With advances in computer technology, organizations are able to store large amounts of data in data warehouses. There are two fundamental issues researchers must address: the dimensionality of data and the interpretation of multiple statistical tests. The first issue addressed by this research is the determination of the number of components to retain in principal components analysis. This research establishes regression, asymptotic theory, and neural network approaches for estimating mean and 95th percentile eigenvalues for implementing Horn's parallel analysis procedure for retaining components. Certain methods perform better for specific combinations of sample size and numbers of variables. The adjusted normal order statistic estimator (ANOSE), an asymptotic procedure, performs the best overall. Future research is warranted on combining methods to increase accuracy. The second issue involves interpreting multiple statistical tests. This study uses simulation to show that Parker and Rothenberg's technique using a density function with a mixture of betas to model p-values is viable for p-values from central and non-central t distributions. The simulation study shows that final estimates obtained in the proposed mixture approach reliably estimate the true proportion of the distributions associated with the null and nonnull hypotheses. Modeling the density of p-values allows for better control of …

Application of multisource feedback (MSF) increased dramatically and became widespread globally in the past two decades, but there was little conceptual work regarding self-other agreement and few empirical studies investigated self-other agreement in other cultural settings. This study developed a new conceptual framework of self-other agreement and used three samples to illustrate how national culture affected self-other agreement. These three samples included 428 participants from China, 818 participants from the US, and 871 participants from globally dispersed teams (GDTs). An EQS procedure and a polynomial regression procedure were used to examine whether the covariance matrices were equal across samples and whether the relationships between self-other agreement and performance would be different across cultures, respectively. The results indicated MSF could be applied to China and GDTs, but the pattern of relationships between self-other agreement and performance was different across samples, suggesting that the results found in the U.S. sample were the exception rather than rule. Demographics also affected self-other agreement disparately across perspectives and cultures, indicating self-concept was susceptible to cultural influences. The proposed framework only received partial support but showed great promise to guide future studies. This study contributed to the literature by: (a) developing a new framework of self-other …

Converting individual knowledge into organizational knowledge can be difficult because individuals refuse to share knowledge for a number of different reasons. Creating an atmosphere of fairness plays an important role in the creation of a knowledge-sharing climate. This dissertation proposes that perceptions of organizational justice are crucial building blocks of that environment, leading to knowledge sharing. Data was collected using a field survey of IT managers representing a broad spectrum of the population in terms of organizational size and industry classification. The survey instrument was developed based on the adaptation of previously validated scales in addition to new items where no existing measures were found. Hypotheses regarding the influence of distributional, procedural, and interactional justice on knowledge sharing processes were tested using structural equation modeling techniques. Based on the theory of reasoned action, which states that attitudes and subjective norms are the major determinants of a person's intention, the hypotheses examining the relationship between attitude toward knowledge sharing, subjective norm and the intention to share knowledge were supported. However, results did not support the hypothesis exploring the relationship between the organizational climate and the intention to share knowledge. The results show that all three types of justice constructs are statistically …

Abstract Attracting and developing information technology (IT) professionals is one of the top concerns for companies. Although much research has been conducted about the job behavior and attitudes of IT professionals over the last three decades, findings are inconclusive and contradictory. This suggests that something may be missing in how we examine this phenomenon. Most of this research is drawn from theories of motivation, very little examines the effect of social relationships on IT professionals' behavior and attitude. Yet, social capital theory suggests that job behavior and attitude may be greatly influenced by these relationships. This suggests that IT professionals' social capital warrants empirical examination. The primary research question that this dissertation addresses is how social capital affects IT professionals' work attitude and behavior including job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, job performance and turnover intention. The research model in this dissertation examines the influence of three aspects of social capital on IT professionals' job attitude and work behavior: tie strength, the number of ties and the structural holes. Data were collected from 129 IT professionals from a range of jobs, organizations and industries. Results indicate that tie strength in the organization of an IT professional is positively related to job …

Spending by U.S. companies in offshore IT services continues at unprecedented levels despite a high failure rate. This study fills a gap in the existing literature by examining the client-vendor offshoring relationship through the theoretical lens of social exchange theory at the organizational level of analysis from the client's perspective. Social exchange theory focuses on the exchange of activities between two parties, whether they are individuals or companies and was used as a basis for examining the client and vendor relationship. Variables were identified by a review of the literature primarily from IT outsourcing and offshoring but also from general IT, marketing, sociology and organizational science literature. Data was collected using a field survey of Fortune 500 CIOs representing a population of organizations at the forefront of the offshoring phenomenon. The survey instrument was developed based on the adaptation of previously validated scales. Hypotheses regarding the correlations between social variables such as trust, communication, dependence, power, shared values and offshoring success were tested using Spearman's rho correlation. Seven of the hypotheses were supported, four hypotheses were not supported and one hypothesis was deemed not testable due to lack of information.

