Dr.
Tracy Ann Sykes
Research
Interests and Statement
Interests
Research Statement
I was actively involved in research even before I entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Arkansas. As an undergraduate student, I was fortunate to be offered an opportunity to participate in different research endeavors, one of which ended up being published in 2004 (Journal of Applied Social Psychology) right as I was entering the Ph.D. program. Another research project that involved conducting a social network study at Nokia started in 2001. In addition to my latent intellectual curiosity and avaricious desire to read and learn, my early involvement in research spurred me toward pursuing a Ph.D. It is perhaps fair to say that my early investment in social networks research and the passion that I developed for social networks drove me to make that topic the focus of much of my work.
The fundamental thrust of my research is to understand the implementation, diffusion and success of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in different contexts. Several factors drive this choice. First, the spending on such technologies is significant. A recent Gartner report noted that organizations spend over 3 trillion U.S. dollars on new ICTs each year. Second, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance projects that spending on ICTs will more than double from 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2001 to 4.4 trillion dollars in 2011, with a significant share of much of this spending expected to occur in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa, contexts that have been underexplored. Finally, while all industry sectors are seeing massive ICT investments, healthcare in particular has been a focal area for government and private enterprises alike given the desire to improve healthcare quality, reduce costs and provide universal healthcare. Likewise, investments in developing ICT infrastructure for societal benefits in developing countries by the United Nations and companies, such as Microsoft, Cisco and IBM, are to the tune of nearly a billion dollars a year (UNDP 2004; Heeks 20091). These investments in ICTs have made them ubiquitous in today's organizations and society. Within the broad umbrella of understanding ICT implementations, diffusion and success, it is this three- pronged set of practical considerations that drive my research and the specific streams on which I focus. The overarching theme of my research is to understand how individuals use technology to perform their work, influenced as it is by other individuals, and how technology implementations can be successfully launched and utilized to achieve favorable individual, organizational and societal outcomes in general and specific important contexts, namely developing countries and healthcare.
I draw on theories and prior research in information systems, organizational behavior, psychology, sociology and health informatics. I extend and enrich these theories by contextualizing them and fundamentally altering them to suit the ICT contexts that I study. I believe in using multiple methods-both qualitative and quantitative-in order to achieve a more holistic understanding of phenomena. While I have primarily used quantitative methods, such as surveys and experiments, I have also been involved in conducting case studies. In addition to traditional surveys, I have extensive experience with conducting primary social network studies. In particular, I am working on multiple projects wherein I am collecting and analyzing 4 years of primary social network data, collected annually. I use cutting-edge tools (e.g., SIENA) to analyze data in order to understand social network change. While rigor is vital to all research efforts, I also strive to make my research relevant to both organizations and society by studying phenomena in their natural settings over time. I feel this approach allows for a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms being examined.
The core theoretical lens that is employed in much of my work to date is social networks. Given my interest in studying social and behavioral phenomena in their natural settings, this theoretical perspective provides not only an appropriate means to do so, but also a very useful way to garner insights. In addition to employing social networks as a lens to understand organizational implementation of ICTs, societal impacts of ICTs, particularly in developing countries, and deployment of ICTs in hospitals, I am particularly interested in the long-term evolution of social networks, technology use and outcomes. Given my interest in the study of phenomena over time, one particular thrust of my current and hopefully, future work is the co-evolution of networks, individual characteristics, behaviors, such as technology use, and outcomes, such as performance. Research on social networks is evolving rapidly, with the emergence of new techniques and tools, especially for the longitudinal analysis of social network data, as well as studying the influence of individual characteristics on the network itself and vice-versa. While it seems obvious, it is only recently that we have begun to study the reality that no social network is inert and stable. They are constantly changing and these changing networks will have varying effects on phenomena of interest.
An important philosophical view I hold is that in order to conduct relevant and rigorous research, cross-pollination of ideas, methods and perspectives is necessary. Beyond the multiple methods that I have used in my work, I have developed several collaborative relationships, not only with my advisor (Dr. Venkatesh) and dissertation committee members (Dr. Johnson and Dr. Rai), but also with my fellow Ph.D. students (Srini Venkatraman and Xiaojun Zhang) and scholars outside of my department (Dr. Gosain). By cultivating effective collaborative relationships as a junior faculty member, I ensure not only a varied and intellectually stimulating pipeline of research, but also a source of lifelong learning. Working for the National Science Foundation in 2008-2009, has underscored this even more deeply into my research philosophy. I have personally been involved with over a dozen panels, most of which have drawn from multiple fields of study. Some of the most successful research employed an interdisciplinary approach. Participating in these panels has provided me the opportunity to interact with scholars in different disciplines and helped me develop an even greater appreciation for the importance of multidisciplinary and multimethod research.
