Jung Kwan Kim
Week 13_Ganco (2013)_Jung Kwan Kim
Ganco (2013) examines the relationship between knowledge complexity and employee mobility/entrepreneurship. The author argues that the knowledge gained in a prior firm significantly affects the choice of an inventor on the next move between staying, moving, and starting-up. More specifically, the complexity of knowledge works as a contingent factor to determine the modes of the next move in terms of mobility vs. entrepreneurship and individual vs. team mobility.
The empirical findings are just as intuitively expected. The inventors with highly complex knowledge are less likely to move to competing firms possibly because complexity inhibits knowledge diffusion. Furthermore, the inventors with highly complex knowledge in prior firms are more likely to start their ventures than to move to rivals. This is probably because transferring complex knowledge across the boundary of a firm is challenging while starting from a clean sheet can be more effective and efficient to appropriate the value of knowledge. In addition, highly complex knowledge tends to strengthen the tendency of co-inventors to move or start up as a team because a partial knowledge of an individual may not be enough to leverage the knowledge in a new setting.
All in all, this study carves out an interesting contingent factor in employee mobility and entrepreneurship, which can be generalizable in many knowledge-intensive industries.
Week 12_Chan and Ghose (2014)_Jung Kwan Kim
Chan and Ghose (2014) tenaciously examine one phenomenon: the positive impact of Craigslist’s entry on the increase in HIV incidence. The authors theoretically explain the phenomenon with a few underlying mechanisms. First, people tend to prefer an instant satisfaction to a delayed reward, a choice that an online intermediary can easily support. Second, an online intermediary can provide the means to lower the cost of information seeking and to find a broader (potential) audience who may not be available otherwise.
Based on the natural experiment to identify the entry effect of Craigslist in the period from 1999 to 2008, the authors find that the entry does lead to more cases of HIV. This simple-but-powerful finding is supported through various control variables, robustness checks, and falsification tests. As for control variables, the empirical analysis includes demographic features, socioeconomic indicators, and the Internet availability along with alternative models to accommodate fixed effects of states and years. More importantly, the empirical test is compared with other sample data of non-physical contact diseases to catch a spurious effect. An alternative test also addresses the possibility of (if any) pre-entry effect. In order to secure exogeneity of Craigslist entry, hierarchical duration models are employed to see whether the control variables in the main model can predict the entry. The presence of HIV incidence is included to check the reverse causality. Throughout all the models, the entry of Craigslist is consistently significant and positive to the increase of HIV incidence.
All in all, the authors evidently support a substantial economic impact of an information intermediary on issues such as outbreak of diseases and surge of healthcare costs.
Week 11_Tambe and Hitt (2014)_Jung Kwan Kim
Tambe and Hitt (2014) examine the IT spillovers by labor mobility by drilling down its impact on IT productivity with various robustness checks. More specifically, the authors aim to understand the positive relationship between the flow of technological know-how by employee mobility and the IT-backed performance.
The one and only hypothesis is: “The IT investments of other firms generate productivity spillovers through IT labor flows among firms.” The rationales are rather straightforward. First, new employees bring previously accumulated knowledge from other firms to a hiring firm. Especially, since the hands-on experience on new technology is an effective channel for knowledge dissemination, the newly hired workers from other firms with high IT intensity are particularly valuable. Thus, an abundant pool of IT labor naturally leads to better productivity spillovers for firms which accept new hires from the labor pool.
Based on an extensive set of empirical analyses, the authors support that IT labor flows explain a significant chunk of variation in IT returns, roughly 20% of the elasticity on IT investment. This finding is turned out to consistent with controlling the wage for IT workers, the unobserved demand and productivity, the geographic proximity, and the influx of labor from prominent IT firms. The empirical supports collectively imply that the influx of labor forces from IT-intensive firms is important in a managerial perspective and that securing labor flexibility is a critical responsibility of policy makers.
All in all, labor mobility matters for performance in IT.
Research Proposal Presentation_Jung Kwan Kim
Week 9_How to Improve Your Fluency level in English
How to Improve Your Fluency level in English
Prof. Pang: My English was used to be very poor. I was also shy, but I enhanced my fluency. There should be various way to improve it. What is your suggestion for it?
Student 1:
It has been helpful for me to watch video clips such as presidential speeches, news, sports events, and so on. Also, one faculty recommends to have a tutor for conversational English.
Student 2:
I did my undergrad in Australia. Hanging out with students in English definitely helped. Picking up your advisor’s terminologies is a good way to improve your academic communication skills in English. In addition, watching TV shows is helpful. I personally recommend “Modern family” to pick up contemporary conversational English.
Student 3:
In my case, I learned a lot through preparing for the TOEFL test especially for reading, listening, and writing.