Numerous models of IS success and technology acceptance their extensions have been proposed and applied in empirical. This study continues this tradition and extends the body of knowledge on the topic of IS success by developing a more comprehensive model for measuring IS success and technology acceptance within a government organization. The proposed model builds upon three established IS success and technology acceptance frameworks namely the DeLone and McLean (2003), Venkatesh et al.'s (2003) unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), and Wixom and Todd (2005). The findings from this study provide not only a comprehensive IS success assessment model but also insights into whether and how IS success models are influenced by application variables as applied within a government organization. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed for instrument refinement and validity test of the existing and proposed models. Using data from employees of a local government municipal, the comprehensive model explained 32 percent variance. Four of the hypothesis were fully supported five were not supported, and four were partially supported. In addition, the results suggest that behavioral intention may not be the best predictor of technology acceptance in a mandatory environment.

The discipline of information security management is still in its infancy as evidenced by the lack of empirical scholarly work in this area. Most research within the information security domain focuses on specific technologies and algorithms and how it impacts the principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. But, an important area receiving little attention is the antecedents of effective information security management at the organizational level (Stanton, Guzman, Stam & Caldera, 2003). The little empirical research that has been conducted in this area has shown that information security management in many organizations is poor (Baskerville, 1993; Shimeall & McDermott, 1999). Several researchers have identified the need for methods to measure the organization-wide information security posture of organizations (Eloff & Von Solms, 2000; James, 1996). This dissertation attempts to measure the organization-wide information security posture by examining benchmark variables that assess role, planning orientation, and performance structure within the organization. Through this conceptualization of an organization's information security posture, a means is presented to measure overall information security and how it impacts the effective utilization of information security strategies. The presence of the dependent variable, effectiveness, gives academics and practitioners a success measure which can guide more effective decision making in …

This research sought to shed light on information systems security (ISS) by conceptualizing an organization's use of countermeasures using general deterrence theory, positing a non-recursive relationship between threats and countermeasures, and by extending the ISS construct developed in prior research. Industry affiliation and organizational size are considered in terms of differences in threats that firms face, the different countermeasures in use by various firms, and ultimately, how a firm's ISS effectiveness is affected. Six information systems professionals were interviewed in order to develop the appropriate instruments necessary to assess the research model put forth; the final instrument was further refined by pilot testing with the intent of further clarifying the wording and layout of the instrument. Finally, the Association of Information Technology Professionals was surveyed using an online survey. The model was assessed using SmartPLS and a two-stage least squares analysis. Results indicate that a non-recursive relationship does indeed exist between threats and countermeasures and that countermeasures can be used to effectively frame an organization's use of countermeasures. Implications for practitioners include the ability to target the use of certain countermeasures to have desired effects on both ISS effectiveness and future threats. Additionally, the model put forth in this research …

This study empirically examines the impact of IT capability on firms' performance and evaluates whether firms' IT capabilities play a role in improving employee capability, customer value, customer satisfaction, and ultimately business performance. The results were based on comparing the business performance of the IT leader companies with that of control companies of similar size and industry. The IT leader companies were selected from the Information Week 500 list published annually from 2001 to 2004. For a company to be selected as IT leaders, it needed to be listed at least twice during the period. Furthermore, it had to be listed in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) so that its customer satisfaction level could be assessed. Standard & Poor's Compustat and the ACSI scores were used to test for changes in business performance. The study found that the IT leaders had a raw material cost measured by cost-of-goods-sold to sales ratio (COGS/S) than the control companies. However, it found no evidence that firms' IT capability affects employee capability, customer value, customer satisfaction, and profit. An important implication from this study is that IT becomes a commodity and an attempt to gain a competitive advantage by overinvesting in IT may …

