如何撰寫並投稿專業論文至SCI/SSCI期刊-三星統計陳建宏顧問-20130717

PUBLISHING for SUCCESS

Appalachian State University

A Workshop Offered by:

Charlie C. Chen, Associate Professor

簡報者

簡報註解

This worked well for a 1.5 hr presentation.

Charlie C. Chen, Ph.D., PMP

• Tenured associate professor • Author of 3 books, 70+ journal

articles, book chapters and conference proceedings

• Editor/associate editors of international journals

• A certified Project Management Professional (PMP)

• Research award winners • President of International Chinese

Information Systems Association • Conduct seminars, workshops, and

forums in reputable universities in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan

• Multilingual abilities: Chinese, English and Japanese

• Leader of study abroad trips to Japan, Taiwan and Spain

Publishing for Success

OUR GOALS FOR THIS WORKSHOP Our hope is that, by the end of the workshop, you will… • Be persuaded that you will be able to write as effective

as tenured professors and begin enjoying the writing process by employing their writing strategies.

• Be competent of mastering key elements of academic publications and employing writing strategies to continuously improve each element.

• Be able to improve your academic writing more intentionally to keep your writing clear and effective to native English readers and reviewers.


SPECIFIC GOALS for This Workshop 1.FOUNDATION KNOWLEDGE: Understand key elements of academic publications 2.APPLICATION: Be able to use effective writing strategies for each key element 3.INTEGRATION: Develop a coherent relationship between each element


SPECIFIC GOALS for This Workshop (cont.) 4.TEAM IMPROVEMENT: SELF: Be more confident that you can do

this OTHERS: Work with others to write a

better paper

5. SELF IMPROVEMENT: Improve the quality of your working paper to ensure it contains no major content-related issues 6. PUBLISHING YOUR PAPER: Get advice on having your papers published

Agenda for Workshop

1. Big Picture of Publishing for Success– Mastering Key Elements of Academic Publications

2. Writing Strategies for Each Element: -Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review,

Hypotheses, and Research Methodology 4. Application of Writing Strategies to Improving Each

Element of Your Working Paper 5. Self-Reflection of Learning 6. Conclusion

“I have received many submissions of quality papers from non-English scholars. Unfortunately, these papers usually have fatal flaws of clearly presenting their information to native English reviewers. Many non-English writers have presentation problems in their papers, not the content.”

Vldamir Zwass, Editor-in-Chief Journal of Management Information Systems

BIG PICTURE OF PUBLISHING FOR SUCCESS

Writing-Related Problems

• Lengthy abstracts • Uninvited introductions • Poor writing style • Not enough contribution

to field • Poorly written discussions • Misrepresentative titles • Inadequate references

• Poor explanations of supporting

• figures and tables • Lack of theoretical and

practical implications • Failure to establish

coherence between introduction and conclusion

Criteria for High Quality Research & Importance of Writing Skills • Statistical/mathematical

analysis • Theory • Coverage of Significant

Literature • Professional style and tone • Logical rigor • Replicability of research • Topic selection

• Contribution to knowledge • Contribution to practice • Presentation level • Research Design • Adherence to scientific

ethics • Manuscript length • Reputation • Suggestions for future

research


Which Criteria are Heavily Dependent upon the Effectiveness of Your

Writing Skills?


• Statistical/mathematical analysis

• Theory • Coverage of Significant

Literature • Professional style and tone • Logical rigor • Replicability of research

• Topic selection

• Contribution to knowledge • Contribution to practice • Presentation level • Research Design • Adherence to scientific

ethics • Manuscript length • Reputation • Suggestions for future

research

Effective writing skills are important in the following criteria:

Our Training Approach 1. Address one key element of academic publications at a

time 2. Benchmark papers recently published in top-tier

journals 3. Practice exercises/templates 4. Apply effective writing strategies to improving your

own work-in-progress 5. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your paper via

team-based peer review 6. Provide constructive feedback to your paper by the

instructor 7. Self-reflection of your learning

Eight Key Elements of Academic Publications

Abstract

Introduction

Literature Review

Hypotheses Testing

Research Methodology

Data Analysis Discussion

Conclusion

Exercise 1.1: Assessing Writing Problems in Your Papers

• Discuss with your team members and use

Table 1-1 in the workbook to diagnose writing-related problems in your paper

Exercise 1.2: Writing-related Criteria of Top Tier Journals

• Discuss with your team members and use Table 1-2 in the workbook to match the criteria for high quality research with the given reviewer comment

Exercise 1.3: Mastering Eight Key Elements of Academic Publications

• Discuss with your team members and fill out key elements of academic publications missing in Figure 1-1

Chapter 2 Writing Strategies for Abstract

Chapter 2 Outline 1. An Overview of Abstract 2. Writing Strategies for Research Motivation 3. Writing Strategies for Problem Statement 4. Writing Strategies for Approach 5. Writing Strategies for Results 6. Writing Strategies for Conclusions 7. Writing Strategies for Keywords 8. Conclusion

2.1 An Overview of Abstract

What are Main Objectives of an Abstract?

• (1) Provide brief but self-contained information about your paper,

• (2) Interest potential readers into reading your whole paper, and

• (3) Increase the reference rate of your paper via online search database.

Six Essential Elements of an Abstract

Motivation Problem Statement Approach

Results Conclusion Keywords

Abstract Anatomy: An Example

Motivation Consumer reviews may reflect not only perceived quality but also the difference between quality and price perceived value. Source: Li and Hitt 2010

Abstract Anatomy

Problem Statement In markets where product prices change frequently, these price-influenced reviews may be biased as a signal of product quality when used by consumers possessing no knowledge of historical prices.

Abstract Anatomy

Approach In this paper, we develop an analytical model that examines the impact of price-influenced reviews on firm optimal pricing and consumer welfare. We quantify the price effects in consumer reviews for different formats of review systems using actual market prices and online consumer ratings data collected for the digital camera market.

Abstract Anatomy

Results Our empirical results suggest that unidimensional ratings, commonly used in most review systems, can be substantially biased by price effects. In fact, unidimensional ratings are more closely correlated with ratings of product value than ratings of product quality.

Abstract Anatomy

Conclusions Our findings suggest the importance for firms to account for these price effects in their overall marketing strategy and suggest that review systems could better serve consumers by explicitly expanding review dimensions to separate perceived value and perceived quality.

Abstract Anatomy

Keywords Online product reviews, review bias, price effects, empirical analysis, optimal pricing

2.2 Writing Strategies for Research Motivation

Research Motivation • Research motivation describes the importance

of your paper to its areas of study. • What kind of impact will your paper have on

your field? • Why should readers care about your

proposed research problems and solutions to those problems?

• The more potential impacts your study can have, the more attention readers will pay to your study.

Strategy 2.1 State research purposes clearly in only one or two sentences

• Understand the following relationships: (1) Customer reviews vs. perceived quality, and (2) customer reviews vs. the difference between quality and price perceived value

Research Purposes

• If proven correctly

What are the Impacts? • “Consumer reviews may

reflect not only perceived quality but also the difference between quality and price perceived value.”

Motivation

Research Motivation

Consumer reviews may reflect not only perceived quality but also the difference between quality and price perceived value. Source: Li and Hitt 2010

Strategy 2.2 Avoid using too much jargon • Readers will quickly lose interest in

reading a paper if its abstract is full of jargon or terminology.

• Remember, one primary objective of an abstract is to encourage readers to make less effort to locate your paper.

Exercise: How to Rewrite the Research Motivation?

“We focus on customer-led supply chain coordination mechanism including market rates, volatility and option term. Black and Scholes provided an option equation, which is based on the stock price, the time to maturity, the exercise price, the interest rate and the volatility of the stock to value options. … These propositions contain several testable implications about the difference between forward and futures prices. Many of the propositions show that equilibrium forward and futures prices are equal to the values of particular assets, even though they are not in themselves asset prices. Their paper then illustrated these results in the context of two valuation models and discusses the effects of taxes and other institutional factors.” Source: An Unpublished Paper

Improved Research Motivation Companies are increasingly constructing customer-centric supply chains in order to cope with the unrelenting pressure of cost reduction. The customer-centric supply chain strategy emphasizes improvement of key factors such as market rates, volatility and option pricing terms via the coordination of supply chain partners.

Strategy 2.3 Avoid using citations in abstract • The abstract exists to summarize main points of your

study rather than introduce other people’s ideas or concepts.

• Therefore, an author should rarely cite references in the abstract.

• Make sure you use the citation only to define terms or concepts that are central to your paper.

• Using too many citations can create an impression that your paper is primarily based on previous studies and your paper may have little impact on or contribution to the present studies.

2.3 Writing Strategies for Problem Statement

Research Question vs. Problem Statement • Non-native English writers sometimes have trouble

distinguishing the difference between the words “problem” and “question.”

• Problems are unanswered questions. • Research question

• “Are there relationships between teacher thought processes during planning and student time-on-task?”

• Problem Statement • “The extensive teacher planning may pay off in

terms of student learning, or even student learning behaviors” (Locke, 2007).

A clear problem statement can draw readers’ attention, and have readers appreciate the importance of your study.

A Good Problem Statement

In markets where product prices change frequently, these price-influenced reviews may be biased as a signal of product quality when used by consumers possessing no knowledge of historical prices. Source: Li and Hitt 2010, p. 809

Figure 2-4 The process of developing problem statement

What is the current state?

What is the desired state?

Combining the current and the desired states?

Three Criteria

1. One problem 2. No more than two sentences 3. No suggested solutions

Final Problem Statement

Strategy 2.4 Explain the current state of problems Price changes may not have influence on a customer’s perceived product quality.

Strategy 2.5 Explain the desired state of the problems Product prices may change more frequently in the future

Strategy 2.6 Combine current and desired states into a statement that does not exceed two sentences Rapid price changes may have a stronger influence on customers’ perceived product quality

Strategy 2.7 Refine your problem statement against three criteria • Focus on only one problem • Write no more than two

sentences • Do not suggest any solutions

Final Problem Statement

In markets where product prices change frequently, these price-influenced reviews may be biased as a signal of product quality when used by consumers possessing no knowledge of historical prices. Source: Li and Hitt 2010, p. 809

Apply Strategies 2.4 to 2.7 to improving the following problem statement “Through the literature we can find that previous researches only take few factors including the cost of products, prices and the relationship between members of supply chain into account. But the option contract involves the cost of funds, the opportunity cost of scheduled capacity and the uncertainty risk of the price fluctuations. If these factors are not considered, this supply chain option contract is clearly not enough sound. In this paper we introduce market interest rates, the price volatility and option deadline into supply chain option contract model to construct more suitable model for modern industrial economy. This model combines the Black-Scholes rule and traditional option contract of optimizing in a supplier-led supply chain.”

Source: An unpublished paper

What’s your improved problem statement?

Textbook Answer

The current literature often examines selective factors (e.g., product cost and prices) when designing supply chain option contracts. An effective supply chain option contract should be more thorough and take into consideration additional factors, including the opportunity cost of scheduled capacity and the uncertainty of price fluctuations.

2.4 Writing Strategies for Research Approaches

Research Approaches • Research approaches consist of three essential elements:

research methods, data sources and variables. • The objective is for readers to understand not only the

research methods, but also the data collection methods and variable relationships assessed in your study.

• When discussing research methods, your readers are interested in understanding the rigor of research methods and your rationale for adopting them.

• Depending on the method adopted, your discussion should use corresponding methodological terms and present different foci. You also need to discuss data sources and their validity, followed by their usefulness in answering your problem statement.

“In this paper, we develop an analytical model that examines the impact of price-influenced reviews on firm optimal pricing and consumer welfare. We quantify the price effects in consumer reviews for different formats of review systems using actual market prices and online consumer ratings data collected for the digital camera market.” Source: Li and Hitt 2010, p. 809

Strategy 2.7 Ask yourself if your research method can solve or make progress on the problem

How to Improve the Research Approach?

“Our work focus on the combination of B-S option pricing model and the operating mechanism of supply chain based on the study of Guo and Yang (2006), Wang and Liu (2007). We construct decision-making model of the customer-led supply chain mechanism by introducing market interest rates, price volatility and option deadline. The introduction of market interest rates, price volatility and option deadline affects the traditional supply chain model with option contract. It is a further restriction on option pricing. We provide a method of option pricing which can be proved equilibrium and optimized to supply chain members, and in line with the B-S option pricing. This method can better adapt to the actual operation of the supply chain’s need. According to the procedure of this method, the combination of option pricing can also be calculated in other market circumstances. We also make programs for our model using Matlab software. The programs can help supplier calculate their optimal production volume, and help retailers calculate the combination of option pricing and optimal ordering volumes.” Source: An unpublished paper

Improved Approaches • In this paper, we develop an option

pricing model that examines the dynamics of customer-driven supply chains. We develop a proposed option pricing model using Matlab software to help suppliers calculate optimal production volumes, and retailers calculate optimal ordering volumes and option pricing.

