The 2019 impact factor (announced end of June 2020) for ISJ is 4.188. This is the third best impact factor in the Basket of Eight IS Journals. See past ISJ impact factors and the Editor’s comment on impact factors here. The next impact factor (2020) will not be available until around mid June 2021.

Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source

Abstract

This study investigates the observed behavioural outcomes when users experience negative disconfirmation with consumerised IT artefacts with the aim to identify the generative mechanisms of these outcomes. We analyse blogposts, authored and published by tablet users, where they narrate their experience with an IT artefact. We employ grounded theory method techniques, and through the lens of Critical Realism and the application of abduction and retroduction, we identify three user accommodating practices following negative disconfirmation, namely discontinuance behaviour, workarounds and reframing, and two generative mechanisms with enduring properties and causal power over them: solution identification and cost/benefits assessment. Our work contributes to the literature of volitional IT use and the consumerisation of IT, by uncovering the mechanisms that pave the way towards observed user behaviours.

Source

Abstract

Digital social innovation is important for addressing various social needs, especially from those who are economically disadvantaged. For instance, open source software (OSS) is developed by mass collaboration on digital communities to provide software users free alternatives to commercial products. OSS is particularly valuable to meet the needs of numerous disadvantaged users for whom proprietary software is not affordable. While OSS projects are lack of formal organizational structure, project leaders play a significant role in initiating and managing these projects and eventually, influencing the degree to which the developed software is used and liked by users. Drawing on resource dependence theory, we investigate the impacts of two team?level characteristics of OSS project leaders (ie, size and tenure) on how well the developed software can address users’ needs, with regard to the quantity of software being used by users and the quality of software to users’ satisfaction. Further, from a resource dependence perspective, we examine the moderating role of project leaders’ network ties in shaping the contingency of these effects. By using a large?scale dataset from 43?048 OSS development projects in SourceForge community, we find empirical evidence corroborating our theory. Taken together, our findings suggest the boundary?spanning role of project leaders in developing digital social innovation.

Source

Abstract

Digital social innovation (DSI)—the novel use of digital technology to address societal challenges—plays a critical role in our collective pursuit of sustainable development. In this practitioner paper, we present an in?depth DSI case study where the grassroots communities in a remote county leveraged e?commerce to leapfrog out of poverty, becoming successful entrepreneurs with online businesses that thrive on a global scale. Based on this case study, we first discuss three leapfrogging opportunities afforded by e?commerce, which were successfully embraced by the grassroots communities to begin the transformative journey. We then reveal three obstacles that emerged during the technology leapfrogging process, which have challenged the sustainability of the grassroots DSI endeavour. Lastly, we discuss three top?down interventions that have been instrumental in overcoming the bottleneck of grassroots leapfrogging development and subsequently nurture a self?sustaining, resilient community. Overall, by discussing some of the common barriers to the growth and sustainability of DSI, and how they have been addressed, this article offers insights and recommendations for policymakers, public and private sector practitioners, and communities in underdeveloped regions to navigate both the potentials and pitfalls of technology leapfrogging, and ultimately build a pathway towards resilience and sustainability.

Source

Abstract

Recent years have seen an explosion in social media in our everyday lives, and a corresponding increase in social media research in IS. As social media researchers, we are intrigued by the problem of virtuality and context in social media research, and how we might apply reflexive research principles to such settings. In social media, the absence of a setting’s real physical boundaries (to a large extent) limits participants’ ability to create a common experience at the present time and develop a history of shared experiences. As a result, we would contend that many social media researchers’ interpretations of data in social media settings are often black?boxed. In this paper, we argue that many of the challenges concerned with social media settings, by nature, are emergent and linked to their virtual and contextual features. We use the Klein and Myers (1999) framework for traditional interpretive field studies as a vehicle for unpacking these challenges. We contend that these challenges may remain unnoticed if researchers do not actively reflect upon their impact on the research process. In this paper, we present a framework for social media research, considering social media research as a reflexive space, building on the notion of three levels of reflexivity: theory, design and practice. Finally, we discuss some implications of reflexivity for qualitative social media research in IS.

Source

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the nature of the influence of organisational information technology (IT) on innovation. To examine this relationship, we leverage a fundamental construct: harmonious IT affordance (HITA). HITA is defined as the degree of coalignment between three salient organisational IT affordances, each of which allows an organisation to carry out its most fundamental functions using IT—collaboration, maintenance of organisational memory, and management of organisational processes. We theorize that HITA has a quadratic (U?shaped) effect on innovation. Our theory proposes that when IT affordances increasingly co?align (reflected by increasing HITA), the organisation enters a synergistic, virtuous phase that encourages innovation. Counterintuitively, the increasing misalignment of IT affordances can also result in organisational innovation via creative dissonance, which enables organisations to look for opportunities in the presence of misalignment and leverage it to create a synergistic virtuous cycle. We conducted two empirical studies—one with high?level IT executives knowledgeable about innovation and one with sales and business development executives (who market innovations) knowledgeable about IT—that corroborate our theory. Crucially, if the IT affordances are unrelated (low coalignment, where HITA is close to zero), then innovation does not take place. We thus surmise that the relation between HITA and innovation is quadratic.

Source

Abstract

IT outsourcing (ITO) remains a popular business practice, but many buyers and suppliers of IT services are caught in a vicious relationship spiral of low trust, bad collaboration and mediocre performance. This paper describes a novel process understanding of how vicious cycles work and suggests a new method for how they can be reversed into virtuous cycles. Based on the action research and complementary system dynamics simulation, this paper demonstrates how an ineffective ITO relationship between a European Harbour Authority and its main IT supplier ITCo was formed and, later, transformed. The method, involving collaborative redesign of service workflows, applied in this action research triggered the reversal of an otherwise downward relationship spiral. Both the empirical facts from the action research data and the system dynamics simulation data are provided as evidence. We conclude the paper with conceptual and methodological contributions as well as scope for future research.

Source

Abstract

While common wisdom suggests that big data facilitates better decisions, we posit that it may not always be the case, as big data aspects can also afford and motivate knowledge hiding. To examine this possibility, we integrate adaptive cost theory with the resource?based view of the firm. This integration suggests that the effect of big data characteristics (i.e., data variety, volume, and velocity) on firm decision quality can be explained, in part, by data analysts’ perceived knowledge hiding behaviours, including evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding. We examined this model with survey data from 149 data analysts in firms that use big data to varying degrees. The findings show that big data characteristics have distinct effects on knowledge hiding behaviours. While data volume and velocity enhance knowledge hiding, data variety reduces it. Moreover, evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding have varying effects on firm decision quality. Whereas evasive hiding reduces firm decision?making quality, playing dumb does not affect it, and rationalized hiding improves it. These results are further validated with applicability checks. Ultimately, these results can explain inconsistent past findings regarding the return on investment in big data and provide a unique look into the potential “dark sides” of big data.

Source

Abstract

In this article, we aim to sensitise the information systems community about the dispossession of choice that the extended reliance on Internet technology creates for individuals. The overemphasis of digital inclusion as a solution to the digital divide problem frames Internet use as desirable in a progressive society but labels non?use as problematic or a deficiency that needs to be remedied. This situation, we argue, creates a new modality of inequality that we term digital enforcement, defined as the process of dispossession that reduces choices for individuals who prefer to minimise their reliance on the Internet if given the opportunity or those who want to live their lives offline altogether. We present digital enforcement as an ethical problem and draw on the concepts of governmentality and technologies of power to explain how practices around Internet use in society result in digital enforcement. We conclude with a hopeful perspective to call for an ethical agenda to develop desirable futures.

Source

Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source