Effective supply chain management gains much attention from industry and academia because it helps firms across a supply chain to reduce cost and improve customer service level efficiently. Focusing on one of the key challenges of the supply chains, namely, demand uncertainty, this dissertation extends the work of Zhao, Xie, and Leung so as to examine the effects of forecasting method selection coupled with information sharing on supply chain performance in a dynamic business environment. The results of this study showed that under various scenarios, advanced forecasting methods such as neural network and GARCH models play a more significant role when capacity tightness increases and is more important to the retailers than to the supplier under certain circumstances in terms of supply chain costs. Thus, advanced forecasting models should be promoted in supply chain management. However, this study also demonstrated that forecasting methods not capable of modeling features of certain demand patterns significantly impact a supply chain's performance. That is, a forecasting method misspecified for characteristics of the demand pattern usually results in higher supply chain costs. Thus, in practice, supply chain managers should be cognizant of the cost impact of selecting commonly used traditional forecasting methods, such as moving …

Since the concept of business intelligence (BI) was introduced in the late 1980s, many organizations have implemented BI to improve performance but not all BI initiatives have been successful. Practitioners and academicians have discussed the reasons for success and failure, yet, a consistent picture about how to achieve BI success has not yet emerged. The purpose of this dissertation is to help fill the gap in research and provide a better understanding of BI success by examining the impact of BI capabilities on BI success, in the presence of different decision environments. The decision environment is a composition of the decision types and the way the required information is processed to aid in decision making. BI capabilities are defined as critical functionalities that help an organization improve its performance, and they are examined in terms of organizational and technological capabilities. An online survey is used to obtain the data and partial least squares path modeling (PLS) is used for analysis. The results of this dissertation suggest that all technological capabilities as well as one of the organizational capabilities, flexibility, significantly impact BI success. Results also indicate that the moderating effect of decision environment is significant for quantitative data quality. These …

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the external factors that influence an organizations' business intelligence (BI) data collection strategy when mediated by BI attributes. In this dissertation, data warehousing strategies are used as the basis on which to frame the exploration of BI data collection strategies. The attributes include BI insightfulness, BI consistency, and the organizational transformation attribute of BI. The research population consisted of IT professionals and top level managers involved in developing and managing BI. Data was collected from a range of industries and organizations within the United States. An online survey was used to collect the data to empirically test the proposed relationships. Data was analyzed using partial least square path modeling (PLS). The results of this study suggest that there exists a positive relationship between institutional isomorphism and BI consistency. The results also indicate that there exists a positive relationship between BI consistency and BI comprehensive data collection strategy, and the organizational transformation attribute of BI and BI comprehensive data collection strategy. These findings provide a theoretical lens to better understand the motivators and the success factors related to collecting the huge amounts of data required for BI. This study also provides managers with …

In the Information Age, a proliferation of unstructured text electronic documents exists. Processing these documents by humans is a daunting task as humans have limited cognitive abilities for processing large volumes of documents that can often be extremely lengthy. To address this problem, text data computer algorithms are being developed. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) are two text data computer algorithms that have received much attention individually in the text data literature for topic extraction studies but not for document classification nor for comparison studies. Since classification is considered an important human function and has been studied in the areas of cognitive science and information science, in this dissertation a research study was performed to compare LDA, LSA and humans as document classifiers. The research questions posed in this study are: R1: How accurate is LDA and LSA in classifying documents in a corpus of textual data over a known set of topics? R2: How accurate are humans in performing the same classification task? R3: How does LDA classification performance compare to LSA classification performance? To address these questions, a classification study involving human subjects was designed where humans were asked to generate and classify documents …

Government initiatives called for electronic health records for each individual healthcare consumer by 2014. the purpose of the initiatives is to provide for the common exchange of clinical information between healthcare consumers, healthcare providers, third-party payers and public healthcare officials.This exchange of healthcare information will impact the healthcare industry and enable more effective and efficient application of healthcare so that there may be a decrease in medical errors, increase in access to quality of care tools, and enhancement of decision making abilities by healthcare consumers, healthcare providers and government health agencies. an electronic personal health record (ePHR) created, managed and accessed by healthcare consumers may be the answer to fulfilling the national initiative. However, since healthcare consumers potentially are in control of their own ePHR, the healthcare consumer’s concern for privacy may be a barrier for the effective implementation of a nationwide network of ePHR. a technology acceptance model, an information boundary theory model and a trust model were integrated to analyze usage intentions of healthcare consumers of ePHR. Results indicate that healthcare consumers feel there is a perceived usefulness of ePHR; however they may not see ePHR as easy to use. Results also indicate that the perceived usefulness of …

