The impact of relationship between IT staff and users on employee outcomes of IT users

Exploring the effects of social capital on the compulsive use of online social networks in civil unrest contexts

The use of online social networking sites has become part of everyday life for more than three billion people worldwide. However, its use may go beyond being a habit, leading to compulsive use behaviours that jeopardize the well-being of an individual and the whole society. This study proposes and evaluates a theoretical model that examines the four dimensions of social capital, mediated by bonding and bridging social capital, as drivers of compulsive use of online social networks in the context of civil unrest. We evaluate the model using partial least squares structural equation modelling with data collected from a developing country. We found that reciprocity is the most important driver for bonding and bridging social capital with online members. Whereas trust, contradicting most of the literature in the field, was not statistically significant over bonding and bridging social capital. Bonding social capital shows a significant association with compulsive use behaviour. On the other hand, the effect of bridging social capital on compulsive use behaviour, although not significant, may become significant in the presence of a strong usage habit.

Personality in information systems professions: identifying archetypal professions with suitable traits and candidates' ability to fake-good these traits

Purpose

The importance of information systems (IS) professions is increasing. As personality–job fit theory claims, employees must have suitable personality traits for particular IS professions. However, candidates can try to fake-good on personality tests towards the desired personality type. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify archetypal IS professions, their associated personality types and examine the reliability of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test in IS recruitment decisions.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors reviewed academic literature related to IS professions to identify job archetypes and personality traits for IS professions. Then, the authors conducted an experiment with 452 participants to investigate whether candidates can fake-good on personality tests when being tested for a particular IS profession.

Findings

The identified job archetypes were IS project manager, IS marketing specialist, IS consultant, IS security specialist, data scientist and business process analyst. The experimental results show that the participants were not able to fake-good considerably regarding their personality traits for a particular archetype.

Research limitations/implications

The taxonomy of IS professions should be validated further. The experiment was executed in an educational organisation and not in a real-life environment. Actual work performance was not measured.

Practical implications

This study enables a better identification of suitable candidates for a particular IS profession. Personality tests are good indicators of the candidate's true personality type but must be properly interpreted.

Originality/value

This study enhances the existing body of knowledge on IS professions' archetypes, proposes suitable MBTI personality types for each profession and provides experimental support for the appropriateness of using personality tests to identify potentially suitable candidates.

Beyond monetary motivation: the moderation of Hofstede's cultural dimensions

Purpose

This study explicitly examines how Hofstede's cultural dimensions moderate the relationship between nonmonetary motivation factors and performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Through the simple random sampling technique, the hypotheses were tested with a sample of 604 employees from a mobile telecommunication company operating in both China and Ghana, two countries that represent two same and opposite cultural poles on Hofstede's cultural dimensions.

Findings

The results point that employee motives such as relationship, supervision, challenging work and achievement are moderated by cultural values. Whilst employees with high power distance cultural values are highly motivated by high supervision, those with low individualistic cultural values are highly motivated by high relationship. The results also depict that whilst the interaction effects between supervision and power distance and relationship and individualism on performance were marginal for both China and Ghana samples, the interaction effect of achievement and masculinity as well as challenging work and uncertainty avoidance on performance had great differences due to the different cultural values for the two countries.

Practical implications

This study implies that, as organizations are devising strategies to lower personnel costs in a recessionary period, there is the need to redesign motivation factors that go beyond monetary means and based on the cultural background of an employee in order to improve performance.

Originality/value

This is one of the few studies that focused on nonmonetary motives from a cultural management perspective with samples from emerging economies.

