Nolan J. Taylor

Research Report: Modifying Paradigms--Individual Differences, Creativity Techniques, and Exposure to Ideas in Group Idea Generation

In todays networked economy, ideas that challenge existing business models and paradigms are becoming more important. This study investigated how individual differences, groupware-based creativity techniques, and ideas from others influenced the type of ideas that individuals generated. While individual differences were important (in that some individuals were inherently more likely to generate ideas that followed the existing problem paradigm while others were more likely to generate paradigm-modifying ideas that attempted to change the problem paradigm), the exposure to paradigm-modifying ideas from others and the use of intuitive groupware-based creativity techniques rather than analytical groupware-based creativity techniques were found to increase the number of paradigm-modifying ideas produced.

Strategic management of IS/IT functions: the role of the CIO

Chief information officers (CIOs) have the difficult job of running a function that rues a lot of resources but offers little measurable evidence of its value. Line managers are increasingly assuming responsibility for planning, building, and running information systems that affect their operations. To respond to business and technological changes, CIOs now must build relationships with line managers and assume new and more strategic roles. The strategic role of the CIO is becoming ever more complex, requiring an expansion of the organizational and structural possibilities for filling that role. This paper presents an extensive literature review on the role of the CIO. The research examines CIO role in Norwegian organizations. In this paper, results from a survey of Norwegian CIOs are presented. Norwegian CIOs have on average worked in the current organization for eight years, have worked in information technology (IT) for twelve years, report mostly to the CEO or CFO, and have eleven people reporting to them. A large percentage have a masters degree. Also, formal IS planning tended to be adopted by organizations with higher annual revenue, larger number of total employees, and broader span of control (i.e., the number of people reporting to the CIO). Higher CIO reporting level was also associated with greater extent of information systems plan implementation.

Information exchange and use in GSS and verbal group decision making: effects of minority influence

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of GSS use on the exchange and use of information in group decision making under two conditions: when there was and was not a majority/minority split of opinion in the group. When there was a distinct majority/minority groups using a GSS exchanged more information, made better decisions, and took no more time than when they did not use a GSS. In the uniform treatment where there was no majority/minority, groups using a GSS exchanged more information but made worse decisions, and took more time than when they did not use a GSS.

Situation Normality and the Shape of Search: The Effects of Time Delays and Information Presentation on Search Behavior

Delays have become one of the most often cited complaints of Web users. Long delays often cause users to abandon their searches, but how do tolerable delays affect information search behavior? Intuitively, we would expect that tolerable delays should induce decreased information search. We conducted two experiments and found that as delay increased, a point occurs at which time within-page information search increases; that is, search behavior remained the same until a tipping point occurs where delay increases the depth of search. We argue that situation normality explains this phenomenon; users have become accustomed to tolerable delays up to a point (our research suggests between 7 and 11 seconds) after which search behavior changes. That is, some delay is expected, but as delay becomes noticeable but not long enough to cause the abandonment of search, an increase occurs in the “stickiness” of Web pages such that users examine more information on each page before moving to new pages. The net impact of tolerable delays was counter intuitive: tolerable delays had no impact on the total amount of data searched in the first experiment, but induced users to examine more data points in the second experiment.

Alternative scenarios to the

A test of alternative formats to Web banner ads.