Tag Archives: Ramirez

Virtual team effectiveness: The role of knowledge sharing and trust

Mohamed Alsharo, Dawn Gregg and Ronald Ramirez
Information and Management, Vol.
54, Issue 4, August 2017, Pages. 479-490

Organizations utilize virtual teams to gather experts who collaborate online to accomplish organizational tasks. The virtual nature of these teams creates challenges to effective collaboration and team outcomes. This research addresses the social effects of knowledge sharing on virtual teams. We propose a conceptual model which hypothesizes a relationship between knowledge sharing, trust, collaboration, and team effectiveness in virtual team settings. The findings suggest that knowledge sharing positively influences trust and collaboration among virtual team members. The findings also suggest that while trust positively influences virtual team collaboration, it does not have a significant direct effect on team effectiveness.

The information artifact in IT governance: toward a theory of information governance

Paul P Tallon, Ronald V Ramirez, James E Short
Journal of Management Information Systems,Vol. 30, Issue 3, Pages: 141-178.

In recent years, chief information officers have begun to report exponential increases in the amounts of raw data captured and retained across the organization. Managing extreme amounts of data can be complex and challenging at a time when information is increasingly viewed as a strategic resource. Since the dominant focus of the information technology (IT) governance literature has been on how firms govern physical IT artifacts (hardware, software, networks), the goal of this study is to extend the theory of IT governance by …
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Information systems for collaborating versus transacting: Impact on manufacturing plant performance in the presence of demand volatility

Saldanha, Terence J.V.; Melville, Nigel P. Ramirez, Ronald; Richardson, Vernon J.
Journal of Operations Management. Sept. 2013, Vol. 31 Issue 6, p313-329.

Research at the nexus of operations management and information systems suggests that manufacturing plants may benefit from the utilization of information systems for collaborating and transacting with suppliers and customers. The objective of this study is to examine the extent to which value generated by information systems for collaborating versus transacting is contingent upon demand volatility. We analyze a unique dataset assembled from non-public U.S. Census Bureau data of manufacturing plants. Our findings suggest that when faced with volatile demand, plants employing information systems for collaborating with suppliers and customers experience positive and significant benefits to performance, in terms of both labor productivity and inventory turnover. In contrast, results suggest that plants employing information systems for transacting in volatile environments do not experience such benefits. Further exploratory analysis suggests that in the context of demand volatility, these two distinct dimensions of IT-based integration have differing performance implications at different stages of the production process in terms of raw-materials inventory and finished-goods inventory, but not in terms of work-in-process inventory. Taken together, our study contributes to theoretical and managerial understanding of the contingent value of information systems in volatile demand conditions in the supply chain context.

Information Technology and Intangible Output: The Impact of IT Investment on Innovation Productivity

Landon Kleis, Paul Chwelos, Ronald V. Ramirez, and Iain Cockburn
Information Systems Research, Vol. 23 Issue 1, March 2012, pp. 42–59

Prior research concerning IT business value has established a link between firm-level IT investment and tangible returns like output productivity. Research also suggests that IT is vital to intermediate processes like those that produce intangible output. Among these, IT’s use in innovation and knowledge creation processes are perhaps the most critical to a firm’s long-term success. However, little is known about the relationship between IT, knowledge creation, and innovation output. In this study, we contribute to the literature by comprehensively examining IT’s contribution to innovation production across multiple contexts, using a quality-based measure of innovation output. Analyzing a panel of large U.S. manufacturing firms between 1987 and 1997, we find a 10% increase in IT input is associated with a 1.7% increase in innovation output for a given level of innovation-related spending. This relationship
between IT, R&D and innovation production is robust across multiple econometric methodologies and found to be particularly strong in the mid to late 1990s, a period of rapid technological innovation. Our results also demonstrate the importance of IT in creating value at an intermediate stage of production, in this case, through improved innovation productivity. However, R&D and its related intangible factors (skill, knowledge, etc.) appear to play a more crucial role in the creation of breakthrough innovations.

