Angsana A. Techatassanasoontorn

International Diffusion of Digital Mobile Technology: A Coupled-Hazard State-Based Approach

The convergence of the Internet, electronic commerce, and wireless technology has created the basis for the rapid global diffusion of mobile commerce. We believe that one approach to understand mobile commerce diffusion is to study the diffusion of digital mobile devices required in mobile commerce activities. Although prior research in technology diffusion has identified a set of variables that affect the entire diffusion process, our knowledge about the factors that dominate at different states of a diffusion process is still incomplete. This research puts forward a new theoretical perspective to enable managers to better understand the states of technology diffusion in the context of digital mobile phones. Our empirical methods involve a coupled-hazard analysis of an interdependent event model to test the effects of country characteristics, the digital and the analog mobile phone industry characteristics, and the regulatory policies on various states of digital mobile phone diffusion across countries. We conduct non-parametric and parametric survival analysis of the model. The results illustrate a broader set of factors that drive the diffusion speed from the early to the partial diffusion state than from the introduction to the early diffusion state.

Event history, spatial analysis and count data methods for empirical research in information systems

A large number of interesting business and technology problems in IS and e-commerce research center around events and the associated variables that influence them. Researchers are often interested in studying the timing, patterns, and frequencies of events. Some of those events are related to the timing of strategic decisions such as new technology adoption, functionality upgrades to established software products, new outsourcing contracts, and the termination of failing IS projects. Still others are external events that have significant implications on the performance of firms, the structure of industries affected by IT, and the viability of various aspects of the economy. Event history methods, also known as survival analysis and duration analysis methods, spatial analysis, and count data analysis in the medical sciences, public health and biostatistics literature, offer rigorous methods for empirical analysis that can provide rich insights into research issues that arise in association with identifiable events. This article provides a current survey of these methods and in-depth discussion of how researchers can apply them to study technology adoption problems and related issues in IS and e-commerce. We offer a framework for mapping the methods to applicable problems, and discuss the relevant variants of the methods. We also illustrate the range of research questions that can be asked and answered through the use of the methods.

Influences on standards adoption in de facto standardization

In the IT industry, de facto standards emerge from standards competition as firms offer incompatible technologies, and user choices determine the outcome of the competition. The standards literature suggests that strong network effects create a bias toward a standard with a large installed base, leading to a winner-take-all outcome. More recently, several researchers have revealed that the dynamics of standardization are much more complex than the explanation offered by the economic theory of networks. Markets do not always exhibit tipping behavior so there is not always a single winner in de facto standardization; and the size of an overall installed base does not always exert a strong influence on adoption decisions. In contrast, network effects drawn from local social influence may be more salient to user adoption decisions. We ask: (1) Do we always observe a winner-take-all outcome in de facto standards competition? (2) What are the different technology adoption patterns observed in de facto standards competition? (3) What are the implications of network effects, switching costs, pricing, and functionality enhancement strategies on the outcome of de facto standards competition in different user network structures? Drawing on the economic theory of networks, the complex network theory, and previous work in the standards literature, we examine the influence of network effects, switching costs, price, and technology functionality on user adoption decisions using agent-based simulation. We incorporate underlying user network structures frequently observed in the real world as an important determining factor of user adoption decisions. Our results suggest that de facto standardization process does not always follow a three-phased S-shaped pattern. Winner-take-all is not a necessary outcome of standards competition. User network structures have a significant impact on the dynamics and outcomes of standards competition.

Security Education Using Second Life

Institutions of higher education, government agencies, and private organizations have been making sustained efforts to teach some information security skills more efficiently. In these efforts to improve security education, the dominant pedagogical approach has been to use security exercises in a lab setting.