Strategy 2.8 Think about data source and emphasize your data collection efforts •You need to clarify your use of simulation, analytic models, prototype construction or survey methods. •In order to get readers excited about your study, you may also want to emphasize the extent of your research efforts when executing the adopted research methods (e.g. sample size, sophistication of application programs, interviews, and other data collection challenges).

Strategy 2.9 Inform readers of variables your study controls, ignores or measures

• Research methods and data collection

are vehicles to help assess the causality among variables.

• Authors need to list all important variables and their relationships that the study controls, ignores, or measures.

2.5 Writing Strategies for Research Results

Research Results • What happens to the test results? Is there something

exciting in your results to keep readers motivated to read your whole paper?

• For exact scientific papers, be specific about contributions your study can make.

• It is important to ensure that research results are congruent with problems and approaches

• For example, readers would like to know that your new computer programs can accelerate the computing speed by 2% rather than make marginal improvement.

Strategy 2.10 Adopt a research approach that can naturally deliver research results

Strategy 2.11 Have answers to research questions

A Good Example

• “Our empirical results suggest that unidimensional ratings, commonly used in most review systems, can be substantially biased by price effects. In fact, unidimensional ratings are more closely correlated with ratings of product value than ratings of product quality.”

• Source: Li and Hitt 2010, p. 809

A Bad Example • “From the analysis we can find that the option price and exercise price

computing from our model is convergent. This option pricing is in line with regulations in the Exchange, meanwhile has the function of optimizing the supply chain profit. The combination of option pricing is the point of intersection of two curves. One is curve of optimizing with supplier, and the other is curve of regulation in the Exchange.

• From the viewpoint of supplier optimization, its option pricing may be two situations besides…(148 words).

• Options have been gradually applied to the supply chain coordination mechanism in the supply chain to improve the performance of the downstream coordination with the development of financial engineering ideas…(176 words).

• In numerical analysis there is the profit of supplier and retailer in decentralized and in coordinated. From the figures we can find the supplier tends to increase in option price and decrease exercise price. But retailer tends to buy the option with low option price and high exercise price. The equilibrium is the combination of option pricing under supplier coordination. Meanwhile the total profit of supply chain achieves maximizing.”

Improved Research Results • Our model simulation results show that suppliers and

retailers can optimize their option pricing decision because the option price and exercise price curves intersect with each other in the price optimization graph. The total price of the entire supply chain can achieve maximization because suppliers have preference to increasing option price but decreasing exercise price, and retailers have the opposite preference. Our numerical analysis affirms the existence of the phenomenon that suppliers and retailers are always forced to make an optimal decision between option price and exercise price.

2.6 Writing Strategies for Conclusions

Conclusions • Analysis results exist to report facts that can

lead to academic and practical implications. • How are your research findings going to

change the world? • Can other researchers apply your findings to

other contexts? • Can your research results potentially be

generalized, or are they specific to a particular situation?

Strategy 2.12 Discuss academic and practical implications in the conclusion

A Good Example

“Our findings suggest the importance for firms to account for these price effects in their overall marketing strategy and suggest that review systems could better serve consumers by explicitly expanding review dimensions to separate perceived value and perceived quality.” Source: Li and Hitt 2010, p. 809

A Bad Example • “This study designs a method to combine the Black-Scholes rule and

traditional option contract of optimizing in a retailer-led supply chain. From the model verification, we find that there is the combination of option pricing which can optimize the supply chain and follow Black-Scholes rule. This method is applicable to the market in which there are a lot of option contract in supply chain and the Exchange Trade of option (practical implication). The option price is the decision-making variables of retailer. This model has the only form of coordination optimization solution. Retailer's decision can regulate the supplier to maximize its production quantity to optimal level for whole supply chain. And we calculate the key points and rules of the impact of market rates and volatility to supply chain performance by numerical example. All of this study provides the valuable conclusion for making supply chain option contract to enterprises.”

• • Source: An unpublished paper

Improved Conclusions

• Our findings suggest suppliers and retailers regulate each other toward making optimal decision on option and exercise prices {academic implication}. Our customer-driven supply chain model is applicable to markets in which option contracts are acceptable forms of supply chain operations {practical implication}.

2.7 Writing Strategies for Keywords

Keywords

• Keywords can serve two primary purposes: • (1) potential readers can efficiently

locate your paper from online search database, and

• (2) have editors assign your paper to right reviewers familiar with the subject(s) of your paper.

• Key terms used in the abstract are good candidates for keywords. Another way to increase the chance of having your paper searched by potential readers is to go through your references and search a preset of keywords and see which keywords are located more often.

• Editors also use keywords to determine the review category and assign reviewers to your papers.

A Good Example

Keywords: Online product reviews, review bias, price effects, empirical analysis, optimal pricing Source: Li and Hitt 2010, p. 809

Original vs. Improved Keywords • Original Keywords: supply chain, option

pricing, optimization, performance • Revised Keywords: supply chains,

optimization model, option contract, option price, exercise price, suppliers

Strategy 2.14 Avoid writing a lengthy abstract • An abstract needs to be concise and only

contain key information. • Make sure you check the word count

limitation of abstract before submitting paper to the target journal.

Abstract Guideline • Journal of Management Information Systems • Every manuscript should contain an abstract (up to

150 words), and a set of key words and phrases to serve as indicators of the paper's content. No citations should be included in the abstract.

• • Information Systems Research • Papers should include an easy to read and

understandable abstract of not more than 300 words that communicates contribution of the paper to general readers as clearly as possible.

Abstract Guideline

Management Science Write a text-only abstract of no more than 200 words. Do not include references in your abstract. European Journal of Operational Research An abstract of between 50 and 250 words. Abstracts should not contain formulae.

What is the abstract requirement of your target journal?

Improved Abstract Motivation Companies are increasingly constructing customer-centric supply chains in order to cope with the unrelenting pressure of cost reduction. The customer-centric supply chain strategy emphasizes improvement of key factors such as market rates, volatility and option pricing terms via the coordination of supply chain partners.

Problem Statement The current literature often examines selective factors (e.g., product cost and prices) when designing supply chain option contracts. An effective supply chain option contract should be more thorough and take into consideration of additional factors, including the opportunity cost of scheduled capacity and the uncertainty of price fluctuations.

Approach In this paper, we develop an option pricing model that examines the dynamics of customer-driven supply chains. We program the proposed option pricing model using Matlab software to help suppliers calculate optimal production volumes, and retailers calculate optimal ordering volumes and option pricing.

Results Our model simulation results show that suppliers and retailers can optimize their option pricing decision because the option price and exercise price curves intersect with each other in the price optimization graph. The total price of the entire supply chain can achieve maximization because suppliers have preference to increasing option price but decreasing exercise price, and retailers have the opposite preference. Our numerical analysis affirms the existence of the phenomenon that suppliers and retailers are always forced to make an optimal decision between option price and exercise price.

Conclusions Our findings suggest suppliers and retailers regulate each other toward making optimal decision on option and exercise prices. Our customer-driven supply chain model is applicable to markets in which option contracts are acceptable forms of supply chain operations.

Keywords Supply chains, optimization model, option contract, option price, exercise price, suppliers, retailers

Conclusions • An effective abstract can quickly interest

people in reading your publications. • An effective abstract consists of six elements in

sequence: motivation, problem statement, approach, results, conclusions, and keywords

• Make sure that all the proposed strategies in the chapter are applied to writing each element of your paper’s abstract

Exercise 2.1 Primary Objectives of an Abstract

• Discuss with your team members and

use Table 2.1 in the workbook to understand submission guidelines of your target journal

• Use Table 2.2 to improve your original abstract to achieve three primary objectives of an effective abstract

Exercise 2.2 Five Essential Elements of an Abstract

• Discuss with your team members and fill

out Table 2.3 in the workbook to remember five essential elements of an abstract

• Read the abstract on Table 2.4 and decompose it into five essential elements using Table 2.5

Exercise 2.3 Improve Your Abstract using Proposed Writing Strategies

• Use Table 2.6 to identify obvious writing

mistakes in the abstract of your paper and check the right writing strategies to correct those mistakes

• Use Table 2.7 to rewrite each element of your original abstract after applying all fifteen writing strategies

Chapter 3 Writing Strategies for the Introduction

Chapter 3 Outline 3.1 An Overview of Introduction 3.2 Writing Strategies for Introductory Paragraph 3.3 Writing Strategies for Problem Statement 3.4 Writing Strategies for Research Purpose 3.5 Writing Strategies for Paper Outline 3.6 Writing Strategies for Research Questions 3.7 Writing Strategies for the Significance of Study 3.8 Conclusions 3.9 Exercises

3.1 An Overview of Introduction

An Overview of Introduction • The major objective of the Introduction

section is to convince readers the importance of your study and hope they will have the patience to read the rest of your paper.

• Information contained in the Introduction section cannot be long.

• Your main job is to sell your research ideas to prospective readers, not to educate them all the specifics.

Six Essential Elements of an Introduction

Introductory Paragraphs

Problem Statement

Research Purpose

Significance of Study

Research Questions

Paper Outline

Common Mistakes Made in Each Element of an Introduction

• Introductory paragraphs

• Cannot arouse readers’ interests • Low visibility to an opening statement

of the question • Begin discussion with salient theories

than interesting stories

Problem Statement • No background information • No rationale • The rationale is not clear and cannot

convince readers • Rationales focus on minor issues and

cannot help clarify and justify major assumptions.

• Confuse readers with perplexing argument

Research Purpose

• Do not provide answers to the question

“What is this study about?” • No clear research direction • Do not provide a specific and accurate

synopsis of the primary target for the study

Significance of the Study • Do not get to the point • Do not present the main idea • Include too many subtopics • Do not offer the potential utility of results in

either or both of two domains: What might be contributed to the evolving structure of knowledge, or what application might be made in a practical setting.

• Have no factual evidence in convincing readers

Research Questions • Do not identify and define the central constructs and their

relationships • Do not sketch the study in the bold strokes of major

constructs • Provide too much detail for each construct • Do not briefly note the studied relationships among

constructs • Do not focus on constructs that are more interested by

readers • The formulation of the research question is not supported

by explanation of why the major elements in the study were set forth in a particular way.

Paper Outline

•Readers have no clues about the outline of the paper

3.2 Writing Strategies for Introductory Paragraphs

Introductory Paragraph • High visibility of these paragraphs depends on your

ability to write dramatic and general opening statements to set the stage for your paper.

• Some authors often use dramatic illustrations, examples or quotes to intensify the tone of their opening statements.

• Always remember to put yourself in the reader’s position : • Why do I care about this study? • What will I learn from this study? Is it worth my

time to read this paper?

3.3 Writing Strategies for Problem Statement

Problem Statement • It is imperative for readers to understand your research

direction via your problem statement. • Thus, readers can answer the question “What is this study

about?” • Many authors do not discuss background information

before stating research problems. With the background information missing, the rationale of deriving problem statements becomes unclear and unpersuasive to readers.

• In addition, authors may not focus on discussing major issues and assumptions behind each major issue.

• As a result, readers are confused with and distracted by too many minor arguments and unrelated assumptions.

Strategy 3.1 Discuss Background Information before Deriving Research Problems

• Clear background information is a precursor to

deriving your problem statement. You can help readers understand your rationale and major assumptions for each of your major problems.

• It is also vital not to raise issues that may be in conflict with each other. The last thing you would like to not do is to confuse readers with perplexing argument.

• Clarity in your argument is one of the keys to the success when writing your problem statement.

