Xiaobo Xu

Globally distributed teams: the effect of diversity on trust, cohesion and individual performance

Globally distributed teams are becoming more common among organizations that seek to maximize knowledge creation and innovation for competitive advantage. Although they are becoming widely used among global organizations, distributed teams are creating an environment replete in cultural and functional diversity. Whereas synergy among members is desired, diversity is likely to hinder team cohesion and individual performance. Our study models and empirically tests the effect of perceptions of diversity on trust, cohesion, and individual performance in actual globally distributed teams. The results indicate that individual productivity is negatively influenced by the extent of diversity within a team; however, this liability may be restrained if an environment of trust is encouraged and team cohesion develops.

Research on open innovation performance: a review

Under the economic globalization, traditional closed innovation cannot meet the demand of enterprises for shorter R&D cycle and lower R&D cost. Consequently, enterprises have paid more attentions to open innovation which is more important. Based on previous studies, this paper systematically analyzed key factors which affect the relationship between open innovation and innovation performance. We also discussed the managerial implications and risks during the open innovation implementation. Finally, we suggested several future research directions for open innovation.

Six Sigma and information systems project management: A revised theoretical model

Previous information systems (IS) research has significantly improved the success rate of IS projects, but the result is still far from satisfying. The effort to advance IS project management theories continues. One notable effort is Ravichandran and Rai (2000). Based on quality management principles, they developed a model (the R&R model) describing a quality-oriented organizational system that leads to software development quality performance. This study analyzed Six Sigma to propose major revisions to the R&R model. Six Sigma is a recent approach to quality management with proven effectiveness. The analysis of Six Sigma suggested that several constructs in the R&R model need to be respecified, leading to the definition of a new quality-oriented organizational system. More importantly, the revised model posits that the new organizational system leads to IS project success that can be measured by organizational performance improvement. This study contributes to the literature and provides practical guidance to IS project managers.

Business model innovation: an integrated approach based on elements and functions

Abstract Business model innovation can be used to acquire competitive advantages. In this paper, we applied an integrative approach to study business model in terms of elements and functions. In the paper, three types of business model innovations were discussed: original innovation, induced innovation, and imitative innovation. The major contributions of this paper are: (1) improving the understanding of the business models; (2) providing a new perspective on business model innovation; and (3) proposing the paths for business model innovation. The paper also discussed how new information technology may promote business model innovation.

Transmission of information about consumer product quality and safety: a social media perspective

Purpose This study aims to the information about consumer product quality and safety that can easily attract public attention and become the focus of public opinion. In recent years, the fast-growing social media have become an import platform for firms for releasing product quality and safety information and for firms and governments to hear public opinion. Design/methodology/approach To explore how information about consumer product quality and safety gets disseminated and a public opinion is formed in social media, this paper proposes two information transmission models, one with government intervention and the other without government intervention, based on the theory of complex network. A simulation case study in MATLAB is conducted to verify the proposed models. Findings Information transmission models were constructed, one without government intervention and one with government intervention. The influence of information transmission with government intervention was analyzed. MATLAB was used to simulate the Barabasi and Albert (BA)-based model to consider event information level, government information level and possible panic population proportion. The government intervention effect was evaluated. Originality/value Based on a complex network, the derived transmission rule can provide decision-making support for monitoring and managing Web information of consumer product quality and safety.

Business network information ecological chain

– The purpose of this paper is to present a new tool, business network information ecological chain (BNIEC) aiming to solve the current information problems in business network, make more profits to business websites and to maintain the sustainable development of the business network environment in Internet of Things (IoT) era. , – From multi-disciplinary perspectives, learning from the knowledge in information ecology, economics, the IoT and system theory, this paper first analyzes the positioning of BNIEC in different subjects. Second, it proposes the definition, components and characteristics of BNIEC and designs the BNIEC concept map helping to understand the BNIEC system. Last, this paper builds the structural model and the information flow models of BNIEC. , – The study first presents the concept of BNIEC and based on the trans-disciplinary point of view, builds the structure model of BNIEC from three aspects: nodes, relations among nodes and link modes and illustrates the model using the knowledge from the system theory. Also, it builds two kinds of the information flow models by the related information knowledge in IoT. , – This paper aims to introduce not only a new tool but an ecological idea to business network companies, to create a pleasant network environment, more than that, to make more benefits for themselves. Meanwhile, it has important significance in the sustainable development of the business network environment, business websites, business network information resources and information technology. Especially in today’s IoT era, it shows an ecological thinking to solve the information problems in business network that we may face in the future.

The impact of technology type and life cycle on IT productivity variance

IT productivity paradox and IT productivity variance are two distinctive but highly related issues. We defined IT productivity variance and focused our effort on it in this paper.Through literature review we summarize prevailing explanations to IT productivity variance, we then further identify and contrast three underlying theoretical frameworks that guide empirical studies. The effort reveals the necessity of the contingency approach, which augments existing research.We posit that three contextual factors, level of performance measurement, technology type, and technology life cycle, have significant impact on the relationship between IT investment and firm performance. We propose a contingency model with several research propositions.The potential contribution to both the literature and practice of this research is discussed. The relationship between IT investment and performance improvement has been a classic research subject. In earlier research it was characterized as the famous IT productivity paradox. Decades of research effort later, many IS/IT researchers no longer consider this relationship paradoxical, but it remains a challenge to fully explain IT productivity variance, that is, a large portion of unexplainable performance variance observed in empirical studies. In this paper, we take a theory development approach to this important issue. Our effort focuses on examining the theoretical foundation of IT productivity variance. Through literature review, we identify and contrast three prevailing theoretical perspectives to suggest the plausibility of a contingency approach. Contextual factors can significantly affect the relationship between IT investment and performance improvement. We identified three such factors that were not thoroughly examined: level of performance measurement, technology type, and technology life cycle. We subsequently propose a contingency model in light of these factors, and develop a set of research propositions. Our effort is a first-step toward bridging a major gap in the literature. The proposed model, while awaiting empirical validation, can provide useful guidance to practicing managers.

An information dissemination model of product quality and safety based on scale-free networks

Abstract In the small-world model, information nodes’ positions are relatively ordered. However, information dissemination between nodes is unordered on the Internet. In this study, a product quality and safety information dissemination model on the Internet is proposed in terms of the characteristics of the scale-free model in the complex network. Using the simulation tests, we found that the information diffusion rate will speed up and the time needed for the system to reach the equilibrium will shorten when the spontaneous dissemination coefficient increases. Additionally, the scope of information coverage also increases as the system’s size increases. However, the time of information diffusion needed to cover the maximum area does not change with the system’s size. The media’s influence has also been found to have an effect on the information dissemination.

Developing an employee turnover risk evaluation model using case-based reasoning

All enterprises are concerned with employee turnover risk due to the significant impact on their effectiveness and competitiveness. Evaluation of the risk is a frequent topic in the literature. However, the majority of past work has not incorporated the advancement of modern information technology, particularly in the era of Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we propose to use an artificial intelligence method, case-based reasoning (CBR), to develop a multi-level employee turnover risk evaluation model. The proposed model adopts multiple CBR techniques including case representation, organization and management, and retrieval and matching to evaluate employee turnover risk. Specifically, we employ an object-oriented method in case knowledge expressing, utilize relational database in case organization and management, and follow a tree-hash algorithm to retrieve the best cases. Both theoretical and practical implications of the proposed model are discussed.