School's (mostly) out for summer — but research doesn't take a holiday
Despite summer session classes, the pace at the university slows a bit between May graduation and the start of the fall semester. But research activity among faculty never really loses momentum. Uday Kulkarni is one example. He has been collecting data for several years to understand the ways knowledge management systems impact knowledge-intensive business processes. This summer the information systems professor is moving into the next step of his research: organizing the information he has gathered, then analyzing and writing about it. Sometime this fall he'll have a paper ready to submit to a journal. Kulkarni and four other Department of Information Systems professors, including Jane Carey, Michael Furukawa, Raghu Santanam and Benjamin Shao, received grants to support their research this summer.
Uday Kulkarni has been collecting data for several years to understand the ways knowledge management systems impact knowledge-intensive business processes. This summer the information systems professor is moving into the next step of his research: organizing the information he has gathered, then analyzing and writing about it. Sometime this fall he'll have a paper ready to submit to a journal.
This is knowledge creation at the source — exactly what you expect from a research university. Less clear, perhaps, is what this has to do with the classroom.
Plenty!
"I wouldn't know what it means" to teach at a university without doing research, Kulkarni said.
"There are textbooks that I have for them to read so that they understand the vocabulary of business intelligence, but I tell them on day one that this is just for reference," he explained. Instead, the classes tackle much higher level material -- case studies, identifying the difficult questions, figuring out how to apply their new knowledge in their companies. "We go into the class with the view that we are going to explore new knowledge. Part of that new knowledge is coming from my research, and part of it comes from their own experiences."
So research enriches the classroom, and the classroom propels the research.
Despite summer session classes, the pace at the university slows a bit between May graduation and the start of the fall semester. But research activity among faculty never really loses momentum. Kulkarni is one example. He and four other Department of Information Systems professors, including Jane Carey, Michael Furukawa, Raghu Santanam and Benjamin Shao, received grants to support their research this summer.
The research grants are funded in part by the Dean's Council of 100, a group of business leaders who support the W. P. Carey School. In addition, some departmental funds are committed to summer research. "The research funded this summer has important implications to course pedagogy and content — and that is in addition to funding faculty research themes that have the potential to advance the IS field and concomitantly improve managerial practice," said Chairman Michael Goul.
This fall, students in their classes will experience the benefits.
Business process efficiency
Knowledge is an asset — a competitive advantage — and many companies are using knowledge management systems to capture and share it. But the big question is whether these systems contribute to the effectiveness of a company's business processes, and if so, how to measure it.
Kulkarni's ongoing research seeks to uncover the ways knowledge management systems impact knowledge-intensive business processes (KIBP). According to the research proposal, although KIBPs tend to be tasks routinely executed in an organization, they are "complex and time consuming, requiring collaboration and sharing of knowledge within specific work contexts."
"Every organization has different kinds of knowledge-intensive business processes," Kulkarni said. So, the first phase of his research involved extensive interviewing at a variety of kinds of firms — Ernst & Young, DHL and Sonora Quest Laboratories to name a few — to get a better understanding of KIBP.
The second step was to introduce the research into his Master of Science in Information Systems class. During the week-plus devoted to the topic, Kulkarni asked his students to describe a KIBP at their company. This improved his understanding of KIBPs and enabled him to collect data from more than 200 mid-level managers over three years. At the same time, students could discuss real-world examples in the context of the theory they were learning.
Doing e-commerce in China
The huge China market is a sea of opportunity for companies that can figure out how best to present their products. This summer, Professor Jane Carey is investigating what web design features elicit positive responses from Chinese consumers.
Carey's project will determine the impact of language and brand on Chinese perception of quality. Doctoral student Degan Kettles developed a set of mock web sites that test six combinations of language and branding: English and Chinese, and branded or not.
"My hypotheses are simple: that if there's a little bit of English within the Chinese text, that the perception of quality will be higher. There's market research to back that up," she said. "The other main hypothesis is that if there is a presence of a known brand the perception of quality will be higher."
Carey hopes to collect data this summer and fall, assisted by colleagues in China who were her students when she was at universities there. Chinese shoppers visiting a mall will be asked first if they make purchases online, then if they do, they will be asked questions about the mock web sites.
Carey is hoping that the project will uncover some underlying principles and theories that will help predict consumer behavior patterns in other emerging economies, such as India. Her knowledge of evolving markets is based in first-hand experience: she spent a couple years in the early 1990s at Shandong University, Shandong Province.
For this project, students in Carey's CIS 440 class will helped her test the survey outline by viewing screenshots and identifying the kinks. CIS 440 is the capstone course, when students move from analyzing and designing to actually building an IT tool. Since Carey's research focuses on design for the user/computer interface, classes benefit from exposure to the latest thinking, and sometimes research ideas come from students themselves.
