The role of the Avant Garde in linguistic diffusion

The spread of the new quotative be like throughout the English-speaking world is a change from above for each community that receives it. Diffusion of this form into Philadelphia is traced through the yearly interviews of the Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus, beginning with young adults in 1979 and spreading to adolescents in 1990, a generation later. The first users of be like form the Avant Garde, young adults with extensive awareness of linguistic patterns within and without the city. The use of this quotative in Philadelphia is favored by constraints that are found elsewhere, particularly to introduce inner speech that is not intended to be heard by others and to cite exemplars of a range of utterances. Not previously reported is a strong tendency to be favored for quotations with initial exclamations, prototypically expressions of surprise and alarm such as “Oh” and “Oh my god!”.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHANGE AGENTS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION IN FIRMS

The role of change agents in technological diffusion and innovation at firm level has been addressed in published literature mostly within the context of the developed countries. However, the involvement of change agents in the diffusion and adoption of IT-based innovations by small and medium-sized firms in the developing countries is largely unexplored. The main research questions are why and how management decisions to adopt and use IT are influenced (if any) by the interactions of key people in firms with several identified change agents. Case studies are used as the preferred approach to answer the research questions and to understand the qualitative aspects of IT diffusion at the level of the firm. The study concludes that IT diffusion in small and medium-sized firms expose mixed institutional influences. The mechanism by which change agents are involved in IT diffusion is also unique and is claimed to be different from that is generally found in other studies in this area. Some policy implications are proposed by this study.

XBRL Diffusion in Social Media: Discourses and Community Learning

ABSTRACT Multiple discourses are critical in determining the success of information technology (IT) diffusion. Since its inception, such discourses also appear in the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) diffusion sphere. To help explain XBRL diffusion, we explore the discourses relative to XBRL in social media. A case study with text mining and content analysis was conducted to address three research questions covering community discourses, polarity of viewpoint, and learning surrounding XBRL in social media. Our sample data consisted of members' posts and comments in LinkedIn XBRL groups over the period 2010 to 2013. Our analysis finds that XBRL discourses in social media have largely revolved around the dissemination of XBRL information to raise awareness among potential adopters (i.e., theorization) and to properly implement XBRL (i.e., translation). Our findings indicate that XBRL's theorization is not in doubt, while XBRL's translation remains challenging. Professionals generally view XBRL positively. Those who view XBRL less favorably are more likely to be skeptical rather than dismissive. We also observe that social media like LinkedIn is a relevant channel for communities to learn about XBRL. We discuss the findings and include several insights and implications that may be useful in augmenting the future of XBRL.

Post-Acceptance Intentions and Behaviors

Due to its extensive use for the study of information technology adoption and use, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) serves as an ideal base model for the study of post-acceptance IT diffusion outcomes. The research presented in this paper incrementally builds on TAM-based research to gain meaningful insights into the potential differences individuals’ exhibit in three types of diffusion outcomes in a post-acceptance context. The authors model and test the effects of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on intentions to use, intentions to explore, and trying to innovate – IT diffusion outcomes proposed as vital in a post-acceptance context. In addition to TAM predictive variables, the authors investigate how autonomy, a personal control factor, and subjective norms, a social factor, influence individuals’ intentions toward and behaviors associated with technology use. The findings suggest cognitive intention outcomes are more likely to be influenced by technology-related factors, while behavioral outcomes are more likely to be influenced by social and personal control factors in post-acceptance contexts. Implications of the study for practice and future research are also discussed.

Adoption of Electronic Health Records

Adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) can provide an impetus to a greater degree of overall adoption of Information Technology (IT) in many healthcare organizations. In this study, using a Delphi technique, input from 40 CIO responses is analyzed to provide an insight into acceptance and adoption of EHRs at an enterprise level. Many useful findings emerged from the study. First, a majority of the participants believed that about 40-49 percent of the providers will be using EHRs by the year 2014, thus highlighting the need for studying EHR diffusion in hospitals. As predictors of successful implementations, physicians’ leadership and attitude was ranked as the most important factor. Another significant determinant of success was the business model of the physicians—whether they are affiliated with hospitals or working independently. This factor highlights the need to employ different strategies to encourage adoption of EHRs among these distinct groups. All findings are discussed, including their implications for IT diffusion in healthcare.

Business Informatization Level

IT diffusion is central to the new economy and is reflected in a process of informatization of society and businesses. Although initially coined to represent the diffusion and adoption of information technology (IT) in all levels of society, the term informatization is also employed to represent the use of information technology resources in organizations. Weissbach (2003), for instance, defines informatization as being the process of gradual and increasing application of “planned and systematic use of IT penetrating the organization’s functions”. As pointed out by Lim (2001), the evaluation of an organization’s Informatization Level (IL) is an important managerial concern. The author also points out the difficulties associated with this evaluation, stating that “this is not a simple problem because informatization includes many intangible factors such as the quality of information and the organization’s culture”. The purpose of evaluating a company’s IL is to provide information for the organization to improve precisely its informatization level. It is also a means of benchmarking the efficacy and efficiency of IT investments in order to set up the baseline for improvement. This topic depicts a measurement method for the IL of companies and shows results of its application in 830 Brazilian industries (Zwicker, Vidal, & Souza, 2005). The development of this method was based on the principle that IT results in companies are not obtained merely through investments and the implementation of systems but rather through its proper use in business processes. The proposed method extends the informatization dimensions proposed by Lim (2001), using the process-based view of the IT business value creation model proposed by Soh and Markus (1995) and the concept of “information systems coverage” proposed by Ravarini, Tagliavini, Buonanno, and Sciuto (2002).