Accounting

Studies have shown that positive perceived job characteristics, such as job significance and task autonomy, tend to decrease IT personnel turnover intention. In addition, employee perception of their workplace characteristics may affect turnover. Few studies have examined this. We tested whether workplace characteristics -structural fairness, trust in senior management, employee information sharing, and job security -affected turnover intention as much as did job characteristics. We found that workplace characteristics out-predicted job characteristics. However, this was true only for programmer/analysts. The reverse was true for technical support personnel. Practical implications are discussed. ß

Usage of information and communication technologies (ICT's) is critical to bridging the digital divide in the developing world. Findings of this initial exploratory study suggest that basic human needs such as health care and the availability of electrical power should be addressed to help facilitate ICT usage.

Traditionally, firms that dominate their industries perform better when their markets are growing. This is because their large size makes it easier for them to achieve economies of scale. We present empirical evidence that the impact of information technology (IT) on the firm performance is the opposite: firms with less market power enjoy greater benefits in a growing market. This study draws on the IT value literature to examine how industry and firm attributes jointly affect firms' returns on their IT investments. To that end, we develop cross-level hypotheses to examine how the economic value of IT to firms is influenced by industry growth and firm size. By using a hierarchical linear model to test the industryfirm interactions, we are able to control for violations of statistical assumptions that are likely to bias cross-level estimates obtained using conventional statistical methods. The implications of these findings for research and practice are examined.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the persistent digital divide between those that have access to technology and those that do not. As such, we conducted a case study that consisted of interviews and a survey of students along with interviews of administrators and faculty at a minority serving institution. The institution is used along with resources and appropriations theory as a lens to further understand the digital divide and how technology access and use have manifested during the pandemic. The results suggest that students perceived difficulty with access to and use of information communication technologies (such as hardware and software), which interfered with their engagement with learning. At the institution under investigation, the pre-pandemic lack of access to technological resources was eliminated during the pandemic thanks to additional funding. Nevertheless, the communication problems between the administration and students limited students’ access to the resources ...

The social networking population continues to expand at a phenomenal pace. Nevertheless, the question of how an organization gets people to spend long periods on a particular social networking website as well as return to the website is becoming increasingly important. Is the technological sophistication of the website or the social aspect most important? This study addresses technological and social factors. The authors examine social network use by employing a survey instrument to gather data about technological factors based on the technology acceptance model and social factors collecting data on constructs representing social involvement and the sheer enjoyment of using the social networking website. Results of the study suggest that users of social networks are more apt to frequently use a site based upon social/enjoyment factors as opposed to technology-related factors.

Since the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act in 2002, companies have begun to place more emphasis on information technology (IT) internal controls. IT internal controls are policies that provide assurance that technical systems operate as intended, provide reliable data, and comply with regulations. Research suggests that firms with strong internal controls perform better than those with internal control weaknesses. In this study, the authors evaluate the impact of IT internal controls on firm performance. The sample includes 72 publicly traded firms, 36 that reported IT internal control weaknesses and 36 that did not. The results of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression indicate that substantive IT internal control weaknesses negatively impact firm performance. Results and implications for research and practice are discussed.

As the use and value of social networks continues to expand and creatively grow, the question of how to attract people to the various sites becomes an important question. This research focuses on interactivity and its role in user satisfaction with a social network site. A model is put forth that focuses on factors that help answer these questions. A survey was conducted with 164 users of social networking websites (i.e. Facebook, Linkedin & Twitter) regarding technology acceptance, marketing related factors and user satisfaction. We find that perceived interactivity (in terms of control) and level of focus/concentration do affect an end user's satisfaction with a social network along with antecedents from the technology acceptance model (TAM). These findings suggest both TAM related factors and marketing related factors both impact the user experience on a social networking site.

E-commerce researchers and managers have known for some time that Long-Tail effects on pricing and product purchase are an important way in which internet retail differs from traditional "brick & mortar" businesses. These Long Tail effects are often directly attributed to lower search costs. Using a transaction-level model we provide important evidence that the principal impact of a reduction in search costs is that it changes which types of consumers are likely to buy niche products. Using consumer purchase information from over 4,000 households and over 17,000 purchases, from a single product category in 2004, we directly test the impact of search costs. We compare the product dispersion of purchases within broadband serviced homes to those in dial-up serviced homes. Our research shows that the conventional view that search costs directly impact consumer propensity to purchase a niche good is wrong, rather search costs act primarily as a moderating factor altering the impact of classic consumer purchase factors. This study is the first to both directly test search costs in online product dispersion, while at the same time isolating the impacts of other factors so as to remove confounding effects.

