Eric Walden

Some Value Propositions of Online Communities

Online communities are an integral part of the Internet. However, it is not entirely clear exactly what the value propositions of online communities are, and how firms should leverage them. This paper is an attempt to describe some of the value propositions of online communities and to suggest control structures that firms should employ to maximize community value. The general trend that emerges is that, under the conditions described in the paper, firms should take an arms-length approach to the management of online communities.

Do Markets Prefer Open or Proprietary Standards for XML Standardization? An Event Study

Proprietary standardization seeks to increase a firms market share (pie sharing). Open standardization seeks to increase the size of the market (pie expansion). In order to determine which of these creates more value for a firm involved in standardization, this paper investigates the market value of standardization initiatives, using an event study based on 148 XML schema standardization initiatives collected from the Lexis-Nexis database between January 1999 and December 2003. The results show that financial markets respond positively to announcements of proprietary XML schema standardization, but not to those of open XML schema standardization. Moreover, investors do not develop a preference for open standards over time. These results have implications for the management of standardization strategies and identify future research opportunities.

How Consumer Perceptions of Network Size and Social Interactions Influence the Intention to adopt Peer-to-Peer Technologies

People join peer-to-peer networks for economic and social reasons. From an economic perspective, people join peer-to-peer (P2P) networks based on the size of the networks. However, from a sociological perspective, when people adopt technologies, they create an alternative social network motivated by extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. In this study, we develop a conceptual framework for measuring the impact of economic and social factors drawn from theories of network externalities and social exchange. The preliminary data analyses show that perceived size of network influences perceived network externalities, and in turn, network externalities have an impact on intention to adopt P2P technologies. In addition, we found that social benefit is also an important antecedent of adopting P2P technologies. Our preliminary results provide insights on how people reconcile economic and social considerations when choosing to adopt a P2P technology.

Organizational form, incentives and the management of information technology: Opening the black box of outsourcing

In this work, we attempt to show how operations researchers can effectively manage the production costs of computing services. The thesis of this paper is that an outsourcing firm, by virtue of the fact that it manages the IT function for multiple firms, is privileged to information not available to the focal firm. We derive the conditions under which this privileged information allows the partner firm to construct superior incentives for its employees, resulting in superior IT management. Further, we detail the circumstances under which outsourcing will not provide additional benefit, and what sorts of partners are likely to provide the greatest benefit. The two main findings are that for low levels of uncertainty, both in-house and relational management are equally acceptable. However, as uncertainty increases, the value of relational management increases. Conclusions are drawn and extensions are proposed, related to economies of scale and transactions costs.

Lender Characteristics and the Neurological Reasons for Strategic Mortgage Default

In this study we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand how homeowners process non-financial information when considering strategic mortgage default. We find that borrowers initially attempt to inhibit their knee jerk reaction to retaliate against a lender who has engaged in egregious lending practices when compared to a financial conservative lender. Moreover, when defaults are rare, borrowers are less likely to default because violating the social norm results in feelings of disgust. Finally, when a lender refuses a loan modification, the borrower is found to seek retribution. Interestingly, granting even a modest loan modification removes the desire of homeowners to seek retribution towards their lender no matter the borrowers impression of the lenders character. The results carry a number of policy implications illuminated within the study.

Standards Setting Consortia: A Transaction Cost Perspective

Consortiums are highly successful organizational systems for IT standard setting. However, it is not clear what advantages consortiums offer over the traditional approaches to standard-setting. We apply transaction cost economics to examine how and why consortiums are successful for standard-setting. We show that when standards are viewed as bundles of complementary patents, consortiums economize on transaction costs relative to the market. Further consortiums also economize on transaction costs relative to hierarchies, provided coordination costs are relatively lower than other types of transaction costs.

Engaging Students through Web 2.0 Technologies: Capturing the Long Tail of Student Participation

This paper applies the relatively new concept of the Long Tail to classroom environments thereby offering a new way of viewing student participation and engagement. We suggest that Web 2.0 technologies such as forums and wikis will appeal to the Long Tail of low-involvement students to increase their interactions within learning environments in the same way that Internet search and recommendation technologies have enabled firms to capture greater value from the Long Tail of less frequently sold products. This theoretical work contributes to the literature by illustrating how these technologies can offer a simple and efficient means of increasing student participation, engagement and learning. We conclude our concept of Long Tail student engagement with directions for future research and practical suggestions for instructors seeking to employ these technologies in their classrooms.

Size Doesn't Matter: Network Externalities vs. Information Cascades in the Adoption of Low Cost Internet Technologies

Internet technologies are often studied using network externality theory. In this paper, we question whether network externality theory should be applied as a behavioral model of low cost internet technology adoption. We argue that from the point of view of the adopter, not the researcher, applying network externality theory has a high cognitive cost that does not justify its application when adoption costs are low. Rather, an easier theory, from the adopters perspective, is information cascade theory. Information cascade theory only requires that the adopter do what she sees others doing. We test our conjecture in a laboratory setting where we can control both the level of network externalities and what the adopter sees others doing. We find that the level of network externalities has no impact on the propensity to adopt but that the behavior of others has significant impact on the propensity to adopt low cost internet technologies.

The problem of distributed intellectual property bundles: a transaction cost perspective

Technology is made up of bundles of ideas. Increasingly, these ideas are protected by intellectual property rights. Unfortunately, these intellectual property rights are often distributed across many different owners. Moreover, the technology itself is also used by many different legal entities. Thus, a burgeoning problem faced by creators of technology is how to coordinate the disseperate interests of various intellectual property owners in order to create useful technology. In this paper we apply transaction costs economics to explain the relative merits of different organization forms vis-à-vis the creation of technology that is made up of intellectual property.

Ambivalence and the Bivariate Nature of Attitudes in Information Systems Research

People using information technologies experience both joy and frustration, and thus develop both positive and negative attitudes toward systems. Many researchers in information systems have studied user attitudes toward technology, and such attitudes have in fact been one of the most frequently studied phenomena in the IS field. User attitudes have generally been measured utilizing bipolar scales, on which the low end represents strong negative attitudes and the high end represents strong positive attitudes. However, psychologists have long recognized that the positive and negative dimensions of attitudes can be separated, and attitudes are thus bivariate. In the present research, we investigate whether the positive and negative aspects of user attitudes are separable using constructs from the Technology Acceptance Model, one of the most frequently tested models in information systems research. Our results demonstrate that users can experience both positive and negative attitudes toward a system, and that the positive and negative attitudes are independent. Implications for information systems theory and measurement are discussed.