Saji K. Mathew

Web personalization for user acceptance of technology: An empirical investigation of E-government services

E-Commerce firms have adopted Web Personalization techniques extensively in the form of recommender systems for influencing user behavior for customer retention. Although there are numerous studies in this area, academic research addressing the role of Web Personalization in user acceptance of technology is very scant. Further, owing to the potential of recommender systems to attract and retain customers, most studies in web personalization have been done in E-Commerce setting. In this research, the ‘Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology’ theory proposed in previous research has been extended to include web personalization as a moderator and has been tested in an E-Government context. Data collection involved conducting a laboratory experiment with the treatment group receiving personalized web forms for requesting an E-Government service. Our analyses show that personalizing the Web by self-reference and content relevance has a significant moderator role in influencing the relationship between determinants of intention to use and behavioral intention in certain cases.

Mitigation of risks due to service provider behavior in offshore software development

Purpose – Although risks and client‐vendor relationships in IT outsourcing have been studied in prior research, there is a paucity of studies providing insights on the mitigation of client risks through the relationship. This research aims to focus on mitigation of the ex post risks of firms engaged in offshore software development (OSD). Client risks due to service provider behavior are identified first. Further, this work seeks to identify relationship variables that could reduce the impact of determinants of risk on a risk category.Design/methodology/approach – This research followed a multiple case study method aiming to build insights and directions that would facilitate further research. The papers goal of sampling was to choose cases which were likely to extend the emergent theory pertaining to risks and their mitigation through relationships.Findings – Findings from this study show that shirking, loss of control over information assets, and service provider lock‐in are the three categories of ex ...

Understanding Risk in IT Outsourcing: A Fuzzy Framework

Abstract Understanding and addressing risks are fundamental to partnership success in offshore IT outsourcing. This paper develops and demonstrates a fuzzy risk assessment framework to effectively assess risk for a client as well as a service provider prior to entering into a formal contract. The sources of risk in IT outsourcing were extracted based on industry survey and prior research. A fuzzy inference engine which embeds human expert knowledge expressed through natural language gives a superior capability to this approach. The case of offshore software development simulated using the fuzzy framework showed that this method could capture imprecise perceptions about risk factors and quantify them effectively. It also showed that human knowledge embedded as intelligence could effectively map and quantify sources of risk into different categories. This assessment could enable objective comparison of different projects and informed design of contracts and thus lead to partnership success in outsourcing.

Achieving offshore software development success: An empirical analysis of risk mitigation through relational norms

Behavioral risks such as shirking and misappropriation of information assets are more prominent in offshore software development context and could adversely affect offshore outsourcing success. This paper studies the moderating effects of different relational norms on the link between behavioral risks and offshore software development success. We focused on three major modes of relational norms: norm of flexibility, norm of solidarity and norm of information exchange. Using PLS path modeling to test a sample of 40 US corporations engaged in offshore software development, we found that the norms of solidarity and flexibility reduced the negative effects shirking risk on offshore software development success. Our results suggest that client firms shall benefit by forming the right mode of relational norms to achieve offshore success.

Adoption of business intelligence systems in Indian fashion retail

Using a classical framework in innovation adoption, this study focussed on BI systems adoption in two Indian retail organisations belonging to two different segments. One case site belonged to a small scale fashion retail which was owned by a single individual with two outlets. The owner made most major decisions usually based on intuition. The use of software was usually limited to spreadsheets. The other type involved a retailer who had numerous outlets all over India. With a professional management and major investments in centralised information technology infrastructure and applications, business decisions were sometimes supported by business intelligence software developed solely for the purpose of assessing sales and managing stocks scientifically. However BI systems were not yet strategically deployed as an engine for competition.

