User Resistance @ HICSS

In a track about theoretical approaches to the study of information systems, Suzanne Rivard and Liette Lapointe talked about user resistance. They propose a theory for explaining and predicting implementers’ actions to ‘control‘ user resistance to a new information system (IS) implementation. Grounding their work the General System Theory (sometimes referred to as a cybernetics or self-regulation approach) where negative feedback enables a system to self-control and stabilize while positive feedback tends to lead to system instability, they argue that in the IS domain, implementers can take remedial reactions (e.g., training) to keep user resistance within an acceptable range (a negative feedback effect). On the contrary, antagonistic reactions (e.g., authority) of exerting no reaction will have a positive feedback effect, hence enhancing the level of user resistance, which will likely lead to organizational disruption, and eventually, to the abandonment of the IS implementation.

Interruptions Resulting from Using IT @ HICSS

Shamel Addas and Alain Pinsonneault write about IT use and interruptions that break the continuity of knowledge work in groups: they propose that interruptions resulting from using IT can lead to both positive and negative effects on knowledge integration.

The first type of interruption (intrusion) increases group workload and ultimately inhibits knowledge integration while the second one (feedback interventions) enhances collective mind by providing new information that is directly relevant to completing the primary task, which is a process that is beneficial to knowledge integration. The two channels identified here are essential because knowledge integration has been know to be an essential driver of new product development performance.

Challenge in Information Systems use @ HICSS

Pamela Schmidt on the role of challenge on information system (IS) use: she shows in an experimental study that allowing users to regulate the extent of assistance (hence challenge) they receive when using an interface enhances the users’ level of cognitive absorption, a desired intermediary state usually leading users to form intentions to use or reuse a particular system.

While challenge has long been known to be essential to the design of hedonic IT, for example in the gaming industry, an argument developed in this paper is that challenge is also essential in utilitarian IT such as en enterprise resource planing (ERP) system. And therefore, that the design of utilitarian IT can be informed by the insights from hedonic IT.

The Wisdom of Reluctant Crowds @ HICSS

Another interesting pick at HICSS, a paper  by Christian Wagner and three colleagues about the wisdom of reluctant crowds.

Because information technologies enable easy aggregation of a set of individuals’ opinions, the notion of collective intelligence has become highly tangible. In this paper, the authors tests the assumption that crowds make better predictions that isolated individual experts (albeit under strict conditions that differentiate a crowd from group, such as crowd members’ independence, diversity, and decentralization, conditions introduced and illustrated in James Surowiecki’s now famous book The Widom of Crowds).

Because individuals tend to be reluctant to make predictions and prefer transfer this responsibility to others, the paper also tests whether the identified surrogates are able to make as good predictions as the whole crowd. The study has implications for IT design and capabilities in terms of the requirements for collective intelligence, diversity creation, knowledge aggregation, and process (truth negotiation) monitoring.

Embodied Social Presence @ HICSS

Aloha!

Last week, I went to the “beautiful garden island of Kauai” to attend the 43th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS). The crowd there is quite diversified – geographically and in terms of research background and interests (engineering, business, communication, marketing, accounting…). The whole conference was quite nice, with a great setting, a friendly and social atmoshpere, and some inspiring talks and discussions. There were several papers and a growing focus on the topics related to social media, social networking, and Web 2.0.

For example, a paper from Brian Mennecke and his colleagues at Iowa  State University discussed embodied social presence theory through an essay raising the questions of whether and how the sense of presence is being created in virtual environments and what effects this can have on users’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours.

Embodied Social Presence Theory proposes that our physical body is a tool for symbolic interactions. It is the “nexus of communication” and  ”a key artifact in the evocation of embodied social presence”. Hence, individuals instantiate their goals and intents through the actions exhibited through their body.For those interested in the topic, this paper also dresses an interesting synthesis of the notions of presence, co-presence, place, space, and embodiment.

Interesting Research at ICIS – Part 3

Third pick ! Still related to the social aspects of Information Systems, a work-in-progress by researchers at the University of North Carolina Greensboro about the usage antecedents of computer-mediated friendship networks such as Facebook, in other words, why are people using them?!

Why do People Use Computer-Mediated Friendship Networks (CMFNs)

This short paper’s main point is that traditional theoretical frameworks such as the Technology Acceptance Model are not adapted to study CMFNs. Indeed, CMFNs are different than the technologies traditionally studies in a workplace setting, in that they have an intrinsic value –>  people perceive that maintaining relationships is good and important in and of itself.

