Wesley Shu

Does information technology provide banks with profit

While many studies have affirmed the contributions of information technology (IT) to business value, people are not convinced. So far IT in the service industry has not yet been seen to be more productive. The data in most previous studies either focus on specific industries or exclude financial industry data. As such, the need to do an analysis on IT productivity in the service industry is imminent. We chose 12 banks covering 9 years for our analysis. To eliminate possible estimation errors, we applied an analysis for panel data--a random effect model. We found IT investment demonstrated the highest marginal product among the input factors we chose.

The perceived benefits of six‐degree‐separation social networks

Purpose – This research seeks to focus on the benefits of social networking service (SNS) based on the principle of six degrees of separation. Since the inception of web 2.0, the popularity of social networks (SNS) has continued to increase. Some SNS are based on six degrees of separation (6SNS), and these have emerged as the most frequently visited WWW sites.Design/methodology/approach – Using a randomized control group pre‐test‐post‐test experimental design, responses to a questionnaire to test the differences among 6SNS users and non‐users on 12 issues of benefit were analyzed.Findings – The tests show, first, that, compared with traditional virtual communities, SNS evoke higher ratings for “trust in website,” “trust in other members,” and “quality of friends.” Second, SNS can provide users with entertainment and greater social involvement. People who use these sites express positive attitudes about them. Third, no significant differences were found between SNS and traditional internet media on “meetin...

Productivity breakdown of the information and computing technology industries across countries

In this paper, we measure productivity growth of the information and computing technology (ICT) industries in 14 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries over the 13-year period of 1978–1990. The ICT industries are the providers of essential information technology (IT) capital goods. This macro-level analysis seeks to find out how productively such IT capital goods are provided. The basic unit of analysis employed is the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index. The Malmquist TFP index is then decomposed into three constituent elements accounting for different sources of productivity growth: technological progress, efficiency change, and change in economies of scale. The approach of measurement is based on the concept of distance functions and employs the non-parametric frontier method of data envelopment analysis. Our results indicate that each countrys ICT industry manifests its own particular patterns in various performance measures. Among the 14 countries examined, 10 had witnessed productivity growth in their ICT industries. Overall, these ICT industries are found more productive than other industries when compared with previous research. Further analyses reveal that (1) most of the productivity growth measured is due to technological progress; (2) efficiency change exerts a relatively small positive effect on productivity growth; and (3) the change in scale economies unfavourably affects productivity for most countries. Finally, practical implications for formulating IT policy are drawn from our results, and topics are identified for future research.

Wikis as an effective group writing tool: a study in Taiwan

Purpose – Collaborative writing is an interactive process. It saves time and energy, and it integrates the knowledge of multiple writers. Wiki is a platform for collaborative writing in the Web 2.0 era. This papers aim is to focus on the many benefits of wikis.Design/methodology/approach – To understand the effect of using wikis on collaborative writing, the authors conducted a laboratory experiment. They measured writing output under three user modalities (face to face, synchronous distribution, and asynchronous distribution) and with two writing tools (a wiki web site and MS Word).Findings – Compared to the use of MS Word, face‐to‐face collaborative writing with wikis led to significantly higher levels of participation, and externally evaluated quality of the writing product, and satisfaction with the product and process. However there was no significant effect on document length. Satisfaction is significantly higher with wikis than with MS Word in both distributed collaborative writing conditions, but...

Beyond productivity¿productivity and the three types of efficiencies of information technology industries

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyze productivity and efficiency of information technology industries of fourteen OECD countries. IT productivity has been studied for years and most papers have confirmed the IT productivity. Some even proved that IT productivity is far better than other factors. The impact of IT to the economy depends not only on the productivity but also on the size of IT production. Thus, to analyze productivity and efficiency of IT industries is important. They are the drive for the economic growth in the new economy. Although productivity has been analyzed and discussed in the information systems field for years, little research has been done in efficiency of IT. This paper analyzes the productivity and productive efficiency of fourteen OECD countries and compared them to each other. The models we used in this paper follow Kumbhakars 1989 models [Rev. Econ. Stat. (1989) 595] and some other econometric models in other productive efficiency studies. By using these models, we were allowed to estimate three different types of (in)efficiencies—technical, allocative and scale, and the percentage loss due to the inefficiency.