"It's a much richer experience for students and professor if research informs the theory and practice in the classroom," she said.
"Ready to wear" vs. custom — IT and your prescriptions
Michael Furukawa and colleagues Raghu Santanam and Ben Shao have been studying the impact of electronic medical records (EMR) on healthcare (see "Electronic Medical Records: The Surprising Short-Term Prognosis"). This summer, all three are pursuing related healthcare topics — in Furukawa's case, it's electronic medical records and physician prescribing practices.
"Imperfect information is among the most challenging issues in the health care delivery," Furukawa writes in his grant proposal, "and information costs are particularly salient in physician prescribing." Furukawa describes the complexity of the decision a physician makes when prescribing a treatment: "New drugs, patent expiration and generic entry; variations in patient insurance, and physician financial incentives contribute to making the physician's prescribing decision a difficult one."
Given the complexity, doctors may have a tendency to prescribe the same drug for all with a certain condition: say one drug for just about every patient with high blood pressure. But the "ready to wear" solution may not be the best for everybody. If the doctor had the capability to efficiently sort through all of the available information about drugs and treatments and find a match, would he customize his prescriptions more often?
It appears to be an obvious opportunity for an IT solution, and some EMR systems offer access to the information. To take a close look at physician prescribing patterns, Furukawa is using a national database from the Centers for Disease Control that holds detailed information on patient visits — including medications prescribed — for a two-year period.
Furukawa says the challenge in the classroom is to make the theories and models relevant. In his health management classes, students want to know how they can use the theories in the day-to-day management of their hospitals or practices.
"They might hear that the government or even the president is interested in electronic medical records," Furukawa said, "but what's underneath the potential savings and reducing errors and so forth? How do we start to understand the sound bites?"
His classes delve into case studies and begin to build out their understanding of those sound bites, and that's where he brings in his own research. Take electronic medical records: student might discuss how they would make decisions concerning implementation, how much savings they could expect and what improvements in quality might ensue. Back on the job the issue may or may not be electronic records -- it could be bar coding. Exposure to research in the classroom prepares them to do better analysis.
"In my teaching I want to give them a way of thinking about a business problem," he said. "You don't want to just follow what the vendors say. You want to carefully think about the value you might get from this investment."
It's all about me
An EMR is the digital version of the chart on file at your doctor's office, or the one parked in a notebook at the foot of your hospital bed. This is the institutional record of your health and treatment.
But while EMRs were developing, a different version was growing up on a parallel track: the Personal Health Record (PHR). These are not your doctor's notes — they are yours — the bits of medical information you keep about yourself or your family members. PHRs are being pushed as a way to help patients to take control of their own health rather than relying on an institution, explains Raghu Santanam, who is studying PHRs this summer.
Because consumers are the ones who will adopt or consume them, Santanam explained, the dynamics associated with PHRs should be similar to those attached to e-commerce sites, mobile device "apps," tax software, consumer office productivity suites and the like. That means that a study of PHRs could shed light on a perennial question in information systems research: how do users accept and adapt IS systems?
A PHR is something that requires effort in the present for a benefit in the future. However, consumer preferences may not be consistent over time. Santanam relates it to retirement investment. People understand that they will need money in the future, but they want to use that money now. As a result, many do not save enough. His project will investigate the mechanisms that might be used to encourage people to adopt and maintain a PHR. The first step is a survey, in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, which has launched a Family Health Management System for its patients. Long term, he intends to extend the study to examine how consumers actually use these systems.
"For the longest time I've been teaching business process management, and not surprisingly that's one of my main research streams for the last 10, 15 years," Santanam said. "So after such a long time of working in it, it's in fact interesting that I can't say what influenced my teaching and what influenced my research. They meld together."
Teaching in the evening MSIM program, Santanam is exposed to the process problems that his mid-management level students face, and that often becomes the context for his research and models. The results then flow back into his teaching, where he and the students discuss how they might be adapted in practice.
Substitute or complement?
The strategic importance of IT is rooted in the fact that it contributes to an organization's productivity, but exactly how does this occur, and how do we measure it?
Production theory, explains information systems Professor Ben Shao, identifies the inputs to the production process, including labor, capital, materials, and now IT. This summer, he is investigating how IT solutions fit. "The goal is ascertain whether IT is a net substitute or complement for capital and labor, and if so under what conditions," he wrote in his proposal.
Because of its ability to play two roles, IT represents a "unique value proposition," Shao added. "One essential difference between IT and other inputs is the dual role that IT plays," he wrote. "Like capital, IT can be used directly as a production technology to improve labor productivity. In this case, IT is considered a substitute for labor because IT allows firms to reduce headcounts. On the other hand, IT is also a potent complementary technology that reduces the cost of coordinating economic activity, both within and between organizations."
