Aaron Cheng
Week13_Goh, Gao and Agarwal (2016)_Aaron
The creation of social value: can an online health community reduce rural-urban health disparities?
Goh, Gao and Agarwal (2016) investigated the creation of social value in online health communities. The authors proposed that online health communities provide a forum that transcends geographic constraints, representing a supportive social networking resource to mitigate health disparities.
Adapting the framework of health capability (Ruger 2010), the authors theorized how disadvantages caused by location lead to health capability’s gaps, and create health disparity outcomes. They argued that online health communities attenuates such a process by exchanging social support from urban to rural members.
Using a unique data set from a rare disease community, they conducted quantitative analysis by exponential random graph models to discover patterns of social support exchanged between users and the variations in these patterns based on users’ location. They found that, urban users are net suppliers of social support while rural participants are net recipients. Their finding advances extant understanding of value creation in online collectives, and yields implications for policy.
Week 12_Bhargava and Mishra (2014)_Aaron
Electronic Medical Records and Physician Productivity: Evidence from Panel Data Analysis
Bhargava and Mishra (2014) investigated the impact of an electronic medical record (EMR) system on the productivity of physicians. This study is of interest and significant for the following reasons: 1) there is ambiguous evidence on whether and how EMRs could facilitated efficient workflows for physicians, causing practically concerns but receiving little academic attentions. 2) The EMRs’ impact on physician productivity is also related to whether or not the technology fulfills its potential to curtail the rise in healthcare expenditures in U.S.
Drawing on prior literature on physician productivity, IT productivity and task-technology fit theory, the authors examined how two types of EMRs use (information review and information enter) could affect physician productivity, and how those effects are different in specialties (internal medicine specialists (IMs), pediatricians (Peds), and family practitioners (FPs)) across implementation process (pre-entry, learning and stable phases).
They used a panel data set comprising 87 physicians with different specialties in 12 primary care clinics of an academic healthcare system in the western U.S. They employed the Arellano-Bond system GMM estimation technique on their data set with 3186 physician-month productivity observations over 39 months. They found that productivity drops sharply after EMRs implementation and recovers partly over the next few months. The longer-term impact depends on physician specialty. And the impact of EMRs is more benign on IMs than on Peds and FPs.
They postured that the fit provided by an EMR system to the task requirements of physicians of various specialties may be key to disentangling the productivity dynamics. Their finding revealed that, on one hand, EMR systems do not produce immediate productivity gain that could lead to substantial savings in healthcare; at the same time, EMRs do not cause a major productivity loss on a sustained basis, as many physicians fear.
Week 11_Bloom et al. (2014)_ Aaron
The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization
Bloom et al. (2014) studied the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on worker and plant manager autonomy and span of control. By questioning “how can the same technology (ICT) that emasculates one job empower another”, the authors argued that these technologies have two distinct components, information technology (IT) and communication technology (CT), which affect firm organization differently.
Specifically, drawing on the theories of “management by exception”, they postulate that IT and CT affect differently the hierarchical level at which different decisions are taken. Improvements in IT push decisions “down”, leading to decentralized decision making, whereas improvements in CT push decisions “up”, leading to centralized decision making.
Using a data set of U.S. and E.U manufacturing firms, they found that IT (ERP for plant managers and computer-assisted design/manufacturing for production workers) is associated with more autonomy and a wider span of control, whereas CI decrease autonomy for workers and plant managers. Moreover, they discussed the economic significance of their statistically significant results. Also, endogeneity bias was mitigated by using instrumental variables (distance from ERP’s place of origin and heterogeneous telecommunication costs arising from regulation). Last, alternative theoretical channels (coordination, agency and incentives, and automation explanation) were discussed.
Proposal_Aaron Cheng
Week 9_IT and officer safety _Aaron
Policy officers safeguard the public, but who protects our guardian? A working paper coauthored by Dr. Pang and Dr. Pavlou gives an interesting answer, information technology. This research investigated how IT could prevent violence against police officers. Specifically, the authors examined the relationship between IT use by the police and the number of police officers killed or assaulted in the line of duty.