IT assets, IT infrastructure performance and IT capability: a framework for e-government

Purpose Although government investments in IT is growing, it is unclear how and what kind of IT investments lead to desirable E-Government performance. Several studies pertaining to the business value of IT have developed and tested frameworks for IT infrastructure, IT capability and business performance. However, E-Government-related IT investment outcomes cannot be measured by profits and hence requires a separate investigation. E-Government research using theoretical approach has been reported as very scarce in previous studies. This research aims to bridge the gap by developing a model to study IT infrastructure capability and E-Government performance in the emerging context of new IT service delivery models. Design/methodology/approach This paper follows a case study method in this research with a priori conceptual framework. The data were collected following an interview method used for deductive theory building. Findings The results identified a positive relationship between IT assets and IT infrastructure performance in the presence of service delivery channels and an anticipation of a positive influence of infrastructure performance variables on IT capability which in turn shows positive effect on E-Government performance. Research limitations/implications Because the study followed a qualitative approach, the findings from this study are not useful for statistical generalization. However, the analytical framework provides sufficient ground to test E-Government performance. Practical implications The study provides insights in the choice of IT infrastructure elements fitting an E-Government strategy. Social implications This study provides an integrated framework for measuring E-Government performance, thereby making deployment of IT infrastructure accountable both in terms of IT performance and IT capability. This in turn will lead to improvement in citizen services. Originality/value This paper builds on the existing literature on IT assets, IT infrastructure performance, IT infrastructure capability and applies to the E-Government domain.

Impact of ICT Infrastructure Capability on E-Governance Performance: Proposing an Analytical Framework

The impact of IT infrastructure capability on the performance of a firm has been addressed quite sufficiently in the past literature but how these factors when coupled together to study the impact on E-Governance performance is yet to garner the main focus of attention. Effective E-Government readiness is characterised by efficient deployment of ICT infrastructure capability and the same has been recognized worldwide in the various studies on E-Government. A two phased study was proposed to meet the objectives defined for this research. This paper describes the work completed in the first phase. In the first phase of the study, an exploratory study was conducted to identify, articulate and contextualize variables extracted from literature survey and field survey. Finally, based on the exploratory study, the author’s work lays the groundwork for the development of a conceptual framework along with suggested methodology for understanding how ICT infrastructure capability affects E-Governance performance and direction for future work.

Web personalization research: an information systems perspective

Purpose – Web personalization has been studied in different streams of research such as Marketing, Human Computer Interaction and Computer Science. However, an information systems perspective of web personalization research is very scarcely visible in this body of knowledge. This research review seeks to address two important questions: how has web personalization evolved as an integrative discipline? How has web personalization been treated in IS literature and where should researchers focus next?Design/methodology/approach – The paper intently follows an information systems perspective in its thematic classification of web personalization research which is consistent with the early conceptualization of information systems by logically mapping IS categories into web personalization research streams. Articles from 100+ journals were analyzed and important concepts related to web personalization were classified from an information systems perspective.Findings – Surrounding the theme of web personalization ...

Web personalization in technology acceptance

This paper studies the role of web personalization in technology acceptance in consumer context. Web personalization has been extensively studied in various research streams. We try to study the effect of web personalization in context of technology acceptance. Most previous studies on web personalization have focused on e-commerce. We choose our domain of study as E Governance which has received much less research attention, particularly on user behavior and web personalization. We use Consumer Acceptance and use of Information Technology (UTAUT2) as the model to study consumer acceptance of an online government service channel. We follow a randomized experimental design to test how web personalization moderates the impact of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, price and habit on consumers intention to use a technology.

Identifying Vendor Risks In Remote Infrastructure Management Services

Abstract Remote Infrastructure Management Services (RIMS) is a fast growing service in IT which has been outsourced to third party service providers by leading global firms. Service providers in this line face huge challenges because they have to ensure agreed upon service levels by monitoring and controlling the client’s infrastructure from an offshore location. This research paper explores the relatively nascent area of RIMS to identify and categorize service provider risks. The three categories of risks that emerged from this analysis are: (i) Service delivery risks, (ii) Relationship specific risks, and (iii) Macroeconomic risks. There is a close relationship between the first two categories of risks and similar categories of risks in application development. However, dimensions of timeline and requirements uncertainty elicit a different set of risks in RIMS. Relationship maturity, nature of client, contract design, and nature of service are contextual factors which influence the degree of risks in RIMS.