Knowledge that Transforms

The five-factor model (FFM) of personality has been used to great effect in management and psychology research to predict attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors, but has largely been ignored in the IS field. We demonstrate the potential utility of incorporating this model into IS research by using the FFM personality factors in the context of technology acceptance. We propose a dispositional perspective to understanding user attitudes and beliefs, and examine the effect of user personality—captured using the FFM's big five factors—on both the perceived usefulness of and subjective norms toward the acceptance and use of technology. Using logged usage data from 180 new users of a collaborative technology, we found general support for our hypotheses that the FFM personality dimensions can be useful predictors of users' attitudes and beliefs. We also found strong support for the relationships between intention to use and system use.

The research reported in this paper studies the phenomenon of technostress, that is, stress experienced by end users of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and examines its influence on their job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, and intention to stay. Drawing from the Transaction-Based Model of stress and prior research on the effects of ICTs on end users, we first conceptually build a nomological net for technostress to understand the influence of technostress on three variables relating to end users of ICTs: job satisfaction, and organizational and continuance commitment. Because there are no prior instruments to measure constructs related to technostress, we develop and empirically validate two second order constructs: technostress creators (i.e., factors that create stress from the use of ICTs) and technostress inhibitors (i.e., organizational mechanisms that reduce stress from the use of ICTs). We test our conceptual model using data from the responses of 608 end users of ICTs from multiple organizations to a survey questionnaire. Our results, based on structural equation modeling (SEM), show that technostress creators decrease job satisfaction, leading to decreased organizational and continuance commitment, while Technostress inhibitors increase job satisfaction and organizational and continuance commitment. We also find that age, gender, education, and computer confidence influence technostress. The implications of these results and future research directions are discussed.

Online product reviews may be subject to self-selection biases that impact consumer purchase behavior, online ratings' time series, and consumer surplus. This occurs if early buyers hold different preferences than do later consumers about the quality of a given product. Readers of early product reviews may not successfully correct for these preference differences when interpreting ratings and making purchases. In this study, we develop a model that examines how idiosyncratic preferences of early buyers can affect long-term consumer purchase behavior as well as the social welfare created by review systems. Our model provides an explanation for the structure of product ratings over time, which we empirically test using online book reviews posted on Amazon.com. Our analysis suggests that firms could benefit from altering their marketing strategies such as pricing, advertising, or product design to encourage consumers likely to yield positive reports to self-select into the market early and generate positive word-of-mouth for new products. On the other hand, self-selection bias, if not corrected, decreases consumer surplus.

Consumer-generated product reviews have proliferated online, driven by the notion that consumers' decision to purchase or not purchase a product is based on the positive or negative information about that product they obtain from fellow consumers. Using research on information processing as a foundation, we suggest that in the context of an online community, reviewer disclosure of identity-descriptive information is used by consumers to supplement or replace product information when making purchase decisions and evaluating the helpfulness of online reviews. Using a unique data set based on both chronologically compiled ratings as well as reviewer characteristics for a given set of products and geographical location-based purchasing behavior from Amazon, we provide evidence that community norms are an antecedent to reviewer disclosure of identity-descriptive information. Online community members rate reviews containing identity-descriptive information more positively, and the prevalence of reviewer disclosure of identity information is associated with increases in subsequent online product sales. In addition, we show that shared geographical location increases the relationship between disclosure and product sales, thus highlighting the important role of geography in electronic commerce. Taken together, our results suggest that identity-relevant information about reviewers shapes community members' judgment of products and reviews. Implications for research on the relationship between online word-of-mouth (WOM) and sales, peer recognition and reputation systems, and conformity to online community norms are discussed.

Viral marketing is a form of peer-to-peer communication in which individuals are encouraged to pass on promotional messages within their social networks. Conventional wisdom holds that the viral marketing process is both random and unmanageable. In this paper, we deconstruct the process and investigate the formation of the activated digital network as distinct from the underlying social network. We then consider the impact of the social structure of digital networks (random, scale free, and small world) and of the transmission behavior of individuals on campaign performance. Specifically, we identify alternative social network models to understand the mediating effects of the social structures of these models on viral marketing campaigns. Next, we analyse an actual viral marketing campaign and use the empirical data to develop and validate a computer simulation model for viral marketing. Finally, we conduct a number of simulation experiments to predict the spread of a viral message within different types of social network structures under different assumptions and scenarios. Our findings confirm that the social structure of digital networks play a critical role in the spread of a viral message. Managers seeking to optimize campaign performance should give consideration to these findings before designing and implementing viral marketing campaigns. We also demonstrate how a simulation model is used to quantify the impact of campaign management inputs and how these learnings can support managerial decision making.

With the continued growth of business-to-consumer (B2C) e-business, online vendors are providing an increasing array of services that support and enhance their core products or services. For example, Amazon.com does not just sell books; it also enhances that core product with automated product recommendations, “wish list” tracking, order status updates, customer reviews, and many other valuable supporting services. These supporting services are made possible exclusively through the design and deployment of information technology (IT) to provide website supporting services functionality (SSF). In this paper, we define and develop the concept of B2C SSF and investigate how IT can support core products or services. We theorize the role that SSF plays in an environment where individuals who visit B2C websites are not only customers but also technology users. Given the unique online environment that amalgamates vendor services with information systems (IS), our model integrates theories from both services marketing and technology acceptance to help explain the behavior of these customers/users. In doing so, we investigate the role of the extensively researched concept of service quality in relation to SSF. Although service quality provides guidance for how supporting services should be provided (e.g., responsively and reliably), it does not address what those services are (e.g., product recommendations). SSF addresses this deficiency, thus providing both theoretical and practical benefits through a focus on IT design and deployment. The results of a field study support that SSF is an important predictor of customer beliefs and behavior, beyond that predicted by service quality alone. SSF is an important concept to consider—theoretically and practically—in IT-mediated B2C service.

Organizations in many different industries employ virtual teams in a variety of contexts, including research and development, customer support, software development, and product design. Many virtual teams are geographically and culturally dispersed in order to facilitate around-the-clock work and to allow the most qualified individuals to be assigned to a project team. As such dispersion increases, virtual teams tend to experience greater and more diverse conflict compared to co-located teams. Since the dynamics of virtual team leadership are not yet well understood, research that examines how team leaders alleviate threats to team cohesion and provide strategies for conflict resolution makes significant contributions to the literature. Our study uses a survey-based methodology to examine the perceptions of 159 virtual team members employed by a large U.S. telecommunications corporation and five Korean firms involved in construction, finance, business consulting, sales, and distribution. The study integrates the dynamic model of conflict in distributed teams with the behavioral complexity in leadership theory to investigate the roles that virtual team leaders must effectively employ to reduce various forms of virtual team conflict. Our findings indicate that communication technologies are effective in reducing task conflict; however, the team leader may also mitigate task conflict by assuming the role of monitor. Likewise, process conflict may be abated in the virtual team as the leader performs coordinator activities. An effective virtual team leader exhibits specific roles to manage different types of conflict and the leader's response to conflict plays an important part in virtual team success.