The adoption of retail electronic commerce: An empirical investigation

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the adoption of retail electronic commerce (REC). REC is a business transaction which takes place over the Internet between a casual consumer and a firm. The consumer has no long-term relationship with the firm, orders a good or service, and pays with a credit card. To date, most REC applications have not been profitable. To build profitable REC applications a better understanding of the system's users is required. ^ The research model hypothesizes that the level of REC buying is dependent upon the Buying Characteristics of Internet Use and Search Experience plus the Channel Characteristics of Beliefs About Internet Vendors and Beliefs About Internet Security. The effect of these factors is modified by Time. Additional research questions ask about the different types of REC buyers, the differences between these groups, and how these groups evolved over time. ^ To answer these research questions I analyzed publicly available data collected over a three-year period by the Georgia Institute of Technology Graphics and Visualization Unit over the Internet. Findings indicate the model best predicts Number of Purchases in a future period, and that Buyer Characteristics are most important to this determination. Further, this model is evolving over Time making Buyer Characteristics predict Number of Purchases better in more recent survey administrations. Buyers clustered into five groups based on level of buying and move through various levels and buy increasing Number of Purchases over time. ^ This is the first large scale research project to investigate the evolution of REC. This implications are significant. Practitioners with casual consumer customers need to deploy a finely tuned REC strategy, understand their buyers, capitalize on the company reputation on the Internet, install an Internet-compatible infrastructure, and web-enable order-entry/inventory/fulliment/shipping applications. Researchers might wish to expand on the Buyer Characteristics of the model and/or explore alternative dependent variables. Further, alternative theories such as Population Ecology or Transaction Cost Economics might further illuminate this new I.S. research domain. ^

The adoption of retail electronic commerce: an empirical investigation

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the adoption of retail electronic commerce (REC). REC is a business transaction which takes place over the Internet between a casual consumer and a firm. The consumer has no long-term relationship with the firm, orders a good or service, and pays with a credit card. To date, most REC applications have not been profitable. To build profitable REC applications a better understanding of the system's users is required. The research model hypothesizes that the level of REC buying is dependent upon the Buying Characteristics of Internet Use and Search Experience plus the Channel Characteristics of Beliefs About Internet Vendors and Beliefs About Internet Security. The effect of these factors is modified by Time. Additional research questions ask about the different types of REC buyers, the differences between these groups, and how these groups evolved over time. To answer these research questions I analyzed publically available data collected over a three-year period by the Georgia Institute of Technology Graphics and Visualization Unit over the Internet. Findings indicate the model best predicts Number of Purchases in a future period, and that Buyer Characteristics are most important to this determination. Further, this model is evolving over Time making Buyer Characteristics predict Number of Purchases better in more recent survey administrations. Buyers clustered into five groups based on level of buying and move through various levels and buy increasing Number of Purchases over time. This is the first large scale research project to investigate the evolution of REC. This implications are significant. Practitioners with casual consumer customers need to deploy a finely tuned REC strategy, understand their buyers, capitalize on the company reputation on the Internet, install an Internet-compatible infrastructure, and web-enable order-entry/inventory/fulfillment/ shipping applications. Researchers might wish to expand on the Buyer Characteristics of the model and/or explore alternative dependent variables. Further, alternative theories such as Population Ecology or Transaction Cost Economics might further illuminate this new I.S. research domain.

The construct of work commitment: Testing an integrative framework

This dissertation meta-analytically examined the expansive material associated with work commitment. Work commitment, a multidimensional construct, encompasses the level of involvement an employee has with his or her work, organization, job, career, and union (Morrow & Goetz, 1998). Each of the dimensions of work commitment has been further divided into a number of subdimensions. The primary purpose of this study was to (1) cumulate the correlations found among each of the dimensions of work commitment to see which, if any, were intercorrelated, and to (2) determine the impact of work commitment dimensions and subdimensions on specific outcome variables (job satisfaction, job performance, and turnover). ^ A number of interesting results stemmed from the 213 separate meta-analyses that were conducted. First, the evidence did not indicate that all of the subdimensions for each respective dimension were positively correlated. Specifically, there was not enough evidence to indicate that continuance organizational commitment was positively correlated with its other organizational commitment subdimensions. Future research might consider revamping the work commitment taxonomy so that all subdimensions that fall within a particular dimension are interrelated. It might be appropriate, therefore, to drop continuance organizational commitment from the work commitment taxonomy. Second, while most of the respective dimensions were interrelated, this was not the case across the board. For instance, there was no evidence of a significant positive relationship between organizational commitment and union commitment. In fact, the only significant relationship was negative between organizational commitment and belief in unionism. Further, there was no evidence of a positive relationship between union commitment and either work ethic endorsement or job involvement, respectively. These findings supported Morrow's (1993) rationale for excluding union commitment from the work commitment taxonomy. ^

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Public School Prekindergarten Program for Children with Disabilities

A stratified sample of teachers was surveyed to determine their opinion about a Pre-k Program for Children with Disabilities. The results revealed that the teachers were satisfied with their students' progress, the support received from their administrators and district, and their ability to implement the curriculum to meet students' needs.

