Journal of Management Information Systems

Volume 32 Number 1 2015 pp. 1-8

Editorial Introduction

Zwass, Vladimir

As the formation of supply webs through strategic outsourcing has redefined the landscape of contemporary business, a deeper understanding of the long-term objectives of these relationships is emerging. Organizational learning is—or should be—a primary objective of the firms collaborating in information-technology (IT)–supported business-process outsourcing and in the outsourcing of IT itself. In realizing this objective, one needs to meet a challenge: learning can be impaired by outsourcing processes to other firms. Measures are needed to continuously learn from partner companies. In the opening paper of this issue of the Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), Deepa Mani and Anitesh Barua investigate the impact of organizational learning on the creation of value in outsourcing relationships. The authors parse this learning into two fundamental components, relational and procedural, and use the market data on outsourcing contracts to determine the differential effects of these two kinds of learning. The results point to the salutary value-creation effects of learning as firms tend properly to these aspects of outsourcing—and, indeed, to the need to tend to these aspects.

The disruption of business models of the traditional media by the Internet–Web compound is seen everywhere, perhaps most clearly in the newspaper industry. This package of content monetized largely by print advertising has been severely challenged. Is there a response? Jahangir Karimi and Zhiping Walter deploy the theory of disruptive innovation to establish which dynamic capabilities need to be mustered by a newspaper-owning firm to respond to such a survival-threatening challenge. Dynamic capabilities are in their essence the multifaceted capabilities for change through developing specialized and differentiating resources that are dispositive in the emerging competitive environment. Much of the required response that has surfaced in the authors’ research is of the “join-them” kind, but by far not all of it. As you will read, the proper deployment of IT to create these firm’s capabilities is central to the response.

Two subsequent papers focus on software development. Nikhil Mehta and Anandhi Bharadwaj study software development by vendor teams serving a client firm in an outsourcing relationship. Adopting the knowledge-integration lens, these authors investigate two boundary-spanning processes that control, respectively, the inflow of information to a team and the outflow of information from it. Collectively, these processes aim to help the software-development team to minimize external distractions and thus help its members to integrate their common stocks of knowledge toward salutary project outcomes. Based on the empirics they deploy, the researchers show that the role these processes play has a nonlinear effect on a team’s knowledge integration and is sensitive to the degree of the project’s uncertainty. The findings are not obvious and have important implications for the regulation of interactions between the team and its organizational environment.

Open source software (OSS) development has become a key development mode in the software industry. Communitarian in nature, it is often supported in various ways by major companies that benefit from the complementarities. Software innovation in this domain is therefore of great importance, as is the effective maintenance of the existing code base. Here, Orcun Temizkan and Ram L. Kumar adopt the software-artifact unit of analysis to seek the antecedents of ambidexterity in OSS development. They show that patch development and feature requests can serve as the respective proxies for exploitation and exploration activities in OSS development processes, and proceed to empirically determine which OSS team structures lead to success.

Information technology has served to enable a variety of team structures, dispersed in space and time. J. Alberto Espinosa, Ning Nan, and Erran Carmel posit that the effects of the latter distance, that is, of the temporal separation among the team members have not been investigated in-depth, important as these effects are. After all, limited work synchronicity can be expected to lower a team’s performance, whereas the ability to “follow the sun” offers efficiencies. Basing themselves on several theoretical perspectives, the researchers devised a controlled experiment to investigate the contradiction. The authors show that the received wisdom of speed-for-quality trade-off requires qualification and they offer well-grounded avenues to achieving both benefits in the work of temporally and spatially dispersed teams.

Four papers analyze various aspects of e-commerce. Gregory D. Moody and Dennis F. Galletta postulate maximizing information scent as a means of attracting users to a website and thus as a site design objective. Information scent is the set of visual, audio, and semantic cues that can be used to guide website users in accomplishing their informational or transactional task. The authors show the efficacy of latent semantic analysis in assessing the scent and, in turn, the scent’s value in reducing the stress and enhancing the positive attitude of the website user. Clear guidelines emerge for the site designers, in particular, in regard to the need to develop use scenarios and cases, and to scent the paths to their accomplishment. A similar objective—that of enhancing users’ attitude with respect to a website—is pursued by Alexander Benlian. He studies the effect of site-personalization cues on website stickiness and on users’ willingness to pay for the site’s offerings. The author differentiates between content and design personalization, and shows the distinctions in their effects, individually and jointly. The work relies on a model grounded in the stimulus–organism–response framework. Taken together, the two papers offer a rich store of theoretically grounded and empirically verified advice to website designers.

