SIS Research Area - Information Systems & Management (IS&M)

The Design of Information Systems, Processes and Services
The Information and Information-Intensive Processes

Central Concerns and Questions
Information is of value to decision-makers, strategic planners, and anyone who has responsibility for coordinating different tasks in business processes. IT has had a major impact to boost the quantity and quality of information that is available in business operations and for consumer decision-making. IT also changes the way that people search and process information. In the past, data that are now easily accessible were either completely unavailable or too costly to obtain. We seek to understand the impact of IT in transforming the ways that people obtain and utilize information as individuals and consumers, and also at the organization and market levels. New sources of information, such as online reviews, comments regarding specific goods and recommender systems provide new settings to study customer behaviour. We are also interested in assessing the value perceptions of consumers related to various products that are sold online and offline, and the value they ascribe to the new tools they now are able to use to power their search, purchasing and communication activities.

Related Research
We have been conducting theory-based empirical studies to shed light on consumer purchase patterns, as a basis for assisting sellers to adapt and refine their marketing strategies. We also have studied the role of information asymmetries that exist between consumers and sellers, and have used it as a means to interpret consumer purchase behaviour for different kinds of products. Another empirical study that is representative of this research stream involves trying to understand the knowledge transfer process in a group of knowledge workers. This work has been helpful in permitting us to offer useful normative guidance about the staffing and decision-making processes that are appropriate to improve call center processes.
Data on real-world transactions are a valuable source of information for understanding human behaviour, process dynamics, and organizational performance. Another area of research in the information and information-intensive processes stream examines issues related to how Internet retailers make decisions about pricing their goods and services. We also have conducted an event study, which combines stock price information and media releases to establish the basis for market perceptions of the value of specific ITs. In other work, we conducted behavioural experiments of participants in group-buying auctions. The purpose was to examine how textual comments and the participant’s number of bids affected perceived trust in the group-buying auction initiator, and sentiments toward the financial risks associated with this kind of purchase transaction.

Online consumer transaction valuation model applied to online auctions.

Kauffman, R.J., and Wood, C. A. Doing Their Bidding: An Empirical Examination of Factors That Affect a Buyer’s Utility in Internet Auctions. Information Technology and Management, 7, 3, September 2006, 171-190.

Projects

Value of Information

Faculty involved: Youngsoo KIM

Selected Journal and Conference Publications

Kim. Y.S., Krishnan, R., and Vogt, W.B. On Product-Level Uncertainty and Online Purchase Behaviour: An Empirical Analysis. Presentation, 2007 Workshop on Information Systems and Economics, Montreal, Canada, December 2007 Kim, Y.S. Trajectory-Based Consumer Segmentation and Product Positioning in Online Markets. Working paper, School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University, 2010.

Online Purchase Behavior

Faculty involved: Robert KAUFFMAN, Youngsoo KIM, MA Dan , LI Yingjiu

Selected Journal and Conference Publications

Hu, N., Huang, J.H., Liu, L., Li Y.J. and Ma, D. Wake up or Fall Asleep? Value Implications of Trusted Computing. Information Technology and Management, 10, 4, 2009, 177-192. Kauffman, R.J., Lee, Y.J., Prosch, M., and Steinbart, P. A Survey of Information Privacy from the Accounting Information Systems Perspective. Journal of Information Systems, 24, 2, Fall 2011, in press. Kauffman, R.J., and Mohtadi, H. Information Sharing and Strategic Signaling in Supply Chains. Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering, 18, 2, 2009, 129-158. Kauffman, R.J., and Wood, C. A. Doing Their Bidding: An Empirical Examination of Factors That Affect a Buyer’s Utility in Internet Auctions. Information Technology and Management, 7, 3, September 2006, 171-190. Kim, Y.S., Krishnan, R., and Argote, L. The Learning Curve of Knowledge Workers in a Computing Call Center, INFORMS Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 2005.