This study investigates how digital platforms can drive the digital transformation of participant firms in their surrounding business ecosystems. To do so, we conduct an in-depth case study of Alibaba’ cross-border e-commerce platform and eleven seller firms operating on the platform. Our results highlight the importance of proper empowerment in platform-driven digital transformation. In particular, we observe that Alibaba attempts to facilitate the digital transformation of seller firms through three types of activities: resource empowerment, psychological empowerment, and structural empowerment. Moreover, we find that the sequence of these empowerment activities plays a critical role. Without being psychologically empowered first, seller firms react quite passively to Alibaba’s resource provision and structural support. Psychological empowerment provides the activation triggers for the sellers to renew their mindsets and become receptive to Alibaba’s support and guidance, which ultimately contribute to the digital transformation of their businesses.

This study investigates how one personality trait of CIOs and CEOs, i.e., their empathy, affects CIOCEO relationships and then the outcomes of firms’ ongoing digital transformation. We hypothesize that the cognitive and emotional empathy of CIOs and CEOs can establish mutual understanding and trust, which in turn improve digital transformation. We empirically validate these hypotheses based on a survey of 105 pairs of matched CIOs and CEOs. The findings reveal asymmetric effects: CIOs’ empathy improves CIOCEO relationships and then digital transformation, but CEOs’ empathy does not show significant effects. We then discuss our findings and implications to theory and practice.

In the U.S., multihospital systems (MHSs) charge significantly higher prices for hospital services than stand-alone hospitals. Rivalry restraint theory suggests that MHS with multimarket contact (MMC) can tacitly collude and mutually forebear from price competition to keep their prices above competitive levels. We posit that the success of such MMC-induced rivalry restraints (the truce) is affected by two conflicting roles of IT at the corporate level and market unit levels, respectively. The corporate parent seeks to standardize IT applications enterprise-wide to coordinate market units as a means of jointly implementing the rivalry restraint strategy and keeping prices high enterprise-wide. However, market units, i.e., the member hospitals of MHS clustered in geographic patient markets, face competitive pressures to reduce their service costs. Market units seek to use differentiated IT applications to achieve cost reductions, which then fuel price competition in local markets, jeopardize the sustainability of the truce, and weaken the enterprise-wide price effects of the corporate parent’s rivalry restraint strategy. In a longitudinal study of 195 multihospital systems in the U.S. in the 2005-2013 time period, we found support for these ideas. The corporate-wide standardization of the operational IT of MHS complements the rivalry restraint strategy to increase enterprise-wide prices. Market units’ use of differentiated analytical IT reduces costs in local markets and weakens the price effects of the rivalry restraint strategy. The study advances IS research and practice by theorizing how the corporate-level and the market unit-level IT of a multi-unit, multimarket (MUMM) organization can have opposing moderating effects on the link between MMC and the average prices charged by the MUMM organization.

This study investigates the value implications for an incumbent business ecosystem when an innovation is newly introduced. We theorize the different entrance modes and pathways through which the innovation can join the value co-creation structure of an incumbent ecosystem. We further theorize how the innovation entrance can affect the value appropriation arrangements among innovators and various incumbent ecosystem actors. The automobile ecosystems and Google's initial announcement of its autonomous cars serve as our empirical context. Applying our theories, we first qualitatively prescribe Google's potential actions and predict their value impli-cations on the incumbent automobile ecosystem. Then, through an event study, we empirically validate the predictions. We observe that, on average, the incumbent actors of the automobile ecosystem benefited from Google's announcement. Moreover, car manufacturers particularly benefited from Google's attempted entry, arguably because they held critical gatekeeping positions along Google's entrance pathway. Car component manufacturers, but not other incumbent actors, were also able to benefit because of their tight integration with the gatekeepers. Our theoretical development and empirical exploration contribute to the emerging literature on ecosystem strategies by highlighting the dynamics and value implications when innovations are introduced into incumbent business ecosystems.

Innovation scholars have long been discussing social media as a rich source of information, knowledge, and new ideas, yet, whether or how social media can directly intervene with organizational ideation processes remains unclear. In this study, we investigate the impact of external and enterprise social media platforms on organizational ideation. Grounded in 79 cases and adapting social capital theory in social media contexts, this study attempts to develop a theory of social ideation. Social ideation consists of social media-enabled mechanisms that generate social capital, enable multi-level social exchanges, foster idea co-creation activities such as idea sourcing, filtering, elaboration, and integration, and ultimately lead to effective ideation. Our study contributes to social media and innovation research by revealing the intermediary mechanisms that link the use of social media platforms to organizational ideation performance.