Example 1 “Technology adoption is one of the more mature systems in information systems (IS) research. The benefit of such maturity is the availability of frameworks and models that can be applied to the study of interesting problems. While practical contributions are certain to accrue from such investigations, a key challenge for researchers is to ensure that studies yield meaningful scientific contributions. There have been several models explaining technology adoption and use, particularly since the late 1980s [76].” Source: Brown, Dennis and Venkatesh 2010, p.10

Example 2 (Afuah and Tucci, 2012) • “Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing a task to a “crowd,” rather

than to a designated “agent” (an organization, informal or formal team, or individual), such as a contractor, in the form of an open call (Howe, 2006, 2008; Jeppesen & Lakhani, 2010)…. Although Howe (2006, 2008) coined the term crowdsourcing with the strong role of the Internet in mind, the act of outsourcing a task to the public in the form of an open call may date as far back as 1714, when the British government offered a cash prize—the Longitude Prize—to anyone who would come up with an elegant way to determine the position of ships in the sea (The Economist, 2008). Sheriffs in Wild West movies crowdsourced elements of crime solving whenever they posted pictures of the “Most Wanted” in public places, with a reward for anyone who would help bring the suspect to justice…. Crowdsourcing may have been around for a long time, but the advent of the Internet and other communication technologies has opened up many possibilities for the phenomenon to play out. For example,…”

Strategy 3.2 Write one sentence for each problem statement • The statement of problem sets the stage for

other parts of your paper. • Try using one sentence to clearly state each

main problem. • Having too many problems stated will let

readers feel your paper has no focus, thereby distracting readers from the paper’s central problems.

• After each main problem is stated, you need to prepare several paragraphs for elaboration.

Example 1 “Venkatesh et al. identified several important directions for future research and suggested that “one of the most important directions for future research is to tie this mature stream [technology adoption] of research into other established streams of work” [76, p. 470] (see also [70]).” Source: Brown, Dennis and Venkatesh 2010, p.10

Example 2 (Afuah and Tucci, 2012) • “These fascinating examples raise some interesting

questions for scholars of management. For example, when might crowdsourcing be a better mechanism for solving problems than the alternatives of either solving them internally or designating an exclusive contractor to solve them? What type of organization is likely to successfully pursue crowdsourcing? What types of internal and external environments are conducive to crowdsourcing? If a firm decides to crowdsource a problem, how should it go about it?”

• Source: Afuah and Tucci 2012, p. 356

Effective Methods to Strengthen Your Argument •You can include facts, examples or opinions from the applicable authority (e.g. reputable journals and scholars) in your arguments. •You should explain the potential impact of your study on your field (e.g. business, IS, social, politics, etc.) by demonstrating the scope and depth of the problem. •The more dramatic and concrete this illustration, the more clearly your problem statements are to readers. •Your presentation is successful if your readers can quickly identify your problem statement in one sentence

3.4 Writing Strategies for Research Purpose

Research Purpose • Research purpose is a single paragraph that explains

the final deliverables of your study. • Your study’s final deliverables could be a validation of

your proposed research model, development of a survey instrument, or a model simulation of scenarios.

• The primary goal of this study is to … • … discover • … understand • --- investigate • --- test the model • This study aims to …

Example 1 “Given this background, the primary objective of this paper is to develop and test a model to understand collaboration technology adoption that integrates UTAUT with key constructs from theories about collaboration technologies.” Source: Brown, Dennis and Venkatesh 2010, p.12

Example 2

• “In this article we focus on the first question: When might crowdsourcing be a better mechanism for solving problems than the alternatives of either solving them internally or designating an exclusive contractor to solve them?”


3.5 Writing Strategies for the Significance of the Study

The Significance of the Study • Your job is to convince readers to agree with the

rationale of your study and to relate your study to larger issues by addressing the following questions: • Why is your study important to your field or to the

world? • Will your study make contributions to the evolving

structure of knowledge? • What practical contributions can your findings

make to individuals, business or society? • Who should be concerned with your research

questions? • What benefits can be accrued to beneficiaries?

Strategy 3.3 Answer how your study make contributions to the evolving structure or knowledge

“Our paper offers a sociocognitive theory to predict that different safe context factors may have different relationships with perceived success of collaborations. In particular, drawing on dual process theories of cognitive processing, we hypothesize that the ability and motivation of an individual to engage in deeper cognitive processing during the ad hoc collaboration (an ability and motivation that becomes salient when the collaborating parties are physically more proximal) moderates the positive effect of safe context factors on perceived collaboration success. Our focus on micro-forces that facilitate collaboration success among security professionals complements the extant information systems (IS) security literature that has focused on the effectiveness of formal policies at the national and firm level [69, 85] as well as the economics of security detection technologies [84] and other countermeasures [47].”

Source: Majchrzak and Jarvenpaa 2010, p. 57

Example 2 (Continued) • “There is a well-established tradition of exploring such “firm

boundary” questions using transaction cost economics (TCE; e.g., Williamson, 2002). However, TCE’s primary focus is on the characteristics of isolated transactions—some of which may or may not be relevant to solving a problem (Ghoshal & Moran, 1996). In addition, in focusing on the attributes of transactions, TCE often neglects firm-specific factors—such as routines, prior commitments, cognitive frames, knowledge, and absorptive capacities—that are often critical for solving problems (Ghoshal & Moran, 1996; Leiblein & Miller, 2003; Nelson, 1991; Nelson & Winter, 1982, 2002). Consequently, we explore the question by drawing primarily on the behavioral and evolutionary theories of organizations, especially the search literature (e.g., Cyert & March, 1963; Dosi & Marengo, 2007; March & Simon, 1958; Nelson & Winter, 1982; Simon, 1955).”

Example 2 • “In particular, we argue that under certain

circumstances crowdsourcing transforms distant search into local search, thereby enabling firms to enjoy the many benefits of distant search without having to endure many of its costs. Therefore, crowdsourcing may be a better mechanism than either internal sourcing or designated contracting for solving problems for which solutions require distant search.”


Strategy 3.4 Answer how your study can make any practical contributions to individuals, business or society

“Despite the value of collaboration in helping to solve these security threats, reports continue to surface that security professionals fear that the act of collaborating with other parties will create more problems than it solves because of the possibility that collaborating parties may misuse information shared during the collaboration [22, 24, 28, 41, 44, 56]. Collaborations that are successful, then, are those that not only resolve the security threat but do so in a way that ensures that the information shared is not misused.” Source: Majchrzak and Jarvenpaa 2010, p. 56

Strategy 3.5 Answer who would be concerned with your research questions

“Because security professionals often face a wide variety of threats, personal networks are likely to include individuals with whom the professional has not as yet collaborated and with whom collaborations may not necessarily recur often [28, 82]. Not only do these conditions inhibit the development of interpersonal trust [51], but they engender the possibility of incidents in which information is inappropriately used even within the personal network [56].” Source: Majchrzak and Jarvenpaa 2010, p. 57

Strategy 3.6 Answer what benefits your readers can have “Our theoretical explanation may also generalize to other interorganizational collaborations in which sensitive information is shared, particularly via electronic channels (e.g., [73]). The interorganizational relations literature describes numerous incidents of collaboration between and within firms with harmful consequences (e.g., [7, 42, 48, 52, 60, 63]). Our paper suggests a more nuanced view of interorganizational collaborations involving sensitive information than what currently exists in the literature.” Source: Majchrzak and Jarvenpaa 2010, p. 57

Example 2 • “Put simply, extant theory suggests homogeneous

complementary resources across firms and a strong form of labor market efficiency. Thus, our discussion of boundary conditions highlights the need for a more robust framework connecting human capital and competitive advantage. Accordingly, after articulating the boundary conditions, our second contribution is developing a more comprehensive framework predicting when human capital may lead to sustained advantages….”

• Source: Campbell, Coff and Kryscynski 2012, p. 376

Example 3 • “When might that be the case? It depends on the type of problem, the

difficulties that the focal agent faces in performing distant search to solve the problem, the type of crowd to which the problem can be crowdsourced, and the ease with which the final solution can be evaluated. Specifically, the probability a focal agent (individual, group, or organization) will use crowdsourcing to solve a problem is high when (1) the problem is easy to delineate and broadcast to the crowd, (2) the knowledge required to solve the problem falls outside the focal agent’s knowledge neighborhood (requires distant search), (3) the crowd is large, with some members of the crowd motivated and knowledgeable enough to self-select and solve the problem, (4) the final solution is easy to evaluate and integrate into the focal agent’s value chain, and (5) information technologies are low cost and pervasive in the environment that includes the focal agent and the crowd.”


3.6 Writing Strategies for Research Questions

Research Questions

• Readers would like to know specific research questions that your study can help address after appreciating the importance of your study.

• Since journal papers need to present scientific findings, authors need to learn to formulate research questions in a systematic and scientific manner.

Strategy 3.7 Discuss major constructs of your study and their relationships

• Your goal is to sketch your study in the bold strokes of major constructs. Doing so is just like sketching your pictures before applying any colors to a canvas.

• The goal is to entice readers to read the rest of your paper.

• If space is limited, you may want to consider not discussing any constructs that readers are already very familiar with or will not interested in.

• Often the most serious mistake authors make is that they formulate research questions without including major elements of their research question.

Strategy 3.8 Write sentences to glue these constructs and present them in a question form

An Example “When a security professional enters into a collaboration with members of a personal network, what is the relationship between safe context factors and perceived success of that collaboration?”

• What constructs are to be discussed in this study? • What are central constructs of this study? • What are the relationships to be studied?

3.7 Writing Strategies for Outline

Outlining the Rest of Your Paper

• Written communication is no different

from oral communication. • You tell readers what you plan to discuss.

Then you discuss and firmly conclude by summarizing what you just discussed.

Strategy 3.9 Outline the rest of your paper for your readers

• Toward the end of introduction, many authors forget to tell readers what they will discuss next.

• As a result, readers could be agitated because they have no clue about the paper outline.

An Example of the Paper Outline “The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Next, we discuss related work. The third section introduces our theoretical framework and develops our hypotheses. In the fourth section, we introduce our data set. The fifth section describes our model and presents our findings. Finally, we discuss managerial implications and outline opportunities for further research.” Source: Dellarocas et al. 2010, p. 129

Example 2 • “In §2 we study the bullwhip effect theoretically. We

first develop a model of firm production, a context in which to study the bullwhip. We then show that the bullwhip decomposes by information transmission lead time into an infinite set of lead l bullwhips. In §3, we construct a consistent estimator of the lead l bullwhip from differences in the variances of demand and order forecast errors. In §4, we present our bullwhip estimates. In §5, we provide robustness checks. In §6, we provide our concluding remarks.”

• Source: Bray and Mendelson 2012, p.860

Minor Writing Mistakes in the Introduction Section • Writing a lengthy, tedious statement without focus or

with too much detail information • Introducing too many technical details • Spending too much time discussing salient theories • Having detailed or thorough discussion • Using unnecessary technical language • Not communicating clearly to readers the study’s main

idea • Using quotations and extensive references: What are

the main ideas of this study? • Using of too many citations

3.8 Conclusion

• The primary purpose of introductory paragraphs is to arouse reader’s interests to read the rest of your paper, not to conduct detail literature review.

• Ten writing strategies are available for you to improve six elements of the Introduction section: (1) introductory paragraph, (2) problem statement, (3) research purpose, (4) significance of the study, (5) research questions, and (6) paper outline.

• These ten writing strategies are effective at avoid making major and minor writing problems often made in each section of the Introduction section

3.9 Exercises

Exercise 3.1 Primary Objectives of an Introduction

Discuss with your team members and

fill Table 3.1 with six essential elements of an introduction

Exercise 3.2 Decompose a sample introduction into six elements

Study the sample introduction on Figure 3.2 with your team members and decompose it into six essential elements using Table 3.2

Exercise 3.3 Identify Major Mistakes Made in Each Essential Element of an Introduction

• Use Table 3.3 to identify major and

minor mistakes made in each essential element of an introduction

• Use Table 3.4 to describe effective writing strategies for each element of an introduction

Exercise 3.4 Applying effective writing strategies to improving each element of your paper’s introduction

• Use Table 3.5 to rewrite your paper’s

introduction to ensure that it contains information for six essential elements

• Make sure you apply effective writing strategies to improving each element

• After each application, check the writing strategies you use

References • Afuah, A., and Tucci, C.L. (2012). Crowdsoucing as a solution

to distant search, Academy of Management Review 37(3), 355-375.

• Campbell, B.A., Coff, R., and Kryscynski, D. (2012). Rethinking sustained competitive advantage from human capital, Academy of Management Review 37(3), 376-395.

• Bray, R.L., and Mendelson, H. (2012). Information transmission and the Bullwhip effect, Management Science 58(5), 860-875.

Chapter 4 Writing Strategies for Literature Review

OUTLINE

• 4.1 An Overview of Literature Review • 4.2 Formulate Problems • 4.3 Search Relevant Literature • 4.4 Evaluate Literature • 4.5 Analyze and Interpret Literature • 4.6 Exercises

4.1 An Overview of Literature Review

An Overview of Literature Review • The purpose of the literature review is to

provide readers with an overview of salient literature pertinent to your research topic and prepare your research questions to be stated in testable form.

