Paul Benjamin Lowry
Paul is the Suzanne Parker Thornhill Chair Professor in Business Information Technology, and BIT Ph.D. Program Director
Paul has 120 journal articles published or forthcoming in MIS Quarterly (MISQ), Information Systems Research (ISR), J. of Management Information Systems (JMIS), J. of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS), Information Systems J. (ISJ), European J. of Information Systems (EJIS), J. of Strategic IS (JSIS), Decision Sciences J. (DSJ), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Intl. J. of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS), J. of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), various IEEE Transactions journals, Information & Management (I&M), Decision Support Systems (DSS), and others. Paul has a total of 202 publications, as follows: 108 journal articles, 84 conference / workshop articles, and 10 books/book chapters, or cases (of these, he has published 83 articles with 80 different undergraduate and graduate students).
Supervisors: Jay F. Nunamaker, Jr.
Address: Room KK804, K.K. Leung Building
Faculty of Business and Economics
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Paul has 120 journal articles published or forthcoming in MIS Quarterly (MISQ), Information Systems Research (ISR), J. of Management Information Systems (JMIS), J. of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS), Information Systems J. (ISJ), European J. of Information Systems (EJIS), J. of Strategic IS (JSIS), Decision Sciences J. (DSJ), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Intl. J. of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS), J. of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), various IEEE Transactions journals, Information & Management (I&M), Decision Support Systems (DSS), and others. Paul has a total of 202 publications, as follows: 108 journal articles, 84 conference / workshop articles, and 10 books/book chapters, or cases (of these, he has published 83 articles with 80 different undergraduate and graduate students).
Supervisors: Jay F. Nunamaker, Jr.
Address: Room KK804, K.K. Leung Building
Faculty of Business and Economics
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam, Hong Kong
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Design/methodology/approach – The proposed model was empirically validated by conducting a survey among users of WeChat Moments in China.
Findings – As hypothesized, this research confirms that enjoyment and automatic processing (i.e., social influence to use an SNS) are complementary in the SNS self-disclosure process, and enjoyment negatively moderates the positive relationship between controlled factor (i.e., self-presentation) and self-disclosure.
Originality/value – Theoretically, this study offers a new perspective in explaining the SNS self-disclosure by adopting DPT. Specifically, this study contributes to the extant SNS research by applying DPT to examine how the controlled factors and the automatic factor shape self-disclosure processes, and how enjoyment influences vary across these processes—enriching knowledge about SNS self-disclosure behaviors. Practically, we provide important design guidelines to practitioners concerning devising mechanisms to foster more automatic-enjoyable value-added functions to improve SNS users’ participation and engagement.
However, assessing theoretical contribution is often a challenging task. IS scholars research a variety of topics with a pluralistic set of methods and epistemological approaches, which have several implications for our engagement with theory. Traditionally, reference disciplines have informed the diversity of topics IS scholars investigate. The IS field is at a point in its disciplinary evolution where we are seeing an even greater ambit of the application and use of information systems, which fosters new topics being investigated from different epistemological and methodological viewpoints as well as new types of contributions (Tarafdar and Davison, 2018). Consequently, IS theories take on different roles for different types of epistemologies and methods, and not understanding or respecting these differences can lead to unreasonable or unbalanced evaluation of papers.
In addition to the diversity of theoretical approaches, we also perceive differences in the nature of engagement with theory. For example, papers that analyse large amounts of secondary data (textual and numerical, structured and unstructured) often focus on sophisticated empirical techniques to analyse such datasets, engaging minimally with theory (Miranda, Berente, Seidel, Safadi and Burton-Jones, 2022). We believe that sophisticated data analysis does not relieve IS researchers from the obligation to make a theoretical contribution. In this context, we believe, that we should take heed of the advice by Gurbaxani and Mendelson (1994) who warned, almost 30 years ago, about “the risks of ignoring the guidance of theory” and recommended that IS researchers refrain from tinkering with “atheoretical ‘black box’ extrapolation techniques” (p. 180).
