The adaptation process for new technology is not yet well understood. This study analyzes how an inter-organizational virtual team, tasked with creating a highly innovative product over a 10 month period, adapted the use of a collaborative technology and successfully achieved its challenging objectives. The study of such a virtual team is especially useful for extending our understanding of the adaptation process as virtual teamshavemoremalleable structures than typical organizational units and controlled group experiments. Data were obtained from observations of weekly virtual meetings, electronic log files, interviews, and weekly questionnaires administered to team members. We found that the team initially experienced significant misalignments among the pre-existing organizational environment, group, and technology structures. To resolve these misalignments, the team modified the organizational environment and group structures, leaving the technology structure intact. However, as the team proceeded, a series of events unfolded that caused the team to reevaluate and further modify its structures. This final set of modifications involved reverting back to the pre-existing organizational environment, while new technology and group structures emerged as different from both the pre-existing and the initial ones. A new model of the adaptation process---one that integrates these findings and those of several previous models---is proposed.

The debate between 'hard ' positivist and 'soft ' interpretivist research approaches has been the subject of much discussion in the IS field. Typically, the debate is framed in issues central to the philosophy of science, an area where relatively few IS researchers are truly competent. This paper attempts to illuminate the issue, particularly for students and researchers not entirely familiar with the arguments. The opposing positions are caricatured in two anecdotes which illustrate the futility of research conducted at the cul de sac extremes of each approach. The main dichotomies characteristic of each research tradition are then summarised, and categorised according to various levels, namely, paradigmatic, ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiological. Finally, the paper considers a number of strategies

This paper examines the change in expectation among a group of small Australian firms who participate in Small Business Internet Commerce (SBIC) over a twenty-month period. Essentially, we found that small firms online believed the Internet is important in terms of competitiveness, although some of the early expectations about SBIC's ability to generate instant competitive advantage had started to wane. The most useful attributes of the Internet were information gathering and time-savings, while results on advertising and sales were less encouraging. Internet marketing effectiveness was found to be industry-sector- dependent. 2. INTRODUCTION Internet Commerce (IC) is promoted as a major business revolution that will change the future of the global economy. There has been a concomitant upsurge of research studies into different aspects of Internet Commerce (see, for example, Galliers et al., 1997; Vogel, et al., 1997). However, few of these projects have focused on the small business ...

The debate between ‘hard ’ and ‘soft ’ research approaches continues in the IS field, but with little prospect of resolution. The debate is typically characterised by tendentious arguments as advocates from each approach offer a somewhat one-sided condemnation of the counterpart from the inimical research tradition. This paper begins by relating two fictitious tales which serve to highlight the futility of research conducted at the extremity of each research approach. The dichotomies which characterise these rival factions are also summarised. The debate is then framed in terms of the polarisation problem whereby IS researchers are divided geographically and paradigmatically into ‘hard ’ and ‘soft ’ camps. A variety of different strategies have been proposed for resolving the debate and these are discussed in detail. They are grouped into four categories, referred to as supremacism, isolationism, integration, and pluralism. Finally, the paper contends that the debate cannot be resolved, and offers the metaphor of magnetic polarity as a means of reflecting this. The paper concludes by arguing that it would be more appropriate to recast the debate at a macro level in order to accommodate different research agenda and recognise the strengths within each tradition.

How should a graduate research student present a thesis? This paper provides a structure as a starting point for understanding what a thesis should set out to achieve, and also provides a basis for communication between a student and his or her supervisor. Firstly, Criteria for judging a thesis are reviewed and justification for its structure is provided. Then writing style is considered. Finally, each of the five sections are described in some detail: introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis of data, and conclusions and implications.

The online music and news markets have changed significantly and fundamentally over the past few years, as more and more new players – many of them originally from other sectors – enter the market space of the original media companies. While online news venues have been available for quite some time, the major tragedies and news events of the past few years have highlighted their ability to provide immediate, constantly-updated information (Emmer et al., 2002). In this paper we describe the current state of play in the online news industry in ten European countries, as at May 2003. The findings are based on the first two phases of a three-phase, European-Commission-funded market survey. In the paper we consider in greater detail the Internet business models of these companies. After initially introducing some of the literature in this field and discussing the justification for our chosen research approach, we describe our research design. We then report the findings from the first two phases of the project – the “Expert talks ” and our web-based survey of the online news industry. Finally we identify the key driving factors for online news today: the new competitive environment, the appropriate payment systems, the focus on core competences, end devices and the consumers.

This paper explores relationships between interpretivist and positivist information systems research. The philosophical bases of these research methodologies are used to evaluate suggested pluralistic research designs. Three calls for methodological pluralism are shown to be unsoundly based as they appear not to have considered the implications of adopting the basic assumptions upon which their epistemologies rest. Interpretivist and positivist research designs are complementary in that, together, they allow researchers to learn more of a phenomenon than is possible by adopting a singular view of the world.

Aircraft maintenance is often considered a typical application for specialized wearable computer systems, designed and used for a specific purpose only. From the findings of an interpretive case study conducted at Scandinavian Airlines Systems, the largest commercial airline in Scandinavia, there is evidence to question the potential usefulness of such a system.

Small business Internet usage has gained much popularity among researchers in Information Systems and Entrepreneurship over recent years --- with many undertaking surveys of small businesses or Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The newness and dynamic nature of this area, however, means that multiple research methods are needed to obtain an in-depth understanding of the key issues. In this paper, we demonstrate that by combining survey techniques with case study research, we can shed light on issues such as: organisational characteristics with which Internet adoption is associated and directions for change; the true reasons behind the claim of "improved competitive advantage". These findings provide a foundation for a robust research framework of small business Internet use, although further refinement is still required before the framework can be completed. 1 This paper was published in the proceedings of "Bled'97 - 10th International Conference on Electronic Commerce, Bled,...

The visualization of business processes in the form of process models has increased in popularity and importance. The resultant prevalence and magnitude of process modeling projects demand appropriate means of evaluating such initiatives. This paper presents a validated measurement model and instrument for assessing process modeling success. The final validated model employs 15 measures within the three dimensions:- Model Quality, Process Impacts, and Project Efficiency. The model was empirically tested with 290 responses to a global survey of process modelers. The overall study design consists of an exploratory model building phase (extensive literature review and multiple case studies) to identify salient success dimensions and measures, which was followed by an exploratory model testing phase. Test results evidence the discriminant validity of the model dimensions as well as their convergence on the single higher-order concept:-Process modeling success (PM-Success). Criterion validity testing further evidences the additivity of the three dimensions of success, and the completeness of the resultant overarching secondorder measure of PM-Success. The contributions from this work are twofold. From the perspective of practice, it offers a validated success model and measurement instrument that can be employed by organizations to