We propose the Net-Enabled Business Innovation Cycle (NEBIC) as an applied dynamic capabilities theory for measuring, predicting, and understanding a firm's ability to create customer value through the business use of digital networks. The theory incorporates both a variance and process view of net-enabled business innovation. It identifies four sequenced constructs: Choosing new IT, Matching Economic Opportunities with technology, Executing Business Innovation for Growth, and Assessing Customer Value, along with the processes and events that interrelate them as a cycle. The sequence of these theorized relationships for net-enablement (NE)¹ asserts that choosing IT precedes rather than aligns with corporate strategy. The theory offers a logically consistent and falsifiable basis for grounding research programs on metrics of net-enabled business innovation.
This paper reports on a survey of North American IS programs and secondary data assessing the supply and demand of Information Systems (IS) doctorates. The data document a large and growing lack of supply to meet current and future demand. Demographic factors--including the number of university students, their selection of majors, and retirements among IS faculty--favor a probable scenario for continuing strong demand for IS faculty in the longer term. We argue that the severe imbalance will continue if the current state of the economy and businesses' need for technically-savvy managers continues. Implications and recommendations are presented for ensuring the long-term health of the IS discipline in addressing this imbalance.
Structured decision techniques have been a mainstay of prescriptive decision theory for decades. Group Support Systems (GSSs) automate many of the features found in decision techniques, yet groups often choose to ignore both the technique and the technology in favor of more familiar decision processes. This research empirically tests propositions and hypotheses for a specific instantiation of Adaptive Structuration Theory. A controlled laboratory experiment tests the ability of three appropriation mediators (e.g., facilitation, GSS configuration, and training) to directively affect group decision making through guidance and restrictiveness. The experiment used a hidden-profile task and structured decision technique which directed group members to reach a decision by identifying the problem, choosing criteria, and selecting a solution. The results supported the proposition that appropriation mediators can increase the faithful use of structured decision techniques and that faithful use can improve decision quality.
This longitudinal field study (three work sessions plus an initial training session) investigates the efficacy of a new technology-desktop video- conferencing (DVC)-in support of collaborative telelearning (i.e., collaborative learning among non-proximate team members). Two types of collaborative telelearning environments are considered: One involves local groups (i.e., students on the same campus), and the other involves non-proximate distant groups (La. students on two separate campuses). The collaborative telelearning environments are compared to each other and to a traditional face-to-face collaborative learning environment. The study found that the three environments are equally effective in terms of student knowledge acquisition; however, higher critical-thinking skills were found in the distant DVC environment. The subjects in the three learning environments were equally satisfied with their learning process and outcomes. At the conclusion of the longitudinal assessment, the distant students using DVC were more committed and attracted to their groups compared to local students who worked face-to-face or through DVC.