Price dispersion online is a well-established fact, contra the early expectations of a one-price environment. There are two ways to assess this dispersion, as stated by Kexin Zhao, Xia Zhao, and Jing Deng, the authors of the next paper in the issue. One can focus on the supply side and thus the listing prices posted by sellers, or on the demand side, that is, the transaction prices, actually paid by the buyers. The difference in the two price aggregates exists because many transactions are realized at lower listing prices and the higher listing prices would thus appear less frequently as transaction prices. Using the data sets of actual prices, the authors show that the drivers of price dispersion are different on the supply and demand sides of the market. Notably, they also show that the dispersion of transaction prices is three times lower than that of listing prices. This is an important finding: whereas we do not see one price on the buying side, we are actually much closer to that than we would think when looking at the listing prices.

Using a formal game-theoretic economic model, Dan Ma investigates the impact of push-type delivery of online content as compared to the pull of content by website users. A common realization of this delivery mode is really simple syndication (RSS). The impact is measured as profitability of the site and the competitive advantage of the owner. The anecdotal evidence from the push-versus-pull practice of content delivery has been contradictory, dependent as it is on various factors, including the motivation for disclosure of the attributable revenues. Do RSS and similar push-oriented modes of content delivery add value to a website? The author uncovers a nuanced response to this question and shows that this response answers some more general questions, too.

A paper that generalizes empirically much of our knowledge about the exploration of complex information systems by organizational users closes this issue of JMIS. Huigang Liang, Zeyu Peng, Yajiong Xue, Xitong Guo, and Nengmin Wang triangulate system-exploration behavior into three factor sets: task, system, and organizational environment. The authors proceed to build a theoretically grounded model of employee-exploration behavior and use an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as an exemplar in their empirical verification of the model. Based on this, they are in a position to provide a rich set of guidelines for employers aiming to foster comprehensive and effective use of complex information systems, and their infusion into innovative organizational practices.

As is our tradition at the outset of a new volume, I wish to thank our referees, the primary guarantors of the quality of our papers. Here are the names of the JMIS referees:

