Arik Ragowsky

Establishing Trust in Electronic Commerce Through Online Word of Mouth: An Examination Across Genders

This paper focuses on the cultural effect of gender on the relationship of online word of mouth and trust in e-commerce. To encourage online commerce, many online retailers use online word-of-mouth systems, where consumers can rate products offered for sale. To date, how such ratings affect trust and adoption of e-commerce across genders has been relatively unexplored. We assess whether the effect of online trust on intention to shop online is moderated by gender. Our results show that the effect of trust on intention to shop online is stronger for women than for men. In addition, we find that men value their ability to post content online, whereas women value the responsive participation of other consumers to the content they have posted. Finally, we find that online word-of-mouth quality affects online trust differently across genders.

A multi-level approach to measuring the benefits of an ERP system in manufacturing firms

Abstract This research study examines associations between the business characteristics of manufacturing firms and their perceived benefits from ERP system investments. the perceived ERP benefits are measured at two levels: (1) an enterprise level and (2) a specific IT module level. the perceived value for ERP investments was consistently better explained at the specific IT module level.

Relating benefits from using IS to an organization's operating characteristics: interpreting results from two countries

Abstract: To obtain the greatest benefit from its information system, an organization must determine which applications will provide the most benefit to organizational performance. This study reviews data collected from 310 manufacturing firms in Israel and 197 such firms in the U.S. For each firm, data were obtained about the benefits derived from using information systems, as perceived by a senior manager, and the organization’s operating characteristics. Data were pooled across both countries. No meaningful relationship was found between the benefit a firm derives from its overall information systems application portfolio and its organizational operating characteristics. However, for two individual applications, the benefit derived is linked significantly to the organization’s operating characteristics. Thus the model relating benefits from information systems to the organization’s operating environment, first demonstrated by data collected in Israel, is confirmed by the data collected in the U.S. The model applies across both countries, even though there may be differences between the two countries, for example, in culture, size of businesses, and relationship with customers and suppliers.

Identifying the value and importance of an information system application

Abstract Information systems are vital to the operation and management of every organization. Managers who invest large amounts of money and other resources in information systems often do not know which information systems applications will benefit the organization. This article proposes and tests an approach for evaluating the benefit to the organization gained by the use of an individual information systems application. The test group was comprised of a random sample of 310 medium and large sized manufacturing organizations. We found that different organizations gain different benefits by using the same information system applications, and that the benefit an organization gains from using a computerized application increases as a function of the increase of two types of independent variables representing the level of complexity and uncertainty regarding a specific activity (customers, suppliers, etc.), and the impact of the decision supported by the added information on the organizations objectives.

Enterprise Resource Planning

ARIK RAGOWSKY is an Associate Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Information Systems and Manufacturing and the Director of the Manufacturing Information Systems Center at Wayne State University. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in Information Systems from Tel Aviv University. His experience includes working as a CIO at a manufacturing company and as a consultant for manufacturing organizations with their information systems (ERP systems). Dr. Ragowsky has published in such journals as Journal of Management Information Systems, International Journal of Industrial Engineering, International Journal of CIM, Journal of Systems Management, Information & Management, Communications of the ACM, and Information Technology and Management. His current research interests are in the value of information systems, manufacturing information systems, ERP, and strategic information systems.

What makes the competitive contribution of ERP strategic

In 1984, McFarlan suggested in his HBR article that a company might be able to use Information Technology (IT) to achieve strategic advantage in the marketplace. Although widely cited and recently elaborated on (Nolan & McFarlan, 2005), there is little empirical evidence to support it in the specific context of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems where IT is especially posed to have such a major impact. The objective of this study is to fill this gap, applying a contingency approach. The results, supporting Nolan and McFarlan (2005), show that while some ERP systems provide strategic advantage to some companies, ERP systems may not necessarily provide similar advantage to other companies due to the specific operational characteristics of each company and the way the ERP is used.n The data collected from senior managers in different manufacturing companies who were closely involved in the implementation of ERP systems in their respective companies, show that McFarlans (1984) and Nolan and McFarlans (2005) propositions about IT in general apply also to ERP. Both competitive strategies enabled by the ERP and specific operational characteristics can place the organization in a strategic position, and when this happens, the IT unit is more likely to be under the authority of senior management. These findings seem to contradict Carr (2003) who clamed that IT cannot provide a company with competitive advantage.

Leadership and justice: Increasing non participating users' assessment of an IT through passive participation

Allowing users to actively participate in the development and implementation of a new IS is supposed to increase their satisfaction with it. This type of participation, representing aspects relating to distributive and procedural justice, is increasingly impractical in current organizational settings, because many IS are used by thousands of employees and having them involved is impossible. Nonetheless, there are still benefits to be gained in other ways. Extrapolating from interactional justice, we proposed a passive participation method of engaging users. Its effect was tested in a large company in the USA and proved effective. Interactional justice, the perception of fairness in the way that people were treated at an interpersonal level, was found to increase user assessment of the value of their IS. Implications and expansions to interactional justice theory and how this antecedent affects IS implementation are discussed.

Organizational IT Maturity (OITM): A Measure of Organizational Readiness and Effectiveness to Obtain Value from Its Information Technology

Enterprises often assign little strategic value to IT and resist additional investment. CIOs find that profitable IT deployment is blocked. The business/IT misalignment may stem from the lack of IT use maturity within the enterprise. In this article, the authors concentrate on what has to be done on the enterprise side to enable this maturation with an approach that isolates and describes useful factors that enable a business to become more mature with respect to IT.

The benefits of using information systems

Information systems are vital to the operation and management of every organization. Managers investing in IS are interested in the benefit their organizations gain from this investment. However, neither managers nor researchers have found a way to justify investment in IS based on its contribution to an organization’s performance. Most studies examining the relationship between IS and performance level have found no positive relationship between the two variables [7]. But these studies have been holistic, relating the total IS investment—software, hardware, personnel—to the total profit of the organization. Our study now suggests that the analysis should be particulate, not holistic. An organization should not look for benefits by viewing the IS applications portfolio as one entity. Benefits should be found for each individual area of activity/IS application (such as suppliers and purchase orders, customers, and sales) as a function of the organization’s characteristics. Hence, IS managers should justify the investment in each IS application, not in the entire IS application portfolio. A 1985 study that examined service sector firms found no significant relationship between investment in IS and high performing firms [12]. A 1992 study found a “statistically significant negative relationship between productivity growth and the hightech intensity of the capital” [4]. However, it also pointed out that the negative results may have been due to measurement problems. In 1993, Brynjolfsson summarized this issue: “It is possible that the benefits of IT investment are quite large, but that a proper index of its true impact has yet to be analyzed,” adding that “The lack of good quantitative measures for the output and value created by IT has made the MIS manager’s job of justifying investments particularly difficult” [5]. We offer other measurements and a different approach to identifying and evaluating the benefits derived from IS investment. Since business performance is measured by profit, managers need to assess the benefit of IS investment by answering two questions:

Give me information, not technology

Dont confuse technology with business solutions, focusing instead on what users value most---information.