New research publication by Dr. Addas

Dr. Shamel Addas has a new research paper publication, which is entitled “Exploring the long shadow of IT innovation adoption decisions on IT value.” The paper is co-authored with Dr. Yasser Rahrovani and Dr. Alain Pinsonneault (both from McGill University). The paper has been published in Systèmes d’Information et Management. Below is an abstract of the paper. A link to the paper can be found here.

Abstract:

Much research has been conducted to understand the value of IT innovations. However, research has examined such value primarily at the ex post stage, independently of the ex ante conditions that lead to adopting such innovations. This paper argues that there is a long shadow cast by past adoption conditions and decisions over the present assessment of value. We develop a conceptual framework that ties IT innovation value to the original motives underlying the adoption. The main premise is that the initial conditions that exist at the adoption stage (ex ante) can be used to understand the emphasis that should be placed on the different types of realized IT innovation value (ex post). Specifically, we develop a typology of four motivational forms of adoption that result from combining two dimensions of environmental uncertainty. We then develop propositions that relate each form of adoption to different components of IT innovation value. This paper extends the extant IT value literature by providing an account of IT innovation value that is consistent with the original motives of adoption. It also provides one way to integrate between the IT adoption and IT value streams, which hitherto have been treated separately.

New research publication by Dr. Addas

Dr. Shamel Addas has a new research paper accepted for publication, which is entitled “The many faces of information technology interruptions: a taxonomy and preliminary investigation of their performance effects.” The paper is co-authored with Dr. Alain Pinsonneault (McGill University), and will appear in Information Systems Journal, a leading MIS journal. Here is an abstract of the paper. A link to the paper can be found here.

Abstract:

Despite the growing importance of information technology (IT) interruptions for individual work, very little is known about their nature and consequences. This paper develops a taxonomy that classifies interruptions based on the relevance and structure of their content, and propositions that relate different interruption types to individual performance. A qualitative approach combining the use of log diaries of professional workers and semi-structured interviews with product development workers provide a preliminary validation of the taxonomy and propositions and allow for the discovery of a continuum of interruption events that fall in-between the extreme types in the taxonomy. The results show that some IT interruptions have positive effects on individual performance, whilst others have negative effects, or both. The taxonomy developed in the paper allows for a better understanding of the nature of different types of IT interruption and their consequences on individual work. By showing that different types of interruptions have different effects, the paper helps to explain and shed light on the inconsistent results of past research.

IS class on latest trends in IT use (Paris)

This week IESEG professor Frank Goethals presented his book “20 trends in digital innovations” to IESEG’s Paris students. 20 trends were discussed, ranging from boundary breakdown (using enterprise social networks, RDP and crowdsourcing) and adding dimensions (including 3D and 4D printers, and 3D scanners) to adding senses (as with tactus technology) and action coordination (in which context we played an online version of the Beergame). Students are invited to post here feedback about the class.

More information about the book can be found here: http://www.digitalinnovationtrends.eu/. The book has recently been introduced on Amazon and can now be bought for the introduction price which is just below €8!

IS class on Latest trends in IT use

This week Prof. Frank Goethals presented his brand new book “20 Trends in Digital Innovations” in the class “Latest trends in IT use”. Many technologies, ranging from 3D and 4D printing to BCI (Brain-Computer-Interfaces) and  Skinput were presented. Students next investigated the latest trends in specific industries. More information about the book and the latest trends in digital innovations in specific industries can be found on the book companion website http://digitalinnovationtrends.eu/. The book can be ordered directly from Amazon.

New research publication by Dr. Addas

Dr. Shamel Addas has a new research paper accepted for publication, which is entitled “IT Capabilities and NPD Performance: Examining the Mediating Role of Team Knowledge Processes.” The paper is co-authored with Dr. Alain Pinsonneault (McGill University), and will appear in Knowledge Management Research & Practice (KMRP), a leading knowledge management journal. Here is an abstract of the paper. A link to the paper can be found here.

Abstract:

While there is abundant research that examines how information technology affects new product development performance, little is known about the mediating role of team knowledge processes. Drawing on IS and knowledge management literatures, this paper develops a model that conceptualizes team knowledge processes as distinct channels of influence and shows how they mediate the relationship between IT capabilities and NPD performance. The paper deepens our understanding of the nomological network that connects IT to NPD performance via the intermediate knowledge processes of knowledge sourcing and knowledge integration. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

IESEG research presented at ICIS and pre-ICIS workshops

The main Information Systems conference this year was held in Milan (Italy). Research papers of several IESEG researchers were accepted:
– Shamel Addas published a paper in the proceedings of the pre-ICIS SIGHCI workshop. This paper is about the effects of IT interruptions on software team coordination.
– Shamel Addas and Chris Conway presented their research-in-progress on the best ways to control the timing of IT interruptions, so as to reduce their negative effects on individual performance.
– Libo Li, Frank Goethals and Antonio Giangreco had a paper at the main conference about using social network data to predict information systems use.
– Frank Goethals presented his research-in-progress on the link between Business Model innovation, TRIZ trends and Information Systems innovations at the pre-ICIS itAIS conference.

