Jiafei Jin

IT Capability and Organizational Performance: The Roles of Business Process Agility and Environmental Factors

The business value of information technology (IT) has been one of the top concerns of both practitioners and scholars for decades. Numerous studies have documented the positive effects of IT capability on organizational performance but our knowledge of the processes through which such gains are achieved remains limited due to a lack of focus on the business environment. Such a linkage therefore remains the subject of debate in the information systems literature. In this study, we fill this gap by investigating the mediating role of business process agility and the moderating roles of environmental factors. On the basis of matched survey data obtained from 214 IT and business executives from manufacturing firms in China, our analyses show that even though firm-wide IT capability presents the characteristics of rarity, appropriability, non-reproducibility, and non-substitutability, its impact on organizational performance is fully mediated by business process agility. Our results also show that the impact of the environment is multifaceted and nuanced. In particular, environmental hostility weakens the effect of IT capability on business process agility, while environmental complexity strengthens it. The theoretical and practical implications of this study, and its limitations, are also discussed.

Information privacy, gender differences, and intrinsic motivation in the workplace

Abstract We develop and test a model that examines the relationships between information privacy, gender differences, and intrinsic motivation. Information privacy can be defined as perceived control of information gathering (i.e., PCIG) and perceived control of information handling (i.e., PCIH). We surveyed 320 Chinese employees from various organizations and found that both PCIG and PCIH had positive effects upon intrinsic motivation. We found, however, that the impact of PCIG was completely mediated by PCIH and that the mediation process produced a stronger effect on intrinsic motivation for male employees than for female employees. In addition, the positive relationship between PCIG and PCIH was stronger for female employees than for male employees.

Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation performance: roles of strategic HRM and technical turbulence

This study advances research on the return from entrepreneurial orientation by examining how a firms internal system (i.e. strategic human resource management) and the external environment (i.e. technical turbulence) within which a firm operates interact in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and product innovation performance. Using a matched sample of 151 chief executive officers and other top executives from Chinese manufacturing firms, this study finds that entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to product innovation performance and that this relationship is stronger among firms implementing strategic HRM practices to a greater extent. Furthermore, the three-way interaction test indicates that the interactive effect of entrepreneurial orientation and strategic HRM practices on product innovation performance is stronger for firms operating in a less turbulent environment.