Hyung Jun Ahn

Pervaiz Alam

Oliver Alexy

Muhammad Aljukhadar

Gove Allen

Paul Alpar

Niek Altuizen

Kemal Altinkemer

Naveen Amblee

Ofer Arazy

Kursad Asdemir

Norman Au

Yoris Au

Benoit A. Aubert

Peter van Baalen

Hyunmi Baek

Ainsworth Bailey

Akhilesh Bajaj

Hillol Bala

Dirk Baldwin

Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay

Gaurav Bansal

Reza Barkhi

Henri Barki

Stuart J. Barnes

Richard Baskerville

Dinesh Batra

Daniel Beimborn

Skip Benamati

Michel Benaroch

Raquel Benbunan-Fich

Alexander Benlian

François Bergeron

Ganesh Bhatt

Sudip Bhattacharjee

Eva Bittner

Jesse Bockstedt

Riccardo Bonazzi

Antal van den Bosch

Indranil Bose

Randy Bradley

Tobias Brandt

Nicola Breugst

Glenn J. Browne

Sebastian Bruque

Scott Buffett

Judee Burgoon

Andrew Burton-Jones

Ashley Bush

Brian Butler

Terry A. Byrd

Jinwei Cao

Lan Cao

Erran Carmel

Hasan Cavusoglu

Sangmi Chai

Hsin-Lu Chang

Young Bong Chang

Mohamed-Hédi Charki

Sutirtha Chatterjee

Michael Chau

Patrick Chau

Aihui Chen

Andrew Chen

Daniel Chen

Hong-Mei Chen

Hsinchun Chen

Jianqing Chen

Jin Chen

Kay-Yut Chen

Kuan Chen

Li Chen

Liwei Chen

Yan Chen

Hsing Kenneth Cheng

Mike Cheung

Robert T.H. Chi

Robert Chiang

Roger Chiang

Benjamin Chiao

Ananth Chiravuri

Alina M. Chircu

Chaochang Chiu

Jong-min Choe

H. Michael Chung

Wingyan Chung

Theodore H. Clark

Randolph Cooper

Kevin Crowston

Dianne Cyr

Qizhi Dai

Yan Dang

John D’Arcy

Ronald Dattero

Gregory Dawson

Jason Dedrick

Chrysanthos Dellarocas

Haluk Demirkan

Xuefei Deng

Sarv Devaraj

Sanjeev Dewan

Debabrata Dey

Soussan Djamasbi

Su Dong

Line Dubé

Peter Duchessi

Alina Dulipovici

Deborah E. Dunkle

Kaushik Dutta

Robert Easley

Dana Edberg

Christophe Elie-Dit-Cosaque

Omar A. El Sawy

Mike Eom

Sean B. Eom

J. Alberto Espinosa

Andrea Everard

Kelly Fadel

Ming Fan

Patrick Fan

Xiaofen Fang

Yulin Fang

Jane Feng

Daniel R. Fesenmaier

Eliezer M. Fich

Thomas A. Fischer

Jerry Fjermestad

Chris Forman

Chiara Francalanci

Brent Furneaux

John Gallaugher

Dale Ganley

Gordon Gao

Monica Garfield

Ina Garnefeld

Edward J. Garrity

Xianjun Geng

Michiel van Genuchten

Janis L. Gogan

Kim Huat Goh

Thomas Goh

Dale Goodhue

Anand Gopal

Ram D. Gopal

Nelson Granados

Dawn G. Gregg

Shirley Gregor

Ulrike Gretzel

Robert K. Griffin

Michael D. Grigoriades

Bin Gu

Ken Guo

Zhiling Guo

Saurabh Gupta

Nicole Haggerty

Jungpil Hahn

Ingoo Han

Kunsoo Han

Shu Han

Il-Horn Hann

Matthew Hashim

Jun He

Raymond Henry

Hemantha Herath

Tejaswini Herath

Thomas Hess

Traci Hess

Alan R. Hevner

Oliver Hinz

Susanna Ho

Richard Hoffman

Christian P. Hoffmann

Jason Hong

Weiyin Hong

John A. Hoxmeier

Han-Fen Hu

Jeffrey Hu

Nan Hu

Paul Hu

Petra Hu

Qing Hu

Chun-Yao Huang

Ming-Hui Huang

Wayne Huang

Xiaowen Huang

Thomas Huber

Kai Lung Hui

Wendy Hui

Ard Huizing

Ghiyong Im

Gretchen I. Irwin

Anja Ischebeck

Varghese Jacob

Bharat A. Jain

