Research and Publications

Information Systems faculty are not only accomplished educators, but they are recognized experts in their field. Their research covers topics in the areas of electronic commerce, technology supported collaboration, IT governance, IS pedagogy, and other areas of IS. The faculty in this area regularly publish in academic journals as well as collaborate with students in areas of undergraduate research.

Recent publications include:

Mitchell, A. & Vaughan, A. (2022). Implementing team-based learning: Findings from a database class. Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, 21, pp. 1-23. 

The complexity of today’s organizational databases highlights the importance of hard technical skills as well as soft skills including teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. Therefore, when teaching students about databases it follows that using a team approach would be useful. In this study, a team-based learning strategy is implemented in an undergraduate Database Management course over the course of two semesters. Students were assessed both individually and in teams in order to see if students were able to effectively learn and apply course concepts on their own and in collaboration with their team. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected and analyzed in order to determine if the team approach improved learning effectiveness and allowed for soft skills development. The results from this study are compared to previous semesters when team-based learning was not adopted. Additionally, student perceptions and feedback are captured.

Huang, Y. H., Larson, E., Shaw, M., & Subramanyam, R. (2021). Constructing information technology (IT) portfolios to achieve enterprise strategic goals in multi-business unit firms. Information & Management, 58(8). 

This study aims to develop a new methodology in IT Portfolio Management (ITPM) to address the impact of portfolio priorities on IT strategies in a multi-business unit firm. The methodology includes a new ITPM model and uses simulated scenarios to overcome limitations due to insufficient real-world organizational IT portfolio data. The weight scores generated by the proposed ITPM model can enable the firm to create a rational viewpoint to improve its IT investment efficiency while establishing IT priorities to achieve enterprise strategic goals. Such an approach would enable firms to reduce their reliance on CIO intuition in guiding firms’ technology portfolios.

Mitchell, A. & Brewer, P. (2021). Leading hybrid teams: Strategies for realizing the best of both worlds. Organizational Dynamics. 

This paper provides a foundational understanding of virtualness and hybrid teamwork as well as opportunities and challenges that can occur with hybrid teamwork. Strategies for the effective leadership of hybrid team members are provided including a quick start guide with actionable suggestions for leaders of hybrid teams. 

Mitchell, A. (2021). Collaboration technology affordances in the time of COVID-19 and post pandemic strategies. Information Technology & People. 

This paper aims to explore key collaboration technology affordances from virtual collaboration and remote work during the time of COVID-19. The purpose of this exploration is to improve the understanding of technology-supported collaboration in order to achieve individual and organizational success with the adoption, use and implementation of virtual collaboration in a pandemic and post-pandemic world.

Huang, Y.H., Connolly, D., Zheng, T., & Tu, Y.J. (2021). Developing a Framework for Hotel IT Investment Decision-Making Amid COVID-19. In: Garimella, A., Karhade, P., Kathuria, A., Liu, X., Xu, J., & Zhao, K. (eds) The Role of e-Business during the Time of Grand Challenges. WeB 2020. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 418. Springer, Cham. 

Travel fears and restrictions, imposed capacity limitations, and the inability to hold events and large group gatherings have stifled hotel demand and caused devastating revenue losses for the hotel industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial losses will undoubtedly affect hotel firms’ information technology (IT) investments in the long run. This paper aims to develop a framework to assist hotel executives in capturing more insights regarding the relationship between input resources and desired outputs throughout the production process. Accordingly, hotel executives will be able to evaluate and make appropriate IT investment decisions to strategically and effectively allocate scare financial resources in order to improve firm performance.

Kolotylo-Kulkarni, M., Xia, W., & Dhillon, G.  (2021). Information disclosure in e-commerce: A systematic review and agenda for future research. Journal of Business Research, 126, 221-238.

Consumers disclose their private information to merchants when shopping online or responding to marketing campaigns despite their privacy concerns. Such disclosure is invaluable for business; thus, it is crucial to understand why, how, and with what outcomes consumers decide to share their information. However, extant evidence on this topic remains fragmented and inconclusive. This study aims to establish how information disclosure in e-commerce has been defined, consolidate and systematize extant evidence on it, review conceptual foundations and methodologies, and provide recommendations for further research. Therefore, we conduct a review of studies on disclosure in e-commerce and provide a synopsis of its dimensions, antecedents, and consequences. Our analysis reveals insights on how disclosure is studied and the elements that play a role in it. To help set directions for future research, we present an integrated theoretical model and a set of propositions regarding consumers’ disclosure in e-commerce.

Sharp, J., Mitchell, A., & Lang, G.  (2020). Agile teaching and learning in information systems education: An analysis and categorization of literature. Journal of Information Systems Education, 31(4), 269-281.

In this paper, we analyze and categorize research related to Agile teaching and learning in Information Systems education using an existing conceptual framework. To this end, a systematic literature review beginning with 642 papers led to the identification of 30 relevant papers written in English and published through 2018 in academic IS outlets. Our analysis reveals three ways in which Information Systems educators incorporate Agile into their courses: 1) using Agile as a pedagogical approach to teach non-Agile content, 2) using Agile as a pedagogical approach to teach Agile content, and 3) using non-Agile pedagogical approaches to teach Agile content. The majority of relevant papers were published between 2016 and 2018. We present an analysis of the three instructional approaches to serve as a resource for interested individuals and recommend directions for future studies related to Agile teaching and learning in IS education.

