Donna Weaver McCloskey

The Importance of Ease of Use, Usefulness, and Trust to Online Consumers: An Examination of the Technology Acceptance Model with Older Customers

This research examines electronic commerce participation and attitudes by older Americans. Questionnaires were distributed at a large retirement community and several senior centers located in Pennsylvania. The sample of 110 respondents ranged in age from 52 to 87. Fifty-nine percent reported purchasing an item online in the last 6 months. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used and modified to examine the impact attitudes concerning ease of use, usefulness and trust had on electronic commerce usage. Usefulness and trust were found to have a positive, direct affect on usage. Ease of use had significant impacts on usefulness and trust had a significant impact on both ease of use and usefulness. The article concludes with a discussion of these results, study limitations, and directions for future research.

Does Out of Sight Mean Out of Mind? An Empirical Investigation of the Career Advancement Prospects of Telecommuters

The fear that telecommuting will have a negative impact on career advancement prospects has been a barrier to telecommuting acceptance. This study sought to examine whether professionals who telecommute on a part-time basis did indeed experience less advancement prospects than their non-telecommuting peers did. The results indicate that this fear is unfounded. Telecommuting did not have a direct effect on career advancement prospects or an indirect effect through job performance evaluations. Additionally, the level of telecommuting participation did not have an impact on career advancement. Employees who telecommuted more frequently did not experience significantly different job performance evaluations or career advancement prospects than those who telecommuted less. The paper concludes with the limitations of this study and directions for future research.

Evaluating Electronic Commerce Acceptance with the Technology Acceptance Model

As many retailers struggle with their on-line operations and dot corns close their virtual doors, it has become critical to understand why consumers buy online. This study applies the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to electronic commerce participation using a sample of 138 college students. Ease of use was found to have an impact on whether someone would buy a product online and on usefulness. Usefulness had an impact on the number of times a respondent purchased items online. The number of hours spent using the internet per week had a significant impact on all four measures of electronic commerce participation, whether they bought something online, how many times they bought something online, how frequently and how much was spent buying online. Surprisingly, security and privacy concerns did not have an impact on electronic commerce participation. The implications, limitations and directions for future research are addressed.

A cross‐generational examination of electronic commerce adoption

Purpose – Given the increasing number of older individuals, exploration of age differences in attitudes toward and participation in electronic commerce is critical. This paper aims to address this issue.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected on three age groups: 18 to 25, 50 to 69, and 70 and older. Descriptive statistics were explored and chi‐squared statistics were calculated to perform tests of independence on age, participation, and attitudes.Findings – Compared to younger respondents, those 50 and older showed greater concern about security issues and more frustration in their pursuit of product information. Respondents aged 50 to 69 made online purchases more often and were more likely to be big spenders than those 70 and older and those 18 to 25. Those 70 and older rarely made internet purchases but they did seek online information on products and services.Research limitations/implications – Further research is needed using larger sample sizes to allow exploration of differences in attit...

GTE's experience with telecommuting: helping people balance work and family

Telecommuting is a work arrangement that can potentially benefit both the employee and the organization. GTE, a Fortune-500 telecommunications firm, conducted a teleeommuting pilot study with 120 employees from one of GTE’s largest business units from January through June 1993 to explore the outcomes of a l-day per week teleconmmting work arrangement. In addition to presenting the literature related to the positive and negative outcomes of telecomrnuting, this study presents the results from the pilot study. Short cases on a number of participants have also been included to tiu-ther illustrate the effects of this type of flexible work arrangement.

Finding Work-Life Balance in a Digital Age: An Exploratory Study of Boundary Flexibility and Permeability

Mobile computing has changed when and where one works, necessitating an examination of the boundaries one maintains between work and home. Flexible boundaries allow for the shifting of work to alternate times and/or locations. Permeable boundaries allow for the integration of one role while present in the other role, such as scheduling dinner reservations on an app while at work or taking a work call while on vacation. This exploratory research examines the characteristics of employees who have different boundary types and whether these individuals experience different levels of work-family conflict as well as job and life satisfaction.

You’re Hired! Applying the Human Resource Selection Process to Team Formation

This article explains an activity that can be conducted to form teams in university business classes. It allows students to actively participate in the team selection process and learn valuable human resource management skills. Students are placed in the role of hiring managers. They have to identify the skills and characteristics needed to complete a project and then review and evaluate résumés to select appropriate team members. The exercise provides students with practical experience in a key managerial function, as well as insight into how they are presenting their own skills and accomplishments on their résumés. While this activity has been primarily conducted in an undergraduate project management course where the team project is a substantial part of the student’s grade, the exercise is also applicable in other business courses.

An Examination of the Boundary Between Work and Home for Knowledge Workers

This article describes how knowledge workers no longer have physical and time boundaries between their work and personal lives. The boundary theory integration-segmentation continuum does not account for variations in both schedule flexibility and work and home boundary permeability. It is possible for an employee to have a flexible but not permeable boundary and vice versa. Furthermore, permeability may vary for the work boundary and home boundary. This article examines the impact of these three boundary characteristics flexibility, permeability of home boundary and permeability of work boundary on the work-family conflict of knowledge workers. Additionally, role identity is examined as a potential moderating variable. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.