• Literature ranges from scholarly articles, books, dissertations, conference proceedings, white papers, magazines, newspapers, and encyclopedia, to online resources.

• The key to reviewing literature is to use reliable and relevant literature to support the process of forming your research questions.

• Once you have identified the right literature, you need to have the ability to analyze it critically through summary, synthesis, comparison and classification

Benefits of a Well-Written Literature

• Bring the reader up to date with current literature on your topic • Help readers understand the specific contribution of your

literature to the subject under review • Discuss central constructs of your study and their relationships

under consideration • Identify and resolve conflicts among previous studies • Specify the knowledge gap between the past literature and your

study • Discover innovative ways to close the knowledge map • Discuss original works in your context and create relevance to

your study • Form the basis for your research questions

The Development of Literature Review

Formulate Problems

Search Relevant Literature

Evaluate Data Analyze and Interpret Data

Common Mistakes Made in the Literature Review • Formulate Problems

• Review literature without having your research questions in mind

• Search Relevant Literature • Organize literature review around the

sources • Include outdated and irrelevant references • Fail to evenly weight different perspectives

of references

Common Mistakes Made in the Literature Review • Evaluate Data

• Do not check the quality of the works used • Do not use any references from your target

journal • Analyze and Interpret Data

• Poor analysis and interpretation of the literature

• Disorganized presentation of literature • Use outdated literature without explaining

its application to current subjects.

4.2 Formulate Problems

Formulate Problems • Organizing literature around the sources rather than

the ideas has become a common mistake. • Non-native English writers are not used to having

clear research questions in mind when conducting a literature review

• Non-native English writers have a tendency to choose a few salient sources and discuss these sources in detail one at a time.

• Literature needs to foreshadow the formulation of your research questions, not simply to report interesting findings from the past.

Strategy 4.1 Have clear research questions in mind before conducting literature review

• Readers want to learn about your study, rather than learn about other scholars’ studies through your paper.

• Writers must constantly evaluate whether or not the sources are closely connected with your research themes and if they can make substantial contributions to the questions of the study.

• Literature that fails the quality test should be put aside.

An Example

• Van Der Lans’ (2010) study aims to “develop a model that predicts how many customers a viral marketing campaign reaches, how this reach evolves, and how it depends on marketing activities” (p. 348).

• What literature should be reviewed?

• First the authors review literature related to six viral marketing campaign activities: • (1) receiving an invitation to a viral

campaign, • (2) reading the campaign’s invitation, • (3) visiting the landing page of the viral

campaign, • (4) participating in the viral campaign, • (5) expanding the reach of the viral

campaign with more friends, and • (6) closing the viral campaign.

• Second, the authors propose a decision tree to sequence these six activities based on the literature as follows: • (1) Receive invitation to viral campaign at t1, • (2) Read invitation at t2, • (3) Visit landing page viral campaign at t3, • (4) Participate in viral campaign in t4, • (5) Invite x=0, 1, 2….friends x~arbitary

distribution with mean μ . Second, the • authors sequence the identified activities, and • (6) Exit.

• Third the literature review enabled the authors to derive the viral branching process equations. These equations can help calculate the conditional expected number of unopened emails, unopened viral emails, and participants in the viral campaign, as well as estimate the average number of forwarded emails.

4.3 Search Relevant Literature

Major Mistakes Made in Searching for Relevant Literature

• (1) organize the literature review

around the sources, • (2) include outdated and irrelevant

references, and • (3) do not evenly weigh different

perspectives of references.

Strategy 4.2 Discuss literature around your research questions • Answer the following questions for every possible

literature source before including them into the body of your literature: • What are the objectives of the literature review? • Which of these sources is in support of your position? • Which of these sources is against your position? • What are alternative literature sources that could be used to

bridge opposing positions? • How is the literature source similar to or different from the

others? • Which literature sources can make the greatest contribution to

the understanding and development of your research questions in testable forms?

Cheung et al.’s Example (2010) • The purpose of Cheung et al.’s study is to

investigate if global environmental factors and partnering firms’ inter-organizational properties can facilitate relationship learning, there by improving relationship value as a strategic outcome. What central constructs are involved in the

proposed relationships?

Four Central Constructs are Involved in the Relationships

• Global environmental factors, • Inter-organizational properties, • Relationship learning, and • Relationship value.

Which five categories of literature are pertinent to these constructs: “{1}Building from the resource-based view (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984), {2} transaction cost analysis (Williamson, 1985, 1993), {3}the perspective of transaction value (Zajac and Olsen, 1993), {4} the relational view (Dyer and Singh, 1998) and {5} interfirm relationship theories (Cannon and Perreault, 1999; Heide, 1994; Morgan and Hunt, 1994), this research examines the facilitating conditions relating to global environmental factors and partnering firms’ inter-organizational properties that enhance the level of relationship learning among global supply chain partners.

The authors conduct literature review by discussing the literature around their research ideas instead of around the literature.

Cheung et al’s Literature Review • Relationship learning and supply chain collaboration

• “Following Selnes and Sallis (2003), this study defines relationship learning as “a joint activity between a supplier and a customer in which the two parties share information…”

• Relationship Value • “Relationship value is defined from a managerial

perspective as the received benefits perceived by buyers/suppliers in terms of their expectations from a business exchange relationship, i.e., their needs and wants ([Flint et al., 2002] and [Ulaga and Eggert, 2006]).

Conceptual Development

4.4 Evaluate Data

Data Evaluation • All literature that is for or against your scientific

inquiry needs to be weighted evenly in order to have research questions derived naturally from your logical discussion of both sides of the argument.

• The quality of your sources also has influence on the quality of your literature review.

• Data quality can be assessed with respect to many attributes.

• After data quality is improved, authors also need to learn how to paraphrase other authors’ statements properly in order to avoid plagiarism.

DeRue and Ashford’s (2010) example of evaluating data quality

• The purpose of their paper is to investigate the impact of leadership identity and the respective identities of leader and follower on the quality of leader-follower relationships

• “A strong leadership identity implies that there is clarity in the leader follower relationship and individuals’ identities as leader and follower. When this clarity exists, there is greater acceptance of the right of the person constructed as leader to exert influence over the person constructed as follower. When this clarity is missing, we expect increased conflict and tension in the relationship (Collinson, 2005). In this sense, the construction of a leadership identity and the respective identities as leader and follower are inputs into the quality of leader-follower relationships (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995).”

Literature Review as the Groundwork of Research Questions

The construction of a leadership identity and the respective identities as leader and follower are inputs

into the quality of leader-follower relationships

The quality of leader-follower

relationship

Leader and follower identities

Leadership Identity

Strategy 4.3: Check the Quality of Sources “Identity involves the meaning attached to the self (Gecas, 1982). Any particular identity can be conceptualized along three levels of self-construal: individual, relational, and collective (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Because leadership involves multiple individuals engaged in a process of interpersonal and mutual influence that is ultimately embedded within some collective (Hollander, 1978; Parry, 1998), it is necessary to integrate across these three levels to fully capture the process of constructing a leadership identity.” Source: DeRue and Ashford 2010, p. 629

References Used to Support the Authors’ Argument

• Gecas, V. 1982. The self-concept. Annual Review of

Sociology, 8: 1–33. • Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. 1996. Who is this“ we”? Levels

of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71: 83–93.

• Hollander, E. P. 1978. Leadership dynamics: A practical guide to effective relations. New York: Free Press.

• Parry, K. W. 1998. Grounded theory and social process: A new direction for leadership research. Leadership Quarterly, 9: 85–105.

Strategy 4.4: Use current and relevant literatures “What it takes to be a leader or follower, as well as who is a leader or follower in any given social context, is ambiguous, dynamic, and contextual. These attributes make the leadership identity high in what Hoang and Gimeno (2010) term identity complexity and strongly suggest a role for social processes in its creation. While the idea of social interactionism is not new to the identity literature (Goffman, 1959; Mead, 1934), the identity literature is only beginning to explain when social interaction is more or less important for identity construction (Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010). Our theory suggests that the nature of the identity itself (in terms of its ambiguity or other attributes) impacts the process by which that identity is constructed.” Source: DeRue and Ashford 2010, p. 630

Reference Dates

• Hoang, H., & Gimeno, J. 2010. Becoming a founder: How founder role identity affects entrepreneurial transitions and persistence in founding. Journal of Business Venturing, 25: 41–53.

• Ibarra, H., & Barbulescu, R. 2010. Identity as narrative:

Prevalence, effectiveness, and consequences of narrative identity work in macro work role transitions. Academy of Management Review, 35: 135–154.

Strategy 4.5 Create an argument by weighing different perspectives

DeRue and Ashford (2010) try to establish the process of claiming a leader identity by referencing literature based on interpersonal, instrument, and image-based rewards. Rather than making an argument that one reward is better than another reward in motivating individuals to claim a leader identity, the authors evenly weigh their contribution to the claiming process of a leader identity.

Perspective 1

“A well established tenet in our understanding of human motivation is that self-interest shapes human behavior and action (Miller, 1999; Miller & Ratner, 1998; Schwartz, 1986) {perspective 1}.

Perspective 2

• Acting leader-like and being seen as a leader is a socially valued and rewarded “ideal self” (Higgins, 1987; Markus & Nurius, 1986) in many organizational settings (Day et al., 2009; Kempster, 2006; Van Vugt, 2006) {perspective 2}.

Perspective 3 It may lead to instrumental rewards such as promotions, interpersonal rewards such as power or status, or image-based rewards such as a positive reputation. These rewards create a motivation to claim this identity. In addition, individuals are often simply motivated to get things accomplished and claim a leader identity because it helps facilitate that accomplishment (Quinn, 1996){perspective 3}. Source: DeRue and Ashford 2010, p. 638

4.5 Analyze and Interpret Data

Major Mistakes Made in Data Analysis and Interpretation • Many writers choose to give a full tour for each source

and end up becoming a travel agent showing highlights of numerous trips to different sources.

• Discussing the literature without having your own voice is an obvious symptom for poor data analysis.

• Disorganized presentation of literature is another serious mistake.

• The third mistake is using outdated literature without explaining its application to current subjects.

• Summarizing literature without being able to synthesize it to support and clarify your arguments cannot provide readers with new insight.

Strategy 4.6 Summarize and synthesize the literature via the decomposition process

• Spears and Barki’s (2010) paper as an

example • The purpose of their paper is to “examine

what user participation is in security contexts and how it influences the performance of IS security controls in organizations” (p.504).

Decomposition Process

What roles does user participation play in security contexts? How will user participation influence the performance of IS security controls in organizations.

User participation in the Information

Systems Development (ISD)

Buy-in theory

System qualiy theory

Emergent interaction theory

Security Risk Management

The process of managing security

risks

The controls (technological and

manual) as the outputs of that

process

4.6 Exercises

Exercise 4.1 Primary Objectives of Literature Review


use Table 4.1 to fill out four essential elements of literature review

Exercise 4.2 Decomposition Process

• Read the introduction of a literature

review on Figure 4.2 and then decompose the literature review on Figure 4.3 into each element. Use Table 4.2 to fill out each element.

Exercise 4.3 Identify Major Mistakes Made in Each Essential Element of a Literature Review


use Table 4.3 to describe major mistakes made in each essential element of a literature review

• Use Table 4.4 to describe effective writing strategies designed to correct each major mistake

Exercise 4.4 Improving the Literature Review of Your Working Paper

• Your final job is to use your working paper and

continuously improve each element of its Literature Review section using Table 4.5.

• Make sure your group checks your writing for each element against a checklist of strategies before moving to the next element. Mark the strategies you use for each element using the checklist.

Chapter 5 Writing Strategies for Hypotheses

OUTLINE

5.1 An Overview of Hypothesis Formulation 5.2 Writing Strategies for Hypotheses

• Strategy 5.1 Have a clear transitional paragraph before stating each hypothesis

• Strategy 5.2 Think potential research method in the process of clarifying hypotheses

• Strategy 5.3 Divide a large hypothesis into smaller, unitary hypotheses

5.3 Conclusions 5.4 Hypothesis Formulation Exercises

5.1 An Overview of Hypothesis Formulation

Hypotheses • Hypotheses are the product of conducting

literature review, defining variables and theorizing the relationships of variables.

• A useful hypothesis should be in the form of a testable statement which can help explain some phenomena or series of events based on the relationships of the identified variables.