Does one standard promote faster growth? An econometric analysis of the international diffusion of wireless technology

International diffusion of wireless telecommunication and mobile e-commerce has increased since the height of the Internet economy, however, there are a number of different managerial, technological and interpretative issues that still require a more careful look by marketing science and information systems researchers. In this research, we put forward a new theoretical perspective to enable policy makers to better understand states of digital wireless phone diffusion and factors that affect their diffusion rates. We use a modified Bass model and a coupled-hazard survival model to test the effects of country environmental factors, digital and analog wireless phone industry environmental factors, and technology policy factors on the speed of diffusion. The results show that multiple standards and high prices slow down the digital wireless phone diffusion process from the introduction state to the partial diffusion state. Competition in both analog and digital wireless phone industry also shapes the growth of digital wireless phone diffusion. In addition, different practices of technology policies influence the digital wireless phone diffusion speed especially during the take-off.

Understanding commitment in business process outsourcing relationships

Process-based capabilities positively affect commitment.Task-knowledge coordination positively affects commitment.Behavior control positively affects commitment. Based on cost savings and efficiency gains in past business process outsourcing (BPO) projects, firms increasingly consider outsourcing knowledge-intensive and strategically oriented business processes. However, the success of these strategic BPO projects entails strong commitment from both the client and the service provider to leverage interfirm resources and engage in close collaboration to improve the clients business processes. Despite the growing acceptance of BPO practices, how commitment is formed with respect to BPO remains unclear. To address this knowledge gap, weemploy the relational view as our theoretical lens in explaining that the clients commitment is influenced by the relational value from outsourcing relationships. Relational values are characterized as knowledge-based capabilities, process-based capabilities, and governance. The proposed model and hypotheses are largely supported by the empirical data from 167 firms: the results show that commitment is positively affected by the service providers task-knowledge coordination, process alignment, process flexibility, and the clients behavior control over the service provider. Finally, we discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Examining the growth of digital wireless phone technology: A take-off theory analysis

The early phase of diffusion plays a critical role in determining information technology (IT) success in a market. Takeoff, the transition point from the introduction to the growth phase in the IT life cycle, is viewed as an acid test for whether a technology will succeed. We develop a theory to understand global takeoff for digital wireless phones that can be extended to other technologies with related characteristics. Drawing on technology dominance and product life cycle theories, we build a model that consists of standards, market competition, technology costs, and technology substitution to explain takeoff and subsequent market penetration growth. The data are from 41 developed and developing countries. The results suggest that the presence and effects of standards play an important role in driving takeoff and penetration growth. Familiarity with wireless phones and an installed base of analog phone technologies also explain faster takeoff times. Non-price factors are important drivers of penetration growth after takeoff as well. Our results have managerial and policy implications on innovative strategies, standards and competition policy settings for digital wireless phones.

New theories and methods for technology adoption research

This special issue includes six articles on different aspects of technology adoption that represent the development and application of different theoretical and methodological approaches to the business problems that they treat. In terms of theory, three of the articles use behavioral and organizational theories, including adaptive structuration theory, management fashion theory, the unified theory of technology acceptance, the technology acceptance model, and diffusion of innovation theory. The other two are based on economic theory, including network effects theory, and economic growth theory. The methods used are also dramatically different in each of the studies. Three studies use field research and survey methods that are common in organizational and behavioral research designs. The authors of these studies are: Sinclaire and Vogus; Park, Lee and Yi; and Hester. Techatassanasoontorn and Suo’s study, in contrast, uses agent-based computational simulation and network modeling to produce its results. Westland’s article discusses affective information technologies for data acquisition in survey research, and employs a detailed historical overview of the literature, along with survey methods and data analysis to illustrate its application. Finally, the study by Ho, Kauffman and Liang uses panel data econometrics and a variety of refinements that permit the triangulation of evidence based on the assumption of somewhat different modeling relationships. Taken together, the contents reflect some of the current advances that are occurring in the literature with respect to theory and methods for technology adoption research that we hope to showcase in this special issue. The special issue opens with a piece by Jollean Sinclaire and Clinton E. Vogus on ‘‘Adoption of Social Networking Sites: An Exploratory Adaptive Structuration Perspective for Global Organizations.’’ Since social media have become popular with Internet users around the world, global businesses have also recognized their potential importance as a means to be in touch with their customers and the marketplace overall. The theoretical focus of this research involves the dual use of management fashion theory and adaptive structuration theory in order to show the variety of beneficial uses to which organizations are applying social media. Their research is survey-based, and includes interviews with middle to senior managers in a total of 72 large firms that have global operations. In addition to reporting the empirical regularities of social media use, the authors also characterize the different purposes that the organizations have for investing in social media. For example, they report passive versus active applications, proactive versus reactive implementations, and tactical versus strategic uses. The authors also suggest that adaptive structuration theory enables them to interpret the use of social media in global organizations in terms of the low levels of restrictiveness and sophistication, crossed with the open nature of the social media environment on the Internet, to draw conclusions about the basis for further technological innovations with social media, as well as related changes in the way that organizations operate and structure themselves in relation to these technological innovations. Although their study is exploratory and early in its cycle of development, it nevertheless offers a useful perspective on the various issues that can be pursued in follow-on research to gain a fuller understanding of the R. J. Kauffman (&) School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University, 80 Stamford Road, Singapore 198702, Singapore e-mail: rob7585@gmail.com