IS class on SAP for Business Process Management

This week IESEG is for the first time running an elective on SAP: SAP for Business Process Management. Next week, we offer SAP for Supply Chain Management. The teacher for these classes is Prof. Dr. Elias Hadzilias, who seems to be doing a very good job. We hope the students are enjoying and learning a lot!

IS class on Latest trends in IT use

This week, Prof. Goethals is running his elective on the latest trends in IT use. Students will be introduced to the most recent IT developments (ranging from augmented reality and 3D printing to 3D scanning) and these developments will be analysed following the TRIZ approach. The course description can be found here.

IESEG IS research accepted at international ICEB conference

IESEG Researchers Libo Li and Prof. Dr. Frank Goethals received today the message their most recent research paper is accepted for presentation at the upcoming ICEB conference: International Conference on E-Business (Singapore, 1-4 december 2013): “In this paper we use a semi-supervised learning model to predict whether a person thinks buying a specific product online is appropriate. As input, information is used about the channels one deems appropriate to find product information or to find suppliers. Both online and offline channel preferences are found to be valuable to predict e-commerce adoption. The practical consequence of the work is that (binary) data about a user’s preferred channel for information retrieval can be helpful to estimate the probability the person is interested to buy a specific product online so that publicity for an online shop is only shown to people who actually believe buying that product online is appropriate. The predictive performance of our approach is considerably better than that reported in earlier research. Our results also show that semi-supervised learning has advantages in terms of predictive performance compared to supervised learning.”

IESEG IS research in top journal

IESEG professor Aurélie Leclercq just had a research paper accepted in a top journal: the European Journal of Information Systems. The research results, which are based on a case study of a French company, give a deeper understanding of the process by which technology and identity co-evolve in the IT assimilation process. The full paper will appear in one of the next issues of the journal. Congratulations to Prof. dr. Leclercq!

Presentation of the IS track

A short movie about the IS track at IESEG can be found here: 

Good quality of service and cheap = good???

Thanks to EU roaming rules, the costs of making and receiving phone calls abroad have been going down the last few years. Good news for the customers you could say. However, we also have to be aware of how telecom operators react to this kind of regulations in order to keep making profits. Several big phone companies are starting to sell customer data to other companies, including information about subscribers’ locations and web browsing habits. I am not sure all of us agree to exchange our privacy to get lower prices; but this is what is happening. Moreover, players in several industries are starting to offer their services for free (think e.g. about free education through MOOCs). The decision of a few people to make services available free of charge (e.g. I could post movies with my IT classes online for free), can have huge consequences on the jobs of thousands. (That is not to say that classes at IESEG should be regarded as being merely a means to transfer data! The small group interactive offline classes at IESEG still have many benefits of course, which are much harder (or impossible?) to digitize.) Services make up a huge part of our economy, but as we digitize them we can copy-paste them at almost zer0 marginal cost. Lower prices are interesting for consumers, but many consumers just might end up without salary/privacy/…  in the end and we might have to reinvent ourselves. We clearly live in interesting times and we should think about the long run for our short term decisions. Good quality of service and low prices in the short run may have negative consequences in the long run. However, short term thinking of an individual can have huge consequences.

SAP training for IESEG Master students

IESEG is currently negotiating with SAP to give IESEG Master students access to SAP’s ERP system. SAP has by far the biggest market share in the ERP market. The hands-on training on the SAP ERP system that will be provided by the IS track will make IESEG students even more valuable to companies. Classes will be developed during the summer, but they are very likely to deal with the following topics:

• SAP for Finance and Controlling
• SAP for Business Process Management
• SAP for Production Management, and
• SAP for Supply Chain Management

Are there jobs for which computers cannot replace humans ?

A student asks his IT professor ‘Why do we need to know about Moore’s law, it does not really matter that my Word, Excel and Facebook are working faster, does it’? (Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a chip will double approximately every two years.)

The student clearly did not see the huge consequences of Moore’s law, which can be observed at the edges of the computers’ capabilities. The last few years we have been witnessing impressive inventions, which show that computers can take over almost all jobs humans are currently doing. The book ‘Race Against the Machine’ (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011) mentions two skills that (in the past) seemed to be reserved for humans: pattern recognition and complex language processing. However, the Google driverless car shows complex pattern recognition can be done by computers and IBM’s Watson (the computer that won Jeopardy! from humans) shows complex language processing is not something that only humans can do. Moore’s law says that computers will be twice as powerful in two years’ time and 32 times as powerful in ten years’ time. We can only imagine what computers will be able to do then.