In an earlier editorial in this journal, Davison and Tarafdar (2018) noted how baselines for what is an acceptable contribution in a discipline shift over time. However, it is our view that a robust theoretical contribution should be (and is) a consistent expectation, even if the nature of the theoretical contribution varies. Journals play a key role in establishing baselines and in that spirit, the recent intellectual trends in IS and other disciplines have implications for how we apply and develop theory in IS and point to an evolving and multi-focused role of theory in IS research. Therefore, in this editorial, we revisit and explicate why theory is important at the Information Systems Journal (ISJ) in these emerging scenarios. Seven of the ISJ’s regular senior editors (Andrew Hardin, Angsana A. Techatassanasoontorn, Antonio Díaz Andrade, Gerhard Schwabe, Monideepa Tarafdar, Paul Benjamin Lowry and Sutirtha Chatterjee) join the editor-in-chief (Robert Davison) to craft a position statement regarding the ISJ’s view on theory. It is applicable, with sensitivity, to the empirical research articles that we consider for publication. Specifically, we provide a set of guidelines to help ISJ authors consider the role of theory in crafting papers of different genres and different epistemological and methodological approaches. Consistent with the journal’s cultural values (Davison and Tarafdar, 2022), we lay out a pluralistic and inclusive view of theory and theoretical contributions. The guidelines are broadly indicative of what we believe are key points that authors should consider. We encourage authors submitting their research to the ISJ to consider these guidelines carefully, as we expect that reviewers will be aware of them, and senior and associate editors may also consider them as they craft their reports. However, these guidelines are not meant to serve as a comprehensive checklist, least of all a template for rejection.
Design/methodology/approach: Based on data from interviews with 81 Kuwaiti citizens and surveys of 1,829 Kuwaiti and Polish citizens, we conducted comprehensive, cross-cultural, and comparative analyses of e-government reuse intention in a cross-country setting.
Findings: The results show that trust is positively associated with citizens’ intention to reuse e-government services, whereas risk is negatively associated with citizens’ perceived value. We also found that masculinity–femininity and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with the intention to reuse e-government services and that individualism–collectivism has no significant relationship with reuse intention. This study’s findings have important implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand and improve e-government success in cross-country settings.
Originality/value: We developed a parsimonious model of quality, trust, risk, culture, and technology reuse that captures country-specific cultural contexts and enables us to conduct a comprehensive, cross-cultural, and comparative analysis of e-government reuse intention in the cross-country setting of Kuwait and Poland.
Design/methodology/approach – The proposed model was empirically validated by conducting a survey among users of WeChat Moments in China.
Findings – As hypothesized, this research confirms that enjoyment and automatic processing (i.e., social influence to use an SNS) are complementary in the SNS self-disclosure process, and enjoyment negatively moderates the positive relationship between controlled factor (i.e., self-presentation) and self-disclosure.
Originality/value – Theoretically, this study offers a new perspective in explaining the SNS self-disclosure by adopting DPT. Specifically, this study contributes to the extant SNS research by applying DPT to examine how the controlled factors and the automatic factor shape self-disclosure processes, and how enjoyment influences vary across these processes—enriching knowledge about SNS self-disclosure behaviors. Practically, we provide important design guidelines to practitioners concerning devising mechanisms to foster more automatic-enjoyable value-added functions to improve SNS users’ participation and engagement.
However, assessing theoretical contribution is often a challenging task. IS scholars research a variety of topics with a pluralistic set of methods and epistemological approaches, which have several implications for our engagement with theory. Traditionally, reference disciplines have informed the diversity of topics IS scholars investigate. The IS field is at a point in its disciplinary evolution where we are seeing an even greater ambit of the application and use of information systems, which fosters new topics being investigated from different epistemological and methodological viewpoints as well as new types of contributions (Tarafdar and Davison, 2018). Consequently, IS theories take on different roles for different types of epistemologies and methods, and not understanding or respecting these differences can lead to unreasonable or unbalanced evaluation of papers.
In addition to the diversity of theoretical approaches, we also perceive differences in the nature of engagement with theory. For example, papers that analyse large amounts of secondary data (textual and numerical, structured and unstructured) often focus on sophisticated empirical techniques to analyse such datasets, engaging minimally with theory (Miranda, Berente, Seidel, Safadi and Burton-Jones, 2022). We believe that sophisticated data analysis does not relieve IS researchers from the obligation to make a theoretical contribution. In this context, we believe, that we should take heed of the advice by Gurbaxani and Mendelson (1994) who warned, almost 30 years ago, about “the risks of ignoring the guidance of theory” and recommended that IS researchers refrain from tinkering with “atheoretical ‘black box’ extrapolation techniques” (p. 180).
