PhD Comprehensive Exam Date : 19 September, 2014 Time : 9:00 to 12:00 for sit-in portion Materials, aids and instruments permitted to be used: Open book. Any materials (such ag books, computer files, Web sites) can be used. However, no communication or “cutting and pasting’ is permitted General Notes Pluage remember that this is an individuel exercise. Any collusion or plaglar’sm will be Healt wih in conjunction with City University of Hong Keng guidelines possibly resulting in expulsion from the PhD program. Please email your sit-in and take-home portions to Professor Kal Lim (jskl@cityu.edu.hk) and Miss Janice Ng (isipyng@ertyu.edu.nk) and remember to keep a personal copy. Sit-in Exam Questions (Question 1 is mandatory; answer either Question 2 or Question 3)Question 1 There has been considerable discussion in the information systems (1S) field about “what qualifies as IS research”, Some may argue that the research has to be couched in an IS context, others mey stress that at least one of the model variables has to be an TS variable, others demand even the use of specific IS theories, while another group may argue that any research carried out by IS faculty qualifies as IS research. a) Among the main protagonists of what constitutes IS research have been Benbasat and Zmued (e.g., Benbasat and Zmud, 2003). Explain the key elements of their rationale for ‘what constitutes IS research. b) Why is it important to answer the question about the essence or “core” of IS research? ©) Tdentify one article written by a well-known IS researcher and published in a significant IS journal which you would consider not to be “core” IS research? Explain your choice. d) Ia research field, in order to be a “discipline”, requires the existence of its own set of theories, does this eliminate the possibility for new disciplines to ever be created? Explain your answer. ‘Your answer will be graded based on the following criteria: 1) English writing quality. 2) Quality of logical arguments in response to questions. 3) Demonstrated understanding of theory and related issues in IS. vQuestion 2 (“Behavioral and Managerial IS” Question) For question 2, recognizing that knowledge in a specific research context is important for developing relate research models, you are allowed to choose one out of the three options below.Option 1 -IS project portfolio management Question: Information System (IS) project portfolio and management, which denotes the selection and management of all IS projects within an organization, is facing several challenges jn recent years, They include (1) the numerous small development projects initiated and managed by individuals and/or small groups of users (e.g., small applications developed by individual employees), (2) the adaption of open source software by different departments, (3) the heightened security concer over random attacks, (4) decentralized access to organization data and information, and (5) the top management's enduring emphasis on organization-wide management of all application projects (regatdless of the size and magnitude). These challenges are inherently complex to address due to the diversity of stakeholders involved and geographic separation of project components, which can often span flnetional, organizational, cultural, and international boundaries. ‘Your task is to conduct a research study to understand the complexity of the IS project portfolio within a multi-national organization that is constituted of geographically separated subsidiaries. You are required to propose the research question, the research design, end the research methodology. Note that you are required to clearly highlight the boundary of your research ((-e.. what are considered to be inside and what are beyond your research scope). Marking guideline: The answer could vary depending on whether you examine the issue from functional, organizational, cultural and/or international perspectives. The general guideline for the marking will be: (1) Whether the research question is able to capture the context and the gist of the issue adequately, (2) Whether the research design is well formulated to answer the proposed research question. For example, if you are proposing an experiment or a survey study, the antecedents, the outcome variables, the control variables, the mediating and moderation variables need to be clearly shown and rooted in established theories. (3) Whether the research methodology is appropriate. There is no specific indication of methodology preference and could be in the form of case study, survey etc. (4) Importantly, you should be able to clearly articulate what the proposed research covers (ie,, the boundary) ‘Note that assessment item 4 will be rated equally highly as the other 3 criteria as itis important that you are able to understand that no research is enormously encompassing and the limitations of the research. Source of reference: special issue in JMIS on IT Project, Portfolio, and Program Management (http:/Awww.jmis-web.org/efp/ef4 pdf)Option 2 -IT and product innovation Question: the role of Information technology (IT) as an enabler of product innovation suggests @ great opportunity for IS scholars to study the impact of IT on innovation processes, business ‘models, and the nature of business value created, Through IT, innovation processes have become ‘more open and collaborative in nature, involving a great diversity of people, which could include customers, employees of all levels, and stakeholders. Nevertheless, there remains an enduring concer over the diminishing control over an innovation by organization due to IT (@.g., the social media). For example, the license issue involves in open innovation, the restricted ability to gear social media people at large toward focusing on the task of innovation (¢.g., the lower control and authority to punish), the secrecy of the innovation before its official launch. In this question, you ate tasked to deliver a research proposal that examines the shortcomings of IT in product innovation, The output of this research should have theoretical value and be of practical importance to organizations. ‘Your task is to conduct a research study to understand the shortcomings of IT in product innovation. You are required to propose the research question, the research design, and the research methodology. Note that you are required to clearly highlight the boundary of your research (ie., what are considered to be inside and what are beyond your research scope). Marking guideline: The answer could vary depending on whether you examine the issue from functional, organizational, cultural and/or social perspectives. The general guideline for the marking will be: (1) Whether the research