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In this study, we examine how employees engage in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) that contributes toward their work performance related to IS usage in a small-medium sized manufacturing firm in southern China. We uncover instances of OCB that correspond to salient characteristics of the Chinese social culture, in particular when facing inadequacies in systems, organizational training, and personal skills. We inductively analyze our findings, blending them with the literature to propose a new theoretical model that explains the antecedents and consequences of IT-centric OCB in organizations.

In this study of tacit knowledge-sharing intentions in China, we examine the roles of authoritarian leadership and fairness with respect to the way managers make decisions and treat their subordinates. In particular, we examine the role of leader renqing orientation, i.e., the way leaders distribute favors and emotional concern to their subordinates, as a moderating factor. We draw on the research literature in the domains of knowledge management and cross-cultural Psychology to identify constructs that we then test with a survey of 309 Chinese employees. Our findings are counter-intuitive and are discussed in detail before we conclude with implications for research and practice.

We report on an Action Research investigation into knowledge-sharing practices in Velox, a global logistics organisation and in particular its operations in Guangzhou, China. Our study is premised on Work Systems Theory and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory. Following a description of background and context, we describe two linked Action Research cycles, following the principles and criteria for Canonical Action Research. Our interventions were successful, with both managers and employees at Velox expressing satisfaction with the outcomes, which included radical changes to operational procedures. We discuss the implications and contributions for theory, practice and method.

The relevance of action research as a research method in the information systems (IS) discipline is not disputed. Nevertheless, the extent to which action research is published in good journals is infrequent enough to indicate a serious problem. In this article, we explore the reasons underlying this situation and make recommendations aiming to increase both the practice and the publication of action research. To identify both the barriers to undertaking action research and potential ways of overcoming those barriers, we survey 218 authors of 120 articles demonstrating empirical action research published in 12 of our good journals during the period 1982–2016. We received 70 usable responses. We also surveyed 52 editors of selected IS journals and received 25 usable responses. Our findings are revealing as they indicate both genuine barriers associated with action research and some apparent barriers that are in reality misperceptions or myths. In reflecting on these, we emphasize the special qualities of action research. We also reflect on the critical role that action research plays in the IS field as a whole and its potential for further contributions to research and practice, given the strong and close connections with organizational problem contexts that action research requires. Finally, we make a number of recommendations that are designed to increase the incidence of action research in the IS discipline

The employees of professional service firms regularly engage in various knowledge-related activities, including the seeking and sharing of knowledge with other people; we refer to this process as interpersonal knowledge exchange (IKE). Two prominent drivers of IKE in China are the socio-cultural concept of guanxi and social media. We conduct an interpretive investigation into IKE, collecting qualitative data from employees in three Chinese organizations. We explore how guanxi lubricates the social media-based communication practices that are central to IKE in China. We report and generalise our findings into theoretical propositions, discuss the practical implications, and identify opportunities for future research.

We investigate how employees react when confronted with an enterprise system (ES) that does not fit with work processes dictated by local realities. We draw on interview data (n = 31) from a multinational company to reveal how employees devised and coordinated workarounds that were not compliant with corporate IT policy, but enabled the completion of essential activities, thereby creating value for the firm and its customers. The coordination of these workarounds proved essential to their persistence. We discuss both the theoretical implications of our findings regarding workarounds and the practical contributions associated with the idea that non-compliance can be beneficial.

Digitally literate employees are accustomed to having free access to digital media technologies. However, some organizations enact information technology (IT) governance structures that explicitly proscribe access to these technologies, resulting in considerable tension between employees and the organization. We explore these tensions in an exploratory investigation into the Chinese operations of a global hotel chain. We examine how employees creatively act as bricoleurs as they violate IT policies to ensure access to the digital media of their choice. We discuss the broader implications of our findings for practicing managers, as well as future research opportunities, before concluding the paper.

This study sheds light on how role stressors influence employee creativity by jointly exploring the mediating mechanism and contextual factors affecting these relationships. Drawing from the transactional theory of stress, we consider job satisfaction to be a mediator that represents employees’ attitudinal responses to stressors. We also consider social media use within teams to be a moderator that affects employees’ stress appraisal. Specifically, we distinguish between task- and relationship-oriented social media use. We propose a multilevel moderated mediation model to depict the nomological network. Results of a survey of 359 employees in 56 organizational teams suggest that two social media usage patterns differentially moderate the relationships between role stressors and job satisfaction as well as the indirect relationships between role stressors and employee creativity through job satisfaction. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

Based on the communicative ecology framework and theories related to guanxi and communication context in China, we investigate the moderating effects of individual preference for communication context (IPCC) on knowledge sharing via interactive systems (KSIS) behavior. Drawing on survey data from a hotel chain's employees, we explore how guanxi elements drive knowledge sharing (KS) behavior and enhance KS outcomes. Our data demonstrate that IPCC significantly moderates the effect that KSIS has on KS outcomes, but the IPCC has a direct and negative impact on KS outcomes. We explain these seemingly contradictory findings and their implications for research and practice.

Drawing upon a relationship quality framework, this study identifies how satisfaction, trust and different styles of handling conflict influence online buyers’ participation intentions in reputation systems associated with a C2C online shopping platform. Furthermore, we investigate how these effects are moderated by social conformity and the perceived value of knowledge. The results of a survey of 269 online buyers indicate that satisfaction, trust and an accommodating conflict handling style positively impact the intention to submit positive ratings, whereas an avoiding conflict handling style negatively affects the intention to submit positive ratings. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.

The development and validation of an instrument to measure meeting success has been described in earlier work. This instrument is now revalidated in organisational meetings where Group Support Systems (GSS) were employed to support meeting processes. In addition, a derived version of the instrument for measurement of longitudinal meetings is introduced.

CSCW systems are designed to improve group communication while alleviating negative interactions. However, their developers often focus on the technology, producing highly sophisticated software systems to address problems that may not exist in real-life groups or may not effectively address problems encountered by them. As a result of an extensive review of the literature and a large-scale survey of meeting participants in a University setting, we believe that we have identified the most important problems in group interaction. These are matched with specific features of CSCW technology, as well as with their potential drawbacks. This problem–solution–drawback arrangement is posited as a point of departure for a common knowledge base for future CSCW development.

The success of a meeting and the factors which contribute to that success are elusive. Group Support Systems (GSS) have been suggested as a suitable tool for improving meetings, but very often little justification is given for this usage. It is more useful and more appropriate to analyse the characteristics of meetings before considering using a GSS to support one. An instrument is developed for this purpose with five meeting process and outcome constructs: communication, discussion quality, status effects, teamwork, and efficiency. The instrument is validated with data collected from 383 employees of a university in Hong Kong.