Sustainable Approach in IT Project Management—Methodology Choice vs. Client Satisfaction

Major elaborations on sustainable development relating to the general economic sphere of various issue-related areas. Surprisingly little explicit guidance presenting this topic from the organizational side exists. To fill this gap, this paper attempts to propose and verify the concept of a sustainable approach to IT project management by involving the client at the stage of choosing the project management methodology. The research scope constitute IT projects, the subject of which was the development of software commissioned by the organization. The study aims to assess how the internal perspective of sustainability in IT projects, manifested in the matching of IT project management methodology to the client, affects the overall client’s satisfaction with the IT project, its products, and results. In the study, 64 IT projects implemented in Polish SME organizations were analyzed throughout their life cycle. The study has proved that introducing and improving the internal perspective of sustainability in IT projects, by matching an IT project management methodology to the client type is one of the key factors determining the level of client satisfaction and thus the assessment of the project’s success. The evaluation was made using the Servperv method by developing a measurement instrument dedicated to the IT project management area. Researches can use the proposed approach and the Servperv measuring tool to carry out similar analyses with different sample groups across other countries. The software industry can find results valuable and useful with regard to the IT project management improvement.

Investigating the role of leader-member exchange for goal commitment in system implementation

Purpose

Although Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) has been studied within the domain of organizational psychology, it has not received major attention from information systems literature and researchers. Drawing on LMX theory and the theory of reasoned interaction, this study investigates the roles of LMX, individual member's attitude toward system adoption, supervisor influence and goal commitment on mandatory system implementation. Specifically, our model investigates the moderating role of LMX and how it can be interpreted for an individual member's system adoption in an organization.

Design/methodology/approach

Partial least square (PLS) technique with the field survey of 148 participants was used for this analysis.

Findings

The empirical test results in the field setting show that attitude and supervisor influence positively affect goal commitment in the system implementation. Furthermore, LMX is a significant moderator between attitude and goal commitment within organizations, but this moderating effect is not valid in the relationship between supervisor influence and goal commitment since it is a more complex process influenced by variables other than supervisor influence.

Originality/value

The results showed that the model in this research has high explanatory and predictive power and is valuable in offering insights and guidance for implementers initiating technology-related changes within organizations.

Effects of enterprise social media usage on task performance through perceived task structure: the moderating role of perceived team diversity

Purpose

Organisations have widely adopted enterprise social media (ESM) to improve employees' task performance. This study aims to explore the mediating role of perceived task structure on the relationship between ESM usage and employee task performance. The authors investigate the moderating effects of perceived team diversity on the relationship between ESM usage and perceived task structure.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a questionnaire survey in China on 251 working professionals who use social media in their respective organisations.

Findings

Results showed that employees' perception of task structure considerably mediates the relationship between ESM usage and task performance. Findings also confirmed that perceived team diversity negatively affects the relationship between ESM usage and perceived task interdependence.

Research limitations/implications

Practitioners and/or managers should pay attention to the effect of ESM usage on employee's perceived task structure. Furthermore, they should focus on the level of team diversity when adopting ESM to enhance task performance.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the knowledge of perceived task structure in explaining the effect of ESM usage on task performance based on communication visibility theory. This work presents the relationship among ESM usage, perceived task structure, perceived team diversity and task performance. Moreover, this research enriches the literature on ESM usage by investigating the moderating roles of perceived team diversity whilst presenting the negative effects of perceived team diversity.

The influence of IT-competency dimensions on job satisfaction, knowledge sharing and performance across industries

Purpose

Technology makes knowledge management easier. Knowledge sharing is essential for organizational development. Job satisfaction fosters knowledge sharing. Hence, this study aims to develop an understanding of the mutual relationship between knowledge sharing and job satisfaction when both are predicted by information technology (IT)-competency dimensions such as IT-operations, IT-knowledge and IT-infrastructure in the context of company performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The results were achieved based on the examination of 910 Polish knowledge workers with different roles and experiences across various sectors. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling method.

Findings

The findings suggest that the company’s IT-competency drives job satisfaction and knowledge sharing more strongly for IT industry knowledge workers than for other industries. Also, a stronger mediation function of knowledge sharing and job satisfaction is observed for IT-operations when the IT industry is controlled.

Originality/value

The main value of the study is the empirical evidence that the influence of a particular IT-competency dimension varies for industries when it comes to job satisfaction and knowledge sharing processes.