Hemant Jain

Radhika Jain

Jeevan Jaisingh

Dietmar Jannach

Matthew Jensen

James J. Jiang

Qiqi Jiang

Zhengrui Jiang

Zhenhui Jiang

Monica Johar

Alice Johnson

Eric Johnson

Emmanuel Josserand

Surinder Kahai

Arnold Kamis

Atreyi Kankanhalli

Karthik Kannan

P.K. Kannan

Jahangir Karimi

Michael Kattan

Timothy Kayworth

Weiling Ke

Mark Keith

Peter Kenning

William J. Kettinger

Lara Khansa

Moutaz Khouja

Melody Y. Kiang

Byung Cho Kim

Dan J. Kim

Dongmin Kim

Gimun Kim

Hee-Woong Kim

Keongtae Kim

Kihoon Kim

Seung Hyun Kim

Young-Gul Kim

Ruth King

Rajiv Kishore

Gary Klein

Richard Klein

Sven Kleinknecht

Cenk Kocas

Chang Koh

Rajiv Kohli

Tobias Kollman

Praveen K. Kopalle

Marios Koufaris

Kenneth A. Kozar

Ramayya Krishnan

Gillian Ku

Uday Kulkarni

Akhil Kumar

Ram Kumar

Subodha Kumar

Jason Kuruzovich

Juhee Kwon

Atanu Lahiri

Simon S.K. Lam

Guido Lang

Karl R. Lang

Kai R. Larsen

Dong-Joo Lee

Gwanhoo Lee

Heeseok Lee

Ho Geun Lee

Jong Seok Lee

Jungwoo Lee

Thomas Lee

Yang Lee

Yen-Hsien Lee

Young-Jin Lee

Pierre-Majorique Léger

Jan Marco Leimeister

Natalia Levina

Chen Li

Dahui Li

Jiexun Li

Seth Li

Ting Li

Xiaotong Li

Xin Li

XinXin Li

XiXi Li

Huigang Liang

Ting-Peng Liang

Paul Licker

John Lim

Aleck Lin

Fu-ren Lin

Lihui Lin

Mei Lin

Charles Zhechao Liu

Ying Liu

Yipeng Liu

Alexandre Lopes

Paul B. Lowry

Henry C. Lucas Jr.

Xueming Luo

Christoph Lutz

Mark Lycett

Dan Ma

Xiao Ma

Jane M. Mackay

Massimo Magni

Pruthikrai Mahatanankoon

M. Adam Mahmood

Rolf Mahnke

Bin Mai

Yogesh Malhotra

Deepa Mani

Ravi Mantena

Salvatore T. March

Kent Marett

Panos Markopoulos

Likoebe M. Maruping

Sabine Matook

Kurt Matzler

Jerrold H. May

Kristina McElheran

Roy McKelvey

Ephraim R. McLean

Nigel Melville

Nirup Menon

Thomas Meservy

Randy Minas

Shaila Miranda

Dinesh Mirchandani

Abhay Nath Mishra

Stephanie Missonier

Sunil Mithas

Prasenjit Mitra

Kannan Mohan

Peter N.C. Mohr

William Money

Ali R. Montazemi

Ramiro Montealegre

Alan Montgomery

Greg Moody

Jolene Morrison

Michael D. Myers

Peter P. Mykytyn Jr.

Barin N. Nag

Fiona Nah

Ravi Narayanaswamy

Derek Nazareth

Matthew Nelson

R. Ryan Nelson

Boon Siong Neo

Derrick Neufeld

Dirk Neumann

Dorit Nevo

Michael Newman

Mark Nissen

Dmitri Nizovtsev

Oded Nov

Lih-Bin Oh

Wonseok Oh

Bob O’Keefe

Lorne Olfman

James Oliver

Ana Ortiz de Guinea

Benoit Otjacques

Peter Otto

Eric Overby

Zafer D. Ozdemir

Raymond R. Panko

Gautam Pant

Manoj Parameswaran

Michael Parent

Insu Park

Sungjune Park

Craig Parker

Bhavik K. Pathak

Praveen Pathak

Ravi Patnayakuni

Souren Paul

David J. Pauleen

Kenneth Peffers

Zeyu Peng

Robin Pennington

Chee-Wei Phang

Roger A. Pick

Selwyn Piramuthu

Huseyin Polat

Jean-Charles Pomerol

Jaana Porra

Constance Porter

Gerald Post

John H. Prager

David Preston

Sandeep Purao

Liangfei Qiu

Lingyun Qiu

Wen Guang Qu

Arik Ragowsky

Rex Kelly Rainer Jr.