Tu, Y. J. T., Huang, Y. H. J., Strader, T. J., Subramanyam, R. R., & Shaw, M. J.  (2019). Candidate diversity and granularity in IT portfolio construction. Information Technology and Management, online, 1-12.

The construction of a superior IT portfolio remains an open research question in prior literature. For addressing this gap, we investigate two unique characteristics of IT investment projects that may make it more or less likely to construct a superior IT portfolio in this study. We are mainly grounded on the modern portfolio theory to develop propositions regarding the relationships among such characteristics and their impacts on IT portfolio construction performance. Our methodology combines optimization modeling, real-world data, numerical simulation (Monte Carlo), and computational experiment. One main finding shows that, for any set of candidate IT investment projects, their attribute diversity and investment granularity could jointly influence the resultant IT portfolio construction performance. Even when a very tight budget is provided, a set of candidate IT investment projects with higher diversity and granularity would still generate a superior IT portfolio. In other words, the diversity and granularity of IT portfolio construction candidates can positively affect portfolio performance, although budget limits can impose a negative impact on the performance.

Mitchell, A. and Zheng, L. (2019). Examining longhand vs. laptop debate: A replication study. AIS Transactions on Replication, 5(9).

There is a considerable controversy regarding laptop usage in the classroom, with some studies arguing the benefits of laptops in the classroom and others suggesting that a laptop free environment is superior. In an effort to address this controversy, Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) conducted three different experiments to determine whether typing notes on a laptop or handwriting notes in a notebook impacted academic performance. This research replicated the first of these experiments in a classroom environment as opposed to a lab environment. The original study found that students who did not use laptops for note-taking in class performed better on conceptual application questions, while our study found that students who do not use laptops for note-taking in class performed better on factual recall questions instead. Our updated findings suggest there is more work to do to understand the longhand versus laptop debate.

Huang, Y. H. J., Tu, Y. J. T., Strader, T. J., Shaw, M. J., & Subramanyam, R. R. (2019). Selecting the most desirable IT portfolio under various risk tolerance levels. Information Resources Management Journal (IRMJ), 32(4), 1-19.

To better assist decision-makers (e.g., enterprise executives) in selecting the most desirable IT portfolio, this study proposes a new IT Portfolio Efficient Frontier model that incorporates the decision-maker’s risk tolerance levels. The proposed model, built on portfolio optimization along with experimental design and simulation data, considers three IT portfolio scenarios: even distribution-based IT portfolios, uneven distribution-based IT portfolios, and dominant IT portfolios. Our findings show that the IT portfolio efficient frontiers derived from both an even distribution-based IT portfolio and an uneven distribution-based IT portfolio have a relatively positive relationship between IT portfolio risk and return. Our findings also indicate that if IT investments are part of a dominant IT portfolio, an inflection point of the IT portfolio efficient frontier appears under the decision-maker’s medium risk tolerance level, and the most desirable IT portfolio is generated when a decision maker’s risk tolerance level is medium or higher.

Mitchell, A. (2018). Small business website development: Enhancing the student experience through community-based service learning. Journal of the Midwest Association for Information Systems, 2(4), 33-45.

Small-scale retail and service businesses often do not have the knowledge, skills, time or money to develop an online web presence. These small businesses recognize that in order to be competitive they need to use technology and have an online presence in order to attract customers. At the same time, research suggests that students can benefit from projects that provide real world experience. Community-based, experiential service learning offers a way for students to work on realistic and valuable projects while benefitting small-scale retail and service business owners. Therefore, this research uses experiential service learning as a way to meet the web development needs of small businesses while providing students with a real-world educational experience. This study presents the findings in terms of impact and lessons learned from a student partnership with small-scale businesses from a small community for experiential service-learning website development.

Mitchell, A., Petter, S., & Harris, A. (2017). Learning by doing: Twenty successful active learning exercises for information systems courses. Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, 16, 21-46.

This paper provides a review of previously published work related to active learning in information systems (IS) courses. There are a rising number of strategies in higher education that offer promise in regards to getting students’ attention and helping them learn, such as flipped classrooms and offering courses online. These learning strategies are part of the pedagogical technique known as active learning. Active learning is a strategy that became popular in the early 1990s and has proven itself as a valid tool for helping students to be engaged with learning. This work follows a systematic method for identifying and coding previous research based on an aspect of interest. The authors identified and assessed research through a search of ABI/Inform scholarly journal abstracts and keywords, as well as additional research databases, using the search terms “active learning” and “information systems” from 2000 through June 2016. This synthesis of active learning exercises provides guidance for information technology faculty looking to implement active learning strategies in their classroom by demonstrating how IS faculty might begin to introduce more active learning techniques in their teaching as well as by presenting a sample teaching agenda for a class that uses a mix of active and passive learning techniques to engage student learning.

Strader, T. (2017). Identifying effective online service strategies: The impact of network externalities and organizational lifecycle stage. Journal of International Technology and Information Management, 26(3), 1-19.

This study presents a framework for identifying effective online transaction-based service strategies that incorporates network externalities and organizational life cycle theories. The framework considers changes in marginal costs, marginal revenues, and service value as the company moves through its initial three life cycle stages (start-up, growth, and maturity). Propositions describe potentially effective strategies for service sites in each lifecycle stage. Each of the propositions is supported by real-world strategy examples and research related findings from three industries – online auctions, online career services and online travel services. Start-up strategies must focus on increasing the number of service users, growth companies need to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and large mature service providers can take advantage of their financial resources and service value by raising entry barriers to maintain their dominant position. This study provides a multi-theory perspective that can be used as a basis for further study of strategies used in these industries.