Integrating the literature on IT-enabled organizational capabilities with the criminology, they theorized two mechanisms through which police IT use reduce violence against police officers by developing two key law enforcement capabilities, intelligence-led policing and community-oriented policing. The usage of three kinds of IT, analytics technologies, real-time response technologies and the internet, which facilitate such capability building, was hypothesized to make police officers safer.
To test the hypotheses, the authors utilized a large-scale dataset with 3921 police departments in 2 years combining police IT use, other operational information and annual crime statistics and public safety data. Random-effects models, along with negative binomial regressions and spatial auto-correlation models for validity check, provide a consistent and robust results that IT use for crime analysis, dispatch, and the internet is significantly associated with a decreased in the deaths of police officers. This effect is shown to be more pronounced in communities with a higher economic divide.
The paper initiatively builds a link between IT capabilities in organizations with criminology, contributing to the nascent literature on business value of IT in the public sector and broader societal impact of IT. Most importantly, the finding of this paper could be arguably generalized to the significant role of IT in safety of other occupations under unpredictable dangers.
The ASA’s statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose
Week8_Mani et al. (2014)_Aaron
Technology advances in distributed work lead to a growing phenomenon that increasing number of firms set up offshore captive centers (CCs) to carry out R&D work. In this context, Mani et al. (2014) studies how organizations coordinate distributed knowledge intensive work (e.g., R&D).
Prior literature has suggested two generic coordination mechanism, information sharing and modularization, but do not reach any conclusion about the superiority of one of these mechanisms for any given task. This study address such research gap by raising a question, what combinations of task characteristics and coordination mechanisms yield high performance in the context of interdependent knowledge work?
The authors analyzed survey data from 132 R&D CCs established by foreign multinational companies in India to understand how firms execute distributed innovative work. They found that 1) modularization of work across locations is largely ineffective when the underlying tasks are less routinized, less analyzable and less familiar to the CCs; and 2) information sharing across locations is effective when the CC performs tasks that are less familiar to it.
The primary contribution of this study is to demonstrate high performance work configurations in offshoring of R&D and product development work, given that the tasks analyzed are highly interdependent. Its results expand studies on organization and coordination of distributed work as well as for practitioners who want to improve the performance of their distributed R&D strategies. This study has following weakness: the cross-sectional analysis may limit its ability to establish causality, the measures are perceptual and the unobserved heterogeneities are not controlled.
Week7_Susarla et al. (2010)_Aaron
Firms are increasingly relying on IT outsourcing to improve services quality and to lower in-house IT spending. However, practitioners and academics have seen high rates of failure in IT outsourcing due to holdup problems, which are represented as underinvestment and inefficient bargaining because of contract incompleteness. There is a tension on the understanding of holdup problems. One stream emphasizes the importance of clearly designed contract whereas the other believes that the nature of contract is incomplete.
Drawing on the argument from latter stream, Susarla et al.(2000) argue that contract extensiveness, defined as the extent to which firms and vendors can foresee contingencies when designing contracts for outsourced IT services, can alleviate holdup. Moreover, they argue while extensively detailed contracts are likely to include a greater breadth of activities outsourced to a vendor, task complexity makes it difficult to draft extensive contracts. Furthermore, extensive contracts may still be incomplete with respect to enforcement. They therefore examine the role of non-price contractual provisions, contract duration, and extendibility terms, which give firms an option to extend the contract to limit the likelihood of holdup. Using a unique data set over 100 IT outsourcing contracts, they test and support those arguments in their research model.
As to their contributions, first, they support the argument that contracts are fundamentally incomplete and suggest that non-price provisions play a strategic role in contracts design. Second, to extend the literature of contractual solutions to holdup problems, their findings suggest payoffs from repeated interactions between parties reduces the probability of inefficient bargaining. Last but not least, this study also complements prior analytical work by providing empirical evidence to understand how parties anticipate and design contingencies ex ante that are important to manage potential problems ex-post.
