Measurement biases in user involvement research

Considerable research has been conducted to demonstrate user involvement's effect on information system success. User involvement and system success typically have been measured by asking users for their perceptions of these variables. This paper reports on a field study conducted to investigate the possibility that this approach to measuring study variables tends to overstate the benefits of user involvement. The link of user involvement to user satisfaction is found to be significantly weaker when user involvement is assessed by systems analysts than when it is self reported. Further, this difference is found to be greater for systems with few users than for systems with many users. The findings suggest that common method variance and self-serving bias may have overstated the apparent benefits of user involvement in past research on information systems. Suggestions for future research are presented.     

Trafficking in meth: an analysis of the differences between male and female dealers

Male and female meth dealers exhibit numerous common characteristics and patterns. For example, both can be relatively heavy users and both have similar (long) criminal records. However, both groups show important distinctions in their drug dealing patterns. This exploratory study compares 34 male and 26 female meth dealers (N = 60) who were involved in the same criminal justice system of a single western state during the same time period. Among other things, the findings indicate that male dealers treat their trafficking activities more like a business, have more customers, make more money, and are more likely prepared for violence while dealing than females. In contrast, female dealers have more education, including graduate school, have been arrested less often and are more willing to try drug treatment than male dealers.