question is able to capture the context and the gist of the issue adequately. (2) Whether the research design is well formulated to answer the proposed research question. For example, if you ate proposing an experiment or a survey study, the antecedents, the outcome variables, the control variables, the mediating and moderation variables need to be clearly shown and rooted in established theories. (3) Whether the research methodology is appropriate, There is no specific indication of methodology preference and could be in the form of case study, survey ete. (4) Importantly, you should be able to clearly articulate what the proposed research covers (ie., the boundary). ‘Note that assessment item 4 will be rated equally highly as the other 3 criteria as it is important that you are able to understand that no research is enormously encompassing and the limitations of the research, Source of reference: special issue in MISQ on information technology and innovation (http://www miso.ore/skin/frontend/defauli/misa/pdf/CurrentCalis/IT_InnovationCEP pdf)Option 3 - Social Media and e-Commerce (aka Social Commerce) Question; Electronic commerce has long been a domain of interest among Information Systems scholars, with numerous studies on technical, behavioral, and organizationl issues associated with all aspects of e-commerce, Recently, this topic has received renewed and increasi attention from both practitioners and scholars due to the continual emergence of social media, The growing populatity of social media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Foursquare, Pinterest and WeChat, has opened huge opportunities for new business models in electronic commerce. These platforms rely on individual users for content generation and sharing. Consumers thus can easily obtain product or service information from extemal and networked sources, whereas companies can leverage social media to reach potential customers, increase brand awareness and expand their market Social media not only provides a perfect place for businesses to connect with their customers, but also raises a veriety of challenging new issues for e-commerce scholars to develop new knowledge in this field. New patterns of consumer behaviors are emerging, the understanding of which are crucial for organizations and IT designers to effectively leverage on the new opportunities that social media bring about in e-commerce. Issues that have been overlooked in traditional e-commerce research may become important when social media enter the picture. ‘Your task is to conduct a researeh study to understand new patterns of consumer behavior arising from the use of social media in e-commerce, You are required to propose the research question, the research design, and the research methodology. Note that you are required to clearly highlight the boundary of your research (ie., what are considered to be and what are beyond your research scope) Marking guideline: The answer could vary depending on whether you examine the issue from functional, organizational, cultural and/or social perspectives. The general guideline for the marking will be: (1) Whether the research question is able to capture the context and the gist of the issue adequately (2) Whether the research design is well formulated to answer the proposed research question. For example, if you ate proposing an experiment or a survey study, the antecedents, the outcome variables, the control variables, the mediating and moderation variables need to be clearly shown and rooted in established theories. (3) Whether the research methodology is appropriate. There is no specific indication of methodology preference and could be in the form of case study, survey ete. (2) Importantly, you should be able to clearly articulate what the proposed research covers (ice, the boundary), ‘Note that assessment item 4 will be rated equally highly as the other 3 criteria as it is important that you ate able to understand that no research is enormously encompassing and the limitations of the research, Source of reference: PACIS2014 Conference Track on Social Media and e-Commerce (http://pacis2014.org/track_sme.php)Question 3 (“Design Science and Econ IS” Question) ‘The increasing capability in text-mining has allowed researchers to study interesting research questions in relation to online content. Much of the past research has been focused on the impact of positive or negative sentiments, content readability (Ghose and Ipeirotis, 2011), emotions (Goes, Lin and Au Yeung, 2014), etc ‘You are asked to develop a research proposal that makes use of a text-mining methodology in a novel way, For example, identify specific online user behaviors which have not been examined before, Furthermore, these specific behaviors should provide interesting insights from the IS perspective. Please specify the following in your answer: 1. What is the novelty of the online phenomenon which you aim to uncover through using the text-mining technique in mining the content? How is the online phenomenon linked to the specific interesting research questions that you would like to address? 2, How do you actually design OR apply the text-mining procedure? ‘You will be examined based on the following criteria. 1. The novelty of your general research question which you seek to address from ‘uncovering the phenomenon seen the online content. For example, sentiment analysis such as positive or negative reviews would be considered to be lacking novelty, unless you can justify specific aspects of which prior literature have not considered. ‘The implementability and robustness of the proposed t mining procedute. Note that you are not required to design a new text-mining technique in your answer. However, you need to explain how the methodology can be applied (such as input, text-mining procedure, utput). In such a case, greater weight on criteria { will be placed in grading your answer. ‘Alternatively, if you choose to provide a new design of a text-mining methodology, criteria 2 will be graded with greater weight. References: ‘Anindya Ghose and Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis, Estimating the Helpfulness and Economic Impact of Product Reviews: Mining Text and Reviewer Characteristics, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 73 (10), 2011 Paulo b. Goes; Mingfeng Lin; Ching-man Au Yeung, “Popularity Effect” in User-Generated Content: Evidence from Online Product Reviews, Information Systems Research, 25 (2), 2014Take-Home Exam Question Please review the paper provided to you using the guidelines suggested in “Reviewing a Manuscript for Publication” by Allen Lee. Your review should not exeeed 2500 words Your review is due no later than 8:00 AM on 22/9.