Manju Ahuja

Social Capital and Knowledge Integration in Digitally Enabled Teams

To understand the impact of social capital on knowledge integration and performance within digitally enabled teams, we studied 46 teams who had a history and a future working together. All three dimensions of their social capital (structural, relational, and cognitive) were measured prior to the team performing two tasks in a controlled setting, one face-to-face and the other through a lean digital network. Structural and cognitive capital were more important to knowledge integration when teams communicated through lean digital networks than when they communicated face-to-face; relational capital directly impacted knowledge integration equally, regardless of the communication media used by the team. Knowledge integration, in turn, impacted team decision quality, suggesting that social capital influences team performance in part by increasing a team’s ability to integrate knowledge. These results suggest that team history may be necessary but not sufficient for teams to overcome the problems with the use of lean digital networks as a communication environment. However, team history may present a window of opportunity for social capital to develop, which in turn allows teams to perform just as well as in either communication environment.

Overworked and isolated? Predicting the effect of work-family conflict, autonomy, and workload on organizational commitment and turnover of virtual workers

Proposes that work-family conflict, autonomy and workload influence work exhaustion and job satisfaction. Exhaustion is also thought to influence satisfaction. The model further proposes that work exhaustion and job satisfaction affect organizational commitment, which in turn influences turnover intention. The study was conducted at a company in the computer and software services industry. Overall, good support for the proposed model was found. Work-family conflict, job autonomy and workload were found to be associated with work exhaustion and job satisfaction. Exhaustion was negatively related to job satisfaction and job satisfaction was positively related to organizational commitment and negatively related to turnover intention. Organizational commitment was found to be negatively associated with turnover intention. Implications for management are offered.

IT Outsourcing: Assessing the Antecedents and Impacts of Knowledge Integration

In this paper, we empirically examine the factors that drive outsourced information systems development (ISD) project success in the post-contractual stage - that is, after the decision to outsource has been made. Specifically, we examine the impact of client expertise, vendor expertise, and project modularity on the clients and vendors knowledge integration capabilities during the outsourcing relationship. In addition, we examine the differential impact of each firms integrative capabilities on the success of outsourced ISD projects. We empirically examine these issues using project-level survey data from 114 U.S. firms engaging in ISD outsourcing projects.

Gamification in the Workplace: The Central Role of the Aesthetic Experience

Abstract Although gamification in the workplace is burgeoning, organizations frequently have difficulty sustaining user engagement with a gamified information system (IS). The focus of this study is how a gamified IS in the workplace engages users and encourages them to continue system use. By proposing the concepts of flow experience (FE) and aesthetic experience (AE) as different ways to provide deep and meaningful user engagement, this study develops a model that explores the antecedents of FE and AE and their roles in explaining an individual’s continuance intention to use of a gamified IS. The model is tested using data collected from 178 users of a gamified IS in a global consulting company. The results demonstrate that although FE and AE are complementary forces, AE is more salient than FE for explaining continuance intention. The research proposes AE as a parsimonious yet powerful construct that extends the research on user engagement. The findings contribute to research on gamification by shifting scholarly attention from deep engagement characterized by FE to meaningful engagement characterized by AE.

The Impact of Interruptions on Technology Usage: Exploring Interdependencies Between Demands from Interruptions, Worker Control, and Role-Based Stress

Mobile technologies have dramatically increased the number of work-related interruptions. In many organizations, employees have to remain accessible and respond to these technology-mediated (T-M) interruptions even after regular work hours. At the same time, most employees have limited freedom to decide how and when they accomplish their tasks, a work condition that renders the explosion of T-M interruptions problematic. When people have limited control over their work environment, they cannot adapt their work schedules and methods to the additional demands from T-M interruptions, potentially leading them to be stressed and, in turn, to shy away from using the technologies that create these interruptions. Hence, we propose that demands from T-M interruptions negatively affect work-related IT-usage via workers’ experiences of stress and that this indirect effect depends on worker control. Psychological and physiological data (salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase) will be collected and analyzed through advanced procedures for testing moderated-mediation effects.

Offshore Software Projects: Assessing the Effect of Knowledge Transfer Requirements and ISD Capability

The risks and challenges faced by client companies involved in offshore project development are many. Clients impose a range of control mechanisms to mitigate such challenges. Building on prior research utilizing control theory, we investigate the effect of knowledge transfer requirements and client ISD capability in shaping the choice of control modes, choice of offshore model and relationships in offshore application development projects. We utilize a grounded theory approach to examine four offshore application development projects. Results indicate that formal controls and pure-offshore models predominate in projects involving low knowledge transfer requirements, while a portfolio of control modes and hybrid models are preferred in projects involving high knowledge transfer requirements. Partner relationships are preferred in projects having high client ISD capability, while one-off relationships are favored in low ISD capability projects.