Perceived quality in the context of e-commerce was defined and examined in numerous studies, but, to date, there are no consistent definitions and measurement scales. Instruments that measure quality in e-commerce industries primarily focus on website quality or service quality during the transaction and delivery phases. Even though some scholars have proposed instruments from different perspectives, these scales do not fully evaluate the level of quality perceived by customers during the entire decision-making process. This dissertation purports to provide five main contributions for the e-commerce, service quality, and decision science literature: (1) development of a comprehensive instrument to measure how online customers perceive the quality of the shopping channel, website, transaction and recovery based on the customer decision making process; (2) identification of the determinants of customer satisfaction and the key dimensions of customer behavioral intentions in e-commerce; (3) examination of the relationships among perceived quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty intention using empirical data; (4) application of different statistical packages (LISREL and PLS-Graph) for data analysis and comparison of how these methods impact the results; and (5) examination of the moderating effects of control variables. A survey was designed and distributed to a total of 1126 college students in a …

The social network sites (SNS) industry has recently shown an abnormal development pattern: An SNS could rapidly accumulate a large number of users, and then suffer a serious loss of users in a short time, which subsequently leads to the failure of the Web site in the highly competitive market. The user's social network site continuance is considered the most important factor for an SNS to keep its sustainable development. However, little knowledge of the user's SNS continuance raises the following research question: What factors could significantly influence the user's SNS continuance intention? To address this research question, I study the question from three lenses of research, including the I-view, the social interactivity view, and the trust based view. The I-view is an extension of the IS continuance model. From this research perspective, I tested the influence of the utilitarian factor (i.e., perceived usefulness) and the hedonic factor (i.e., perceived enjoyment) on the user's satisfaction in the I-view. In addition, I extend the umbrella construct, confirmation, into two sub-constructs, informativeness and self-actualization, and respectively study their influences on the utilitarian factor and the hedonic factor. I find that the user's perceived enjoyment has a significant positive effect on the user's …

Decision makers require the right information at the right time, in the right place and in the right format so that they can make good decisions. Although business intelligence (BI) has the potential to improve decision making, there is little empirical evidence of how well this has been achieved. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the quality of decisions made using BI. The research question it addresses is what are the key antecedents of decision quality for users of business intelligence systems? The theoretical support for the model is developed based on the literature review that draws on decision support systems (DSS), group decision support systems (GDSS), and BI. Grounded on this literature review, the antecedents of decision quality are operationalized in this dissertation through independent variables such as the problem space complexity, the level of BI usage, the BI user experience, and information quality. The dependent variable is operationalized as decision quality and it captures the self-satisfaction with a decision made by users in a BI environment. The research model was tested using a survey of BI users whose names were provided by a marketing company. This research suggests that BI user experience is a more complex …

To prevent loss of lives during seasonal disasters, relief agencies distribute critical supplies and provide lifesaving services to the affected populations. Despite agencies' efforts, frequently occuring disasters increase the cost of relief operations. The purpose of our study is to minimize the cost of relief operations, considering that such disasters cause random demand. To achieve this, we have formulated a series of models, which are distinct from the current studies in three ways. First, to the best of our knowledge, we are the first ones to capture both perishable and durable products together. Second, we have aggregated multiple products in a different way than current studies do. This unique aggregation requires less data than that of other types of aggregation. Finally, our models are compatible with the practical data generated by FEMA. Our models offer insights on the impacts of various parameters on optimum cost and order size. The analyses of correlation of demand and quality of information offer interesting insights; for instance, under certain cases, the quality of information does not influence cost. Our study has considered both risk averse and risk neutral approaches and provided insights. The insights obtained from our models are expected to help agencies reduce …

In 2012, the CIA World Fact Book showed that the service sector contributed about 76.6% and 51.4% of the 2010 gross national product of both the United States and Ghana, respectively. Research in the services area shows that a firm's success in today's competitive business environment is dependent upon its ability to deliver superior service quality. However, these studies have yet to address factors that influence customers to remain committed to a mass service in economically diverse countries. In addition, there is little research on established service quality measures pertaining to the mass service domain. This dissertation applies Rusbult's investment model of relationship commitment and examines its psychological impact on the commitment level of a customer towards a service in two economically diverse countries. In addition, service quality is conceptualized as a hierarchical construct in the mass service (banking) and specific dimensions are developed on which customers assess their quality evaluations. Using, PLS path modeling, a structural equation modeling approach to data analysis, service quality as a hierarchical third-order construct was found to have three primary dimensions and six sub-dimensions. The results also established that a country's national economy has a moderating effect on the relationship between service quality and …