Student 4:
Obviously, you need to make many native-speaking friends and hang out with them.
Student 5:
Indeed, this is a matter of accumulative learning, I believe. Try to use unfamiliar words or expressions consciously. That helps a lot. Repetitions will engrain English in your mind.
Student 6:
To expose myself to more English-speaking environment, I personally created a debate club, which is aimed to discuss about diverse social issues in English. Active participation in such activity definitely helped me to improve my fluency level.
Student 7:
No specific strategy to mention, but setting up a goal actually helped. My goal was to be of native speaker’s level. Setting up a high bar pushed me to practice more though relaxing the aim also helped me in a way.
Prof. Pang:
I do believe that making friends who can have a conversation in English is very helpful. Watching TV shows such as “Modern Family” is also beneficial. Previously, I have watched the old TV show, “Friends,” more than 20 times for each episode. Why? That is because the repeated exposure to practical English expressions from the TV show can be part of my own terminology after repeated listening. I did experience this.
One more thing is here. As a second language learner, if you don’t have knowledge common with that of native speakers, it is really hard to have a real conversation. This is actually not about the fluency level. That is why watching American TV programs should be emphasized once again. In reality, hanging out with native speakers may not be feasible. However, watching your favorite TV programs can be a good alternative.
I still like to listen to podcasts. For example, the BBC podcast is full of great information for conversation. I keep listening to the podcast every day as much as possible. This podcast inspires me that written and spoken languages are actually not different. The highest level of spoken English resembles much like a written language. This podcast can be a good resource to hone your skill.
Student 1:
There is also a great app, called “tunein,” for listening to HBR discussions and other academic findings.
Student 2:
I think, helping each other is also critical. Presenting one’s own research idea can be helpful, too.
Prof. Pang:
When networking in a conference or other settings, academics talk about lots of things other than their research. As Prof. Yoo mentioned, we should practice to converse over diverse topics with your colleagues and friends. Eventually, that helps you a lot in many ways.
Week 9_Pang et al. (2015)_Jung Kwan Kim
Pang, Tafti, and Krishnan (2015) conjoin multiple perspectives of the Information system, Public economics, and Political science literatures to examine the relationship between IT and governmental size. More specifically, the authors attempt to reveal the impact of IT budgets of a state CIO on state government size.
Theoretically, we can expect both positive and negative relationships. On the one hand, as the Hypothesis 1A argues, “the size of CIO IT budgets in a state is associated with lower state government spending.” This argument can be supported in that the introduction and advancement of IT systems may 1) increase the productivity of administrative processes, 2) ameliorate information asymmetry between legislatures and governmental agencies with lower monitoring costs, and 3) decrease the costs of transaction and coordination by more privatization of public services. Collectively, these benefits facilitate the reduction of government size.
On the other hand, the competing Hypothesis 1B contends that “the size of CIO IT budgets in a state is associated with larger state government spending.” Its main rationales are, 1) the IT infrastructure and enterprise systems may create strategic initiatives to serve public areas which used to be underserved; 2) the enhanced capabilities to monitor and coordinate administrative processes can lead to push further the boundary of administration, even incorporating some roles of federal, local, and private players.
Based on system GMM model with a five-year unbalanced panel data of 190 observations from 44 states, the empirical test supports the Hypothesis 1A, implying that more IT investment by state CIOs are associated with lower state governmental expenditures. This main finding suggests that the increase in the IT budgets by state CIOs may mitigate “bureaucrats’ interests to maximize their expenditures.”
Week 8_Setia et al. (2012)_Jung Kwan Kim
Setia, Rajagopalan, and Sambamurthy, and Calantone (2012) point out that the contribution of peripheral developers in open-source software projects has not been well understood. The authors in this study attempt to reveal the impact of peripheral developers, in comparison with core developers, on product quality and diffusion and the moderating effect of OSS product life cycle.
The authors find that peripheral developers endow a greater impact on the quality assessment because they supply independent, novel, and unique insights for detecting bugs in the projects. Peripheral developers also contribute to expedite the product awareness and adoption owing to their interpersonal network and word-of-mouth communication; since the personal network of peripheral developers does not suffer from institutional influences or corporate promotions, the information shared through the network tends to receive better credibility, leading better exposure and adoption for potential users.
Interestingly, the positive impact of peripheral developers is not supported for quality enhancement in the study’s empirical analysis. The authors suggest, a larger project may require complex coordination efforts which may prevent active participation of peripheral developers. Also, the lack of efficient coordination mechanism can be another culprit to accommodate geographically dispersed contributions from the developers.
