PAHAP: A Pairwise Aggregated Hierarchical Analysis of Ratio-Scale Preferences

In this paper, we present a Pairwise Aggregated Hierarchical Analysis of Ratio-Scale Preferences (PAHAP), a new method for solving discrete alternative multicriteria decision problems. Following the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), PAHAP uses pairwise preference judgments to assess the relative attractiveness of the alternatives. By first aggregating the pairwise judgment ratios of the alternatives across all criteria, and then synthesizing based on these aggregate measures, PAHAP determines overall ratio scale priorities and rankings of the alternatives which are not subject to rank reversal, provided that certain weak consistency requirements are satisfied. Hence, PAHAP can serve as a useful alternative to the original AHP if rank reversal is undesirable, for instance when the system is open and criterion scarcity does not affect the relative attractiveness of the alternatives. Moreover, the single matrix of pairwise aggregated ratings constructed in PAHAP provides useful insights into the decision maker's preference structure. PAHAP requires the same preference information as the original AHP (or, altematively, the same information as the Referenced AHP, if the criteria are compared based on average (total) value of the alternatives). As it is easier to implement and interpret than previously proposed variants of the conventional AHP which prevent rank reversal, PAHAP also appears attractive from a practitioner's viewpoint.     

Customer Behavior in an Online Ordering Application: A Decision Scoring Model*

This research presents the development of behavioral scoring models to predict future customer purchases in an online ordering application. Internet retailing lowers many barriers for customers switching between retailers for repeat purchases; thus, retaining existing customers is a key challenge for achieving profitability. Survey data were collected from 1,089 online customers of two companies. The subjective survey data were then used to predict purchases over the ensuing 12 months based on data from the company databases. The analysis illustrates the general applicability of predictive models of future customer purchases while also demonstrating the need to develop specific models tailored for an individual company's operating and marketing environment. The models provide insight on how companies can target marketing dollars more effectively and allocate investment across multiple operational areas for maximum return. The research answers a call for rigorous research in the area of predictive marketing, an area in which many companies are excelling but where there is a scarcity of detailed knowledge regarding application of such models.     

Uncertainty Reduction Approaches,Uncertainty Coping Approaches,and Process Performance in Financial Services

Developing a better understanding of the impact of uncertainty on process performance has been recognized as an important research opportunity in service design ( Hill, et al., 2002 ). Within this general research stream, our study focuses on the question of what managers can do to most effectively address operational uncertainty and mitigate its negative effects. To begin to address this question, we report on an exploratory study using a sample of professionals in the financial‐services industry who acted as informants on 108 financial‐services processes. These professionals were sampled from a population of graduates of a university in the northeastern region of the United States who were employed in the financial‐services industry. Based on these processes, we empirically examine the relationship between responses to operational uncertainty and process performance after controlling for customer mix, other uncertainty sources, and process type characteristics. Our findings suggest that process improvement—an uncertainty reduction approach related to the internal functioning of the process—as well as several uncertainty coping approaches are associated with better performing processes. However, uncertainty reduction approaches related to customer involvement with, and demands on, the process are not associated with better performing processes. We discuss the implications of our findings for determining what actions managers can take to reduce the negative performance effects of operational uncertainty and how managers can decide which of these actions to take. We conclude with a discussion of the limitations of our study.     

Conceptualizing Effects of Office Information Systems: A Methodology and Application for the Study of Alpha,Beta, and Gamma Changes*

This article applies the concepts of alpha, beta, and gamma changes to test whether the implementation of a new office information system with networking capabilities changes the way organizational members conceptualize office work. The traditional approach (t-test) was used to measure alpha change and indicated little change in how effectively the respondents felt they performed eight generic office activities before implementation (T1) and nine months after implementation (T2). However, considerable change was detected between effectiveness reported at T1 and a retrospective assessment of T1 effectiveness reported at T2 (called “then” assessments). Strong change was also detected between “then” assessments and T2 effectiveness reported at T2, indicating beta change. Multiple hierarchical tests showed that most of the change was actually gamma change; the T2 and the “then” factor structures and covariances differed significantly. This study supports propositions that using computers to accomplish organizational work may be associated with different conceptualizations of work, which may create ambiguity and uncertainty if training and management policies do not respond appropriately. Finally, this study provides an expanded version of a prior solution to detecting alpha, beta, and gamma changes.     