Social software has become pervasive including technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking sites. Interactive Web 2.0 technology is distinguished from earlier Internet channels, with content provided not only from the website host, but also and most importantly, user-generated content. These social technologies are increasingly entering the enterprise, involving complex social and psychological aspects as well as an understanding of traditional technology acceptance factors. Organizations trying to reap potential benefits of enterprise social software (ESS) must successfully implement and maintain ESS tools. This research develops a framework for assessing knowledge sharing based on reciprocal determinism theory and augmented with technology acceptance, sociological, and psychological factors. Semi-structured interviews with IT professionals, followed by a written survey of employees using ESS are used to collect data. The hermeneutic circle methodology is used to analyze the interview transcripts and structural equation modeling is used to analyze the survey data. Results show technological advantage has no significant effect on the intention to share knowledge, but community cohesiveness and individual willingness significantly affect knowledge sharing intention and behavior. The study offers a synthesized model of variables affecting knowledge sharing as well as a better understanding of best practices for organizations to consider when implementing …

Extracting meaningful information from large collections of text data is problematic because of the sheer size of the database. However, automated analytic methods capable of processing such data have emerged. These methods, collectively called text mining first began to appear in 1988. A number of additional text mining methods quickly developed in independent research silos with each based on unique mathematical algorithms. How good each of these methods are at analyzing text is unclear. Method development typically evolves from some research silo centric requirement with the success of the method measured by a custom requirement-based metric. Results of the new method are then compared to another method that was similarly developed. The proposed research introduces an experimentally designed testing method to text mining that eliminates research silo bias and simultaneously evaluates methods from all of the major context-region text mining method families. The proposed research method follows a random block factorial design with two treatments consisting of three and five levels (RBF-35) with repeated measures. Contribution of the research is threefold. First, the users perceived a difference in the effectiveness of the various methods. Second, while still not clear, there are characteristics with in the text collection that affect the …

Business process re-engineering (part of the Business Process Management domain) is among the top three concerns of Information Technology (IT) leaders and is deemed to be one of many important IT leveraging opportunities. Two major challenges have been identified in relation to BPM and the use of IT. The first challenge is related to involving business process participants in process improvement initiatives using BPM systems. BPM technologies are considered to be primarily targeted for developers and not BPM users, and the need to engage process participants into process improvement initiatives is not addressed, contributing to the business-IT gap. The second challenge is related to potential de-skilling of knowledge workers when knowledge-intensive processes are automated and process knowledge resides in IT, rather than human process participants. The two identified challenges are not separate issues. Process participants need to be knowledgeable about the process in order to actively contribute to BPM initiatives, and the loss of process knowledge as a result of passive use of automated systems may further threaten their participation in process improvement. In response to the call for more research on the individual impacts of business process initiatives, the purpose of this dissertation study is to understand the relationship …

In information systems design there are two schools of thought about what factors are necessary to create a successful information system. The first, conventional view holds that system performance is a key, so that efficiency characteristics such as system usability and task completion time are primary concerns of system designers. The second, emerging view holds that the visual design is also the key, so that visual interface characteristics such as visual appeal, in addition to efficiency characteristics, are critical concerns of designers. This view contends that visual design enhances system use. Thus, this work examines the effects of visual design on computer systems. Visual design exerts its influence on systems through two mechanisms: it evokes affective responses from IT users, such as arousal and pleasure and it influences individuals’ cognitive assessments of systems. Given that both affective and cognitive reactions are significant antecedents of user behaviors in the IT realm, it is no surprise that visual design plays a critical role in information system success. Human-computer-interaction literature indicates that visual aesthetics positively influences such information success factors as usability, online trust, user satisfaction, flow experience, and so on. Although academic research has introduced visual design into the Information Systems (IS) …

This research seeks to derive and examine a multidimensional definition of information security awareness, investigate its antecedents, and analyze its effects on compliance with organizational information security policies. The above research goals are tested through the theoretical lens of technology threat avoidance theory and protection motivation theory. Information security awareness is defined as a second-order construct composed of the elements of threat and coping appraisals supplemented by the responsibilities construct to account for organizational environment. The study is executed in two stages. First, the participants (employees of a municipality) are exposed to a series of phishing and spear-phishing messages to assess if there are any common characteristics shared by the phishing victims. The differences between the phished and the not phished group are assessed through multiple discriminant analysis. Second, the same individuals are asked to participate in a survey designed to examine their security awareness. The research model is tested using PLS-SEM approach. The results indicate that security awareness is in fact a second-order formative construct composed of six components. There are significant differences in security awareness levels between the victims of the phishing experiment and the employees who maintain compliance with security policies. The study extends the theory by …