Extending the Role of Similarity Attraction in Friendship and Advice Networks in Angel Groups

Although similarity attraction theory is often utilized to explain why people form relationships with similar others, we utilize diversity research to look beyond surface–level demographic characteristics similarity to explain situations when angels form interpersonal relations with angels with dissimilar deep–level personal characteristics due to a strong desire to receive information and cognitive benefits. We use data collected from a chapter of one of the largest angel organizations in the United States. Our results show that although individuals often form relations with similar others, conditions exist when angels exert the extra effort required to form relations with dissimilar others.

Organizational Factors and Information Technology Use: Tying Perceptions of the Organization to Perceptions of IT

Studies of information technology (IT) use have focused on numerous antecedents to behavioral intent to use. Although some antecedents (such as subjective norms) reflect aspects of the organizational environment, most antecedents reflect beliefs or attitudes about the technology itself. Using TAM, social exchange theory, and social information processing theories as conceptual bases, we posit that general beliefs about the organizational environment influence IT use on the job. Specifically, we propose that affective commitment, autonomy, and team member trust will directly influence behavioral intent to use IT. However, TAM variables (perceived usefulness, subjective norm, and perceived ease of use) will mediate the effects of organizational variables on behavioral intent to use IT. The results provide initial evidence that organizational variables are related to behavioral intent to use IT, but only when IT is perceived to be useful and subjective norms favor its use. We suggest that when introducing IT, managers need to pay attention not only to technology-related issues, but also to the broader organizational environment in which IT will be used. Implications for researchers and practitioners are offered. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-577-3.ch012

Mini track: virtual work, teams, and organizations

The push and pull provided by information technology and rapidly changing business demands have led to virtual work becoming increasingly important in organizations. Virtual work can take various forms, from telecommuting to global project development teams. In virtual organizations and communities, individuals can be part of groups that have no physical co-location, and often do not meet, except virtually. Increased globalization, tightened traveling budgets, and heightened security awareness foster the growth of virtual environments. This mini-track focuses on issues related to challenges presented by and effectiveness of virtual work, teams, organizations, and communities. We sought papers addressing these issues from an organizational, managerial, team, community, or individual perspective, as well as papers on enabling technologies and their use in this environment. The resulting twelve papers published in the HICSS-38 proceedings investigate a variety of important topics of interest to researchers and practitioners. Walther, Bunz, and Bazarova address the development of trust in virtual groups. They propose communication rules based on social information processing theory, and empirically test them. Keim and Weitzel also explore trust development in establishing successful virtual partnerships. Factors influencing performance of virtual teams are of critical interest to researchers and practitioners. Staples and Cameron report results from a field study examining relationships between team performance and interpersonal skills, team size, and turnover. DeLone, Espinosa, Lee, and Carmel present a conceptual framework for global IS development project success. They conduct interviews with global project managers to validate the framework. Role coordination -preventing the emergence of individual roles and building shared team interaction mental models -is an important aspect of task performance in teams. Sutanto, Phang, Kuan, Kankanhalli, and Tan investigate this phenomenon in two global virtual teams and offer suggestions on how effective role coordination can be achieved. Galvin, McKinney, and Chudoba also investigate individuals’ integration with the team in pursuit of common objectives, proposing a model to help better understand the process of transformation from being individually centric to being team centric. Zhang, Fjermestad, and Tremain analyze and identify drawbacks and inconsistencies in previous empirical literature on leadership style in the virtual team context. They develop propositions for future research. Misiolek and Heckman examine leadership behavior in virtual teams by observing a virtual collaboration exercise and developing insights into how leadership behaviors emerge and are distributed. Addressing an increasingly important virtual team structure, Mark and Abrams investigate largescale group-to-group collaboration. They examine how interactions differ between collocated and distributed settings in a design team. Results indicate that subgroup interactions occurred differently within sites compared to across sites. DeLuca and Valacich examine communication media choice in virtual groups in two organizations. Results support Media Synchronicity Theory. Bhappu and Crews explore effects of communication media and conflict on team identification in diverse teams and suggest ways diverse teams can manage intra-group conflict. Chidambaram and Carte also examine virtual teams with diverse membership. They propose a model that describes how collaborative technologies can help leverage positive aspects of diversity and limit negative aspects; they then test the model in a longitudinal field study.

Work–Life Conflict of Globally Distributed Software Development Personnel: An Empirical Investigation Using Border Theory

While a key motivation for globally distributed software development (GDSD) is to harness appropriate human capital, ironically, scant attention has been paid to addressing the human resource manag...