Week 6_Chatterjee and Ravichandran (2011)_Aaron
Decisions regarding inter-organizational information systems (IOS) ownership and control have been crucial for viability of these systems. Nonparticipation in IOS and IOS failure cause major concerns for practitioners but remain little understood academically.
Chatterjee and Ravichandran (2013) therefore investigate why and how firms seek ownership and control of IOS. They propose two distinct facets of IOS governance, transactional and financial governance, which represent firms’ financially responsibility for IOS and controls on transactions within IOS respectively. Drawing on resource dependence theory, they model the key motivators of IOS governance as resource criticality and replaceability, which affect IOS governance through their influences on operational integration existing between partners. Furthermore, they argue technological uncertainty moderates such influences.
Their model was empirically tested using data gathered from a survey of 159 US manufacturing firms. Through mediation analysis and mediated moderation test, they found that resource criticality positively affects the extent of financial and transactional IOS governance by increasing the needs for operational integration, whereas resource replaceability negatively affects them by reducing the need for operational integration. In addition, they also found technological uncertainty creates disincentives for IOS governance by weakening the positive influence of resource criticality on operational integration, but does not significantly affect the relationship between resource replaceability and operation integration.
Theoretically, this study contributes to understand the drivers of IOS governance choices made by firms, extends and complements the research stream on the role of IOS in fostering tighter buyer-supplier relationships. Practically, third party providers and technology vendors are suggested to create appropriate offerings by understanding the fit between firms’ IOS governance decisions and existing exchange arrangement. Moreover, firms seeking to leverage IOS for competitive benefits are encouraged to closely examine the contingencies that influence their supplier relationships before investing in these systems.
Week5_Subramanyam et al. (2012)_Aaron
In Search of Efficient Flexibility: Effects of Software Component Granularity on Development Effort, Defects and Customization Effort
The trade-off between efficiency and flexibility in enterprise software production poses a big challenge for firms. New software development paradigms emphasize modular design of complex systems to overcome such challenge. However, there remains little understanding on the use of such software methodologies and associated extent to such trade-offs that can be influenced.
Subramanyam et al. (2012) addressed this gap by investigating the performance outcomes of a model-driven, component-based software development methodology. Specifically, they discuss how a design characteristics of software components, component granularity (with sub-dimensions of code volume, functionality and independence), affects development efficiency (development effort and in-process defects) and flexibility (customization effort).
To test such effects, they utilized a cross-sectional dataset that covers the software development information about 92 business software components of a firm’s enterprise resource planning product. Through 3SLS and SUR analysis, they found that coarse grained components are associated with higher flexibility but are associated with lower development efficiency. Moreover, they found that defects partially mediate the relationship between component granularity and flexibility.
The key implication from this study for software managers and designers who seeks to adopt modular design approaches is that active and judicious management of component granularity resulting from the decomposition of complex enterprise systems is necessary to simultaneously achieve flexibility and efficiency in software development.
Week4_Tafti et al. 2013_Aaron
Extant IS studies have focused on the effects of IT in reducing transaction and coordination costs in inter-organization relationships, there has been little understanding regarding the role of flexible IT architecture as an enabler of interfirm collaboration.
Ali Tafti et al. (2013) fill this academic vacuum by investigating the effects of information technology architecture flexibility on strategic alliance formation and firm value. Specifically, they first examine the effect of three dimensions of IT architecture flexibility (open communication standard, cross-functional transparency, and modularity) on formation of three types of alliances (arm’s-length, collaborative, and joint-venture alliances, respectively.) Second, they study how capability in IT flexibility moderate the value derived from alliances.
To establish the relationship between IT architecture flexibility, strategic alliances and firm value, they utilize a data set from 169 firms that are publicly listed in the US and that span multiple industries. Through panel random-effects models along with several techniques to address potential effects of endogeneity and simultaneity, they found that adoption of open communication standards is associated with the formation of arm’s-length alliances, and modularity of IT architecture is associated with the formation of joint ventures. They also found that the value of alliances is enhanced by overall IT architecture flexibility, implying that all three dimensions of flexibility are important in the value derived from arm’s-length, collaborative and joint-venture alliances.