The question arises what jobs cannot be done by computers? The book of Brynjolfsson & McAfee tells us that jobs at the extremes of the skills-scale are likely to be safer. Low-skilled jobs like hairdressers, gardeners and plumbers will not be replaced by computers soon. Similarly, high-skilled jobs like doctors may still be safe for a while (although lawyers are already slowly getting replaced by computers). Medium skilled jobs will be taken over gradually by computers.  “Softer skills like leadership, team building, and creativity will be increasingly important. They are the areas least likely to be automated and most in demand in a dynamic, entrepreneurial economy. Conversely, college graduates who seek the traditional job, where someone else tells them what to do each day, will find themselves increasingly in competition with machines, which excel at following detailed instructions” (Brynjolfsson & McAfee 2011).  The advice of Brynjolfsson & McAfee is not to race against technology, but to find out how to best use technology so as to invent new business models, organizational structures and processes. Hence, it is important that more management students start to study technology in depth.

(Suggested reading: Brynjolfsson E., McAfee A. (2001) Race Against the Machine, 98 pages; only $5 at this moment for your Kindle ;-))

Master in Business Analytics is One of the Most Marketable Degrees

According to this article in Informationweek, obtaining a Master Degree with a focus on Business Analysis is one of the most successful degrees that maximize the return on your educational investment. The IS track at IESEG prepares students for a job as Business Analyst. Students learn important skills that allow them to understand the business and the technology, and act a liaison between the two. They analyze the business environment, spot business problems and identify IT opportunities that can strategically address such problems.

Visit of Alain Pinsonneault

Yesterday we had the honour to welcome Prof. Alain Pinsonneault from McGill University, who currently ranks as one of the best IS scholars in the world. He gave an interesting talk on Survey Design Strategies, attended by a group of Master students and permanent professors. He also presented his influential research on ‘Myths and Realities of Organizations and Information Technologies’.

• Prof. Dr. Alain Pinsonneault is the Imasco Chair of Information Systems and James McGill Professor in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. In 2010, Prof. Pinsonneault was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada. His current research interests include the organizational and individual impacts of information technology, electronic commerce, the strategic alignment of information technology, group support systems and the impact of IT in the health sector. He has published many papers in top-tiered journals including Management Science, Management Information Systems Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, the Journal of Management Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, and the European Journal of Operational Research, among others. He is a member of the editorial board of several journals, including MIS Quarterly, Organization Science, and Information Systems Research.

New Masters Elective Course on “Generating Business Value with IT” in the Lille Campus

From September 17-21, Professor Addas will be teaching a new elective course at the Masters level in the Lille campus. The course is entitled “Generating Business Value with IT”. The course is non-technical in nature and it aims at better enabling managers and future managers to understand the impacts of IT in their companies, and to manage IT in ways that generate business value. The course uses the case study method as the main learning tool. Using this method, students will learn to make decisions about managing IT in their organizations under difficult conditions such as time pressures, uncertainty, and ambiguous information.

The course consists of 2 modules: (1) IT value creation and (2) IT management. In the first module, we discuss topics relating to the strategic role of IT, IT strategic alignment, and the business value of IT. In the second module, we cover IT-based planning and business models, IT project management, outsourcing IT services, IT implementation, and IT innovation management. The course is concluded via a discussion of new IT challenges and the issue of cloud computing.

IS class on e-business in Paris

Starting tomorrow, Prof. Goethals will be teaching his class on e-business at the Paris campus. Many technologies will be presented, ranging from prediction markets and big data to m-commerce and augmented reality. It is shown how these technologies can be used to transform seven dimensions of interaction with the client. Optimizations at inter-organisational level are also studied. Students will really take part in a prediction market (inklingmarkets). They will be communicating via Yammer (an online enterprise social network) and sharing documents via Dropbox and Google docs.

IS class on e-business in Lille

Starting tomorrow, Prof. Goethals will be teaching his class on e-business at the Lille campus. Many technologies will be presented, ranging from prediction markets and big data to m-commerce and augmented reality. It is shown how these technologies can be used to transform seven dimensions of interaction with the client. Optimizations at inter-organisational level are also studied. Students will really take part in a prediction market (inklingmarkets). They will be communicating via Yammer (an online enterprise social network) and sharing documents via Dropbox and Google docs.

PhD Position for Social Network Analysis

The IS track of IESEG School of Management is offering a PhD student position in the domain of Social Network Analysis. The PhD student is supposed to finish the PhD program in maximum four years, during which (s)he will be funded. While the student will be based at IESEG’s Lille campus, (s)he will follow the PhD program of the KULeuven in Belgium under the guidance of Prof. Bart Baesens, who is an authority in data mining. At IESEG the student will work closely together with Prof. Goethals who has been investigating social network effects.

Prerequisites for a successful application are an MSc in Computer Science, Business Informatics, Mathematics or related fields and an excellent record of study. The student should be interested in computer programming. Students from any country may apply.

Applications are solicited starting immediately until the position is filled. Interested people can e-mail Prof. Goethals for more information (f.goethals at ieseg dot fr). Please include a cv immediately.