Against the above backdrop, I organize my research into three distinct, yet related, streams: (1) social networks and technology implementations; (2) technology implementations in developing countries; and (3) technology and healthcare. Below, I present an overview of these streams.
Stream 1: Social Networks and Technology Implementations
MIS 101 textbooks discuss information systems as collections of technology, people and processes. My early forays into research, even before I enrolled in a PhD program, began with understanding the role of gender in technology implementations (Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2004 and social network studies in Nokia as far back as 2001). I soon discovered that while gender differences were important, interactions among individuals were significantly more complex than was currently conceptualized. This led to the development of my first stream of research that focuses on understanding these interactions, particularly the interaction between technology and people. To add richness to our understanding that has primarily been based on psychology and management theories, I use social networks as the theoretical lens. More specifically, I seek to understand how social structures in organizations influence technology implementation and the reciprocal effects technology has on social structures. This, I believe, will result in a more holistic understanding of technology implementations. Social networks as a lens is only beginning to be leveraged in the IS field. Using social networks as a theoretical lens can help shed light on how and why technologies are adopted (or not) by employees, the conditions for success, and provide insights into potential interventions to foster success.
My research in this area, including my dissertation research, has focused on how the users of an information system use their own informal advice network ties to help them adjust to a new technology implementation in the organization, and how employee job performance is affected by the new technology implementations. This is only the tip of the iceberg. My work also explores the rich issues related to the co-evolution of individuals, their social networks and technology use. The third essay of my dissertation seeks to explicate this by examining the co-evolution of social networks and individual characteristics longitudinally after an organizational change event in the form of a new technology implementation.
Return
Stream 2: Technology Implementations and Developing Countries
It has been suggested by several organizational behavior researchers that context is king. Echoing such a sentiment, several IS researchers have promoted a focus on specificity in our work, over the more traditionally accepted generalizability as the key strength of theory. While I do not believe that we should focus on specificity to the exclusion of generalizability, there is a need to examine context more fervently than in the past. This is especially true given that many new frontiers in global business are developing rapidly. Nowhere is this perhaps more true than in developing countries that are different in so many ways, from infrastructure to culture to labor economics, from developed countries where much prior theory has been developed and empirical studies have been conducted.
In terms of technology implementations in the developing world, several factors make understanding these unique contexts important. First, several countries in the developing world are being viewed as attractive areas for investment by large multinational corporations, such as Microsoft and Cisco. Second, many large development organizations, such as the United Nations' Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), have touted technology as a key component for advancing the development of these countries. Both large corporations and the United Nations are investing heavily in technologies for organizations and societies of developing countries. Finally, the contexts of developing countries are often very different from that of their more developed counterparts. As noted earlier, not only are the infrastructure and cultural norms different, but also developing country contexts deal with issues that the developed world did not have to, such as leapfrogging of technologies. By examining technology implementations in developing countries, we not only expand the nomological network related to implementations in general, but also contribute to the betterment of large groups of less economically fortunate citizens of the world.
My work in this area focuses on how technology implementations impact individuals in the workplace and in home settings. One project, based on extensive longitudinal data collection in a bank in India, examines how new technology implementations influence job characteristics and employee job satisfaction in India. I am also involved in a long-term project in India that seeks to increase our understanding in digital divide contexts in rural areas.
Return
Stream 3: Technology and Healthcare
One of the most current issues facing not only the United States but also the world at large is healthcare. Massive amounts of resources, in the form of human hours and money, are being spent in the healthcare industry annually, with the industry being anywhere from a sixth to a quarter of the GDP of many nations. The current U.S. Federal government administration, much like the one before it, has made healthcare one of its top priorities for reform including wanting all U.S. medical facilities to be up and running with electronic healthcare systems in short order. This important practical issue spurs my third stream and is at the nexus of the previous two streams as the study of healthcare organizations represents an important organizational contextual focus of work in stream #1 and the focus on healthcare and health outcomes in developing countries is an important aspect related to my work in stream #2.
Research on health informatics has evolved rapidly in recent years. Much of the emphasis in this body of work has been at the macro-level, ranging from policy issues and challenges, to questions arising in small physician practices to firm-level outcomes, such as profitability and compliance to standards, to quality of care at the level of the hospital and the group. One area that has generated interest examines why certain technologies fail or succeed within a given health organization context. Several issues exist that are unique to the healthcare context, such as not being able to shut down a business unit for the duration of an implementation, having a power structure that does not automatically facilitate hierarchical obedience with organizational initiatives, and possible catastrophic outcomes of a mistake made on the job.
