoph Peters
Chee-Wei Phang
Roger A. Pick
Alain Pinsonneault
Selwyn Piramuthu
Huseyin Polat
Jean-Charles Pomerol
Jaana Porra
Constance Porter
Clay Posey
John H. Prager
David Preston
Jeffrey Proudfoot
Sandeep Purao
Jessica Pye
Hamed Qahri-Saremi
Liangfei Qiu
Lingyun Qiu
Xin Xue Qu
Wen Guang Qu
Arik Ragowsky
Rex Kelly Rainer, Jr.
Balaraman Rajan
Vandana Ramachandran
Arkalgud Ramaprasad
Bala Ramesh
R. Ravichandran
Gautam Ray
Louis Raymond
Jan Recker
Blaize Horner Reich
Bruce Reinig
Fei Ren
Paul Resnick
Hyuen-Suk Rhee
Amir Riaz
William B. Richmond
Christoph Riedl
René Riedl
Lionel Robert
Nicholas Roberts
Michael Rogich
Huaxia Rui
Ko de Ruyter
Sherry D. Ryan
Young U. Ryu
Michael Sacks
Khawaja Saeed
Rajib Saha
Otavio Sanchez
G. Lawrence Sanders
Radhika Santhanam
Saonee Sarker
Surendra Sarnikar
Carol Saunders
Kevin Scheibe
George Schell
Michael Schermann
Hans J. Scholl
Petra Schubert
Ryan Schuetzler
Judy Scott
Isabella Seeber
Eric See-To
Stefan Seidel
Ravi Sen
Sagnika Sen
Sylvain Sénécal
Alexander Serenko
Nainika Seth
Vikram Sethi
Theresa M. Shaft
Zhe Shan
Tushar Shanker
Raj Sharman
Jim Sheffield
Hong Sheng
Zhan Shi
Hung-Pin Shih
Choon-Ling Sia
Siew Kien Sia
Keng Siau
Anna Sidorova
Michael Siering
Mark Silver
Harpreet Singh
Param Vir Singh
Atish P. Sinha
Sumit Sircar
Bernd Skiera
Stefan Smolnik
Jaeki Song
Scott Spangler
William E. Spangler
Rajendra P. Srivastava
Shirish C. Srivastava
Thomas F. Stafford
Eric W. Stein
Dennis Steininger
Stefan Stieglitz
Theofanis C. Stratopoulos
Diane M. Strong
Ayoung Su
Mani Subramani
Chandra Subramaniam
Ramanath Subramanyam
Daewon Sun
Heshan Sun
Tianshu Sun
Arun Sundararajan
Shankar Sundaresan
Juliana Sutanto
Ali Tafti
Paul P. Tallon
Chee-Wee Tan
Chuan-Hoo Tan
Yao-Hua Tan
Yuliang (Ricky) Tan
Quian Tang
Xinlin Tang
Yong Tang
Mohan R. Tanniru
Nolan Taylor
Orkun Temizkan
Gary F. Templeton
Hock Hai Teo
Thompson Teo
Matthew Thatcher
Ferdinand Thies
Dominic Thomas
Ron Thompson
James Y.L. Thong
Ryad Titah
Monica Chiarini Tremblay
Manuel Trenz
Dimitrios Tsekouras
Yanbin Tu
Ofir Turel
Tuure Tuunanen
Doug Twitchell
Nathan W. Twyman
Sonja Utz
Rustam Vahidov
Peter van Baalen
Wietske van Osch
Ganesan Vaidyanathan
Daniel Veit
Goetz Viering
Leo Vijayasarathy
Padmal Vitharana
Joseph Vithayatil
Douglas Vogel
Sebastian Voigt
Jan vom Brocke
Heinz-Theo Wagner
Eric Walden
Jeffrey Wall
Joseph Walls
Zhiping Walter
Alan Wang
Bin Wang
Chong (Alex) Wang
Eric T.G. Wang
Jingguo Wang
Michael S. Wang
Qiu-Hong Wang
Shane Wang
Shouhong Wang
Sophia Wang
Weiquan Wang
Xin Wang
Yinglei Wang
Y. Richard Wang
Deepa Wani
Sidne Ward
Mary Beth Watson-Manheim
Sunil Wattal
Thomas Weber
Chih-Ping Wei
Markus Weinmann
Tim Weitzel
John Wells
Michael Wessel
Robert West
Jonathan Whitaker
Michael E. Whitman
Jeffrey L. Whitten
George Widmeyer
Rolf Wigand
Fons Wijnhoven
E. Vance Wilson
Robert Winter
Christopher Wolfe
Christina Wong
Charles A. Wood
Hans Wortmann
Ryan Wright
Dazhong Wu
Choon Ling Xia
Lan Xia
Xiao Xiao
Mingdi Xin
Guiyang Xiong
David Xu
Heng Xu
Junjie (Calvin) Xu
Jennifer Xu
Lizhen Xu
Peng Xu
Yunjie (Calvin) Xu
Ling Xue
Lucy Yan
Yinping Yang
Zhiyong Yang
Oliver Yao
Cheng Yi
Denny Yin
Zhitao Yin
Byungjoon Yoo
Ivy Yuan
Yufei Yuan
Wei T. Yue
Chun Zeng
Xiaouhua Zeng
Dongsong Zhang
Han Zhang
John Zhang
Kungpeng Zhang
Ping Zhang
Xiaoquan Zhang
Yulei Zhang
Zhu Zhang
Huimin Zhao
J. Leon Zhao
Kang Zhao
Kexin Zhao
Xia Zhao
Zhiqiang Zheng
Lei Zhou
Lina Zhou
Phil Zhou
Wenqi Zhou
Yilu Zhou
Zhongyun Zhou
Hongwei Zhu
Wenqi Zhu
Youlong Zhuang
David Zimbra
Let us turn our attention to the papers of the first issue of our 37th volume.