In an earlier editorial in this journal, Davison and Tarafdar (2018) noted how baselines for what is an acceptable contribution in a discipline shift over time. However, it is our view that a robust theoretical contribution should be (and is) a consistent expectation, even if the nature of the theoretical contribution varies. Journals play a key role in establishing baselines and in that spirit, the recent intellectual trends in IS and other disciplines have implications for how we apply and develop theory in IS and point to an evolving and multi-focused role of theory in IS research. Therefore, in this editorial, we revisit and explicate why theory is important at the Information Systems Journal (ISJ) in these emerging scenarios. Seven of the ISJ’s regular senior editors (Andrew Hardin, Angsana A. Techatassanasoontorn, Antonio Díaz Andrade, Gerhard Schwabe, Monideepa Tarafdar, Paul Benjamin Lowry and Sutirtha Chatterjee) join the editor-in-chief (Robert Davison) to craft a position statement regarding the ISJ’s view on theory. It is applicable, with sensitivity, to the empirical research articles that we consider for publication. Specifically, we provide a set of guidelines to help ISJ authors consider the role of theory in crafting papers of different genres and different epistemological and methodological approaches. Consistent with the journal’s cultural values (Davison and Tarafdar, 2022), we lay out a pluralistic and inclusive view of theory and theoretical contributions. The guidelines are broadly indicative of what we believe are key points that authors should consider. We encourage authors submitting their research to the ISJ to consider these guidelines carefully, as we expect that reviewers will be aware of them, and senior and associate editors may also consider them as they craft their reports. However, these guidelines are not meant to serve as a comprehensive checklist, least of all a template for rejection.
Design/methodology/approach: Based on data from interviews with 81 Kuwaiti citizens and surveys of 1,829 Kuwaiti and Polish citizens, we conducted comprehensive, cross-cultural, and comparative analyses of e-government reuse intention in a cross-country setting.
Findings: The results show that trust is positively associated with citizens’ intention to reuse e-government services, whereas risk is negatively associated with citizens’ perceived value. We also found that masculinity–femininity and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with the intention to reuse e-government services and that individualism–collectivism has no significant relationship with reuse intention. This study’s findings have important implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand and improve e-government success in cross-country settings.
Originality/value: We developed a parsimonious model of quality, trust, risk, culture, and technology reuse that captures country-specific cultural contexts and enables us to conduct a comprehensive, cross-cultural, and comparative analysis of e-government reuse intention in the cross-country setting of Kuwait and Poland.
between grand theories and middle-range theories, this essay suggests several guidelines on how to build middle-range theories.
That being said, an academic article will generally have the following structure, from which you should almost never depart:
1. Abstract
2. Introduction / motivation
3. Background / literature review
4. Theory and hypothesis development
5. Method and procedures
6. Analysis and results
7. Discussion
8. Conclusion
9. References
10. Support appendices
In the following working paper, I describe these sections, and provide recommendations on how to best structure them for improved motivation and argumentation. My focus is on empirical articles that are theory-based and have a post-positivistic epistemology, although many of my recommendations apply to other types of articles.
Approach: The panelists (Drs. Izak Benbasat, Paul Benjamin Lowry, Stefan Morana, and Stefan Seidel) presented ideas related to affective and cognitive implications of using autonomous technology-based agents in terms of (1) emotional connection with these agents, (2) decision making, and (3) knowledge and learning in settings with autonomous agents. These ideas provided the basis for a moderated panel discussion (the moderators were: Drs. Isabella Seeber and Lena Waizenegger), during which the initial position statements were elaborated on and additional issues were raised.
Findings: Through the discussion, a set of additional issues were identified. These issues related to (1) the design of autonomous technology-based agents in terms of human-machine workplace configurations, as well as transparency and explainability, and (2) the unintended consequences of using autonomous technology-based agents in terms of de-evolution of social interaction, prioritization of machine teammates, psychological health, and biased algorithms.