Information technology infrastructure, organizational process redesign, and business value: An empirical analysis

Ramirez, Ronald, Melville, Nigel and Lawler, Edward
Decision Support Systems; Nov. 2010, Vol. 49 Issue 4, pp. 417-429

We extend current research examining synergies between information technology, process redesign, and firm performance in three ways: analyze a firm”s entire IT and BPR portfolio, examine production and market value performance implications, and conduct analysis using a unique dataset of 228 firms between 1996 and 1999. We find a contingent association between IT, process redesign, and performance. The interaction of IT and BPR portfolios is positively associated with firm productivity and market value. However, we find mixed evidence of a difference in these impacts across different types of BPR. Insights for business investment in IT and process redesign are discussed.

Does Technological Progress Alter the Nature of Information Technology as a Production Input? New Evidence and New Results

Paul Chwelos, Ronald Ramirez, Kenneth L. Kraemer, and Nigel P. Melville
Information Systems Research, Vol. 21, Issue. 2, June 2010, pp. 392–408

Prior research at the firm level finds information technology (IT) to be a net substitute for both labor and non-IT capital inputs. However, it is unclear whether these results hold, given recent IT innovations and continued price declines. In this study we extend prior research to examine whether these input relationships have evolved over time. First, we introduce new price indexes to account for varying technological progress across different types of IT hardware. Second, we use the rental price methodology to measure capital in terms of the flow of services provided. Finally, we use hedonic methods to extend our IT measures to 1998, enabling analysis spanning the emergence of the Internet. Analyzing approximately 9,800 observations from over 800 Fortune 1,000 firms for the years 1987–1998, we find firm demand for IT to be elastic for decentralized IT and inelastic for centralized IT. Moreover, Allen Elasticity of Substitution estimates confirm that through labor substitution, the increasing factor share of IT comes at the expense of labor. Last, we identify a complementary relationship between IT and ordinary capital, suggesting an evolution in this relationship as firms have shifted to more decentralized organizational forms. We discuss these results in terms of prior research, suggest areas of future research, and discuss managerial implications.

Research NoteDoes Technological Progress Alter the Nature of Information Technology as a Production Input? New Evidence and New Results

Paul Chwelos, Ronald Ramirez, Kenneth L Kraemer, Nigel P Melville
Information Systems Research,Vol. 21, Issue 2, Pages: 392-408.

Prior research at the firm level finds information technology (IT) to be a net substitute for both labor and non-IT capital inputs. However, it is unclear whether these results hold, given recent IT innovations and continued price declines. In this study we extend prior research to examine whether these input relationships have evolved over time. First, we introduce new price indexes to account for varying technological progress across different types of IT hardware. Second, we use the rental price methodology to measure capital in terms of the …
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Information technology innovation diffusion: an information requirements paradigm

Nigel Melville and Ronald Ramirez
Information Systems Journal, Vol. 18 Issue 3, p.247-273

Information technology (IT) innovation research examines the organizational and technological factors that determine IT adoption and diffusion, including firm size and scope, technological competency and expected benefits. We extend the literature by focusing on information requirements as a driver of IT innovation adoption and diffusion. Our framework of IT innovation diffusion incorporates three industry-level sources of information requirements: process complexity, clock speed and supply chain complexity. We apply the framework to US manufacturing industries using aggregate data of internet-based innovations and qualitative analysis of two industries: wood products and beverage manufacturing. Results show systematic patterns supporting the basic thesis of the information processing paradigm: higher IT innovation diffusion in industries with higher information processing requirements; the salience of downstream industry structure in the adoption of interorganizational systems; and the role of the location of information intensity in the supply chain in determining IT adoption and diffusion. Our study provides a new explanation for why certain industries were early and deep adopters of internet-based innovations while others were not: variation in information processing requirements.