• Although a good literature review can help construct hypotheses, it does not guarantee that the writer will successfully state them.

The most common mistake is that the transition is missing from theoretical propositions based on the literature review to the formulation of testable hypotheses.

5.2 Writing Strategies for Hypotheses

Strategy 5.1 Have a clear transitional paragraph before stating each hypothesis

Short and Toffel’s (2010) Paper as An Example

The purpose of their paper is to investigate how information activities of regulators can influence the likelihood that organizations will effectively implement their self-regulatory commitments.

Right before the formulation of the hypothesis, here is what Short and Toffel state,

“A recent review of the literature on corporate social responsibility also reported a strong consensus among researchers that stakeholder monitoring is a key ingredient in responsible corporate behavior, including effective corporate self-regulation (Campbell, 2007). For these reasons, we expect regulatory surveillance to promote meaningful implementation of self-regulation commitments: Hypothesis 2 (H2): Among heavily monitored facilities, those that commit to adopting internal compliance auditing will improve regulatory compliance outcomes.”

Another paragraph follows the discussion and helps derive another hypothesis.

“More intensive industry-wide surveillance also signals to would-be self-regulators that their competitors are being watched too, providing greater assurance that investments in compliance will not disadvantage them vis-à-vis their competitors (Gunningham and Rees, 1997). Hypothesis 3 (H3): Within heavily monitored industries, facilities that commit to adopting internal compliance auditing will improve regulatory compliance outcomes.”

Strategy 5.2 Think potential research method in the process of clarifying hypotheses

As the purpose of the literature review is to prepare hypotheses; hypotheses exist

to prepare research procedures (e.g. experiment, case study, survey, and

interview).

How to Rewrite the Following Hypotheses in a Testable Form •Excessive information technology use may trigger anger. •Social group support may release anger caused by IT use.

Improved Hypotheses in a Testable Form •Anger will be negatively associated with IT use •Anger will be positively associated with IT use through social support.

Creating a Virtuous Cycle with the Improved Hypotheses

• Forward thinking can help you not only

formulate effective hypotheses but also prevent research process problems from occurring in the future.

• Anger can be measured with emotion intensity through a survey with IT users. Beaudry and Pinsonneault (2010) use a five-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all” to a “great deal” to measure the intensity of anger (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984).

Creating a Virtuous Cycle with the Improved Hypotheses Social support is a task adaptation effort of new users to obtain moral and emotional support with regard to the use of new IT. The authors measure the frequency with which users seek social support using a 7-point Likert scale from “never” to “many times a day.”

Creating a Virtuous Cycle with the Improved Hypotheses

IT use is the extent to which users actively

interview with the new IT to perform five managerial tasks: collecting information, disseminating information, figurehead, resource allocation, and negotiation. The authors measure the variable using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from “never” to “many times a day.”

An Effective Hypothesis

Hypotheses that cannot actually be tested

need to be further modified until they can be stated in a testable form and can help predict the outcomes if research process is rigorously implemented.

• “A hypothesis is an educated guess about how things work….You need to be able to measure both “what you do” and “what will happen.” (Science Buddies, 2010). “What you do” and “what will happen” represent the independent and dependent variables, respectively.

• An effective hypothesis must indicate that a cause-and-effect relationship or some degree of associations between the independent and dependent variables exists.

An effective hypothesis has strong implications on the research process and the measurement instrument.

Alnuaimi et al.’s (2010) Paper as An Example The objective of their paper was to investigate if three cognitive mechanisms – diffusion of responsibility, attribution of blame, and dehumanization -- can effectively mediate the effect of team size and dispersion on social loafing in technology-supported team.

Alnuaimi et al’s Proposed Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1a: Diffusion of responsibility will mediate the relationship between team size and individuals’ social loafing.

Hypothesis 2a: Dehumanization will mediate the

relationship between team size and individuals’ social loafing.

Hypothesis 3a: Attribution of blame will mediate

the relationship between team size and individuals’ social loafing.

Implications on Research Process

• These three hypotheses indicate that a laboratory study

may be adopted to manipulate the team size and those three cognitive mechanisms.

• Each team may need to rely on the use of group support systems to deliver team-based tasks (e.g. brainstorming and decision-making).

• The higher the degree of social loafing, the fewer ideas an individual will contribute to the team task.

• These hypotheses also indicate that individual’s social loafing can be measured by counting the number of ideas generated and contributed to the team task.

• Lastly, mediating effect can be calculated based on the path analysis model, such as PLS analysis.

Another Example from Siponen and Vance’s Paper

• They formulate hypotheses with the research

process in mind. • Siponen and Vance argue that although the

neutralization theory has been long applied to Criminology it has not been applied in the information security context to offer insights into how employees rationalize their behavior and comply with security policy.

• H1: Neutralization positively affects intention to violate IS security policy

• H2: Formal sanctions negatively affect intention to violate IS security policy.

• H3: Informal sanctions negatively affect intention to violate IS security policy.

• H4: Shame negatively affects intention to violate IS security policy

Implications on Research Design • The research process has to do with a design of four

different scenarios: neutralization, formal sanctions, informal sanctions, and shame.

• As expected, this paper uses a hypothetical scenario method.

• This research method provides subjects with vignettes that “present subjects with written descriptions of realistic situations and then request responses on a number of rating scales that measure the dependent variables of interest” (Trevino 1992, pp. 127-128).

• This example demonstrates the importance of considering the research method when formulating hypotheses.

Strategy 5.3 Divide a large hypothesis into smaller, unitary hypotheses

Long vs. Short Hypothesis • A long, amorphous hypothesis can compound

the understanding of readers because it may contain multiple variables and multiple relationships.

• The rule of thumb is to create a single, directional relationship for each hypothesis.

• Focus on three essential elements of writing: (1) use as few words as possible to express your exact meaning, (2) leave no room for ambiguity, and (3) keep the tone unfailingly respectful (Sullivan and Eggleston, 2010).

How to Compose a Hypothesis?

• To start a hypothesis, state only two variables (one independent and one dependent variable) and their relationships as exactly as you can.

• Add a new hypothesis to capture hidden variables if the original variable contains them.

• Cross off those variables that contain too many hidden variables and then go back to your research questions and refine them.

• Dividing a large hypothesis into smaller, unitary hypotheses to clarify directional relationships between independent and dependent variables.

A hypothesis is a scientific inquiry about possible solutions to research questions. Therefore, you need to have strong reasons and statistical data to support or reject each hypothesis. Imagine explaining your hypothesis to your friends.

Hypothesis 1: Improving online users’ awareness of information security can increase their willingness to comply with information security policy.

•What are independent and dependent variables indicated in this hypothesis? •How easily can the proposed relationship be validated with statistical data?

Sykes, Venkatesh and Gosain’s (2009) Paper as An Example

• They are interested in extending the IS acceptance

model to the social network context. • They develop the model of acceptance with peer

support (MAPS) by incorporating key social network constructs into the traditional IS acceptance model.

• Four hypotheses are proposed to validate if the four key constructs – network density, valued network density, network centrality and valued network centrality – have a positive influence on system use.

Proposed Hypotheses

• H2(a): Network density will positively influence system use.

• H2(b): Valued network density will positively influence system us

• H3(a): Network centrality will positively influence system use

• H3(b): Valued network centrality will positively influence system use.

Strengths of These Four Hypotheses

• Readers can clearly understand if these four

key social constructs “have” or “have no” influence on system use.

• No hidden variables can be detected in each hypothesis.

• The authors can easily validate and explain their proposed relationships with statistical data.

Interpretations for Statistical Testing Results “Both network density and network centrality were significant predictors of system use…thus supporting H2 (a) and H3(a). Model 2 explained 41 percent of the variance, a 7 percent increase in variance beyond what is explained by prior technology adoption constructs. Model 3 incorporated both prior technology adoption constructs and valued network centrality and valued network density, all of which were significant, thus also supporting H2(b) and H3(b). Model 3 explained 50 percent of the variance, a 16 percent improvement over Model 1. Model 4 is the proposed research model (i.e., MAPS) that incorporates behavioral intention, facilitating conditions, and all four social network constructs (i.e., network density, network centrality, valued network density, and valued network centrality) as predictors explained 56 percent of the variance in system use.”

5.3 Conclusions

Conclusions • An effective hypothesis is a prerequisite to

conducting scientific inquiry. • Good literature review does not guarantee the

formulation of effective hypotheses. • This chapter proposes three strategies to help

you formulate effective hypotheses.

5.4 Hypothesis Formulation Exercises

Exercise 5.1 Have a Clear Transitional Paragraph before Stating Each Hypothesis

• Study two sample transitional paragraphs for two hypotheses on Table 5.1. Discuss with your team members to compose a new transitional paragraph for each of the two hypotheses. Write down your transitional paragraphs using Table 5.2.

• Now use your own working paper and develop a transitional paragraph for each of your hypotheses. Write down your transitional paragraphs using Table 5.3.

Exercise 5.2 Forward Thinking of Research Method in the Process of Clarifying Hypotheses

• The purpose of this exercise is for you to demonstrate that you can write an effective hypothesis by stating it in a testable form. An effective hypothesis should be able to prepare research procedures (e.g. experiment, case study, survey, and interview) for your study.

• Use Table 5.4 to improve your stated hypotheses. Write down your original hypotheses and then revise them to ensure that readers can determine independent and dependent variables and their relationships.

Exercise 5.3 Divide a Large Hypothesis into Smaller, Unitary Hypotheses

• The purpose of this exercise is to equip you with the ability to decompose a large hypothesis into smaller, unitary hypotheses.

• Table 5.5 shows an undivided hypothesis, modified from Liu and Phillips’ (2010) paper. Your job is to decompose the large hypothesis into manageable, unitary hypotheses.

Chapter 6 Writing Strategies for Research Methodology

OUTLINE

6.1 Purpose of Research Methodology 6.2 Overview of Research Method 6.3 Data Collection Procedure 6.4 Data Collection Settings 6.5 Pre-test Instrument and Pilot Study 6.6 Conclusions

6.1 Purpose of Research Methodology The purpose of research methodology is to give details of the approaches by which you collect data from reliable instruments and analyze data to test the proposed hypotheses.

Four Essential Elements of Research Methodology

Overiew of Research Method

Data Collection Procedure

Data Collection Settings

Pre-Test Instrument & Pilot

Study

6.2 Overview of Research Method

Overview of Research Method • You need to first introduce readers with a clear

definition of the adopted research method. • Explain the rationale of your decision on using the

research method instead of alternative methods to help achieve research goals.

• Discuss any distinct challenges or limitations that may stand in the way of helping achieve your research goals.

• A single paragraph should be dedicated to summarizing the research method by including three subsections: introduction, body and conclusion.

Strong and Volkoff’s (2010) paper as An Example

• The authors seek to investigate different kinds

of misfit that can arise from an enterprise system implementation from the critical realism perspective.

• The authors give an overview of research method adopted in their study as follows:

Announce and Define the Research Method

“We approached this research from the philosophical perspective of critical realism {announce the adopted research method} (Archer 1995; Bhaskar 1978, 1979, 1998; Dobson 2001; Mingers 2004a, 2004b; Smith 2006). Critical realism bridges positivism and interpretivism by carefully distinguishing between its ontology and its epistemology.... {Defining the research method}

Distinct Challenges and Limitations of the Research Method

Under critical realism, causality is not deterministic, but real entities are assumed to have causal effects. Specifically, entities, by themselves or in combination with other entities, cause events to occur through generative mechanisms, and some of these events are empirically observed. The entities are assumed to exist prior to the events they generate and, in turn, the events may lead to subsequent changes in the entities (Archer 1995). {distinct challenges and limitations of the research method}

Rationale of Adopting the Research Method

These two defining characteristics of critical

realism—the nested stratification of the empirical within the actual within the real domain, and the horizontal stratification of entities existing prior to the events they generate which in turn precede the changes to the entities—fit well with the methodological techniques recommended for the study of collective constructs {rationale of adopting the research method}

A Preview of Operational Procedure for Data Collection A longitudinal case study employing grounded theory procedures is appropriate for studying Org–ES fit because it facilitates the emergence of theoretical concepts directly related to the phenomena being observed (i.e., misfits), while simultaneously considering the context in which those phenomena are embedded (i.e., the organization and its new ES) (Orlikowski 1993). We observed three years of a five-year phased SAP implementation at a global corporation. By following the project over several years, we observed both those misfits that were apparent immediately, and addressed in the early days of use, and those that only emerged over time.” {a preview of operational procedure for data collection}

6.3 Data Collection Procedure

Strategy 6.2 Discuss step-by-step data collection procedure

Key Points • You need to expand your discussion on the

main components of the adopted research method.

