Chad Saunders

Marshaling Resources to Form Small New Ventures: Toward a More Holistic Understanding of Entrepreneurial Support

This article makes two contributions to our understanding of the core entrepreneurial activity of assembling resources to pursue an opportunity. First, a conceptual framework is presented to organize the research on resource mobilization. Second, a study is presented based upon interviews with a random sample of 48 entrepreneurs to identify the supporters whom the entrepreneurs considered to have been key to their success and the resources obtained from these individuals. Results indicate that maximizing the overall effectiveness of resource combinations is a complex undertaking involving trade–offs between the quantity and quality of available resources and the efficiency versus effectiveness of supporters.

Cognitive heuristics in software engineering applying and extending anchoring and adjustment to artifact reuse

The extensive literature on reuse in software engineering has focused on technical and organizational factors, largely ignoring cognitive characteristics of individual developers. Despite anecdotal evidence that cognitive heuristics play a role in successful artifact reuse, few empirical studies have explored this relationship. This paper proposes how a cognitive heuristic, called anchoring, and the resulting adjustment bias can be adapted and extended to predict issues that might arise when developers reuse code and/or designs. The research proposes that anchoring and adjustment can be manifested in three ways: propagation of errors in reuse artifacts, failure to include requested functionality absent from reuse artifacts, and inclusion of unrequested functionality present in reuse artifacts. Results from two empirical studies are presented. The first study examines reuse of object classes in a programming task, using a combination of practicing programmers and students. The second study uses a database design task with student participants. Results from both studies indicate that anchoring occurs. Specifically, there is strong evidence that developers tend to use the extraneous functionality in the artifacts they are reusing and some evidence of anchoring to errors and omissions in reused artifacts. Implications of these findings for both practice and future research are explored.

Using digital rights management for securing data in a medical research environment

We propose a digital rights management approach for sharing electronic health records in a health research facility and argue advantages of the approach. We also give an outline of the system under development and our implementation of the security features and discuss challenges that we faced and future directions.

Social enterprise as poverty reducing strategy for women

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential of social enterprise as a strategy for poverty reduction for women. Design/methodology/approach – A literature synthesis on the topic was conducted and patterns, linkages and gaps were examined among key themes to identify how social enterprise can potentially serve as a poverty reduction strategy for women. Findings – The paper presents the findings in terms of specific factors contributing to women’s poverty and hypothesizes mechanisms through which social enterprises can mitigate or address these factors in practice. The paper organizes these findings in an integrative framework that highlights the need to ensure a solid policy foundation is in place before a number of key support mechanisms are enabled, which then facilitate specific types of work that can then grow in a sustainable manner. Research limitations/implications – While the mechanisms and proposed framework are based on the extant literature, additional empirical investiga...

Validity of ICD-9-CM administrative data for determining eligibility for pneumococcal vaccination triggers.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of medical record administrative data as coded by the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, for triggering pneumococcal vaccination reminders of patients following discharge from a tertiary care adult teaching hospital. A retrospective computerized search was conducted using administrative discharge data to detect patients admitted to the medical teaching unit who met clinical criteria for pneumococcal vaccination according to Canadian immunization guidelines. For identification of persons eligible for vaccination, administrative discharge data showed a sensitivity of 83% (confidence interval [CI], 0.73-0.92) and a specificity of 78% (CI, 0.64-0.91), with a positive predictive value of 87% (CI, 0.83-0.90) and a negative predictive value of 72% (CI, 0.58-0.86). The reasonably high specificity and sensitivity of diagnostic codes in administrative data could be used to trigger appropriate pneumococcal vaccination among eligible patients after hospital discharge.