A mature product may represent that its OSS product has been well managed with high quality. This signaling effect can be a good explanation for the authors’ findings: the participation of peripheral developers at a mature stage influences positively on quality assessment, product awareness, and product adoption greater than at earlier stages.
In conclusion, the authors show that the contribution of peripheral developers takes up a significant portion of an OSS outcome, especially combined with the moderating effect of project life cycle. Strategically using this dynamic is a mandate for an OSS organization or a corporate, which aims to leverage the synergy based on the volunteering dedication of peripheral developers.
Week 7_Langer et al (2014)_Jung Kwan Kim
Langer, Slaughter, and Mukhopadhyay (2014) examine the impact of practical intelligence (PI) on project performance and the moderating effects of project complexity and familiarity. While the prior studies tend to specify formalized and widely-recognized management skills, knowledge, and experience of project managers, the authors bring up more subtle but dynamic capability, linking to the outcome of project.
Based on the in-depth data analysis on project progress and results in a leading software outsourcing vendor in India, the field study supports the following arguments:
- PM’s PI is positively associated with the increase in both cost performance and client satisfaction.
- The interaction of complexity with PI is significantly positive on the two types of project performance. In other words, when complexity of a project is higher, the impact of PI becomes stronger, leading to better performance.
- The interaction of familiarity with PI is significantly negative on the two types of project performance. That is, a project with low familiarity can harvest more benefits when a PM with high PI manage it.
Indeed, the supported arguments are intuitive and straightforward when we ponder upon the role of PI in a project management. The software outsourcing projects inevitably suffer from various factors that cause uncertainty and potential failure: requirement ambiguity, stakeholder conflicts, cultural misunderstanding, to name a few. PI basically helps a project manager resolve the critical, situational, and contextual problems, a capability that cannot be easily found or trained. A PM with high PI may be able to address the difficult problems, eventually bringing a higher chance of successful project results.
In conclusion, I think this study contributes much to the literature by finding the significant impact, the decent data source, and the parsimonious measure of PI.
Week 6_Banker et al. (2011)_Jung Kwan Kim
Banker, Hu, Pavlou, and Luftman (2011) examine the CIO reporting structure and its impact on performance contingent on the alignment with strategic positioning. The prior studies in the information system literature have not identified the ideal CIO reporting structure. The authors argue that the ideal reporting structure should not be blindly established simply based on the strategic role of IT in a firm; the fit between a firm’s strategic positioning and its CIO reporting structure should be considered to secure higher performance, the authors contend.
To support the main argument, Banker, Hu, Pavlou, and Luftman (2011) posit the following hypotheses:
- H1: Differentiators are more likely to have their CIO report to the CEO.
- H2: Cost leaders are more likely to have their CIO report to the CFO.
Those hypotheses are theoretically and empirically well supported in that a direct access to a CEO may be helpful to convince the needs of risky IT initiatives to create differentiated customer value while a reporting to CFO may better promote the operational efficiency by lowering costs.
Now, the discussion of H1 and H2 naturally leads to the argument on the match between the strategic positioning and the reporting structure.
- H3: Alignment between strategic positioning (differentiation and cost leadership) and CIO reporting structure (CEO and CFO) is associated with a higher firm performance.
The long standing resource based view (RBV) buttresses the hypothesis in that complementary resources of a firm can be combined to produce higher performance.
In conclusion, the CIO reporting structure largely depends on the firm’s strategic positioning. Indeed, the reporting structure does influence significantly on the firm’s performance. However, the effect of the reporting structure can be materialized only conditional on the fit with the strategic positioning.
Week 5_Ramasubbu and Kemerer (2015)_Jung Kwan Kim
Ramasubbu and Kemerer (2015) examine the technical debt and the interdependency between client and vendor maintenance activities. Their analysis reveals that there do exist the dynamics of technical debts reduction and its impact on the reliability of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) systems.
One of the fundamental findings is that technical debt is “associated with an increase in the probability of a system failure” because it increasingly deteriorates knowledge asymmetry between vendors and clients. Modular maintenance by clients ameliorates the reliability of a system through reducing the errors due to clients more than architectural maintenance does mainly because details in architectural knowledge of a system are not well disseminated to clients’ software teams. Interestingly, modular maintenance is more likely to increase the probability of system failure due to vendor errors than architectural maintenance is. This contrasting findings is supported by the fact that modular maintenance by clients may not consider the overall architectural structure of a system, leading to conflicts with a new version of the system or a vendor-driven platform updates.
The empirical contributions of Ramasubbu and Kemerer (2015) deserve highlighting. The newly devised competing risks analysis shows the different impact of the trade-off relationship between modular and architectural maintenance on vendor vs. client errors. Mediation analysis clearly shows the mediating impact of technical debt between each type of maintenance and system failure due to client errors. The analysis is useful to present the existence of “benefit zone” out of the trade-off effect, suggesting that discretionary decision on maintenance should be employed.