Balaraman Rajan

Vandana Ramachandran

K. Ramamurthy

Arkalgud Ramaprasad

Bala Ramesh

H.R. Rao

R. Ravichandran

Gautam Ray

Louis Raymond

Blaize Horner Reich

Bruce Reinig

Yuqing Ren

Paul Resnick

Hyuen-Suk Rhee

Amir Riaz

William B. Richmond

Christoph Riedl

René Riedl

Lionel Robert

Nicholas Roberts

Daniel Robey

Michael Rogich

Huaxia Rui

Sherry D. Ryan

Young U. Ryu

Khawaja Saeed

Otavio Sanchez

G. Lawrence Sanders

Radhika Santhanam

Pallab Sanyal

Saonee Sarker

Surendra Sarnikar

Carol Saunders

George Schell

Hans J. Scholl

Petra Schubert

Judy Scott

Ravi Sen

Sagnika Sen

Sylvain Sénécal

Nainika Seth

Vikram Sethi

Theresa M. Shaft

Tushar Shanker

Michael Shaw

Jim Sheffield

Hong Sheng

Zhan Shi

Hung-Pin Shih

Choon Ling Sia

Siew Kien Sia

Keng Siau

Mark Silver

Param Vir Singh

Atish P. Sinha

Kingshuk Sinha

Sumit Sircar

Laura Smarandescu

Stefan Smolnik

Manuel Sojer

Jaeki Song

Ryan Sougstad

Scott Spangler

William E. Spangler

Rajendra P. Srivastava

Shirish C. Srivastava

Thomas F. Stafford

Eric W. Stein

Dick Stenmark

Theofanis C. Stratopoulos

Diane M. Strong

Besiki Stvilia

Daewon Su

Mani Subramani

Chandra Subramaniam

Ramanath Subramanyam

Eung-Kyo Suh

Heshan Sun

Arun Sundararajan

Shankar Sundaresan

Paul P. Tallon

Yong Tam

Prasanna Tambe

Yao-Hua Tan

Qiuan Tang

Xinlin Tang

Mohan R. Tanniru

Monideepa Tarafdar

Nolan Taylor

Orkun Temizkan

Gary F. Templeton

Hock Hai Teo

Thompson Teo

Matthew Thatcher

Dominic Thomas

Ron Thompson

James Y.L. Thong

Ryad Titah

Yanbin Tu

Ofir Turel

Tuure Tuunanen

Doug Twitchell

Nathan W. Twyman

N.S. Umanath

Rustam Vahidov

Ganesan Vaidyanathan

Anthony Vance

Viswanath Venkatesh

Goetz Viering

Padmal Vitharana

Radu Vlas

Douglas Vogel

Sebastian Voigt

Jan vom Brocke

Heinz-Theo Wagner

Steven Walczak

Joseph Walls

Zhiping Walter

Bin Wang

Eric T.G. Wang

Jingguo Wang

Michael S. Wang

Qiu-Hong Wang

Shouhong Wang

Sophia Wang

Weiquan Wang

Yinglei Wang

Y. Richard Wang

Sidne Ward

Mary Beth Watson-Manheim

Sunil Wattal

Thomas Weber

Chih-Ping Wei

Tim Weitzel

John Wells

Robert West

J. Christopher Westland

Jonathan Whitaker

Michael E. Whitman

Jeffrey L. Whitten

George Widmeyer

Rolf Wigand

Fons Wijnhoven

Christopher Wolfe

Christina Wong

Charles A. Wood

Hans Wortmann

Ryan Wright

Dazhong Wu

Mu Xia

Weidong Xia

Mingdi Xin

Heng Xu

Hongjiang Xu

Kefeng Xu

Lizhen Xu

Peng Xu

Yunjie (Calvin) Xu

Ling Xue

Lucy Yan

Yinping Yang

Zhiyong Yang

Oliver Yao

Ulku Yaylacicegi

Cheng Yi

Denny Yin

Byungjoon Yoo

Yufei Yuan

Wei T. Yue

Fatemeh (Mariam) Zahedi

Chun Zeng

Dongsong Zhang

Han Zhang

Jennifer Zhang

John Zhang

Ping Zhang

Xiaoquan Zhang

Yulei Zhang

Zhu Zhang

Huimin Zhao

Kexin Zhao

J. Leon Zhao

Xia Zhao

Dmitry Zhdanov

Lina Zhou

Yilu Zhou

Zhongyun Zhou

Hongwei Zhu

Youlong Zhuang

Moshe Zviran

I would also like to welcome two new members of our Editorial Board, Sunil Mithas of the University of Maryland and Joseph S. Valacich of the University of Arizona. I would like to thank two outgoing board members, Alan Dennis and Alok Gupta, for their contribution over the years of service to JMIS.