• Do not get into the details of each individual component.

• The purpose of the summary is to draw a roadmap for readers to later discuss the details of each individual component.

• Therefore, the goal is to summarize rather than discuss the details of each component.

Data Collection Procedure • The data collection procedure is critical to an

objective evaluation of the quality of research design.

• The first question coming to the mind of reviewers is “Can other scholars replicate this study?”

• The success of developing reproducibility depends on the inclusion of important information, including materials, participants, and control variables.

Answers to the Following Questions in the Data Collection Procedure

• Who are the participants ? • Can your sample address your research

questions? • In what context do you collect the data

that will reflect the needs of answering the research questions?

• Do you have enough sample size? • Are your findings potentially susceptible

to the influence of unequal sample size?

Four Essential Elements of Writing Rigorous Data Collection Procedure

Data Collection Procedure

Research Method

Subject Profile

Answer Research Questions

Sample Size

Samples in Right Context

Choi et al.’s Paper as An Example Choi et al.’s (2010) study is to investigate how IT-enabled knowledge management practices can affect the development of Transactive Memory Systems (TMS) in an organization, thereby influencing team performance.

“We conducted a survey {research method} through the knowledge management teams {samples in right context} at these firms. The survey was administered through the firms’ internal websites over a period of one month. A total of 942 individuals from 259 teams across both firms responded {sample size}. After discarding incomplete responses and teams with fewer than three individual responses (without including the team leader), we were left with 743 individuals in 139 teams {sample size}. Table 1 provides demographic characteristics of the survey participants {subject profiles}. In order to avoid the common-method bias, we administered surveys on team performance to team leaders separately” {samples in right context}

Dou et al.’s Paper as Another Example

• Dou et al.’s (2010) study adopts the

experimental research method to investigate the influence of key contextual factors on brand positioning online via search engine results pages (SERPs).

“We recruited the participants in Experiment 1 {research method} using an e-mail announcement system that broadcasts messages to the campus community of a university in Hong Kong. Student samples are suitable if they are reasonably familiar with the domain under investigation {samples in right context} (Gordon et al. 1987); we confirmed that students met this criterion with pretests. We disguised the goal of the study, calling it “Internet life of Hong Kong residents,” and each study participant received a HK$100 gift certificate from a local supermarket after successfully completing the study. E-mail recipients who expressed interest could sign up online for the experiment if they were regular Internet users and had reached their senior year or beyond {subject profile}.

The qualified respondents then completed an online questionnaire consisting of a variety of items pertaining to their demographics, common online activities, and Internet search skills; this pre-study questionnaire actually provides measures of each participant’s Internet search skills. The largest group of participants, 73 percent, was senior-level undergraduates; 21 percent were graduate-level students; the remaining 6 percent were university staff” {subject profile}.

6.4 Data Collection Settings

Strategy 6.3 Explain the Data Collection Setting

A clear explanation of the data collection setting can help other scholars understand the context of the data collection. Thus, other scholars would be able to create the same data collection setting from which the similar findings would be derived at different times.

Seddon et al.’s (2010) Paper

• Seddon, Calvert and Yang’s (2010) study investigates the influence of six factors on organizational benefits from enterprise system projects: functional fit, overcoming organizational inertia, integration, process optimization, improved access to information, and on-going major ES business improvement projects.

• The qualitative content analysis is conducted to assess whether or not these six factors are important antecedents to the success of enterprise systems.

“At Sapphire 2003 there were over 100 presentations from senior business and IS managers from customer organizations such as Adidas, Audi, Barclays Bank, Bosch, Chevron Texaco, Disney, Hershey Foods, Lockheed Martin, Shell, Sony, and Texas Instruments. Streaming video of each 45-minute presentation, together with PowerPoint slides and full transcripts of each presentation, were available from the SAP “community” website for some months after the conference. From the above-mentioned 100-plus customer presentations, we selected all 60 presentations that discussed either or both of benefits realized from the enterprise system, and project success factors. The organizations are quite large. Of the 30 organizations that reported revenues in their presentations, 27 had 2002 revenues above U.S. $1 billion per annum. Combined, the presentations are a very rich source of information about the goals, issues, and outcomes of ES projects in large organizations. Sapphire 2005 was similar: there were lots of presentations from many large customers, each with detailed and interesting stories of their experiences with their SAP software.”

Duan et al.’s (2009) Paper as An Example

Duan et al.’s (2009) study investigates if an online user’s adoption decisions depend on others’ actions.

“We started collecting data in each category daily in November 2004. Every day we extracted the following information on every software program listed in each category: software name, description, date added, total download, last week download, CNET rating, number of user reviews, average user rating, and whether the software program has been labeled as pop (software is designated as pop if it climbs onto the most popular list) and new (software is defined as new for the first 15 days). We also collected software characteristics including operating system requirements, file size, publisher, license, and price if its license is free-to-try. Table 3 presents the variable definition, description, and explanation of measurement.”

6.5 Pre-Test Instrument and Pilot Study

Strategy 6.4 Pre-Test the Instrument and Perform a Pilot Study

• If the first three steps are to set up the stage for performance, this next step is to have actors do the rehearsal.

• “Are there any flaws in the execution?” “Have you checked the reliability and validity of measurement instrument?” and “Have you conducted a pilot study to weed out potential errors in the survey instrument that may occur in the full-scale study?”

• A careful quality checking process in the pilot-test stage can earn trust and confidence from reviewers when coming to the full-scale execution process.

Brown, Dennis and Venkatesh’s Paper as An Example (2010) “Two pretests of the instrument were conducted to ensure that the measures were applicable in the current context. First, ten individuals (in two groups of five) affiliated with the university were recruited to participate in this pretest. Each individual was asked to complete the questionnaire and then provided the opportunity to comment on any aspect of the questionnaire. the primary feedback from the first group was with regard to the use of some “complex” English words/terms in the questions. Based on this feedback, a few questions were slightly reworded. the updated questionnaire was then validated with the second group of pretest participants and feedback solicited. No significant suggestions were made and, thus, no further changes were made.

The revised survey was administered among 111 undergraduate students. the focus of the pilot study was to examine the reliability and validity of the scales in the context of a collaboration technology—here, SMS. We were particularly interested in establishing the reliability and validity of the new scales—immediacy and concurrency. The new scales were found to be reliable, with Cronbach’s alpha exceeding 0.80. the other scales were also highly reliable, with similar Cronbach’s alpha scores. Next, a principal components analysis with varimax rotation was conducted among the multi-item constructs from collaboration technology research—that is, social presence, media richness, immediacy, concurrency, and familiarity with others. A clean factor structure was obtained, with loadings greater than 0.70 and cross-loadings less than 0.35, thus supporting internal consistency and discriminant validity. a similar analysis was conducted among the UTAUT predictors and a clean factor structure was obtained there as well. •

Given the total number of items from all multi-item constructs in the model, the sample size in this pilot study was not sufficient to test internal consistency and discriminant validity of all constructs in a single test using exploratory factor analysis. However, this concern is somewhat alleviated for three reasons: (1) the new scales were developed in the context of collaboration technology research and the likelihood of overlap was more with the constructs in that domain, (2) the technology adoption constructs and collaboration technology constructs come from very different bodies of research where there has been minimal conceptual overlap thus far, and (3) the entire model and scales will be validated in the actual data set using confirmatory factor analysis in partial least squares (PlS).”

Although most survey questions are modified based on questions from pre-validated and published papers, the authors still conduct two pretests of the modified instrument to ensure that the measures meet content validity and instrument reliability.

6.6 Conclusions

• A research methodology contains four essential elements: (1) overview of research method, (2) data collection procedure, (3) Data collection settings, and (4) pre-test instrument and pilot study

• Employ an effective writing strategy to improve each element of the research methodology section in your paper

Chapter 7 Writing Strategies for Data Analysis

• The purpose of a full-scale data analysis is to explain the data analysis process.

• You, the writer, should summarize and explain your data analysis results in a scientific way.

• Explain why and how your analysis results support or reject the hypotheses.

• A good picture can say a thousand words. You may want to use graphs or tables to present statistical analysis results.

• Try not to spend more than two pages in length, not including statistics, tables and figures, in addressing the analysis results.

Five Writing strategies for Data Analysis

Explain The Data Analysis Process

Summarize Data Analysis Results In Scientific Manners

Validate Hypotheses in

Statistics, Tables and/or Graphs

Discuss Confrimed Findings

Discuss Unconfirmed

Findings

Strategy 7.1 Explain the Data Analysis Process

• Data accuracy depends on the credibility of

your data collection process. • If data is collected without discussing the data

collection process, reviewers will cast doubt on the degree of data accuracy.

• The ability to remove doubt from a reviewer depends on the establishment of a data analysis protocol regarding how you prepare, review and analyze the collected data.

Brown et al. (2010) “PLS Graph Version 3, Build 1126, was used to analyze the data from both studies. Testing interaction effects was possible in PLS. all constructs were modeled using reflective indicators. Interaction terms were created using data at the indicator level after the data were centered to minimize threats of multicollinearity [1]. we tested the model shown in Figure 2—one difference is that task was examined only in Study 2. In Study 2, repeated measures were treated as separate sample cases, which would be problematic with ordinary least squares (OlS) regression, because this violates the OlS assumption that the sample cases are independent [1]. However, with PlS “no assumptions are made regarding the joint distribution of the indicators or the independence of sample cases” [12, p. 332]. As a result, use of PlS is appropriate here.”{establish a data analysis protocol}

Strategy 7.2 Summarize Data Analysis Results in a Scientific Way

• Your next important job is to use scientific

evidence to confirm with reviewers that you indeed followed the prescribed data analysis protocol.

• You need to first try to remove reviewers’ concerns about reliability and validity of the measurement model and the relationships between constructs.

Brown et al. (2010) “The measurement model results from both studies supported reliability and validity. In both studies, the factor loadings and cross-loadings supported discriminant validity, with loadings greater than 0.70 and cross-loadings lower than 0.30…. Due to the nature of the data collection, we tested for common method bias using harman’s one-factor test [57]…. to further alleviate concerns about common method bias, we employed the marker variable technique [45, 46] and tested the hypotheses based on the corrected correlations…. Prior to our model tests, consistent with the recommendation of Aiken and West [1], we mean-centered the variables that were part of interaction terms. All variance inflation factors (VIFs) in our structural model tests were less than 5, thus alleviating concerns about multicollinearity. {Remove concerns about the reliability and validity of the measurement model}

Prior to our model tests, consistent with the recommendation of Aiken and West [1], we mean-centered the variables that were part of interaction terms. All variance inflation factors (VIFs) in our structural model tests were less than 5, thus alleviating concerns about multicollinearity.” {remove concerns about multicollinearity between constructs}

Strategy 7.3 Validate hypotheses by summarizing the testing results in statistics, tables, and graphs • The success of validation of hypotheses

depends on your ability to communicate hypotheses to reviewers in a rigorous, scientific manner.

• An effective approach to translating hypotheses in a rigorous, scientific manner is to express hypothesis testing results in statistical or mathematical terms.

• Another approach is to summarize your statistical testing results in graphs or tables.

Brown et al.’s Paper

“Tables 2a and 2b show the results of our structural model tests for both studies. The successful prediction of collaboration technology use in these two studies provides criterion validity and is important given that many of the constructs in this work were perceptual construct.” {Express testing results in statistics, graphs or tables}

Strategy 7.4 Discuss Confirmed Findings Do your findings confirm or refute previous findings? If the answer is affirmative you can articulate the affirmation by reinforcing reviewers that your observation is accurate and applicable in the context of your study.

