Shamel Addas

The many faces of information technology interruptions: a taxonomy and preliminary investigation of their performance effects

Despite the growing importance of information technology (IT) interruptions for individual work, very little is known about their nature and consequences. This paper develops a taxonomy that classifies interruptions based on the relevance and structure of their content, and propositions that relate different interruption types to individual performance. A qualitative approach combining the use of log diaries of professional workers and semi‐structured interviews with product development workers provide a preliminary validation of the taxonomy and propositions and allow for the discovery of a continuum of interruption events that fall in‐between the extreme types in the taxonomy. The results show that some IT interruptions have positive effects on individual performance, whilst others have negative effects, or both. The taxonomy developed in the paper allows for a better understanding of the nature of different types of IT interruption and their consequences on individual work. By showing that different types of interruptions have different effects, the paper helps to explain and shed light on the inconsistent results of past research.

IT capabilities and NPD performance: examining the mediating role of team knowledge processes

While there is abundant research that examines how information technology (IT) affects new product development (NPD) performance, little is known about the mediating role of team knowledge processes. Drawing on IS and knowledge management literatures, this paper develops a model that conceptualizes team knowledge processes as distinct channels of influence and shows how they mediate the relationship between IT capabilities and NPD performance. The paper deepens our understanding of the nomological network that connects IT to NPD performance via the intermediate knowledge processes of knowledge sourcing and knowledge integration. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Integrated Health Information Technology and the Quality of Patient Care: A Natural Experiment

Abstract Fragmentation of care delivery remains one of the main challenges of healthcare systems. In this study, we examine health information technology (HIT) that is electronically integrated across care physicians, specialists, hospitals, and pharmacists and its impact on quality of care. Drawing on the structure–process–outcome framework, we hypothesize that integrated HIT will have both a direct and an indirect effect on quality of care. By providing more complete information to physicians and allowing them to detect and manage health problems early in the care cycle, integrated HIT is expected to directly improve quality of care. Integrated HIT is also hypothesized to improve quality of care indirectly by increasing continuity of care and reducing the odds of therapeutic errors. We test these hypotheses through a contemporaneous natural experiment of a matched set of 15,626 outpatients receiving ambulatory care through an integrated HIT system and 15,626 outpatients in a control group. The results show that the patients treated with the integrated system had better quality of care in the follow-up period than patients of the control group. Integrated HIT also had an indirect effect on quality of care through an increase in continuity of care. Our study contributes to research by examining how an integrated HIT system—rather than specific HIT components—influences patient-related outcomes, and how this effect is mediated by two key processes: continuity of care and therapeutic duplication errors. Our work also helps decision makers to better understand the impact of HIT in a complex and highly decentralized and fragmented care delivery system.

IT Use and the Interruption of NPD Knowledge Work

While product development (NPD) groups typically use information technology (IT) to enhance their knowledge work, such usage also elicits group-level interruptions. This paper develops a conceptual model that studies the partial mediation effect of interruptions on the link between IT use and knowledge integration in NPD. It proposes that IT use causes two interruption types that represent alternate channels of influence on knowledge integration. Specifically, intrusions inhibit knowledge integration by raising group workload, while feedback interventions facilitate knowledge integration by enhancing the groups collective mind. The paper contributes to the literature by providing insights on how IT use affects the knowledge work of groups that are faced with various interruption types.