消费者视角下中小企业社群动态定制仿真建模及其管理策略研究

移动互联时代下，基于在线社群的聚合力和社群经济效益的社群定制模式，如何有效解决大部分中小定制企业普遍面临的定制顾客少、销售转换率低及总体利润低等问题，是定制企业界目前亟待解决的重要问题之一。针对此，首先，本文对社群定制模式和一般在线定制模式进行定性分析，阐明两种定制模式的实现路径和特征，对其差异性进行归纳。然后，从消费者行为角度出发，结合定制模式的实现路径和差异性，分别建立多Agent仿真模型，分析两种定制模式下定制销售转化率、购买人数、消费者满意度和企业利润的差异，从而验证社群定制模式的有效性。最后，进一步研究不同企业和市场特征对社群定制与一般在线定制模式定制效果的影响，并探讨社群特征对社群定制效果的影响，为企业有效的定制选择及社群定制实现提供相应的管理策略。     

A Note on Interpersonal and Communication Skills for IS Professionals: Evidence of Positive Influence

A recent article by Byrd and Turner (2001) reported that interpersonal skills on the part of information systems personnel had a negative influence on the success of systems as measured by competitive advantage. Several reasons were forwarded to account for this unexpected result, including lack of richness in the measure of these skills, the use of strategic success measures, the true complexity of interpersonal relations within an organization, and the sample of CIOs who may have a bias in favor of technical skills. We address these concerns by incorporating a set of communication skills into the interpersonal skills set, sampling users for a different set of stakeholders, and employing a more complex model based on theories of expectation. The results indicate that the impacts of interpersonal skills on system success is not a simple function of the perceived level of the IS staff's skill proficiency but is also determined by the understood expectations of skill requirements.     

Pooling Data Across Transparently Different Groups of Key Informants: Measurement Equivalence and Survey Research*

Survey research is often deployed in the study of situational issues facing organizations and functions within organizations. One particular survey research approach can be described as follows: (1) survey questionnaires involving perceptual questions about a situational issue are administered to key informants, one key informant per unit of analysis; (2) key informants vary in a transparent manner across units of analysis such that groups of these key informants are discernible; and (3) perceptual responses, after data collection, are then pooled to create a single larger data set for subsequent statistical manipulations. In this methodological note, we draw attention to this particular survey research approach and ask the question: When is it appropriate to pool data provided by key informants with transparently different demographics across units of analysis so as to create a single larger data set for statistical manipulations? We use a simple example and data from a published study to motivate the relevance and gravity of this methodological question. Offering the concept and empirical assessment of measurement equivalence as the answer to this methodological question of data pooling, we prescribe and demonstrate, with the total quality management→customer satisfaction relationship, the procedural steps for evaluating the seven subdimensions of measurement equivalence. In conclusion, we highlight methods that should be adopted, before data collection, to minimize the risk of violating measurement equivalence. After data collection and for the instances when the empirical assessment for measurement equivalence advises against pooling of such data, we also offer suggestions for analyzing such data and presenting associated statistical results.     