This study suggests a need for greater consideration of the role of flexibility in IT-driven business process to understand the underpinnings of IT business value in inter-organizational context.
Input-output tables
The I-O accounts (tables) show how industries interact; specifically, they show how industries provide input to, and use output from, each other to produce Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These accounts provide detailed information on the flows of the goods and services that comprise the production process of industries. The I-O accounts are presented in a set of tables: Use, Make, Direct Requirements and Total Requirements. The Use table shows the inputs to industry production and the commodities that are consumed by final users. The Make table shows the commodities that are produced by each industry. The four Requirements tables are derived from the Use and Make tables. The Direct Requirements table shows the amount of a commodity that is required by an industry to produce a dollar of the industry’s output. The three Total Requirements tables show the production that is required, directly and indirectly, from each industry and each commodity to deliver a dollar of a commodity to final users. The Use table is the most frequently requested table because of its applications to the estimates of GDP.
For more detailed information, please refer to
[1] Input-output account data by Bureau of Economic Analysis
http://www.bea.gov/industry/io_annual.htm
[2] Inter-industry relationship (Input-Output Matrix) by Bureau of Labor Statistics
Week3_Rawley and Simcoe (2013)_Aaron
Information Technology, Productivity, and Asset Ownership: Evidence from Taxicab Fleets
Since Coase (1937), theories on transaction cost economics and property rights along with a large body of empirical evidence have studied the determinants of the boundary of the firms. Demsetz (1988) propose an alternative predictor, the changes in the productivity of potential trading partners. His thesis has been lacking of empirical support due to informal and imprecise logic. Rawley and Simcoe (2013) thus develop and test a formal productivity-based theory of asset ownership.
Specifically, they examines the effect of productivity-enhancing technology adoption in taxicab industry on vertical integration and skilled workforce. They use microdata on taxicab firms’ vehicle ownership patterns from the economic census during a period from 1992 through 1997 when new computerized dispatching system were first widely adopted.
Their empirical results show that adopting such system cause taxicab firs to increase the percentage of vehicle they own and reduce the returns to skilled labor. This study contributes to two bodies of literature, the strategy literature on firm boundaries and economic literature on skill-biased technical change. First, this paper took the first step to formalize the relationship between productivity and firm boundary and empirically test it. Second, their finding contribute to an emerging view that IT adoption does not always increase the relative demand for more skilled labor.
Week2_Bresnahan et al. (2002)_Aaron
Information technology, workplace organization and the demand for skilled labor: firm-level evidence
A significant shift in labor demand towards skilled workers in the late 20th century have been attributed to skill-biased technical changes (SBTC). Quantitative research has made it clear the important role of information technology in SBTC and its direct correlation with skill at the worker, firm and industry level.
Rather than only investing IT for quality improvement and efficiency gains, successful firms reveal preferences to a combination of three related innovation, a) increased use of IT, b) changes in organization practices and c) changes in products and services. Bresnahan et al. (2002) extend the SBTC theory through the rational that decline in price of IT will increase firms’ use of the complementary system of abovementioned three innovation, thereby increasing the relative demand for skilled labor.
Their rational is supported by evidence from archive data, survey and interviews with managers from 300 large U.S firms. Bresnahan and his collegues examine the correlations across firms in the use of hypothesized complements, test a short-run conditional input or technology choice equations and analyze simple production functions. Alternative explanations, such as managerial fad, demand shocks and aggregation error, are shown to be inconsistent with all the empirical results, making their hypothesized rational more reliable and validated.
Their analysis has implications for understanding SBTC. First, it provides new firm-level evidence to show that IT is a source of increased demand for skilled labor and rising wage inequality. Second, it identifies a set of mechanisms by which labor demand is influenced through organizational redesign that calls for complementary investment in IT, work organization and product innovation.
Week 1_how to give a good job talk?
Professor: Let us talk about who do you think is the best job candidate and how to give a good job talk.