Continual use of microblogs

Some studies show that the Twitters growth is leveling off and that its marketing has become ineffective. The purpose of this paper is to analyse what is needed for microblogs’ perpetuation. Factors such as message quality, source credibility, perceived usefulness, perceived interactivity, perceived playfulness, confirmation, and satisfaction were tested for their impact on continuance intention. A post-acceptance model of microblog continuance was proposed based on information system continuance model. We found that continuance intention to use microblogs is greatly affected by satisfaction, which in turn is affected by perceived interactivity and perceived usefulness, but satisfaction is not affected by confirmation or perceived playfulness. Although confirmation has no direct effect on satisfaction, it affects perceived interactivity and perceived usefulness, which in turn affect satisfaction.

Inter-Group Collaboration: Factoring Technology Characteristics and Task Type

The purpose of this paper is to extend the theory of task/technology fit by exploring the impact of different technology characteristics on performance of preference and intellective tasks in an inter-group context. The authors tested 80 participants on group performance using a 2x2 factorial design with task type and mode of collaboration as the independent variables. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the research model and t-tests to evaluate their hypotheses. The authors confirmed their hypothesis that the use of wiki, a technology with many elaborate technology characteristics, created a better task/technology fit than use of the more conventional email/word processor. The wiki group also demonstrated better productivity, decision quality, and satisfaction than the email/word processor group. Differences in task type, intellective vs. preference, had no effect on group performance. The authors extended the task/technology fit model by examining how different combinations of task type and technology characteristics affect team performance in the context of inter-group collaboration.

Continuance of Social Network Services Games

By using Social Network Services (SNSs) as platforms, game developers have gathered a huge user base. These games provide has further enlarged the SNS user base. However, there are signs that this symbiotic growth is slowing down. We developed a model and tested 14 hypotheses. Our main findings are: Although SNSs are “social,” “social norms” do not have much impact on the intention to use the games continually. Although users generally are not addicted to SNS games, the creation of addiction is an effective way to achieve continuance.

A Secure Non-interactive Deniable Authentication Protocol with Certificates Based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Since the information technology continues to grow and the network applications are getting popular, protecting the privacy of Internet users on the open network becomes a necessary concern. The traditional authentication protocol is not suitable for the requirements of internet security nowadays. That is, it cannot assure that the private information not be revealed during the authentication operation, or be used by malicious terminal service managers for their personal gain in some other business opportunities. Hence, in the dissertation, we propose a deniable authentication protocol based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) to satisfy the current public key infrastructure and fulfill the following security requirements of deniable authentication protocols.

Productivity breakdown of the information technology across countries

In this paper, we measure productivity growth of the information technology (IT) industries in fourteen OECD countries over the thirteen-year period of 1978 through 1990. The IT industries are the providers of IT capital goods, and this macro-level analysis seeks to find out how efficiently IT capital goods are produced. The basic unit of analysis employed is the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index. The Malmquist TFP index is next decomposed into three constituent elements accounting for different sources of productivity growth: technological progress, efficiency change, and the effects of economies of scale. The approach of measurement is based the concept of distance functions and employs the non-parametric frontier method of data envelopment analysis (DEA). Our results indicate that each countrys IT industry manifests its own particular patterns in various performance measures. Among the fourteen countries examined, ten had witnessed productivity growth in their IT industries. Overall, these IT industries are found more productive than other industries when compared with previous research. Further analyses reveal that most of productivity growth measured is due to technological progress. Efficiency change is found to exert a relatively small positive effect on the productivity growth. Moreover, the change of scale economies unfavorably affects productivity for most countries. Finally, practical implications for formulating IT policy are drawn from our results for further discussions.