Using Davis's Perceived Usefulness and Ease-of-use Instruments for Decision Making: A Confirmatory and Multigroup Invariance Analysis

As key components of Davis's technology acceptance model (TAM), the perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use instruments are widely accepted among the MIS research community as tools for evaluating information system applications and predicting usage. Despite this wide acceptance, a series of incremental cross-validation studies have produced conflicting and equivocal results that do not provide guidance for researchers or practitioners who might use the TAM for decision making. Using a sample of 902 “initial exposure” responses, this research conducts: (1) a confirmatory factor analysis to assess the validity and reliability of the original instruments proposed by Davis, and (2) a multigroup invariance analysis to assess the equivalence of these instruments across subgroups based on type of application, experience with computing, and gender. In contrast to the mixed results of prior cross-validation efforts, the results of this confirmatory study provide strong support for the validity and reliability of Davis's sixitem perceived usefulness and six-item ease-of-use instruments. The multigroup invariance analysis suggests the usefulness and ease-of-use instruments have invariant true scores across most, but not all, subgroups. With notable exemptions for word processing applications and users with no prior computing experience, this research provides evidence that the item-factor loadings (true scores) are invariant across spread sheet, database, and graphic applications. The implications of the results for managerial decision making are discussed.     

Technology Use and Performance: A Field Study of Broker Workstations*

Organizations invest in technology with the expectation that it will contribute to performance, and members of the organization must use technology for it to make a contribution. For this reason, it is important for managers and designers to understand and predict system use. This paper develops a model of workstation use in a field setting where the use of the system is an integral part of the user's job. The model is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which we extended to include social norms, user performance, and two control variables. Brokers and sales assistants in the privateclient group of a major investment bank provided data to test our extended model. The core perception variables in TAM do not predict use in this study. Social norms and one's job requirements are more important in predicting use than workers' perceptions about ease of use and usefulness. The paper discusses the implications of these findings and suggests directions for future research.     

Usability of Online Services: The Role of Technology Readiness and Context*

An important prerequisite for the success of any online service is ensuring that customers' experience—via the interface—satisfies both sensory and functional needs. Developing interfaces that are responsive to customers' needs requires a perspective on interface design as well as a deep understanding of the customers themselves. Drawing upon research in consumer behavior concerning consumer beliefs about technology, we deploy an alternative way to describe customers based on psychographic characteristics. Technology readiness (TR), a multidimensional psychographic construct, offers a way to segment online customers based upon underlying positive and negative technology beliefs. The core premise of this study is that the beliefs form the foundation for expectations of how things should work and how specific online service interfaces are evaluated by customers. At the same time, usability evaluations of specific online services might be contingent on contextual factors, specifically the type of site (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and access method (Web vs. wireless Web). The aspects of usability examined here are those incorporated into the usability metric and instrument based on the Microsoft Usability Guidelines (MUG). The results of an empirical study with 160 participants indicate that (i) TR customer segments vary in usability requirements and (ii) usability evaluations of specific online service interfaces are influenced by complex interactions among site type, access method, and TR segment membership. As organizations continue to expand their online service offerings, managers must recognize that the interface exists to serve the customers, so their design must be matched to market needs and TR.     

An Exploratory Analysis of the Value of the Skills of IT Personnel: Their Relationship to IS Infrastructure and Competitive Advantage

Determining and assessing the requisite skills of information technology (IT) personnel have become critical as the value of IT has risen in modern organizations. In addition to technical skills traditionally expected of IT personnel, softer skills like managerial, business, and interpersonal skills have been increasingly cited in previous studies as mandatory for these employees. This paper uses a typology of IT personnel skills—technology management skills, business functional skills, interpersonal skills, and technical skills—and investigates their relationships to two information systems (IS) success variables, IS infrastructure flexibility and the competitive advantage provided by IS. The study investigates these relationships using the perceptions of chief information officers (CIOs) from mostly Fortune 2000 companies. The contributions of this study are: IT personnel skills do affect IS success, technical skills are viewed as the most important skill set in affecting IS infrastructure flexibility and competitive advantage, and modularity is viewed as more valuable to competitive advantage than integration. Several explanations are offered for the lack of positive relationships between the softer IT personnel skills and the dimensions of IS success used in this study.     

