This research concentrates on visual complexity and order as central factors in the design of webpages that enhance users' positive emotional reactions and facilitate desirable psychological states and behaviors. Drawing on existing theories and empirical findings in the environmental psychology, human-computer interaction, and marketing research literatures, a research model is developed to explain the relationships among visual complexity and order design features of a webpage, induced emotional responses in users, and users' approach behaviors toward the website as moderated by users' metamotivational states. A laboratory experiment was conducted to test the model and its associated hypotheses. The results of the study suggested that a web user's initial emotional responses (i.e., pleasantness and arousal), evoked by the visual complexity and order design features of a webpage when first encountered, will have carry-over effects on subsequent approach behavior toward the website. The results also revealed how webpage visual complexity and order influence users' emotions and behaviors differently when users are in different metamotivational states. The salience and importance of webpage visual complexity and order for users' feelings of pleasantness were largely dependent on users' metamotivational states.
Agency theory has served as a key basis for identifying drivers of offshore information system project success. Consequently, the role of relational factors in driving project success has been overlooked in this literature. In this paper, we address this gap by integrating the social embeddedness perspective and the culture literature to theorize how and why relational factors affect the success of offshore IS projects that are strategic in nature. We identify organizational and interpersonal cultural differences as critical success factors in this context. Using data from a longitudinal field study of 155 offshore IS projects managed by 22 project leaders, we found evidence of a relationship between hypothesized relational factors and two measures of offshore IS project success-namely, project cost overruns and client satisfaction-over and above the effects of project characteristics and agency factors. Specifically, we found that information exchange, joint problem solving, and trust reduce project cost overruns and improve client satisfaction. We also found a relationship between cultural differences at the organizational and team level, and offshore IS project success. The model explained 40 percent and 41 percent of the variance in project cost overruns and client satisfaction, respectively, for projects with a client representative. For projects with no client representative, the model explained 35 percent and 37 percent of the variance in project cost overruns and client satisfaction, respectively. Collectively, the results have important theoretical and practical implications for how client-vendor relationships should be managed when partnering with offshore firms and designing offshore IS project teams.
Trust has been a focus of research on virtual collaboration in distributed teams, e-commerce, e-learning, and telemedicine. Central to several models of trust and virtual collaboration is user's disposition to trust. This construct, however, has generally been conceptualized in as a stand-alone trait without a substantive theoretical background in personality theory. This paper advances the interpersonal circumplex model (ICM) as a theoretical framework for understanding the role of personal traits in collaboration in virtual contexts. The ICM posits that tendencies in interpersonal interaction stem from personal dispositions that can be understood in terms of dimensions of power and affiliation, fundamental constituents of user's personality. We develop a model that proposes that interpersonal traits, specifically, personality type as defined by the circumplex, affect the individual's disposition to trust, perceived trustworthiness, communication, and thereby affects willingness to collaborate and the sustainability and productivity of the collaboration. The model enables us to unpack the black box concepts of disposition to trust, faith in others, and trusting stance that are currently incorporated in theories of trust in information systems. The theory also enables explanation of trust dynamics at the dyadic and group levels. We develop propositions positing that individual's traits and dyadic complementarity are mediating factors in interpersonal trust and willingness to use new technologies and significantly affect the initiation, duration, and productivity of computer-mediated collaboration.
Group decision support systems have been advocated as mechanisms for facilitating conflict management in groups. Two noted shortcomings of research on GDSS effects motivate this study: (i) Most researchers have compared the effects of computer-based and manual delivery of structures for supporting group decision making. By treating the GDSS as a "black box," researchers have neglected attention toward examining the effects of specific capabilities delivered by a GDSS. (ii) Despite the volume of accumulated research, scant attention has been paid to examining GDSS impacts on the group interaction process itself. This research proposes a conceptual view of a GDSS as providing communication and consensus capabilities for supporting the cognitive conflict management process in group decision making. Through a manipulation of the delivery of communication and consensus structures to groups working on a strategic planning task, several exploratory research questions were examined. The GDSS used in this study was the SAMM system. Key results obtained were: (a) despite using the same GDSS structures, groups exhibited a variety of patterns of conflict management processes; (b) the delivery of communication and consensus structures together, as opposed to primarily communication structures, however, did result in higher confrontiveness, or the ability of groups to confront their conflicts and resolve them in positive ways; (c) higher confrontiveness resulted in higher levels of post-meeting consensus; and, (d) computerization of structures enabled groups to confront their conflict and resolve it more positively than when groups were provided with equivalent manual structures. The results demonstrate the value of process-oriented methodological approaches to investigating effects of GDSS designs.
Quality improvement programs are regarded by many businesses as mechanisms for improving organizational competitiveness in the face of tightening budgets and more global market structures. Recently developed computer-supported group problem-solving tools, or Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs), offer the potential to reduce the effort involved in applying quality improvement methods by providing automated means to enter, record, and operate on ideas generated by team members during face-to-face meetings. To explore how GDSSs might be used by quality teams, the Internal Revenue Service and the University of Minnesota conducted a multiyear study of GDSS use in small-group meetings. This paper presents some initial findings on the extent and types of uses of the technology made by teams based on the first seven months of our study. This preliminary analysis is presented within the framework of adaptive structuration theory and considers the relationship among inputs, processes, and outputs of group interaction as a GDSS is used.
A cumulative body of experimental research is emerging that examines the ability of computer technology to support the processes and outcomes of small group meetings. For the most part the group decision support system effort has been concerned with demonstrating the usefulness of the technology in planning and decision-making situations where the quality of the meeting's outcomes can be objectively assessed. In many decision situations, however, there is no objective measure of decision quality available. Rather, the group must reconcile differences in opinion, personal preference, or judgment and achieve consensus about a particular mode of action. As a contribution to the accumulating research on GDSS, the current study examines the effects of a GDSS in resolving conflicts of personal preference. In a task requiring resolution of competing personal preferences, 82 groups--the largest sample size in the GDSS literature to date--were randomly assigned to one of three experiment conditions: (1) a computer-based support system (GDSS); (2) a manual, paper and pencil, support system; or (3) no support whatsoever. Groups were either of size 3 or 4 persons. Use of the GDSS was expected to facilitate democratic participation in group discussion, move group members toward agreement with one another, and result in a high level of satisfaction with the group decision process. While several of the intended effects of the technology were observed, the groups experienced some unintended consequences as a result of using the GDSS. In general, the GDSS technology appeared to offer some advantage over no support, but little advantage over the pencil and paper method of supporting group discussion.
An emerging body of research in group decision support systems (GDSS) provides evidence that computer technology can and does impact the quality of decision making in groups. Most GDSS research is oriented toward examining the effects of a computer system on group outcomes, typically decision quality or group consensus, with the process itself often treated as a "black box." The research reported in this article addresses the need for a closer, micro-level examination of group process. An important group variable, namely influence behavior, was isolated and examined at various levels and by multiple methods. A model of specific GDSS effects on influence behavior was developed, based on an information exchange view of decision making and on the impact of a GDSS as a communication channel. Based on the research questions of interest in the study, several propositions and hypotheses were advanced and empirically tested on a specific implementation of a GDSS. Results were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major empirical findings of the study showed no significant difference between the overall amount of influence behavior attempted in computer-supported versus unsupported groups, although significant differences were found in the pattern of influence behaviors, i.e., the different types of behaviors used. In addition, the distribution of influence behavior was more even in GDSS groups than in unsupported groups on one of two measures used. Empirical findings partially supported the research model, with indications that decision-making groups need more active guidance in understanding how to adapt computer support technology to their view of decision-making processes.