“The results related to prediction of behavioral intention are consistent with the UTAUT hypotheses that were adapted to this context, thus supporting Hypotheses 1a, 1b, and 1c. Further, the results are consistent with the key predictors of use in UTAUT, thus supporting Hypotheses 6 and 1d. Specifically, behavioral intention had a positive, significant influence on use (H6), and the effect of facilitating conditions on use was moderated by age and experience in both studies (h1d). In Study 1, technology characteristics and effort expectancy predicted performance expectancy, thus supporting Hypotheses 2a, 2c, and 2e. In Study 2, only immediacy had a main effect on performance expectancy (regardless of task), thus supporting Hypothesis 2c. All the technology characteristics were moderated by task and consistent with the predictions of hypotheses 4a and 4b, but were in the opposite direction of Hypothesis 4c. Contrary to Hypothesis 4c, concurrency had a stronger effect on performance expectancy for decision-making tasks. In both studies, effort expectancy was predicted by all of the technology and individual and group characteristics, consistent with hypotheses 2b, 2d, 2f, 3b, 3d, and 3f. Consistent with Hypotheses 5a and 5b, peer influence and superior influence had a positive effect on social influence in both studies. Also, consistent with Hypotheses 5c and 5d, facilitating conditions were predicted by resource- and technology-facilitating conditions in both studies.” {Confirmed findings with previous studies}

Strategy 7.5 Discuss Unconfirmed Findings

• If your findings refute previous findings, you can articulate how exogenous factors may compound your findings. Exogenous factors may include moderating or mediating factors.

• “Although we focused on the overall model test and did not specifically theorize about full or partial mediation, implicit in our model depiction is that the four predictors in UTAUT—namely, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions—will fully mediate the effect of the various collaboration technology constructs on behavioral intention. Further, we expect behavioral intention to fully mediate the effects of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence on technology use. In order to test for such full mediation, we used the approach recommended by Baron and kenny [5]. In addition to the results already reported, we found that the various collaboration constructs had a similar effect on intention as they did on the utaut predictors, and when the effects of the collaboration technology constructs were included over and above the UTAUT predictors, none of the collaboration constructs had an effect on behavioral intention. Likewise, we found the utaut predictors had similar effects on technology use as they did on behavioral intention. Further, when behavioral intention and facilitating conditions (along with the moderators) were included as predictors of technology use, none of the UTAUT predictors had an effect on technology use. Overall, these additional analyses provide support for the mediation pattern shown in our model.” {Discuss exogenous factors affecting your expected testing results}

• Data analysis is an indispensible element of scientific inquiry. You present scientific findings and argue that they can make unique contribution to the scientific community.

• The quality of presenting scientific evidence can help you earn support of or refute argument from reviewers.

• Applying these five writing strategies can increase the chance of having reviewers agree to your argument if your scientific evidence is flawless.

Exercise 7.1 Explain the Data Analysis Process

• Use Table 7.1 to fill out missing elements of

research methodology. • Discuss with your team members to divide and

allocate the sample data analysis into its right subsections of research methodology using Table 7.3

Exercise 7.2 Summarize Data Analysis Results in Scientific Manners

Discuss with your group members about the use

of tables to summarize data analysis results for your working paper. Then, try explaining the results in a scientific manner. Use Table 7.4 to summarize and explain data analysis results for your group’s working paper.

Exercise 7.3 Validate Hypotheses by Summarizing the Testing Results in Statistics, Tables, Graphs

Discuss with your group members to develop a

table to summarize hypotheses testing results and then explain them around the table. Use Table 7.5 to summarize and explain your paper’s hypotheses testing results.

Exercise 7.4 Present Analysis Results by Confirming with Those of Previous Studies


use Table 7.6 to enforce your hypothesis testing results with more evidence.

Exercise 7.5 Present Analysis Results by Discussing Exogenous Factors if Your Findings are not Consistent with Those of Previous Studies

Use Table 7.7 to discuss Exogenous Factors for Unsupported Hypotheses

Chapter 8 Writing Strategies for Discussion

8.1 The Purpose of Discussion

• Explain the meaning of your scientific evidence to readers so that they can appreciate the merits of your findings.

• More importantly, you need to explain research findings in context so that readers learn new knowledge about your study’s potential contributions to the field.

8.2 Seven Strategies to Write an Effective Discussion

7 Strategies to Write an Effective Discussion

Summarize Your Study's Major

Findings

Explain the Meaning and Importance of

Findings

Support Your Findings with

Similar Studies

Provide Alternative Explanations to

Unexpected Findings

Discuss Academic and Practical Implications

Suggest Future Research Directions Discuss Limitations

Strategy 8.1 Summarize Your Study’s Major Findings

• You want to state in a way different from stating a

hypothesis in the Analysis Results section. • For instance, a hypothesis testing result could be

“Perceived usefulness has a positive influence on a user’s decision to adopt Web 2.0 technology.

• You may want to state the finding as “Subjects in this study shows that they are more interested in adopting Web 2.0 technologies if they can actually help them perform tasks at work.”

• This strategy refreshes and reinforces readers with your findings without boring them with just facts.

Sutanto et al.’s Paper as An Example

“Our study of the successful transition from the magnetic farecard system to the smartcard system in Singapore’s public transportation system has several theoretical implications. First, while previous studies on change management for IOS for the public did not provide CSFs for managing such change, this study identified and interrelated CSFs for such complex change accompanying a new It implementation. The study first identified common CSFs from change management studies of intraorganizational systems, IOS, and intraorganizational systems for the public to provide a starting point for our case analysis.”

Bansal, Sinha and Zhao’s Paper as An Example “In this study, we first argue for a measure to assess the performance of cost-sensitive regression models. Given that R—which is based on quadratic squared errors—and other traditional measures are not appropriate when errors on two sides have unequal consequences, we proposed a measure, average misprediction cost, which weights the two types of errors differently. We developed an algorithm for tuning a trained model based on this misprediction cost. We ran a series of experiments using three types of regression models (lr, NN, and M5) on loan charge-off data from U.S. banks and found that tuning significantly reduced the misprediction cost of these models.”

Strategy 8.2 Explain the Meaning and Importance of Findings

• After summarizing major findings, the next

question to your readers is “So what?” • A further explanation of the meaning and

importance of the findings in the appropriate context is important.

Weber and Mayer’s Paper as An Example “We contribute to the debate on the impact of formal contracts on relational governance by suggesting that the impact of contracts on the exchange and the partner relationship depends on how the contract is framed and in what context (i.e., the attributes of the transaction and the type of relationship desired) the contract is used. Thus, we seek to move beyond discussing whether formal contracts and relational governance are complements and substitutes toward when (i.e., in what situations or conditions) they may be complements or substitutes. While some work in this area has taken a contingent perspective (e.g., Hoetker & Mellewigt, 2009), much of the focus is still on when to use formal contracts or relational governance rather than the conditions under which they will be complements or substitutes.”

Strategy 8.3 Support Your Findings with Similar Studies

• If you make a strong case to justify the

importance of your study, your next assignment is to speak about it loudly: “Look! I also find salient works that agree with my argument and can complement my findings.”

• A confident affirmation of your findings by relating them to those of salient works can earn you a crowd.

Weber and Mayer’s (2010) Paper as An Example “Our approach of considering contract framing and expectations complements another approach to understanding how contracts influence relationships that examines how different parts of the contract are more or less likely to signal distrust. Vanneste and Puranam (2010) separated technical detail (coordination) from legal detail (enforcement) and showed that only the latter is perceived in a negative light. Gulati and Singh (1998) also theorized that managing appropriation concerns (related to opportunism) impedes relationship development, while addressing coordination concerns does not. Additionally, in a case study following the evolution of contracts between two parties, Mayer and Argyres (2004) showed that contracts got longer and more detailed but that such efforts were primarily related to clarifying responsibilities and contingencies rather than adding penalties or legalese and, thus, had no negative effects on the relationship between the firms.”

Strategy 8.4 Provide Alternative Explanations to Unexpected Findings •When the research results are not going in the direction you surmise, it is your responsibility to clarify and explain why the findings are contrary to your expectations. •An objective evaluation of the unexpected results and relation of them to your expectations can help remove other scholars’ doubts on your potential bias of favoring your proposed hypotheses and propositions.

Wattal, Racherla and Mandviwalla’s (2010) Paper as An Example

“Surprisingly, the data do not support our conjecture that usage in an employee’s positional spatial network (same office location) is associated with employee blog usage. Evidence suggests that weak ties play an important role in the diffusion of social network–driven communication tools such as instant messaging (positional and spatial networks) [64] primarily for two reasons: (1) these networks enable observability of payoffs of using the technology, and (2) they enable the technology to diffuse beyond cohesive networks, especially in the case of technologies that do not have a formal organizational mandate. Our discussions with the employees revealed that the blog platform in Electrony has not yet achieved the required critical mass that can motivate employees to reach out beyond their immediate work group. Further, given that blogs are a relatively new tool of communication, employees did not see the benefit in exposing their work-related issues to a large audience outside their comfort zone.”

Strategy 8.5 Discuss Theoretical and Practical Implications

• Theoretical and practical implications are

important because scholars and practitioners can receive direct benefits from your study.

• This section is particularly important to journals to boost their readability.

• The more people that are interested in reading and citing their journals, the more impact factors and higher circulation the journals have.

Greer and van Kleef’s (2010) Paper as An Example

• Greer and van Kleef (2010) investigate the effects of

power dispersion on group interaction behaviors. • After discovering that the relationship exists, the

authors extend their findings to other academic areas, including the use of their findings to resolve conflict and manage power between individuals and in groups.

• In addition, the findings offer practical implications for managers and organizational psychologists to implement self-managing work groups with shared leadership at the top of the organization.

Greer and van Kleef’s (2010) Paper as An Example Academic Implications “The present findings extend existing theory on power and conflict resolution by providing an explanation of why power dispersion may be important for conflict resolution. When group members have a low level of power and no clear hierarchy, or when members have a high level of power and a clear hierarchy, members may compete for power. These internal power struggles may impair the group’s ability to effectively resolve work-related conflicts….

Greer and van Kleef’s (2010) Paper as An Example Our findings offer important contributions to theory and research on social power, which has yet to thoroughly explore the effects of power on real-life social groups in which individuals have naturally occurring power positions (cf. Guinote, 2007). Our findings contribute to debates in psychology and beyond on the relative merits of power dispersion. Divergent theoretical perspectives exist regarding the benefits and detriments of power dispersion; some theories argue that equality is the best solution for peaceful social relations (e.g., Cohen et al., 1997; Marx & Engels, 1848/1967), and other theories argue that power dispersion is needed for smooth social interaction and adaptive conflict resolution (e.g., Keltner et al., 2008).

Greer and van Kleef’s (2010) Paper as An Example Our findings also have important implications for conflict resolution in groups. In the conflict literature, power is often conceived as a factor that tips the balance in favor of one party or the other, such as when one party manages to get his or her way because he or she controls the other’s outcomes….This suggests that future examinations of conflict resolution need to take into account both power level and dispersion.”

Greer and van Kleef’s (2010) Paper as An Example Practical Implications “Our findings also point to new directions in management and organizational psychology. Specifically, our results suggest that organizations should only implement self-managing work groups with shared leadership at the top of the organization; for groups lower in the hierarchy, clear leadership and hierarchy are needed.”

Strategy 8.6 Discuss Limitations

• It is rare to see studies without limitations.

Top tier journals do not publish papers because they are flawless. Rather, they publish papers containing insubstantial limitations that may not significantly influence the findings.

• In the face of limitations, you want to take a proactive approach to recognize them and propose solutions to address the limitations in the future.

Mai, Menon and Sarkar’s (2010) Paper as An Example

One limitation of our work is that we were able to collect data on only a small number of vendors, as the number of vendors carrying a privacy seal is small. This was because we did not find other categories of homogeneous products that were sold by both seal-bearing vendors and vendors not bearing a seal. Further, the privacy seal-based premium identified for products included in our analysis may not necessarily generalize to other products, especially differentiated products where it will be difficult to separate out the price premium due to privacy assurance and price premium due to product differentiation. We note that privacy policies for the Internet are still evolving, as are adoption of privacy seals. In time, many more categories of products will be sold over the Internet, and several vendors might adopt privacy seals. This should eventually provide an even richer data set to analyze issues related to privacy seals and price premium.

Strategy 8.7 Suggest Future Research Directions

• Toward the ending of your journey, you

may discover that your current study has discovered many unanswered, but related questions.

• You can look for research directions by examining your study’s limitations and suggest future research studies to overcome those limitations.

Future Research Directions

• Expanding your study to other contexts can give a future research direction to generalize your study.

• If you are conducting an experiment, you can even extend its duration and involve different subjects.

• The more effort you can spend in writing future research directions, the sooner your next project will be produced.

Mai, Menon and Sarkar’s (2010) Paper as An Example

Of course, our research addresses only one aspect of the larger set of issues associated with privacy seals, and raises several questions that deserve further research attention. An important question is what characterizes vendors that subscribe to privacy seals and what characterizes vendors that do not subscribe? Will vendors find it profitable to charge a premium in the long run? What are the substitutes for privacy seals, and could they obviate the need for such seals completely? When should a firm obtain a privacy seal? If a firm does not obtain a seal when its main competitors do so, could it mean that the firm’s data management policies, processes, and culture are creating a significant hurdle for complying with the requirements of seal providers? These are questions for future research. Finally, future research should also look at the effect of regulatory and technological mechanisms to assure customer privacy.