Interrole Conflicts in the Hospitality Industry: The Role of Positive Affectivity as an Antidote

This study investigates the role of positive affectivity as a buffer against the detrimental effects of interrole conflicts on frontline hotel employees’ job performance and turnover intentions. Data collected from a sample of frontline hotel employees in Turkey serve as the study setting. Results and their implications are discussed, and directions for future research are offered.

The Effect of Mobile Technology as an Active Student Response System on the Acquisition of U.S. History Content of Secondary Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) typically learn less history content than their peers without disabilities and show fewer learning gains. Even when they are provided with the same instructional strategies, many students with SLD struggle to grasp complex historical concepts and content area vocabulary. Many strategies involving technology have been used in the past to enhance learning for students with SLD in history classrooms. However, very few studies have explored the effectiveness of emerging mobile technology in K-12 history classrooms. This study investigated the effects of mobile devices (iPads) as an active student response (ASR) system on the acquisition of U.S. history content of middle school students with SLD. An alternating treatments single subject design was used to compare the effects of two interventions. There were two conditions and a series of pretest probesin this study. The conditions were: (a) direct instruction and studying from handwritten notes using the interactive notebook strategy and (b) direct instruction and studying using the Quizlet App on the iPad. There were three dependent variables in this study: (a) percent correct on tests, (b) rate of correct responses per minute, and (c) rate of errors per minute. A comparative analysis suggested that both interventions (studying from interactive notes and studying using Quizlet on the iPad) had varying degrees of effectiveness in increasing the learning gains of students with SLD. In most cases, both interventions were equally effective. During both interventions, all of the participants increased their percentage correct and increased their rate of correct responses. Most of the participants decreased their rate of errors. The results of this study suggest that teachers of students with SLD should consider a post lesson review in the form of mobile devices as an ASR system or studying from handwritten notes paired with existing evidence-based practices to facilitate students’ knowledge in U.S. history. Future research should focus on the use of other interactive applications on various mobile operating platforms, on other social studies subjects, and should explore various testing formats such as oral question-answer and multiple choice.

This was uncalled for : Dave Eggers' A heartbreaking work of staggering genius subverts the genre of traditional autobiography as an attempt at rendering his life

The purpose of this thesis was to explore why and how the author Dave Eggers subverts the genre of traditional autobiography in his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I compared Eggers' work to Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and William S. Burroughs' Junky. I found that like Stein and Burroughs, Eggers utilized various rhetorical devices outside of traditional autobiography because he could not find the means to express himself within the genre. Eggers employed various rhetorical methods reserved for fictional texts, such as stream of consciousness, characterization, and irony, in order to reconcile his feelings towards his parents' deaths and render those feelings in his memoir. I established that Eggers concluded his memoir with impossibility of arriving at one Meaning that could summate his tragic experience. Thus, I proved that Eggers gave the reader the only authentic interpretation he could: the memoir as a small, incomplete glimpse into his life.

The effect of mobile technology as an active student response system on the acquisition of U.S. history content of secondary students with specific learning disabilities

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) typically learn less history content than their peers without disabilities and show fewer learning gains. Even when they are provided with the same instructional strategies, many students with SLD struggle to grasp complex historical concepts and content area vocabulary. Many strategies involving technology have been used in the past to enhance learning for students with SLD in history classrooms. However, very few studies have explored the effectiveness of emerging mobile technology in K-12 history classrooms. ^ This study investigated the effects of mobile devices (iPads) as an active student response (ASR) system on the acquisition of U.S. history content of middle school students with SLD. An alternating treatments single subject design was used to compare the effects of two interventions. There were two conditions and a series of pretest probesin this study. The conditions were: (a) direct instruction and studying from handwritten notes using the interactive notebook strategy and (b) direct instruction and studying using the Quizlet App on the iPad. There were three dependent variables in this study: (a) percent correct on tests, (b) rate of correct responses per minute, and (c) rate of errors per minute. ^ A comparative analysis suggested that both interventions (studying from interactive notes and studying using Quizlet on the iPad) had varying degrees of effectiveness in increasing the learning gains of students with SLD. In most cases, both interventions were equally effective. During both interventions, all of the participants increased their percentage correct and increased their rate of correct responses. Most of the participants decreased their rate of errors. ^ The results of this study suggest that teachers of students with SLD should consider a post lesson review in the form of mobile devices as an ASR system or studying from handwritten notes paired with existing evidence-based practices to facilitate students’ knowledge in U.S. history. Future research should focus on the use of other interactive applications on various mobile operating platforms, on other social studies subjects, and should explore various testing formats such as oral question-answer and multiple choice. ^