Communicated by S. Wiedenbeck Along with increasing investments in new technologies, user technology acceptance becomes a frequently studied topic in the information systems discipline. The last two decades have seen user acceptance models being proposed, tested, refined, extended and unified. These models have contributed to our understanding of user technology acceptance factors and their relationships. Yet they have also presented two limitations: the relatively low explanatory power and inconsistent influences of the factors across studies. Several researchers have recently started to examine the potential moderating effects that may overcome these limitations. However, studies in this direction are far from being conclusive. This study attempts to provide a systematic analysis of the explanatory and situational limitations of existing technology acceptance studies. Ten moderating factors are identified and categorized into three groups: organizational factors, technological factors and individual factors. An integrative model is subsequently established, followed by corresponding propositions pertaining to the moderating factors.

This research examines the impact of primitive affective reactions to information technology on subsequent cognitive reactions and behavioral intention on IT use, and the potential change of such impact over time. We ground our work in theories of psychology and information systems and propose a theoretical model in which the user’s perceptions regarding the affective quality of an IT influences cognitive reactions and behavioral intention to use IT. The model was validated by surveys in two field studies of 226 and 196 college students, respectively, who were asked to evaluate a course management system, WebCT. The first study occurred during weeks 3 and 4 of the spring 2004 semester, when subjects were getting familiar with WebCT for their classes. The second study ran during weeks 11 and 12 of the same semester, when WebCT had been used quite intensively in the classes. The theoretical model is supported by both studies, indicating that the impact of perceived affective quality persists, even when subjects ’ familiarity with and use of the IT increases. Our research identifies perceived affective quality as another, more-fundamental, and sustained source of user intention of IT use that has not been widely recognized yet. From a theoretical perspective, this research breaks the conventional cognition-driven paradigm of studying user reactions to technology and calls for attention to affect and emotion in examining people’s everyday, normal interactions with IT. Practically, the research provides empirical evidence for IT designers, trainers, and stakeholders to better strategize their resources and emphases.

We introduce the information flaneur as a new human-centred view on information seeking that is grounded in interdisciplinary research. We use the metaphor of the urban flaneur making sense of a city as an inspiring lens that brings together diverse perspectives. These perspectives shift information seeking towards a more optimistic outlook: the information flaneur represents curious, creative, and critical information seeking. The resulting information-seeking model conceptualizes the interrelated nature between information activities and experiences as a continuum between horizontal exploration and vertical immersion. Motivated by enabling technological trends and inspired by the information flaneur, we present explorability as a new guiding principle for design and raise research challenges regarding the representation of information abstractions and details.

Human Computer Interaction(HCI) or Human Factors studies in MIS are concerned with the ways humans interact with information, technologies, and tasks, especially in business, managerial, organizational, and cultural contexts. This article describes the existence and importance of HCI research in the MIS discipline, its historical development, some of its characteristics, publication opportunities, and future research directions. It is believed that HCI is the subject of a strong research stream in MIS, and will continue to be strong in the foreseeable future. It is hoped that HCI studies can provide the evolution of the human centered technology development that enhances our work/job, our various needs, our organizations, our societies, and ourselves.