As automation evolves, human capital becomes a firm's strategic asset. Using resource-based theory, we discuss the importance of maintaining human capital with superior skills as a means to sustain a competitive and how to value human capital as a strategic asset. As we do not propose a new accounting regulation, we suggest metrics that may be used to assess the value of strategic human assets.

The proliferation of cell phones and the growing culture of constant connectivity has introduced a plethora of new challenges for mobile citizens. One of the major challenges transportation professionals desire to address involves the use of cell phones to text while driving, especially for less experienced drivers. In this study, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in conjunction with psycho-social factors is utilized to explore the intention to text while driving among young drivers. The results of a survey administered to 524 drivers suggest that the TPB constructs (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) along with the perceived disadvantages of abstention and age of the driver explain a significant amount of variance in the intention to send text messages while driving (adjusted R 2 = 0.71).

This article contends that although much research on the business value of IT focuses on firm-level impacts, studies have begun incorporating industry-level variables as explanatory factors of interest to offer better contextualized explanations for the differences in value firms obtained from their IT across different industries. The authors present a multi-level model of IT value where industry-level and firm-level factors jointly determine the value a firm obtains from its IT. By using a nested model to examine industry to firm interactions, they are able to control for problematic violations of statistical assumptions that are likely to bias estimates from conventional methods. Their analysis shows that all of the industry factors we examined had significant interaction effects. Specifically, industry concentration, industry growth, industry capital intensity, industry outsourcing, and presence in service sector significantly impact firm-level IT value. More interestingly, the a...

As workforce participation continues to decline in the United States, simultaneously, a steady increase in the impact of information technology (IT) intensity on economic outcomes, both regionally and nationally, occurs. This study-in-progress examines how the impact of IT intensity coupled with the lack of educational opportunities in certain geographic areas impact measures of socioeconomic immobility. As IT intensity is operationalized as a census-based measure of geographic IT, lack of educational opportunity is operationalized as advanced mathematics offerings in high schools, and socioeconomic immobility is operationalized as poverty indicators, including disability payments, Medicaid, and supplemental nutrition assistance. A model and propositions are offered here to measure these variables.

The purpose of this study is to offer a multi-disciplinary framework to examine the continuing digital participation divide and within-group use variance among millennials. We focus on millennials due to the size of their population segment. We further critically examine assumptions of homogeneous adoption of emerging Information and communication technologies (ICTs) among “digital natives.” We describe the concepts of digital fluency and capital enhancing activity to explore how and why millennials invest their time in using ICTs. Digital fluency reflects the knowledge, skills, and cognitive capabilities needed to maximize the use of ICTs, whereas capital enhancing activities increase human capital in such a way to offer individuals more opportunities for upward mobility. Employing theories from second language learning, economics, and communication studies we describe the antecedent and composite elements of digital fluency, and its role in motivating capital enhancing use of tech...

Modern software development depends on tools and techniques to represent implied information processing logic to the human engineer, relying chiefly on effortful human reasoning to best determine critical properties of the software system. Current conceptualization, visualization and contextualization of software in development amounts to a significant under-utilization of already limited development resources directed to optimization, prevention, and addressing fundamental security properties of the software system. As a step toward increasing such utilization as a basis for a global ecosystem of secure software, this work explores and evaluates an alternative representation of software source code for the sake of secure development, manifesting universal, critical properties of the system to enhance control of security factors while the bulk of the properties of the system are being determined and the costly skills of the developer are directed to the many aspects of the task.

E-commerce researchers and managers have known for some time that Long-Tail effects on pricing and product purchase are an important way in which internet retail differs from traditional "brick & mortar" businesses. These Long Tail effects are often directly attributed to lower search costs. Using a transaction-level model we provide important evidence that the principal impact of a reduction in search costs is that it changes which types of consumers are likely to buy niche products. Using consumer purchase information from over 4,000 households and over 17,000 purchases, from a single product category in 2004, we directly test the impact of search costs. We compare the product dispersion of purchases within broadband serviced homes to those in dial-up serviced homes. Our research shows that the conventional view that search costs directly impact consumer propensity to purchase a niche good is wrong, rather search costs act primarily as a moderating factor altering the impact of classic consumer purchase factors. This study is the first to both directly test search costs in online product dispersion, while at the same time isolating the impacts of other factors so as to remove confounding effects.

This paper explores various research concerning Internet voting, which is an ever growing, trending topic with many states already having incorporated it into their election processes. While focusing on the implications of Internet voting on business as it relates to governmental policy, we will also discuss how it has evolved over time.