Using intelligent agents to repurpose administrative data in fostering disease prevention in an outpatient context: the case of pneumococcal vaccination

The use of intelligent agents is proposed as an economical way to repurpose administrative data in order to foster a program of disease prevention in an outpatient context. A retrospective computerized search was conducted using administrative hospital discharge data to identify patients admitted to a medical teaching unit who met the Canadian Immunization criteria for pneumococcal vaccination over a one-year period. For identification of persons eligible for pneumococcal vaccination, administrative discharge data was shown to have a sensitivity of 83%, (confidence interval [CI] 0.73-0.92) and a specificity of 78% CI (0.64-0.91), with a positive predictive value [PPV] of 87%, CI (0.83- 0.90) and a negative predictive value [NPV] of 72%, CI (0.58-0.86). This study demonstrates that administrative data appear promising as the basis for certain clinical applications. Specifically, the reasonably high specificity and sensitivity of diagnostic codes in administrative data could be utilized to trigger appropriate pneumococcal vaccination after hospital discharge among eligible patients who might otherwise never receive this efficacious intervention. Reminder systems in a hospital setting have received mixed results although positive results have been shown in several outpatient settings but using clinical data. Therefore, before a reminder system using administrative data in an outpatient context is implemented it seemed prudent to investigate this issue further.

Using Genre Systems to Investigate the Interplay Between Technology-in-Practice and the Knowledge Management Practices of Lawyers

Our purpose is to incorporate recent theorizing on the connection between people, technology and organizations into a framework using the genre perspective of communicative action, and to illustrate how professional organizations represent an under-researched and ideal context in which to conduct investigations using this framework. The framework directs our attention to the resource aspects of genre in addition to the rule aspects highlighted within the extant literature employing a structurational view of genre. By drawing upon an ongoing longitudinal study of the interplay between a document management system and the professional practices of lawyers in a multi-site law firm we illustrate the use of the framework and demonstrate how the analytic lens of genre systems can be usefully applied to the legal case file.

Improving Colon Cancer Screening Levels Using Self-Serve Technologies: The Case of the Incomplete Appointment

This case study represents the Diagnosing and Action Planning phases of a larger program of research directed at leveraging IT to improve operational and clinical efficiency. Applying a broad understanding of information systems (IS) to include technologies, processes, and people, the purpose of this study was twofold. First, we wanted to understand the existing portfolio of technologies in the broader context of the range of factors (e.g., technical, cognitive-emotional, logistical, and health system related) enabling and constraining the completion of scheduled appointments within a colon cancer screening centre (CCSC). Second, based upon this evidence we wanted to provide recommendations for targeted IT investments to improve colon cancer screening efficiency through a reduction in incomplete appointments. Our findings indicate the need for collaborative self-serve technologies in order to mitigate the key constraints (costs, fear, logistics, system etc.) while building upon those mechanisms and practices that work (phone reminders, concierge service etc.). We conclude with limitations of this study and plans for future research.

Institutional Ethnography: Mapping Out Textual Mediation and Ruling Relations in Information Systems Research

Institutional Ethnography (IE) offers a new theoretical perspective to guide inquiry within the information systems field. IE begins with a problematic - a disjuncture- that asks how some particular corner of the world is organized and answers this question through ethnographic techniques to explore the lived experience of the people at the core of the research. From this standpoint, institutional ethnographers map out how this experience is textually mediated and coordinated (organized) within a complex web of institutions and others. We reinterpret the findings from two research studies to demonstrate how an IE lens facilitates asking new questions and contributes new understandings around fundamental IS topics. We offer a discussion of the merits of this approach and conclude with some recommendations for how researchers can leverage IE in their own work.

Technology-Enabled Knowledge Translation and Our Environment

Questioning the underutilization of ‘knowledge’ for the purpose of informing policy and decision-making is an area of historical and continued debate. In the last decade or so, there has been renewed interest in the health and health-care sectors in rapidly transforming knowledge into informed action. The term knowledge translation (KT) has been used to describe this process. Concomitant with this has been the rapid growth in the application of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to capture data, transform data into information, share this information to generate knowledge, and to then apply that knowledge, giving rise to the term Technology-Enabled Knowledge Translation (TEKT). Many advantages are purported to exist for the use of ICTs in business, entertainment, health, education, and KT through linking people, objects, and information. Disadvantages are seldom addressed. Overlooked in this convergence of technology and KT has been the fact that application of any type of ICT solution has an environmental impact. Recent research into Environmental e-Health, another ICT-intensive field of health-related research and application, has revealed concern for three primary areas of environmental impact (resource depletion, energy use, and e-waste) and the need for thorough understanding of any specific circumstance through life cycle assessment. These findings are examined in the context of TEKT in order to raise awareness and encourage environmentally sensitive applications of TEKT solutions.