Week 4_Chellappa et al. (2010)_Jung Kwan Kim
The research of Chellappa, Sambamurthy, and Saraf (2010) is motivated by conflicting arguments in strategy literature to respond the question: is it beneficial to participate in a crowded market or not? By examining the enterprise systems software (ESS) industry, the authors argue that the detrimental effect of being in a crowded market can be counteracted by the virtuous effect of demand externality.
More specifically, the authors suggest that “the performance of an ESS firm is positively related to its degree of multimarket contact with the other ESS firms” (Hypothesis 1). This is mainly because ESS firms in a market may enjoy the mutual forbearance to secure higher market performance if they are more familiar with and more fearful to each other based on the possibility of retaliation. The Hypothesis 2 is also supported, though weakly, saying that “the performance of an ESS firm is positively related to its degree of participation in crowded markets, or the extent of market domain overlap.” The customers perceive the presence of many ESS firms in a market as a positive signal about the importance and the legitimacy of the component in the market. Also, the crowded market attracts more knowledge brokers (such as consultants), reinforcing the legitimacy and the viability. Thus, the participation in a crowded market may bring a positive performance, though the outcome can be somewhat mitigated by the intensity of competition. Finally, the Hypothesis 3 contends that “the positive effects of ESS firms’ participation in crowded markets are increased by the level of multimarket contact with other ESS firms.” This hypothesis is also supported in that an ESS firm in a crowded market with high multimarket contact understands rivals better and in that such ESS firm has more ways to retaliate any rivalrous activities of other similar firms.
In conclusion, ESS firms may benefit from competing in many crowded markets, a counterintuitive implication to traditional strategy scholars.
Week 3_Rawley and Simcoe (2013)_Jung Kwan Kim
Rawley and Simcoe (2013) examines how technology adoption influences firm boundaries and worker skills. Prior studies have connected the issue of the firm boundaries with asset specificity and contractual incompleteness. More specifically, transaction cost economics (TCE; Williamson, 1975; 1985) suggests that vertical integration helps firms reduce the inevitable cost of conflicts over the division of surplus in a locked-in trading relationship; property right theory (PRT; Grossman and Hart, 1986; Hart and Moore, 1990) emphasizes the incentive of ownership to make efficient but noncontractable investment. In short, TCE and PRT argue that firms are more likely to perform vertical integration with a high asset specificity and a high level of contract incompleteness. Interestingly, Rawley and Simcoe (2013) support the causal relationship between the adoption of a new technology and the increase in vertical integration by holding asset capacity constant.
Based on the in-depth look in the empirical setting of the taxicab industry, the authors find that a technological adoption leads to an increased level of vertical integration and deskilling within the firm, even in the absence of noncontractible changes in asset specificity. On the condition that the marginal benefits of information technology adoption are diminishing with worker ability, this main finding can be intuitively understood in that the technology adoption cannot replace the input capital while the mix of skills and relative productivity of employees can be easily altered.
Week 2_Im and Rai (2014)_Jung Kwan Kim
Im and Rai (2014) examine the IOS (interorganizational systems) regarding the impact on relationship performance and quality mediating through contextual ambidexterity. The authors support that the enhancement of contextual ambidexterity leads to better relationship performance and quality. The rationale is that contextual ambidexterity helps partners align resources and actions and that it leads them to adapt the relationship to broader changes.
This positive association is manifested through 3 sets of findings. First, OSS use cultivates contextual ambidexterity on the customer side while the vendor sides enjoy more positive benefits with longer duration of relationship. This is possibly because OSS places a greater resource burden and hold-up risk on the vender.
Second, ISS use fosters the benefits to both of the sides while the benefit of the customer is not significant as the relationship ages. This finding seems to support the contextual knowledge that accumulated over time becomes more valuable for the vendor.
Third, interdependent decision making facilitate the benefits on both of the sides, but the duration does not moderate the effect, implying that the synergies between alignment and adaption show up even from the early period.
In conclusion, contextual ambidexterity enables IORs (interorganizational relationships) to achieve performance benefits and enhances relationship quality from the perspectives of both customers and vendors; IT-enabled coordination mechanisms and interdependent decision making promote contextual ambidexterity on the side of customers. IORs accumulate relationship-specific resources that are instrumental in leveraging OSSs and ISSs to achieve synergies between alignment and adaptation for the vendor. All in all, IS use at both the operations and sensemaking levels plays a major role in enabling contextual ambidexterity and increasing the value derived from IORs for both the vendor and the customer.