Student #1: First of all, the choice of paper or project to present is very important to the success of job talk. The key is to bring the best or most satisfied work to present. Second, handling the process of presentation should be another necessary skill. Audience may ask all kinds of questions, some challenging and some difficult. So it is always useful to prepare ahead of time in case some dynamic issues that would ruin the whole process of presentation
Student #2: Good presenter in the job talk can well prepare his work so that he or she could self-defend with confidence.
Student #3: Good presenters usually show good communication skills, confidence in what he or she is presenting and can clearly explain what has been done and what has been thought about even though not shown in the presentation.
Student #4: Job talk is the time to show the best of you. So one should choose the best paper to give a job talk.
Student #5: Good job talk is about confidence. And I would like to share a tip related to it, that is, whenever someone ask you a question, the first sentence you should always say is “It is a good question. I have thought about this.” If you are not confident and say something like “I am not quite sure. Could you give me some feedback?” etc, that is not a good interaction with audience.
Professor: What about you three? Any merits you could find from good job talkers presented in your department?
Student #6: I think confidence and self-defense is always important. If I were a committee member to hire someone, I would focus on the research topic too. Is it a good topic? Has it got some potential to publish in the A level journal? So a good job candidate should be capable to show future publication opportunities.
Student #7: Normally in our department after job talk, we doctoral student and professors get together to discuss the performance of the presenter. It is an intuitive and practical way to let doctoral student know what is good and bad about job talk and what should be done or not be done in such talk. So we get a sense that good job seekers can show your own research idea, which is not from your advisor. That is a good way to tell others that you are able to conduct research independently.
Student #8: Good job presenters give impressive talk with confidence. He or she could be tolerant and open to any kinds of questions in a manner without arrogant and over-confidence. Also he or she could manage the time well.
Professor: First of all, a good job talker could manage the conversation with audience. Often times you would encounter challenging and difficult questions, but only if you know some tips and tricks to go through it even if you do not have a confirmative answer, your talk would not become a chaos. If there is a disagreement between his or her opinion and yours, you could say “Maybe you are right, well, but I think…, and we could always talk about it after this.” More of such tips and tricks can be obtained by observing how a good job talker communicates with audience. I heard that a job seeker who had to stay on the first page of slides for 45 min due to mismanage the conversation with the audiences.
Second, it is a useful to show descriptions of other projects in your job talk. Top research universities implicitly require candidates to have pipeline papers that are potentially published in the future 5 or 6 years to ensure tenure. But review circle is uncertain and this requirement may not be met if you do not have a considerate stock of papers. But the problem that has been seen times and times is that some cannot publish beyond dissertation, which means, it is almost impossible to get tenure in a good business school. Doctoral time is the best time to do research, not only research for dissertation but for your future 5 or 6 years being an assistant professor. Thus, to present and propose research agenda is a good way to show the working papers beyond the dissertation to show potential to survive in the process to tenure.
Third, confidence is important. But more important is you should know what and how to make you confident. As my personal experience, before my job talk, I have presented the same projects 7 or 8 times in workshops, seminars and conferences, and before each presentation I practice up to 10 times ahead of time. This means that I memorize everything, and means I am confident about what I am going to present and about what questions would be most likely to be asked. Besides a lot of practices in other academic activities, the choice of paper you present is also a key to keep you confident. You had better to present a paper that has already passed the 1st round review because reviewers and audiences usually give you the same comments, which could help you prepare ahead of time.
Last but not least, please remind that those siting in front of you when you give a job talk are hiring a professor, not a student. So you should act like a professor. As a student, it could be freaky to hear from sharp critics, comments or questions from senior professors. But when you present as a job seeker, you should be professional and accumulate experience to handle those questions. As mentioned before, you could say “That is different from what I know, let us discuss it after this talk.”
In summary, to give a good job talk or to be a good job seeker, you should prepare ahead of time, practice and experience more to keep you confident, show your potential to publish paper in tenure-track, and behave as a professor with professional manner when you interacts with the senior professors who consider hiring you.
(Scribed by Aaron Cheng, 1/13/2016)
Aaron_Week1
Below please find the summary for Industry Level Supplier-Driven IT Spillovers.