We develop a theory to explain why, how, and under what conditions corporate strategy changes negatively affect a multibusiness firm's ability to design and effectively operate IT controls, and lead to the emergence of IT control material weaknesses (IT MW). Corporate strategy changes such as diversification, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and divestitures alter a firm's complicatedness by adding or removing business units. These changes can also affect the jinn's complexity by altering the degree of interrelatedness among the firm's businesses. We hypothesize that corporate strategy changes that affect the firm's complexity are more likely to increase IT MW than those that only affect the firm's complicatedness. Complexity-altering corporate strategy changes are likely to disrupt all three types of IT controls: IT controls over technology, IT controls over business processes, and IT controls over people's behaviors. We hypothesize that the changes are likely to disrupt the IT controls over people much more than IT controls over technology or business processes. Complexity-altering corporate strategy changes are also likely to affect the design effectiveness of the IT controls much more than the operating effectiveness of the IT controls. We find support for these ideas in a longitudinal study of 2,477 publicly traded U.S. firms. Results also indicate that the internal control material weaknesses (IC MW) that emerge following corporate strategy changes are primarily due to IT MW rather than non-IT MW. The proposed theory and the findings have important implications for research and practice.

The Shanghai Health Information Exchange (HIE) is an exemplar of interorganizational information systems (IOIS) that integrates multiple organizations and their information systems. The HIE connects 156 electronic medical record systems operated by 69 hospitals and clinics in China's largest city. HIE developers evaluated five architectural options and then successfully implemented the chosen platform architecture. Executives faced with the challenges of creating an IOIS can use this case as a decision guide for choosing and implementing the best IOIS architecture.(1, 2, 3)

This paper uses activity theoretic analyses to investigate the role of governments in developing rural e‐commerce ecosystems and the effects of such ecosystems on poverty alleviation. On the basis of a case study of Longnan, one of the poorest regions in China, this paper reports and analyses the various actions taken by local governments in nurturing, supporting, and regulating the development of a local rural e‐commerce ecosystem and using this ecosystem to transform poverty alleviation. Our study articulates a model of poverty alleviation through e‐commerce. By documenting and theorizing the mechanisms underlying rural e‐commerce development and poverty alleviation through e‐commerce as well as governments' role in developing and sustaining them, this paper contributes to establishing a “theory of the solution” to the grand challenge of poverty alleviation both in China and globally.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to manage the pace of international expansion through acquisitions based on a case study of a Chinese conglomerate, Wanda Group. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a qualitative study based on the analyses of the series of international acquisitions made by Wanda Group in the global cinema and film studio markets from 2012 through the middle 2017. Comprehensive qualitative data have been collected from public sources, including company press releases, media reports and interviews, for each and every major acquisition made by Wanda during this period. The collected materials are then analyzed to reveal the patterns of Wanda’s serial acquisitions. Findings When expanding globally through acquisitions, firms need to carefully pace their different types of acquisitions; managing the speed of post-acquisition integration can be critical; and managing public relations and communications in host countries is also important. Research limitations/implications The research is limited to one single case, so the generalizability of its findings needs further validation. The research contributes to cross-border acquisition studies by discussing the pacing of acquisitions and their affiliated activities. Practical implications The research offers an example of how firms pace their series of international acquisitions, whose lessons are potentially transferrable to other global acquirers. Originality/value The research takes a rarely used angle by studying serial acquisitions as a whole and focuses on the pacing of them. It is one of the very few in the acquisition literature to highlight the temporal patterns among serial acquisition moves.

This paper investigates the impact of a firm's multi-channel and multi-product strategies on its risk-return performance. We argue that channel diversity is positively associated with a firm's profitability and negatively associated with its profit volatility, and that channel diversity and product diversity are complementary in driving these profit-enhancing and volatility-suppressing effects. We test our hypotheses in the U.S. credit union industry, in which credit unions offer a variety of loan and deposit products through a variety of online and offline channels, including physical branches, ATMs, telephone banking, online banking, and mobile banking. By analyzing a longitudinal dataset of 7577 credit unions in 2009–2016, the study provides empirical evidence that operating a full spectrum of online and offline channels leads to higher profitability and lower profit volatility for credit unions. The study also reveals differential moderating effects of loan product diversity and deposit product diversity, in that loan product diversity enhances the profit-enhancing effect of channel diversity while deposit product diversity enhances the volatility-suppressing effect of channel diversity. This paper contributes to the studies of channel-based strategic differentiation as a competitive strategy and the studies of firms' risk-return performance.

In this working-in-progress paper, we propose a qualitative study of using Information Technologies (IT) to help battle Chromic Disease Management (CDM). Using the institutional entrepreneurship theory, we argue that IT provides the vehicle with which and the context within which healthcare providers can proactively and innovatively improve CDM.

As mobile payments become increasingly popular, their ecosystem is also evolving. The participation of financial institutions in this ecosystem, although is rapidly improving, remains relatively low. This paper studies why some financial institutions choose to, or not to, participate in this nascent mobile payments ecosystem. We developed hypotheses for the influence of three factors as aspiration gaps, customer-facing IT capabilities, and institutional pressures based on three theoretical foundations including the threat rigidity thesis, capability-based view, and institutional theory. We then empirically tested our hypotheses by analyzing the diffusion of mobile payments among 3549U.S. credit unions from 2013 to 2016. Results from our event history analyses provide support to the hypotheses that credit unions experiencing performance gaps, having superior customer-facing IT capabilities, and facing strong institutional pressures are more likely to start providing mobile payment services.