Supplier‐Switching Inertia and Competitive Asymmetry: A Demand‐Side Perspective*

Building on strategic management, operations strategy, and supplier management literatures, this article presents a framework for supplier selection from the demand‐side perspective. We highlight the role of a purchasing firm's switching inertia in the supplier‐selection process and demonstrate the usefulness of our framework for the industrial automation industry. Empirical data for this study was collected from 171 corporate and plant‐level executives in pharmaceutical, chemical, and paper‐and‐pulp manufacturing industries in the United States. A series of Web‐based individually customized discrete choice experiments asked the respondents to either switch to the new supplier or stay with the existing supplier. Based on the results of these experiments, we demonstrate the existence of switching inertia in the supplier‐selection process and discuss the managerial implications for incumbent and challenger supplier firms.     

Competitive Capabilities among Manufacturing Plants in Developing,Emerging, and Industrialized Countries: A Comparative Analysis

Competitive capabilities have been defined as a plant's actual performance relative to its competitors, with the most commonly investigated capabilities being quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost. However, most research in this realm has investigated capabilities within developed countries, and neglected the context of developing and emerging nations, which are increasingly becoming viable economic entities in global supply chains in their own right. The present study fills this gap and carries out a comparative analysis of competitive capabilities among plants in developing, emerging, and industrialized countries. Basing our arguments on the resource‐based view of the firm, we suggest that the influence of competitive capabilities on each other varies among plants in differentially industrialized regions. Specifically, we suggest that, on average, competitive capabilities tend to influence each other to a greater degree in plants in emerging and developing countries compared to industrialized countries. Along similar lines, we suggest that the influence of the four competitive capabilities on performance improvement is manifested more strongly among plants in emerging and developing countries than among plants in industrialized nations. We investigate these contentions with data from 1,211 plants in 21 countries. The results are particularly important for decision makers as they decide on the increasingly global location of their manufacturing operations or the configuration of their global supply chains.     

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the End‐User Computing Satisfaction Instrument: Replication within an ERP Domain*

Over the past decade, organizations have made significant investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The realization of benefits from these investments depends on supporting effective use of information technology (IT) and satisfying IT users. User satisfaction with information systems is one of the most important determinants of the success of those systems. Drawing upon a sample of 407 end users of ERP systems and working within the framework of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), this study examines the structure and dimensionality, and reliability and validity of the end‐user computing satisfaction (EUCS) instrument posited by Doll and Torkzadeh (1988) . In response to Klenke's (1992) motion to cross‐validate management information system (MIS) instruments and to retest the end user computing satisfaction instrument using new data, this study's results, consistent with previous findings, confirm that the EUCS instrument maintains its psychometric stability when applied to users of enterprise resource planning application software. Implications of these results for practice and research are provided.     

Decision Sciences Research in China: A Critical Review and Research Agenda—Foundations and Overview*

This article focuses on decision sciences research in China, providing an overview of current research and developing a foundation for future China‐based research. China provides a unique research opportunity for decision sciences researchers, owing to its recent history, rapid economic development, and strong national culture. We examine recent economic reforms and their impact on the development of research questions in the decision sciences, as well as discuss characteristics of the diverse regions in China and their potential as sites for various types of research. We provide a brief overview of recent China‐based research on decision sciences issues relating to national culture, supply chain management, quality management, production planning and control, operations strategy, and new product development and discuss some of the unique methodological challenges inherent in China‐based research. We conclude by looking forward to emerging research opportunities in China.     

The use of qualitative case studies in top business and management journals: A quantitative analysis of recent patterns

The use of case studies as qualitative research strategy in social sciences seems to have increased recently, but there are no studies that empirically verify such claim. By explicitly focusing on the field of business and management studies, we aim to investigate the extent of publication and the main features of qualitative case studies published in the 20 highest impact factor business and management journals. The paper discusses the correlation between a journal's ranking and the extent of case studies it published, and between selected features of case studies (e.g. research purpose, design and data sources). Moreover, we shed light on how the identified features of a case study impact its probability of being published.Methodologically, we analyse by means of correlation and regression statistics, as well as clustering techniques a total of 19 features in the 352 qualitative case studies published between 2002 and 2011 in our sample of top business and management journals.     