Shao is using data collected from some 200 hospitals in Texas to look at how IT is used to substitute for labor, and how it is used to complement. "We'll be using this data to see if IT can be used to replace some low-skill nurses, for example, but at the same time help with high-skill tasks," he said. As well, he hopes to learn more about how IT is actually used. "We know how systems are supposed to be used," he said, "but how are they actually used?"
This summer, Shao is also teaching a course called Strategic Value of IT in the MSIM Program which grew directly out of this line of his research. Students in that class average about 10 years of work experience, and they arrive on campus expecting to learn the latest insights so that they can apply it in their work. Shao said this means the faculty is expected not only to teach cutting edge material, but also to create it.
Next spring when he adds an undergraduate class to his schedule, his approach will be a little different, but like in his graduate classes, research will play an important role. Because undergraduate students are younger and less experienced, the focus will be more on the principles, but research will make an entrance too: "We'll supplement that kind of teaching with interesting examples that they might not be familiar with from our research."
Knowledge is an asset — a competitive advantage — and many companies are using knowledge management systems to capture and share it. But the big question is whether these systems contribute to the effectiveness of a company's business processes, and if so, how to measure it.
Kulkarni's ongoing research seeks to uncover the ways knowledge management systems impact knowledge-intensive business processes (KIBP). According to the research proposal, although KIBPs tend to be tasks routinely executed in an organization, they are "complex and time consuming, requiring collaboration and sharing of knowledge within specific work contexts."
"Every organization has different kinds of knowledge-intensive business processes," Kulkarni said. So, the first phase of his research involved extensive interviewing at a variety of kinds of firms — Ernst & Young, DHL and Sonora Quest Laboratories to name a few — to get a better understanding of KIBP.
The second step was to introduce the research into his Master of Science in Information Systems class. During the week-plus devoted to the topic, Kulkarni asked his students to describe a KIBP at their company. This improved his understanding of KIBPs and enabled him to collect data from more than 200 mid-level managers over three years. At the same time, students could discuss real-world examples in the context of the theory they were learning.
Doing e-commerce in China
The huge China market is a sea of opportunity for companies that can figure out how best to present their products. This summer, Professor Jane Carey is investigating what web design features elicit positive responses from Chinese consumers.
Carey's project will determine the impact of language and brand on Chinese perception of quality. Doctoral student Degan Kettles developed a set of mock web sites that test six combinations of language and branding: English and Chinese, and branded or not.
"My hypotheses are simple: that if there's a little bit of English within the Chinese text, that the perception of quality will be higher. There's market research to back that up," she said. "The other main hypothesis is that if there is a presence of a known brand the perception of quality will be higher."
Carey hopes to collect data this summer and fall, assisted by colleagues in China who were her students when she was at universities there. Chinese shoppers visiting a mall will be asked first if they make purchases online, then if they do, they will be asked questions about the mock web sites.
Carey is hoping that the project will uncover some underlying principles and theories that will help predict consumer behavior patterns in other emerging economies, such as India. Her knowledge of evolving markets is based in first-hand experience: she spent a couple years in the early 1990s at Shandong University, Shandong Province.
For this project, students in Carey's CIS 440 class will helped her test the survey outline by viewing screenshots and identifying the kinks. CIS 440 is the capstone course, when students move from analyzing and designing to actually building an IT tool. Since Carey's research focuses on design for the user/computer interface, classes benefit from exposure to the latest thinking, and sometimes research ideas come from students themselves.
"It's a much richer experience for students and professor if research informs the theory and practice in the classroom," she said.
"Ready to wear" vs. custom — IT and your prescriptions
Michael Furukawa and colleagues Raghu Santanam and Ben Shao have been studying the impact of electronic medical records (EMR) on healthcare (see "Electronic Medical Records: The Surprising Short-Term Prognosis"). This summer, all three are pursuing related healthcare topics — in Furukawa's case, it's electronic medical records and physician prescribing practices.
"Imperfect information is among the most challenging issues in the health care delivery," Furukawa writes in his grant proposal, "and information costs are particularly salient in physician prescribing." Furukawa describes the complexity of the decision a physician makes when prescribing a treatment: "New drugs, patent expiration and generic entry; variations in patient insurance, and physician financial incentives contribute to making the physician's prescribing decision a difficult one."
Given the complexity, doctors may have a tendency to prescribe the same drug for all with a certain condition: say one drug for just about every patient with high blood pressure. But the "ready to wear" solution may not be the best for everybody. If the doctor had the capability to efficiently sort through all of the available information about drugs and treatments and find a match, would he customize his prescriptions more often?
