本文精选了信息系统领域国际顶刊《MIS Quarterly》近期发表的论文，提供信息系统领域最新的学术动态。

TRUSTING AND WORKING WITH ROBOTS: A RELATIONAL DEMOGRAPHY THEORY OF PREFERENCE FOR ROBOTIC OVER HUMAN CO-WORKERS

原刊和作者：

MIS Quarterly Volume 48, Issue 4

You, Sangseok; Robert, Lionel P

Abstract

Organizations are facing the new challenge of integrating humans and robots into one cohesive workforce. Relational demography theory (RDT) explains the impact of dissimilarities on when and why humans trust and prefer to work with others. This paper proposes RDT as a useful lens to help organizations understand how to integrate humans and robots into a cohesive workforce. We offer a research model based on RDT and examine dissimilarities in gender and co-worker type (human vs. robot) along with dissimilarities in work style and personality. To empirically examine the research model, we conducted two experiments with 347 and 422 warehouse workers, respectively. The results suggest that the negative impacts of gender, work style, and personality dissimilarities on swift trust depend on the co-worker type. In our experiments, gender dissimilarity had a stronger negative impact on swift trust in a robot co-worker, while work style and personality had a weaker negative impact on swift trust in a robot co-worker. Also, swift trust in a robot co-worker increased the preference for a robot co-worker over a human co-worker, while swift trust in a human co-worker decreased such preferences. Overall, this research contributes to our current understanding of human-robot collaboration by identifying the importance of dissimilarity from the perspective of RDT.

Link: https://doi.org/10.25300/misq/2023/17403

MUTUAL DISCLOSURES AND CONTENT INTIMACY IN USER ENGAGEMENT: EVIDENCE FROM AN ONLINE CHAT GROUP

原刊和作者：

MIS Quarterly Volume 48, Issue 4

Feng, Yue; Lu, Xianghua; Zhang, Xiaoquan

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of self-disclosure in online chat groups (OCGs), which serve as a communication channel situated between public platforms and private live chats. Our investigation delves into the effects of mutual disclosures, originating from other members and focal users, on user engagement in terms of promptness, positivity, and effort. We also explore the disclosure content and the interplay between mutual disclosures regarding consistency in content intimacy. Using data from a retailer utilizing OCGs for customer service, our findings reveal that mutual disclosures are positively associated with user engagement through the mechanism of liking and uncover multifaceted influences from content intimacy consistency between mutual disclosures. The results are further verified by a controlled experiment and various robustness tests. Moreover, our study differentiates and discusses the roles of group hosts and peer users in facilitating OCG engagement. This research broadens our understanding of how self-related information exchange in online group conversations promotes meaningful engagement. Our fine-grained analysis of disclosure interactions provides clear guidance for firms to strategically manage customer relationships through OCGs and sheds new light on conversational commerce.

Link: https://doi.org/10.25300/misq/2023/17481

INTERLEAVED DESIGN FOR E-LEARNING: THEORY, DESIGN, AND EMPIRICAL FINDINGS

原刊和作者：

MIS Quarterly Volume 48, Issue 4

Li, Andy Tao; Liu, De; Xu, Sean Xin; Yi, Cheng

Abstract

The rapid development of e-learning has drawn increasing attention to the issue of how learners’ learning activities can be better structured using technologies. This study focuses on how to improve e-learning performance by optimizing the structuring of learning sessions from the perspective of interleaving (i.e., mixing different topics in a learning session). Following the design science paradigm, this study chooses cognitive load theory as the kernel theory and proposes a new interleaving design—related-interleaving —that populates an interleaved session with related topics as a way of reducing cognitive load during an interleaved session. Drawing on the theoretical predictions, we design and instantiate a personalized learning system with the related-interleaving strategy by fusing educational strategies and machine learning techniques. The results from a two-month field experiment confirm that related-interleaving outperforms non-interleaving and unrelated-interleaving. Our findings also reveal that compared with unrelated-interleaving, related-interleaving benefits weak learners more and thus helps reduce learning performance disparities. This study demonstrates how personalized e-learning systems can be further improved from the perspective of interleaving.

Link: https://doi.org/10.25300/misq/2023/17206

DISCURSIVE MODULATION IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: HOW ONLINE COMMUNITIES SHAPE NOVELTY AND COMPLEXITY

原刊和作者：

MIS Quarterly Volume 48, Issue 4

Lindberg, Aron; Berente, Nicholas; Howison, James; Lyytinen, Kalle

Abstract

We study the development of two open source software (OSS) web frameworks to understand how OSS communities shape software novelty and complexity in the absence of strong organizational hierarchies. We examine how projects engage in distinct “discursive modulation practices” to imprint the community’s shared core doctrines and design principles onto the software thereby shaping its novelty and complexity. We borrow the concept of modulation from audio synthesis to explain how a preexisting signal—in our case, the ongoing community discourse—is modulated to produce varying sounds—in our case, the novelty and complexity of the software. The concept of modulation offers a lens to understand how emergent, community-wide development activities are influenced by filtering discursive positions and mixing those positions, thereby shaping the artifact’s novelty and complexity. Our research shows that the modulation of novelty exhibits a range from “proximal” to “distal” searches for new features, while the modulation of complexity varies between “integration” and “deprecation.” By drawing on these concepts, we formulate a theory that explains how modulation results in alternative OSS community approaches to shaping software novelty and complexity and how this process reflects and is reflected in the resulting software artifact.

Link: https://doi.org/10.25300/misq/2023/16872

DO TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES INFLUENCE INCOME MOBILITY? THE ROLE OF REGIONAL AND CASTE SPILLOVERS FROM COMPUTER OWNERSHIP

MIS Quarterly Volume 48, Issue 4

Liu, Che-Wei; Mithas, Sunil; Saldanha, Terence J. V.

Abstract

How do technology resources such as computer ownership help create opportunity equality and facilitate income mobility? This is an important question because opportunity constraint, or the lack of opportunity equality, often manifests in low income mobility in many countries. This study addresses this question by examining the spillover effects of computer ownership of households in terms of household income mobility considering spatial proximity and social proximity. Drawing on knowledge spillovers theory, we hypothesize that households experience upward income mobility due to increased computer ownership among households in spatial proximity. Further, drawing on social capital theory, we hypothesize that households experience higher upward mobility due to increased computer ownership among households in the region that are socially proximate or in the same caste. Our empirical analysis of data from over 32,000 households across all states in India from two waves (2005 and 2011) of the Indian Human Development Survey supports our hypotheses. Our exploratory analyses suggest that households in regions with high social harmony experience higher upward income mobility from increased computer ownership among households in the region. We also found that increased computer ownership among households in the region helps households belonging to disadvantaged castes overcome low income mobility. Overall, the study shows how the returns to computer ownership in terms of household upward income mobility go beyond private returns, and spill over to other households in spatial proximity, particularly to those belonging to the same caste. A key implication for policymakers is to use twin levers of social harmony and technology resources to create opportunity equality to facilitate income mobility, instead of focusing solely on technology resources.

Link: https://doi.org/10.25300/misq/2024/17029