Insights into premium app subscriptions
By popular demand, storytelling app Wattpad has introduced an ad-free option, but it comes with a cost of $5.99/month for users.
Desautels professor Jui Ramaprasad shares her expertise on paid premium versions of online platforms and in what contexts they work.
Popularity or Proximity: Characterizing the Nature of Social Influence in an Online Music Community
Authors: Sanjeev Dewan, Yi-Jen (Ian) Ho and Jui Ramaprasad
Publication: Information Systems Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, March 2017
Abstract:
We study social influence in an online music community. In this community, users can listen to and “favorite” (or like) songs and follow the favoriting behavior of their social network friends—and the community as a whole. From an individual user’s perspective, two types of information on peer consumption are salient for each song: total number of favorites by the community as a whole and favoriting by their social network friends. Correspondingly, we study two types of social influence: popularity influence, driven by the total number of favorites from the community as a whole, and proximity influence, due to the favoriting behavior of immediate social network friends. Our quasi-experimental research design applies a variety of empirical methods to highly granular data from an online music community. Our analysis finds robust evidence of both popularity and proximity influence. Furthermore, popularity influence is more important for narrow-appeal music compared to broad-appeal music. Finally, the two types of influence are substitutes for one another, and proximity influence, when available, dominates the effect of popularity influence. We discuss implications for design and marketing strategies for online communities, such as the one studied in this paper.
Read full article: Information Systems Research
Social Media Affordances or Connective Action: An Examination of Microblogging Use During the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Authors: Emmanuelle Vaast, Hani Safadi, Liette Lapointe, and Bogdan Negoita
Publication: MIS Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4, 2017, pp. 1179-1205
Abstract: This research questions how social media use affords new forms of organizing and collective engagement. The concept of connective action has been introduced to characterize such new forms of collective engagement in which actors coproduce and circulate content based upon an issue of mutual interest. Yet, how the use of social media actually affords connective action still needed to be investigated.
Mixed methods analyses of microblogging use during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill bring insights to this question and reveal, in particular, how multiple actors enacted emerging and interdependent roles with their distinct patterns of feature use. The findings allow us to elaborate upon the concept of connective affordances as collective level affordances actualized by actors in team interdependent roles. Connective affordances extend research on affordances as a relational concept by considering not only the relationships between technology and users but also the interdependence type among users and the effects of this interdependence onto what users can do with the technology. This study contributes to research on social media use by paying close attention to how distinct patterns of feature use enact emerging roles.
Adding to IS scholarship on the collective use of technology, it considers how the patterns of feature use for emerging groups of actors are intricately and mutually related to each other.
Read full article: MIS Quarterly
A Configural Approach to Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams
Authors: Srinivas Kuduravalli, Samer Faraj and Steven L. Johnson
Publication: MIS Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1, March 2017
Abstract:
Despite the recognition of how important expertise coordination is to the performance of software development teams, understanding of how expertise is coordinated in practice is limited. We adopt a configural approach to develop a theoretical model of expertise coordination that differentiates between design collaboration and technical collaboration. We propose that neither a strictly centralized, top-down model nor a largely decentralized approach is superior. Our model is tested in a field study of 71 software development teams. We conclude that because design work addresses ill-structured problems with diverse potential solutions, decentralization of design collaboration can lead to greater coordination success and reduced team conflict. Conversely, technical work benefits from centralized collaboration. We find that task knowledge tacitness strengthens these relationships between collaboration configuration and coordination outcomes and that team conflict mediates the relationships. Our findings underline the need to differentiate between technical and design collaboration and point to the importance of certain configurations in reducing team conflict and increasing coordination success in software development teams. This paper opens up new research avenues to explore the collaborative mechanisms underlying knowledge team performance.
Read full article: MIS Quarterly
What Users Do Besides Problem-Focused Coping In the IT Security Context: An Emotion-Focused Coping Perspective
Authors: H. Liang, Y. Xue, Alain Pinsonneault and A. Wu
Publication: MIS Quarterly, Forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper investigates how individuals cope with IT security threats by taking into account both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. While problem-focused coping (PFC) has been extensively studied in the IT security literature, little is known about emotion-focused coping (EFC).
We propose that individuals employ both PFC and EFC to volitionally cope with IT security threats, and conceptually classify EFC into two categories: inward and outward. Our research model is tested by two studies: an experiment with 140 individuals and a survey of 934 respondents.
Our results indicate that both inward EFC and outward EFC are stimulated by perceived threat, but that only inward EFC is reduced by perceived avoidability. Interestingly, inward EFC and outward EFC are found to have opposite effects on PFC. While inward EFC impedes PFC, outward EFC facilitates PFC. By integrating both EFC and PFC in a single model, we provide a more complete understanding of individual behavior under IT security threats.
Moreover, by theorizing two categories of EFC and showing their opposing effects on users’ security behaviors, we further examine the paradoxical relationship between EFC and PFC, thus making an important contribution to IT security research and practice.