Privatization of Public Services in Leipzig: A Balancing Act between Efficiency and Legitimacy

Since 1992, the budget deficits of larger German cities increased from less than one billion Euros to more than nine billion in 2005. The reasons for this fiscal collapse were a worsening economic situation partly caused by lower government revenue and higher costs of unemployment benefits. In order to reduce their deficits, the municipalities started privatizing and outsourcing large sectors of public administration. Leipzig rejected the path of privatization and became the pioneer in organizing large-scale municipal companies. This approach brought essential social benefits, most needed revenues, greater efficiency in delivering services and allowed the city to reduce almost by 50% the number of its administrative staff.     

Experiential and Informational Knowledge,Architectural Marketing Capabilities,and the Adaptive Performance of Export Ventures: A Cross‐National Study

Knowledge‐based view (KBV) theory posits that the acquisition and use of relevant knowledge is key to understanding organizational performance. However, there is relatively little empirical evidence to support or refute several important propositions underlying KBV theory explanations of organizational performance. In particular, the extant literature has focused on individual technical and scientific components of the knowledge bases of firms in dynamic industries, and largely ignored both different levels of informational and experiential knowledge relevant to the market environment, and the increasingly important context of exporting. Our study addresses these knowledge gaps by developing a framework for export venture knowledge management and empirically examining relationships between different types of individual‐level and organizational‐level knowledge relevant to the market environment, architectural marketing capabilities, and the adaptive performance of export ventures. Using primary data collected in the United Kingdom and China, our study indicates that export ventures' organizational‐level experiential and informational knowledge, and individual‐level experiential knowledge relevant to the market environment, is positively associated with export ventures' architectural marketing capabilities, which are in turn associated with the adaptive performance of export ventures.     

Group Support Systems,Power, and Influence in an Organization: A Field Study

Emerging group technologies are attracting attention from researchers and practitioners for the benefits they potentially offer in terms of communications, productivity, and decision-making capabilities within an organization. To date, research in this area has focused on process or outcome variables, substantively ignoring organizational context issues. This paper reports on a field study that investigated users' perceptions of the impact of group support systems on power and influence within the organization. The study was conducted within a division of a major U.S. software company specializing in the development of business software tools for desktop PCs. Fifteen purposively selected managers and nonmanagers, spanning diverse functional areas, were extensively interviewed for this study. Evidence gathered suggested that group support systems are perceived to exert an equalizing force on power and influence by (1) increasing participation in the decision-making process, (2) improving access to information, (3) improving access to persons, (4) reducing the “power distance” to key individuals, and (5) providing increased opportunities to influence the opinions of others. These results provide a basis for future studies that will attempt to clarify the relationships between organizational context and group technology usage.     

The Role of Innovation Characteristics and Perceived Voluntariness in the Acceptance of Information Technologies

The often paradoxical relationship between investment in information technology and gains in productivity has recently been attributed to a lack of user acceptance of information technology innovations. Diverse streams of research have attempted to explain and predict user acceptance of new information technologies. A common theme underlying these various research streams is the inclusion of the perceived characteristics of an innovation as key independent variables. Furthermore, prior research has utilized different outcomes to represent user acceptance behavior. In this paper we focus on individual's perceptions about the characteristics of the target technology as explanatory and predictive variables for acceptance behavior, and present an empirical study examining the effects of these perceptions on two frequently used outcomes in the context of the innovation represented by the World Wide Web. The two outcomes examined are initial use of an innovation and intentions to continue such use in the future, that is, to routinize technology use. Two research questions motivated and guided the study. First, are the perceptions that predict initial use the same as those that predict future use intentions? Our results confirm, as hypothesized by prior research, that innovation characteristics do explain acceptance behavior. The results further reveal that the specific characteristics that are relevant for each acceptance outcome are different. The second research question asks if perceived voluntariness plays a role in technology acceptance. Results show that external pressure has an impact on adopters' acceptance behavior. Theoretical and practical implications that follow are presented.