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Dennis F. Galletta, University of Pittsburgh
The best, completed research papers from the Fourth Annual Workshop on HCI Research in MIS in 2005 were invited to submit journal length expansions of their workshop papers for consideration in a special theme of the Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS) on HCI in MIS. The following four papers successfully completed at least two rounds of rigorous review.
Causal Relationships between Perceived Enjoyment and Perceived Ease of
Use: An Alternative Approach, in Volume 7, Issue 9, Article 24, September
2006
Heshan Sun and Ping Zhang
Identifying causal relationships is an important aspect of scientific
inquiry. Causal relationships help us to infer, predict, and plan. This
research investigates the causal relationships between two constructs,
perceived enjoyment (PE) and perceived ease of use (PEOU), within the
nomological net of user technology acceptance. PE has been theorized and
empirically validated as either an antecedent or a consequence of PEOU. We
believe that there are two reasons that account for this ambiguity the
conceptual coupling of PE and PEOU and the limitations of covariance-based
statistical methods. Accordingly, we approach this inconsistency by
providing more theoretical reasoning and employing an alternative
statistical method, namely Cohen’s path analysis. Specifically, as suggested
by previous research on the difference between utilitarian and hedonic
systems, we propose the conditional dominance of causal directions.
Empirical results from two studies using different technologies and user
samples support the theoretical claim that the PEàPEOU
causal direction outweighs the PEOUàPE
direction for utilitarian systems. There are both theoretical and the
methodical contributions of this research. The approach applied in this
research can be generalized to study causal relationships between
conceptually coupled variables, which otherwise may be overlooked by
confirmatory methods. We encourage researchers to pay attention to causal
directions in addition to causal connectedness.
The Role of Design Characteristics in Shaping Perceptions of Similarity:
The Case of Online Shopping Assistants, in Volume 7, Issue 12, Article 34,
December 2006
Sameh Al-Natour, Izak Benbasat, and Ronald T. Cenfetelli
This research proposes that technological artifacts are perceived as social
actors, and that users can attribute personality and behavioral traits to
them. These formed perceptions interact with the user’s own characteristics
to construct an evaluation of the similarity between the user and the
technological artifact. Such perceptions of similarity are important because
individuals tend to more positively evaluate others, in this case
technological artifacts, to whom they are more similar. Using an automated
shopping assistant as one type of technological artifact, we investigate two
types of perceived similarity between the customer and the artifact:
perceived personality similarity and perceived behavioral similarity. We
then investigate how design characteristics drive a customer’s perceptions
of these similarities and, importantly, the bases for those design
characteristics. Decisional guidance and speech act theory provide the basis
for personality manifestation, while normative versus heuristic-based
decision rules provide the basis for behavioral manifestation. We apply
these design bases in an experiment. The results demonstrate that IT design
characteristics can be used to manifest desired personalities and behaviors
in a technological artifact. Moreover, these manifestations of personality
and behavior interact with the customer’s own personality and behaviors to
create matching perceptions of personality and behavioral similarity between
the customer and the artifact. This study emphasizes the need to consider
technological artifacts as social actors and describes the specific ways in
which technology design can manifest social attributes. In doing so, we show
that it is possible to match the social attributes of a technological
artifact with those of the user.
The Centrality of Awareness in the Formation of User Behavioral Intention
toward Protective Information Technologies, in Volume 8, Issue 7, Article
23, July 2007
Tamara Dinev and Qing Hu
While there is a rich body of literature on user acceptance of technologies
with positive outcomes, little is known about user behavior toward what we
call protective technologies: information technologies that protect data and
systems from disturbances such as viruses, unauthorized access, disruptions,
spyware, and others. In this paper, we present the results of a study of
user behavioral intention toward protective technologies based on the
framework of the theory of planned behavior. We find that awareness of the
threats posed by negative technologies is a strong predictor of user
behavioral intention toward the use of protective technologies. More
interestingly, in the presence of awareness, the influence of subjective
norm on individual behavioral intention is weaker among basic technology
users but stronger among advanced technology users. Furthermore, while our
results are consistent with many of the previously established relationships
in the context of positive technologies, we find that the determinants
perceived ease of use and computer self-efficacy are no longer significant
in the context of protective technologies. We believe that this result
highlights the most significant difference between positive technologies and
protective technologies: while the former are used for their designed
utilities, for which usefulness and ease of use have a significant impact,
the latter are used out of fear of negative consequences, for which
awareness becomes a key determinant. We discussed the theoretical and
practical implications of these findings. The findings of this study extend
the theory of planned behavior to the context of protective technologies and
shed insights on designing effective information security policies,
practices, and protective technologies for organizations and society.
Contribution to Quality of Life: A New Outcome Variable for Mobile Data
Service, in Volume 8, Issue 12, Article 36, December 2007
Hun Choi, Minkyung Lee, Kun Shin Im, and Jinwoo Kim
The rapid spread of technological innovations like mobile data services
(MDS) has made mobile computing a fact of everyday life for many people.
Therefore, we need to understand the contribution of mobile computing to
overall quality of life (QoL). Employing the satisfaction hierarchy model
and bottom-up spillover theory, this study proposes a theoretical model in
the context of MDS that connects user satisfaction (a traditional outcome
variable of IT) with contribution to QoL (a new outcome variable for mobile
computing) in a range of life domains. The validity of the proposed model
and outcome variable was tested through three empirical studies conducted in
Korea. User satisfaction with MDS was found to affect the contribution of
MDS to QoL in eleven life domains, and these contributions in turn
influenced the overall contribution of MDS to QoL. The paper ends with a
discussion of the study's implications and limitations.
SIGHCI would like to thank Dennis Galletta for his extensive effort and support in serving as a guest senior editor for this JAIS special theme. We would also like to thank editor-in-chief, Kalle Lyytinen, for his support of HCI research by providing this special theme in JAIS. We thank the following reviewers for their timely and insightful reviews: Dov Te’eni, Jonathan Palmer, Heshan Sun, Kar Yan Tam, Bernard Tan, Mun Yi, and Paul Lowry.