The Spillover Effects of Health IT Investments on Regional Healthcare Costs
Authors: Hilal Atasoy, Pei-Yu Chen and Kartik K. Ganju
Publication: Management Science, Vol. 64, No. 6, 2018
Abstract:
Electronic health records (EHR) are often presumed to reduce the significant and accelerating healthcare costs in the United States. However, evidence on the relationship between EHR adoption and costs is mixed, leading to skepticism about the effectiveness of EHR in decreasing costs. We argue that simply looking at the hospital-level effects can be misleading because the benefits of EHR can go beyond the adopting hospital by creating regional spillovers via information and patient sharing. When patients move between hospitals, timely and high-quality records received at one hospital can affect the costs of care at another hospital. We provide evidence that although EHR adoption increases the costs of the adopting hospital, it has significant spillover effects by reducing the costs of neighboring hospitals. We further show that these spillovers are linked to information and patient sharing. Specifically, the spillovers are stronger when more hospitals in the region are in health information exchange networks and in the same integrated delivery systems, which can share information more easily. Furthermore, utilizing regional characteristics that can affect the extent of patient sharing such as urban versus rural areas, population density, average distance between hospitals, and hospital density, we find that locations with higher patient and hospital concentration experience stronger regional spillovers. Additionally, spillovers are stronger after the HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act that increased EHR adoption and use. Overall, our findings suggest that we need to take into account externalities to understand the benefits of health IT investments and form policy decisions.
Read full article: Management Science
E-Mail Interruptions and Individual Performance: Is There a Silver Lining?
Authors: Shamel Addas and Alain Pinsonneault
Publication: MIS Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2, January 2018
Abstract: Interruption of work by e-mail and other communication technologies has become widespread and ubiquitous. However, our understanding of how such interruptions influence individual performance is limited. This paper distinguishes between two types of e-mail interruptions (incongruent and congruent) and draws upon action regulation theory and the computer-mediated communication literature to examine their direct and indirect effects on individual performance.
Two empirical studies of sales professionals were conducted spanning different time frames: a survey study with 365 respondents and a diary study with 212 respondents. The results were consistent across the two studies, showing a negative indirect effect of exposure to incongruent interruptions (interruptions containing information that is not relevant to primary activities) through subjective workload, and a positive indirect effect of exposure to congruent interruptions (interruptions containing information that is relevant to primary activities) through mindfulness.
The results differed across the two studies in terms of whether the effects were fully or partially mediated, and we discuss these differences using meta-inferences. Technology capabilities used during interruptions episodes also had significant effects: rehearsing (fine-tuning responses to incoming messages) and reprocessing (reexamining received messages) were positively related to mindfulness, parallel communication (engaging in multiple e-mail conversations simultaneously) and leaving messages in the inbox were positively related to subjective workload, and deleting messages was negatively related to subjective workload.
This study contributes to research by providing insights on the different paths that link e-mail interruptions to individual performance and by examining the effects of using capabilities of the interrupting technology (IT artifact) during interruptions episodes. It also extends the experimental tradition that focuses on isolated interruptions. By shifting the level of analysis from specific interruption events to overall exposure to interruptions over time and from the laboratory to the workplace, our study provides realism and ecological validity.
Read full article: MIS Quarterly
Desautels makes mark at Unleash 2017
In response to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forward by the United Nations, Unleash 2017 assembled youth from across all continents to Denmark for ten days of untethered ideation to help resolve some of the world’s most persistent issues.
Pokémon Go: a boon for businesses
Professor Warut Khern-am-nuai is a co-author on a study revealing that Pokémon Go does not merely bring health benefits, as has been widely studied, but also contributes to increased restaurant business revenues.
Alain Pinsonneault: frequent little promotions work best for IT employee retention
It’s a vicious cycle: Companies cut back on promotions to try to minimize big salary loads, but more promotions keep employees around longer. According to a piece at incentiveandmotivation.com, the answer could be more frequent, but smaller, promotions.
Pokémon Go and the fortunes of local businesses
According to Les Affaires, a study partly authored by Desautels Professor Warut Khern-am-nuai looks at whether or not the augmented reality game Pokémon Go affects local businesses.
McGill-HEC Montréal EMBA offers yearly aboriginal scholarship
Every year, the McGill-HEC Montréal EMBA program offers a $50,000 scholarship for aboriginal managers. The first recipient of the scholarship was Mi’kmaq urban councillor Manon Jeanotte in 2014. Her EMBA experience prompted her to make a successful run for chief of the Gespeng Mik’maq Nation in 2015.
Jui Ramaprasad appointed Associate Editor of MISQ
Jui Ramaprasad, Associate Professor in Information Systems was recently appointed Associate Editor of the Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ), a top management journal.
Warut Khern-am-nuai awarded 2017 FRQSC New Academics Grant
Warut Khern-am-nuai, Assistant Professor in information Systems was recently awarded a 2017 FRQSC New Academics Grant for his project "L’impact du système de questions et réponses sur les plateformes en ligne / The Impact of Questions and Answers on Product Sales”.
Research into project team makeup arrives at surprising conclusion
A research paper authored in part by Desautels Professor and Canada Research Chair in Technology, Management, and Healthcare Samer Faraj compared the traditional management style (where the most experienced person is in charge) with the more self-driving teams that are a hallmark of agile systems development.