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Computer skills are key to organizational performance, and past research indicates that behavior modeling is a highly effective form of computer skill training.The present research develops and tests a new theoretical model of the underlying observational learning processes by which modeling-based training interventions influence computer task performance.Observational learning processes are represented as a second-order construct with four dimensions (attention, retention, production, and motivation).New measures for these dimensions were developed and shown to have strong psychometric properties.The proposed model controls for two pretraining individual differences (motivation to learn and self-efficacy) and specifies the relationships among three training outcomes (declarative knowledge, post-training self-efficacy, and task performance).The model was tested using PLS on data from an experiment (N = 95) on computer spreadsheet training.As hypothesized, observational learning processes significantly influenced training outcomes. A representative modeling-based training intervention (retention enhancement) significantly improved task performance through its specific effects on the retention processes dimension of observational learning.The new model provides a more complete theoretical account of the mechanisms by which modeling-based interventions affect training outcomes, which should enable future research to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of a wide range of modeling-based training interventions.Further, the new instruments can be used by practitioners to refine ongoing training programs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The authors would like to thank Vivek Choudhury, Huigang Liang, Alexander Lopez, Nigel Melville, Waleed Muhanna, and Sandra Robinson for their valuable feedback on this manuscript. The paper has benefited from presentations at Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati. Both authors have equally contributed to this manuscript. Psychological Contract Violation in Online Marketplaces: Antecedents, Consequences, and Moderating Role This study examines the nature and role of psychological contract violation (PCV) in online marketplaces, a critical factor that has been largely overlooked by previous research. Applied to buyer-seller relationships, PCV is defined as a buyer’s perception of having being treated wrongly regarding the terms of an exchange agreement with an individual seller. PCV with individual sellers is proposed as a formative first-order construct driven by the occurrence of fraud, product misrepresentation, contract default, delivery delay, and failure to follow product guarantees and payment policies. PCV with an individual seller is proposed to prompt a generalized perception of PCV with the entire community of sellers in a marketplace. PCV with the community of sellers is hypothesized to negatively affect buyer transaction behavior in a marketplace by directly impacting transaction intentions, price premiums, trust, perceived risk, and the

As the Web becomes a part of peoples ’ everyday lives, there is a growing need to understand user behaviour on the Web. Recently, the flow construct has been proposed as important for understanding the nature of user online experience. Researchers assert that the benefits of flow online include increased learning, exploratory and positive behavior, positive subjective experience, and perceived sense of control over their interaction. Overall, flow could affect outcomes such as navigation patterns and repeat visits on commercial Web sites. Although widely studied over the past years, a review of the literature indicates discrepancies among various flow models and some unclear conceptualization and operationalization of the construct. This paper examined flow according to two specific conceptualizations with respect to its measurement, and tests each conceptualization in an identical nomological network. The results indicate that there is better fit of a reflective flow model compared with a formative flow model to the study data. The results of the study may aid in the understanding of the relationships between the higher order flow construct and its first order dimensions, which may help inform system designers to better assess flow and, thus, be more conducive to flow. Keywords: Computer-Mediated Environment, Flow, Multidimensionality, Web 1.

Observations collected during evaluation studies conducted on three web sites are reported in this paper. The sites have different target groups and represent different types of entertainment web sites. Every web site was tested with a group of approximately 20 subjects. The intention was to test these groups in different ways according to different usability evaluation techniques. The study focused on comparison of the following conditions: (1) Subjects working individually vs. in pairs, (2) Levels of structure in sessions, traditional tasks vs. ‘free surf ’ vs. combined task analysis and ‘free surf ’ (3) Testing children vs. testing adults. (4) Written vs. oral answers to questions concerning entertainment. The whole set was tested on the three sites in a number of ways. This to gain knowledge in order to give implications for testing different types of sites. The result show upon how different conditions in tests could be set in order to give fruitful guidance in finding usability issues connected to entertainment.

During the last decade, Information Technology (IT) has been the primary force driving the transformation of roles in the education industry. More specifically, the World Wide Web (WWW) and associated technologies provided a new playground with new rules and tools to conduct instruction and create novel approaches to learning. We have seen the application of IT in education in the form of CD-ROMs. With the evolution of the WWW we saw education marketed as long distance learning, web based learner centered environments, internet based learning environments, and self instructed learning. With all the different models used on the web, few have studied their acceptance and their effectiveness on learning. Many educational institutions today have embarked in the development of web based courses. However, they face enormous difficulty in achieving successful strategies including the delivery, effectiveness, and acceptance of the courses. This is mainly due to the fact that the problem of developing a successful web based course involves multiple inter-related dimensions ranging from technology related issues to pedagogical considerations. Davis (1989) proposed a Technology Assessment Model (TAM) to explain user acceptance of technology. The TAM identifies ‘perceived usefulness ’ and ‘perceived ease-of-use ’ as the antecedents to ‘behavioral intentions ’ to use a technology. Extensive attention in previous TAM research dealt with business