Hence, an important aspect of the paper consists in pointing out the limitations of existing framework in studying the use of CMFNs, and in proposing to explicitly model and account for the perceived intrinsic value of such applications to explain their usage (usage is was measured with three aspects: (1) size of the friendship network, (2) frequency of usage, and (3) number of months since first use).

I won’t say much more … this is research-in-progress.

Reference:

Jacks, T., and Salam, A.F. 2009. “Computer-Mediated Friendship Networks,” Proceesings of the Thirtieth International Conference on Information Systems, Phoenix, Arizona

Interesting Research at ICIS – Part 2

Here is my second pick. A paper by researchers at University of Singapore (again!) and Fudan University in China about the impact of social network on consumer loyalty in the context of an online dining community.

Online Dining Community, Social Network, and Loyalty

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of consumer loyalty decisions (e.g., going back to a restaurant) and, more specifically, to explore the roles of individual and also social preferences. In sum, this research proposes that contrary to much of prior work, consumer decision making is not solely an individual decision but also a socially constructed decision largely influenced by consumers’ online social networks.

Building on the notion of social or shared identity and on research on the social nature of consumer behavior, the authors propose that the consumption activity is somewhat an externalization of consumers’ social identity, i.e., of a group or social network’s preference, and consequently, that  consumption decisions (here loyalty, i.e., re-patronage) are an outcome of both individual and social preferences.

RESULTS

The analysis of data collected from a large Chinese restaurant review portal, Dianping.com support the overall claim that loyalty behaviors are influenced by individual AND social preferences (i.e., the general opinion of one’s social network).

One – from others –  interesting practical implication and avenue for future research is the proposition of a new type of recommendation agent that incorporated both individual and social preferences. Of course, when assessing contributions and implications, one should keep in mind the study’s scope, i.e., its focus on the restaurant industry in China.

Full reference:

Xu, Y., Lu, X., Goh, K., Jiang, Z., and Zhu, X. 2009. “The Impact of Online Social Network on Consumer Loyalty: An Empirical Study of an Online Dining Community,” Proceedings of the Thirtieth International Conference on Information Systems, Phoenix, Arizona.

Interesting Research at ICIS – Part 1

ICIS, the International Conference on Information Systems, was in Phoenix this year (December 15-18). As THE major conference in the Information Systems field, it is always very insightful to explore its proceedings and get to know what our community is working on and what types of contributions are being generated.

Hence, this post is the first of a series of others (probably 3,4..surprise!) in which I draw a synthesis of some of my picks for ICIS 2009…not at all exhaustive, just a thin slice of a this consequent set of research material

Advertising Efficiency on Social Networks

My first pick is a paper from researchers at the National University of Singapore which is about advertising and the role of a social network in the persuasion process. Drawing on theories of social influence, it investigates the interactions between the types of products advertised on social network sites (hedonic vs. utilitarian), the endorser (network member) product expertise (low vs. high), and the tie strength (strong vs. weak tie) between the endorser and the consumer. Below is the Figure of the research model they present in the paper.

RESULTS - There are two principal observations from the laboratory experiment:

• In the case of hedonic products (e.g., designer cloth) for which consumers’ evaluation process is mostly affect-driven: the strongest determinant of persuasion is the strength of the relationship between the network member endorsing the product and the consumer –> close friends have the most persuasion power in these situations. In this situation, the influence process is normative rather than informational.
• In the case of utilitarian products (e.g., microwave, personal computer) for which consumers react more rationally, with for example, considerations about convenience and product quality: the strongest determinant of persuasion becomes the endorser’s expertise –> whether your close friend or no, what matters is whether the endorser gives the signal that he or she is a competent source of knowledge on the product of interest. Hence, in this situation the influence process is more informational rather than normative.

And this is the reference for those interested in reading the paper

Wen, C., Tan, B., and Chang, K. 2009. “Advertising Effectiveness on Social Network Sites: an Investigation of Tie Strength, Endorder Expertise and Product Type on Consumer Purchase Intention,” Thirtieth International Conference on Information Systems, Phoenix, Arizona.

The Fun Theory

From Swedish guys.

Fun to entice people to change their behaviour. And it works.

I would personally love to try these stairs! And I can’t imagine the messy noise that would make in Paris’ metro at rush hour …

Fallible representations… ?

Always very interesting and innovative research from the guys at MIT Media Lab (my favourite so far, the Huggable project from the Robotics group).

Enter your first and last name, and Personas mines the Web to draw a representation of how the Internet sees you!  …Thanks Sandrine for posting about it !  As you can see, the Web sees me more as a “mess” than you…. …and I am still wondering where this “illegal” thing comes from …!!!!!