8.3 Exercises

Exercise 8.1 Discussion Processes

• Examine Figure 8.1 and fill out each element

on Table 8.1. • Table 8.2 includes a discussion section from

Whitaker, Mithas and Krishnan ‘s (2010) paper. Your job is to highlight each element of the data analysis and allocate it to the correct section of Table 8.3.

Exercise 8.2 Summarize Your Study’s Major Findings

• The first paragraph of discussion should restate

hypothesis testing results using direct, declarative, and succinct statements.

• First, read Abbasi et al. (2010) paper to learn how to clearly state the implications of each hypothesis testing result.

• Second, use the left column of Table 8.4 to list hypothesis testing results of your working paper. Use the right column to summarize each hypothesis testing result in declarative and succinct statements.

Exercise 8.3 Explain the Meaning and Importance of Findings

• After clearly stating major findings of your study, your next job is to explain why those findings are important to readers.

• First, read Spears and Barki’s example in the workbook.

• Second, use the left column of Table 8.5 to list your summary for each hypothesis testing result (left column of Table 8.4). Use the right column to explain and justify each summary from a reader’s perspective.

Exercise 8.4 Support Your Findings with Similar Studies

• You can further support your findings with those of salient studies.

• Use Table 8.6 to list one to two references related to each of your findings on the left column. Write one to two additional sentences based on each reference you list. Incorporate these new sentences into your existing statement and make your transition as smooth as possible. After you complete the exercise, write down the revision of your explanations and justifications in the right column.

Exercise 8.5 Provide Alternative Explanations for Unexpected Findings

• In the case that some of your hypotheses are not supported, you need to confront the unexpected findings with alternative explanations.

• First, read Klein and Rai’s (2009) paper to learn how they explain and justify their unexpected findings.

• Second, use the left column of Table 8.7 to list hypotheses that are not supported in your working paper. Explain and justify the unexpected findings on the right column. Locate references that can help improve your argument.

Exercise 8.6 Discuss Theoretical and Practical Implications

• One important mission of an editor is to increase the

subscription of his/her journal. In order to do this, journal articles need to have influence on the academic and practitioner communities.

• First, examine how Klein and Rai (2009) discuss academic and practical contributions in their papers.

• Second, use Table 8.8 to write down at least three major academic contributions and another three major practical contributions based on the findings of your working paper.

Exercise 8.7 Discuss Limitations • The world is not perfect. When conducting

research, you may need to walk around some issues (e.g. sample size, subject profile and survey instrument).

• First, read Klein and Rai’s (2009) paper to learn how they proactively recognize two major limitations in their study and discuss how to remedy potential issues caused by each limitation.

• Second, use the left column of Table 8.9 to list findings that may be confounded with limitations. Use the right column to explain those limitations warranting readers of accepting your conclusions.

Exercise 8.8 Discuss Future Research Directions

• First, read Klein and Rai’s (2009) paper to learn how

they propose their future research directions (Table 8.10).

• Use the left column of Table 8.11 to write down limitations of your study and new developments in your research area. These two kinds of information can serve as triggers for you to discover future research directions.

• Use the right column of Table 8.11 to suggest future studies to overcome each listed limitation and incorporate those new developments in your proposed research directions.

8.4 Conclusion

• The purpose of conclusion is to help readers appreciate the merits of your findings.

• The effectiveness of applying Strategies 8.1 to 8.7 to the discussion section can help explain the meaning of your scientific evidence to readers so that they can appreciate the merits of your findings.

• Apply these seven writing strategies to improve the quality of conclusion in your working paper

Chapter 9 Writing Strategies for Conclusions

9.1 The Purpose of Conclusion

The Purpose of Conclusion

• An effective conclusion is critical to the closure of a paper.

• In the conclusion section, your readers expect you to: • (1) summarize main points of your study,

and • (2) provoke readers to consider the

usefulness of those main points to them.

9.2 Three Writing Strategies for Conclusion

Effective Strategies to Write Conclusion

Include the Four Basic Elements of a Conclusion

Rewrite the Introduction for the Conclusion

Give Readers Something to Think About

Strategy 9.1 Include the four basic elements of a conclusion

• To give a lasting impression of your paper, you can improve the conclusion by: • (1) stressing the importance of your study, • (2) synthesizing the main points of your

paper, • (3) giving readers something to think about,

and • (4) creating a new meaning for your study’s

findings (Carino, 1991).

Spears and Barki’s (2010) Paper as an Example “Although the IS security literature has often cited users as the weak link in IS security due to user errors and negligence, the present study provides evidence that supports an opposing view {stressing the importance of findings}. That is, business users were found to add value to IS security risk management when they participated in the prioritization, analysis, design, implementation, testing, and monitoring of user-related security controls within business processes {synthesize the main points}.

Spears and Barki’s (2010) Paper as an Example User participation raises organizational awareness of security risks and controls within business processes, which in turn contributes to more effective security control development and performance. The need for regulatory compliance may encourage user participation in SRM within targeted business processes {give readers something to think about}. Security managers can harness regulatory compliance as an opportunity to engage users, raise organizational awareness of security, and better align security measures with business objectives.” {create a new meaning}

Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) Paper as an Example

Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) study

attempts to better understand the identity process in organization by incorporating self-concept orientations into models of identification.

Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) Paper as an Example “Given the growing body of research demonstrating the influence of identification on work behaviors, it is important for managers to understand the self-concept orientations and identification motives that underlie coworker, workgroup, and organizational identification {stress the importance of your study}. Organizations are increasingly diverse, and it is crucial that organizationally relevant identifications be encouraged and managed effectively. Our model suggests that by understanding basic self-concept orientations driven by gender and cultural considerations, we may be better able to predict associated identification motives and identification targets {synthesize the main points}.

Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) Paper as an Example Understanding these motives provides an opportunity for organizations to communicate with employees and to encourage identification with specific targets {give readers something to think about}. We believe that there are multiple ongoing opportunities for managers to proactively encourage identification within organizational contexts; it is time for leaders to fully take advantage of these opportunities.” {create a new meaning}

Strategy 9.2 Rewrite the introduction for the conclusion

• If you are stuck at how to begin writing your conclusion, an effective strategy is to go back to your Introduction section and rewrite it for the Conclusion section.

• The purpose of your conclusions section is to refresh and reinforce what the readers have learned in the past 20 minutes from reading your paper.

• The following is a simple three-step presentation strategy: • (1) tell readers what you plan to say, • (2) tell readers the story, and • (3) summarize what you just said.

Cooper and Thatcher (2010) “Managers are increasingly aware that employee identifications—that is, how employees think of themselves in the organization -- influence key outcomes at work, including effort, cooperation, organizational support, and citizenship behaviors (Bartel, 2001; Dukerich, Golden, & Shortell, 2002; Mael & Ashforth, 1992). However, the practices that managers employ to develop identifications may not be equally effective across all employees….We propose that by incorporating self-concept orientations into models of identification, we will be better able to understand identity processes in organizations….To summarize, we develop a model examining the influence of self-concept orientations and identification motives on identification in organizations. We examine three targets of identification relevant to organizations: organizational identification, workgroup identification, and coworker identification. We begin by defining these targets of identification and self-concept orientations. We then present our theoretical framework by linking the constructs of self-concept orientations, identification motives, and organizationally relevant identification targets. A discussion of how an understanding of self-concept orientations and identification motives adds value for both practitioners and academics concludes the paper.”

Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) Paper as an Example Conclusion “Organizations are increasingly diverse, and it is crucial that organizationally relevant identifications be encouraged and managed effectively (rewrite introduction). Our model suggests that by understanding basic self-concept orientations driven by gender and cultural considerations, we may be better able to predict associated identification motives and identification targets. Understanding these motives provides an opportunity for organizations to communicate with employees and to encourage identification with specific targets (lessons learned from the study).”

Strategy 9.3 Give readers something to think about

One effective approach to excite your readers

toward the end is to tell your readers, “I know that our findings can help you.” “What do you mean?” would be the first response from readers to your new information.

DeRue and Ashford’s (2010) Paper as an Example

• DeRue and Ashford’s (2010) study investigates the

claiming-granting process through which the reciprocal relationships between a leader and a follower are collectively established within the organizational context.

• The authors propose that scholars research leadership development as a social and mutual influence process. The authors present new information based on the findings and do not repeat any discussion on the findings.

DeRue and Ashford’s (2010) Paper as an Example “The more members of these groups have internalized leadership identities that are mutually recognized and collectively endorsed, the more successful these distributed and shared forms of leadership will be. Our hope is that the present theory provides the foundation for expanding the field’s conception of leadership and leadership development processes and that it stimulates future research on leadership development as a social and mutual influence process.”

Jensen et al.’s (2010) Paper as an Example • Jensen et al. (2010) synthesize the main points of their study by

stating that novices and professionals interact with the system in the same manner.

• “However, contrary to TTD, there was no significant difference in the way that novices and professionals interacted with the system, and the decision aid was not more beneficial for professionals. Novices and professionals frequently discounted the aid’s recommendations, and in many cases professionals did not view explanations when the decision aid contradicted their assessments. Future research that can build on our findings includes examining variations in incentives for credibility assessment, providing feedback on assessment performance, and exploring additional ways task experience may benefit computer-aided credibility assessment.”

9.3 Exercises

Exercise 9.1 Conclusion Processes • You can first learn to identify four essential elements

of a conclusion section by examining a published journal paper.

• Examine Figure 9.1 and fill out each element on Table 9.1. Table 9.2 includes two sample conclusions from Klein and Ray‘s (2009) and Xu, Kim and KanKanHalli’s (2010) papers. Your job is to highlight each element of a conclusion and allocate it to the correct section of Table 9.3.

• After being able to do so, your next job is to improve your paper by utilizing Table 9.4.

Exercise 9.2 Rewrite the Introduction for the Conclusion

• In Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) paper, they

rewrite the introduction section for the conclusion section as follows:

Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) Paper as an Example Introduction “We propose that by incorporating self-concept orientations into models of identification, we will be better able to understand identity processes in organizations…We develop a model examining the influence of self-concept orientations and identification motives on identification in organizations. We examine three targets of identification relevant to organizations: organizational identification, workshop identification and coworker identification.”

Cooper and Thatcher’s (2010) Paper as an Example Conclusion “Organizations are increasingly diverse, and it is crucial that organizationally relevant identifications be encouraged and managed effectively (rewrite introduction). Our model suggests that by understanding basic self-concept orientations driven by gender and cultural considerations, we may be better able to predict associated identification motives and identification targets. Understanding these motives provides an opportunity for organizations to communicate with employees and to encourage identification with specific targets (lessons learned from the study).”

Exercise 9.2 Rewrite the Introduction for the Conclusion • The revision of an introduction with the

inclusion of lessons learned can help refresh and reinforce the comprehension of readers.

• Use the left column of Table 9.5 to write down your introduction and the main findings of your study.

• Rewrite these two parts for the conclusion section of your paper and write down your revision using the right column.

Exercise 9.3 Give Readers Something to Think About

While your readers are excited about finishing reading your paper, you can further excite them with important lessons or thoughts they can carry home with them in addition to the main findings of your study.

Whitaker, Mithas and Krishnan’s (2010) Paper as an Example “The theory and findings provide a better understanding of the managerial and technical capabilities that facilitate onshore and offshore BPO and are important as firms more broadly incorporate BPO into their global sourcing strategies.”

Clemons and Madhani’s (2010) Paper as an Example “We have addressed the possible need for regulation if harm has been demonstrated. But is there really consumer harm or harm to competition? This needs to be more carefully assessed. We believe that we have shown the possibility of harm due to consumer confusion, the possibility of harm due to stifling of competition, and the possibility of abusive monopoly pricing of an essential facility. We have not yet established that such harm exists, let alone provided a metric for it or a measure of it. Future research is necessary to address both deficiencies in the current work.”

Exercise 9.3 Give Readers Something to Think About

• You can give readers something to think about

by (1) relating your findings to something useful to readers, and (2) raising important issues based on your research findings to challenge your readers.

• Use the right column of Table 9.6 to discuss these two items.

9.4 Conclusion

• Use the conclusion section to summarize main points of your study and provoke readers to consider the usefulness of those main points to them.

• Apply three writing strategies to improve the conclusion section