The Global Diffusion Patterns of Successive Technology Generations: Modeling Analog and Digital Wireless Phone Growth

IT is a proven driver of economic growth and social development. Recent large-scale adoption of digital wireless phones among developed and developing countries has driven the expectation that high penetration will eventually pay off in economic returns and social benefits. We examine growth models to discover diffusion patterns of analog and digital wireless phones in the global context. We ask: What models might characterize diffusion growth for analog and digital wireless phones? Do developed and developing countries experience different growth patterns? Do analog and digital technologies follow different diffusion patterns? We use a matched sub-sample of twenty countries, with an equal share of developed countries and other less well-developed countries. We fitted internal, external and mixed influence diffusion models, models that allow asymmetric diffusion patterns around an inflection point for growth, and also models with a flexible inflection point for growth. The results provide a rich source of insights on wireless phone diffusion across its two key technological generations

New theoretical perspectives on technology adoption

There is a growing recognition that the adoption and extensive diffusion of new ITs and technological innovations that support social networking are critical to support the related growth of our information-rich society in a way that benefits people and organizations. Similarly important is how the emergence of new technological innovations changes the way that organizations survive and thrive in the highly competitive environment of the global economy. Another frontier for impact of new technologies is at the country level for sustainable social and economic development. Some examples include the emergence of mobile and Internet-based telephony, open software systems, infrastructure and application support for digital social networks, digital entertainment services on the Internet, and more intelligent hardware-based data storage systems. Their incorporation into innovative products and services has had dramatic benefits at all these different levels. The research literature on the adoption and diffusion of new technologies and innovations is voluminous and has identified numerous relevant factors associated with adoption and diffusion across multiple levels of analysis. For instance, the popular technology acceptance model has offered a parsimonious theory to explain individual-level adoption and use of new innovations. Similarly, research at the organizational and interorganizational levels has been able to explain the impetus for the adoption of technological innovations based on multiple relevant perspectives. They include theories of: organizational readiness; innovation ownership and co-investment considerations; the appropriation of value from contemporary versus future-oriented value flows associated with technology adoption; and the acceleration and deceleration of firm-level technology adoption in competitive markets. There still are many opportunities for theory development in the adoption and diffusion of new technological innovations though. Although much of the research in the Information Systems discipline up to the present has emphasized individual adoption of new technologies, a broader umbrella of research is appropriate that offers rich theory about technology adoption by accounting for the relevant technological, institutional, national and historical contexts. It is also appropriate to develop research on technology innovation and adoption that moves beyond the dominant paradigm of establishing the relationships between the independent variables of innovator profiles, and the dependent variables of innovation quantity and quality. Some of the promising opportunities for theory development involve such perspectives as contagion effects, management fashion, innovation mindfulness, technology ecosystems and innovation life cycles, innovation configurations, the evolution and impacts of standards organizations, and quality-led innovation and technology adoption. Our motivation for this special issue––actually the first of several for Information Technology and Management–– was to engage researchers from the international academic and business communities who are thought leaders and practice innovators to work collaboratively on the development of new theoretical perspectives and methods advances related to research on technology adoption. Through this effort, we were fortunate to have attracted R. J. Kauffman (&) W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA e-mail: rkauffman@asu.edu