We examine the effects of human resource management (HRM) practices (e.g., career development, social support, compensation, and security) on information technology (IT) professionals' job search behavior. Job search is a relatively novel dependent variable in studies of voluntary withdrawal behavior in general and for IT professionals in particular. From a universalistic perspective, HRM practices individually and in combination exhibit independently additive effects on job search behavior. Our study contrasts this perspective with configurational theory, hypothesizing that proposed ideal-type configurations of HRM practices have synergistic effects on job search behavior. We contribute to the IT and broader HRM literature by theoretically explicating and empirically demonstrating with IT professionals the power of configurational theory to explain the relationship between HRM practices and job search behavior. Our empirical results show that two configurations of HRM practices—Human Capital Focused (HCF) and Task Focused (TF), which are high and low on all HRM practices, respectively—exhibit a synergistic relationship with the job search behavior of IT professionals. HCF has lower job search behavior than would be expected based on the independently additive effects of the HRM practices, whereas TF has correspondingly higher job search behavior. Our results also show that less than perfect horizontal fit detracts from the synergy of these extreme configurations. Just as importantly, several other nonextreme configurations of HRM practices exhibit independently additive effects for the HRM practices but not synergy, suggesting that synergy is limited to extreme configurations. We also discuss a number of implications for research and practice.

Extant research is equivocal about the organizational performance effects of customer relationship management (CRM) technology use, with some studies reporting positive effects and other studies reporting no effects at all. The present research effort posits that these mixed findings may potentially be explained by two factors: (1) CRM technology use may have different effects on different customers, and (2) different CRM tools may have different performance consequences. This study investigates this possibility by building on relationship marketing and management theory to propose and test a model of the customer- and firm-level consequences of the organizational use of CRM interaction support and customer prioritization tools. The results of data analysis of 295 customer firms nested within 10 provider firms reveal that firm use of CRM interaction support tools is positively related to customers' relationship perceptions, regardless of customer account size. In contrast, the data indicate that use of CRM prioritization tools appears to have positive effects on a firm's larger customers and negative effects on smaller customers. The results also suggest that when considered at an aggregate level, customer perceptions of the exchange relationship are predictive of organizational performance and that the association between these two variables is significant for larger customer accounts but insignificant for smaller accounts. Overall, the study's results help explain some of the inconsistent findings reported in the literature regarding the performance implications of CRM technology use and suggest that use of the technology may serve to enhance organizational performance, at least over the short term.

This research investigates information security management as an administrative innovation. Although a number of institutional theories deal with information systems (IS) innovation in organizations, most of these institutional-centered frameworks overlook external economic efficiency and internal organizational capability in the presence of pressures of institutional conformity. Using Korea as the institutional setting, our research model posits that economic-based consideration will moderate the institutional conformity pressure on information security adoption while organization capability will influence the institutional confirmation of information security assimilation. The model is empirically tested using two-stage survey data from a field study of 140 organizations in Korea. The results indicate that in addition to institutional influences, our six proposed economic-based and organizational capability moderating variables all have significant influences on the degree of the adoption and assimilation of information security management. We conclude with implications for research in the area of organizational theory and the information security management literature, and for practices regarding how managers can factor into their information security planning the key implementation variables discovered in this study. The robust setting of the study in Korean firms allows us to generalize the theory to a new context and across cultures.

Existing research has long considered service quality as a primary determinant of user satisfaction with information technology (IT) service delivery. In response to the knowledge-intensive and collaborative nature of IT service delivery in the contemporary business context, we advance the theoretical understanding of user satisfaction by re-conceptualizing IT service delivery as a bilateral, relational process between the IT staff and users. Based on this reconceptualization, we draw on social capital theory to examine the antecedents of user satisfaction with IT service delivery. Specifically, we posit that two major dimensions of social capital, i.e., cognitive capital and relational capital, not only positively affect user satisfaction but also strengthen the established relationship between service quality and user satisfaction. Furthermore, we propose that the effect of the other dimension of social capital—structural capital—on user satisfaction is fully mediated through cognitive capital and relational capital. A field study of 159 users in four financial companies provides general empirical support for our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.