It appears to be an obvious opportunity for an IT solution, and some EMR systems offer access to the information. To take a close look at physician prescribing patterns, Furukawa is using a national database from the Centers for Disease Control that holds detailed information on patient visits — including medications prescribed — for a two-year period.
Furukawa says the challenge in the classroom is to make the theories and models relevant. In his health management classes, students want to know how they can use the theories in the day-to-day management of their hospitals or practices.
"They might hear that the government or even the president is interested in electronic medical records," Furukawa said, "but what's underneath the potential savings and reducing errors and so forth? How do we start to understand the sound bites?"
His classes delve into case studies and begin to build out their understanding of those sound bites, and that's where he brings in his own research. Take electronic medical records: student might discuss how they would make decisions concerning implementation, how much savings they could expect and what improvements in quality might ensue. Back on the job the issue may or may not be electronic records -- it could be bar coding. Exposure to research in the classroom prepares them to do better analysis.
"In my teaching I want to give them a way of thinking about a business problem," he said. "You don't want to just follow what the vendors say. You want to carefully think about the value you might get from this investment."
It's all about me
An EMR is the digital version of the chart on file at your doctor's office, or the one parked in a notebook at the foot of your hospital bed. This is the institutional record of your health and treatment.
But while EMRs were developing, a different version was growing up on a parallel track: the Personal Health Record (PHR). These are not your doctor's notes — they are yours — the bits of medical information you keep about yourself or your family members. PHRs are being pushed as a way to help patients to take control of their own health rather than relying on an institution, explains Raghu Santanam, who is studying PHRs this summer.
Because consumers are the ones who will adopt or consume them, Santanam explained, the dynamics associated with PHRs should be similar to those attached to e-commerce sites, mobile device "apps," tax software, consumer office productivity suites and the like. That means that a study of PHRs could shed light on a perennial question in information systems research: how do users accept and adapt IS systems?
A PHR is something that requires effort in the present for a benefit in the future. However, consumer preferences may not be consistent over time. Santanam relates it to retirement investment. People understand that they will need money in the future, but they want to use that money now. As a result, many do not save enough. His project will investigate the mechanisms that might be used to encourage people to adopt and maintain a PHR. The first step is a survey, in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, which has launched a Family Health Management System for its patients. Long term, he intends to extend the study to examine how consumers actually use these systems.
"For the longest time I've been teaching business process management, and not surprisingly that's one of my main research streams for the last 10, 15 years," Santanam said. "So after such a long time of working in it, it's in fact interesting that I can't say what influenced my teaching and what influenced my research. They meld together."
Teaching in the evening MSIM program, Santanam is exposed to the process problems that his mid-management level students face, and that often becomes the context for his research and models. The results then flow back into his teaching, where he and the students discuss how they might be adapted in practice.
Substitute or complement?
The strategic importance of IT is rooted in the fact that it contributes to an organization's productivity, but exactly how does this occur, and how do we measure it?
Production theory, explains information systems Professor Ben Shao, identifies the inputs to the production process, including labor, capital, materials, and now IT. This summer, he is investigating how IT solutions fit. "The goal is ascertain whether IT is a net substitute or complement for capital and labor, and if so under what conditions," he wrote in his proposal.
Because of its ability to play two roles, IT represents a "unique value proposition," Shao added. "One essential difference between IT and other inputs is the dual role that IT plays," he wrote. "Like capital, IT can be used directly as a production technology to improve labor productivity. In this case, IT is considered a substitute for labor because IT allows firms to reduce headcounts. On the other hand, IT is also a potent complementary technology that reduces the cost of coordinating economic activity, both within and between organizations."
Shao is using data collected from some 200 hospitals in Texas to look at how IT is used to substitute for labor, and how it is used to complement. "We'll be using this data to see if IT can be used to replace some low-skill nurses, for example, but at the same time help with high-skill tasks," he said. As well, he hopes to learn more about how IT is actually used. "We know how systems are supposed to be used," he said, "but how are they actually used?"
This summer, Shao is also teaching a course called Strategic Value of IT in the MSIM Program which grew directly out of this line of his research. Students in that class average about 10 years of work experience, and they arrive on campus expecting to learn the latest insights so that they can apply it in their work. Shao said this means the faculty is expected not only to teach cutting edge material, but also to create it.
Next spring when he adds an undergraduate class to his schedule, his approach will be a little different, but like in his graduate classes, research will play an important role. Because undergraduate students are younger and less experienced, the focus will be more on the principles, but research will make an entrance too: "We'll supplement that kind of teaching with interesting examples that they might not be familiar with from our research."
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