It is widely believed that the surge of online and mobile channels are revolutionizing many customer-facing businesses such as retailing, finance, entertainment, and transportation. This paper investigates the performance effects of a firm’s multi-channel and multi-product strategies. Using the U.S. credit union industry as the empirical context, the study shows that credit unions that operate a full spectrum of channels, including physical branches, ATMs, telephone banking, online banking, and mobile banking, have both higher profitability and lower profit volatility. In addition, the study finds that both the profitability enhancing and the volatility suppressing effects of multi- channels become stronger when firms also offer a diverse set of products in certain product categories. Particularly, loan product diversity enhances the influence of multi-channels on profitability, while deposit product diversity enhances the influence of multi-channels on suppressing profit volatility. These findings generate new insights on channel-based strategic differentiation as a competitive strategy.

This paper studies the influence of reference groups on developing public information systems. It hypothesizes that municipal governments dynamically adjust the development of their public information systems towards the average levels of their reference groups, a behavior embodying the classic "doctrine of the mean" in Confucianism. Specifically, both trait-based and institution based reference groups can influence the e-Government development of municipal governments, and superordinate provincial governments enhance the influence of institution-based reference groups but dampen the influence of trait-based ones. Analyses based on the development of municipal government web portals in China between 2009 and 2013 provide support for these hypotheses.

Unlike established firms, new ventures often lack the resources and structure necessary to simultaneously pursue exploration and exploitation activities in the process of developing and introducing new products into markets. Thus, it remains unclear whether and how ambidexterity (i.e., simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation activities) can develop in new ventures. This study posits that product development alliances and the transactive memory systems of entrepreneurial teams contribute to new venture ambidexterity. Moreover, we propose that the two mechanisms reinforce one another. Data collected from 148 new Chinese ventures support these hypotheses.

The rising prices of hospital services is a wicked problem in the U.S. We build on two management theories to understand the mechanisms by which hospitals might be increasing their price markups: (1) precluding the competition via rivalry restraint, and (2) wining the competition via competitive advantage. With the rise of multihospital systems (MHS), different MHS overlap with each other in multiple patient markets. To restrain rivalry, MHS seek multimarket contact with rival MHS to be able to force each other to mutually forebear from price competition, and hence, raise their prices. To gain competitive advantage, MHS compete on high quality care delivery capabilities, differentiate the quality of their services, and increase customers’ willingness to pay higher prices. We hypothesize that the two mechanisms dampen and weaken each other’s effects on price markups in the hospital industry. We find support for both the independent and the joint effects of the two mechanisms in a sample of 175 multihospital systems in the U.S. in 2006 - 2009. We discuss the implications of the findings for management theory and practice.

Public organizations, such as governmental agencies, are often accused as laggards in leveraging information technologies (IT). Despite the abundance of research and anecdotal evidence on the business value of IT in general, we know little in particular about what the IT values are and how to realize them in public organizations that value power and control. This paper documents the evolution of immunization information systems at a prefectural branch of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and discusses lessons learned from this experience. The case reveals multiple types of IT values that surface in areas of managing immunization records, vaccine supply chain management, and public health crisis response. However, the values only fully materialize after our research site underwent an evolutional path and a properly architected information system finally emerged to allow IT-enabled data and process integration. We discuss the lessons learned and their implications to both academic scholars and practitioners in IT management in the public sector as well as in other organizations. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper examines how information technology (IT) can contribute to value creation in horizontal acquisitions. We propose that acquisition value can be created when an acquirer redeploys its digital resources to its newly acquired businesses and consequently improves their operations. However, not all acquirers are equally capable of redeploying their digital resources. In this study, we propose two enabling factors pertaining to an acquirer’s IT resource base: IT extensiveness and IT standardization. We argue that the magnitude of digital resource redeployment increases when the acquirer has had extensive use of IT systems within its existing business units and has standardized IT systems across its business units. Moreover, the relative strength of the IT resources of the acquirer, as compared to those of the acquired business, also affects the reuse of the acquirer’s IT resources in its digital resource redeployment activities. We empirically test these hypotheses by tracking the IT and performance changes in 108 U.S. hospitals before and after they were acquired across a seven-year study timeframe.

Cognitive dexterity is a collective level dynamic capability to rapidly intuit, interpret, integrate and assimilate knowledge from a variety of sources in order to promote enhanced ideation in a firm. Building on the social capital theory and the theory of organizational learning, we developed a conceptual model that we are in the process of validating by employing an exploratory qualitative case study. The preliminary results indicate that with the advent of social media firms are confronting an increasing volume, velocity and variety of information with often suspect quality. We found strong evidence that some firms were exploiting this opportunity to enhance their firm-level cognitive dexterity by instituting appropriate incentives, structures and processes so that larger volume and variety of quality ideas are generated within the firm.