My current work in the area of technology and healthcare is organized as two projects: (1) understanding factors that influence and consequences thereof of healthcare professionals' adoption and use of new healthcare systems; and (2) health outcomes in developing countries related to technology implementations. In the first project that follows from my first stream of work, I am working with a hospital that is implementing an IT-based enterprise-wide healthcare solution to try to better understand the drivers and consequences of various healthcare professionals' (physicians, nurses and administrative personnel) adoption and use of such a system. During a study of the impacts of an information kiosk technology on agriculture and economic outcomes in villages in India, I began to focus on health outcomes as well, because many health problems, such as high infant mortality rates, in the developing world can be improved by providing the right information, such as informing parents that inoculating their children against measles is something that should be done. Yet several barriers exist.
Return
Research Statement
I was actively involved in research even before I entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Arkansas. As an undergraduate student, I was fortunate to be offered an opportunity to participate in different research endeavors, one of which ended up being published in 2004 (Journal of Applied Social Psychology) right as I was entering the Ph.D. program. Another research project that involved conducting a social network study at Nokia started in 2001. In addition to my latent intellectual curiosity and avaricious desire to read and learn, my early involvement in research spurred me toward pursuing a Ph.D. It is perhaps fair to say that my early investment in social networks research and the passion that I developed for social networks drove me to make that topic the focus of much of my work.
The fundamental thrust of my research is to understand the implementation, diffusion and success of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in different contexts. Several factors drive this choice. First, the spending on such technologies is significant. A recent Gartner report noted that organizations spend over 3 trillion U.S. dollars on new ICTs each year. Second, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance projects that spending on ICTs will more than double from 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2001 to 4.4 trillion dollars in 2011, with a significant share of much of this spending expected to occur in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa, contexts that have been underexplored. Finally, while all industry sectors are seeing massive ICT investments, healthcare in particular has been a focal area for government and private enterprises alike given the desire to improve healthcare quality, reduce costs and provide universal healthcare. Likewise, investments in developing ICT infrastructure for societal benefits in developing countries by the United Nations and companies, such as Microsoft, Cisco and IBM, are to the tune of nearly a billion dollars a year (UNDP 2004; Heeks 20091). These investments in ICTs have made them ubiquitous in today's organizations and society. Within the broad umbrella of understanding ICT implementations, diffusion and success, it is this three- pronged set of practical considerations that drive my research and the specific streams on which I focus. The overarching theme of my research is to understand how individuals use technology to perform their work, influenced as it is by other individuals, and how technology implementations can be successfully launched and utilized to achieve favorable individual, organizational and societal outcomes in general and specific important contexts, namely developing countries and healthcare.
I draw on theories and prior research in information systems, organizational behavior, psychology, sociology and health informatics. I extend and enrich these theories by contextualizing them and fundamentally altering them to suit the ICT contexts that I study. I believe in using multiple methods-both qualitative and quantitative-in order to achieve a more holistic understanding of phenomena. While I have primarily used quantitative methods, such as surveys and experiments, I have also been involved in conducting case studies. In addition to traditional surveys, I have extensive experience with conducting primary social network studies. In particular, I am working on multiple projects wherein I am collecting and analyzing 4 years of primary social network data, collected annually. I use cutting-edge tools (e.g., SIENA) to analyze data in order to understand social network change. While rigor is vital to all research efforts, I also strive to make my research relevant to both organizations and society by studying phenomena in their natural settings over time. I feel this approach allows for a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms being examined.
The core theoretical lens that is employed in much of my work to date is social networks. Given my interest in studying social and behavioral phenomena in their natural settings, this theoretical perspective provides not only an appropriate means to do so, but also a very useful way to garner insights. In addition to employing social networks as a lens to understand organizational implementation of ICTs, societal impacts of ICTs, particularly in developing countries, and deployment of ICTs in hospitals, I am particularly interested in the long-term evolution of social networks, technology use and outcomes. Given my interest in the study of phenomena over time, one particular thrust of my current and hopefully, future work is the co-evolution of networks, individual characteristics, behaviors, such as technology use, and outcomes, such as performance. Research on social networks is evolving rapidly, with the emergence of new techniques and tools, especially for the longitudinal analysis of social network data, as well as studying the influence of individual characteristics on the network itself and vice-versa. While it seems obvious, it is only recently that we have begun to study the reality that no social network is inert and stable. They are constantly changing and these changing networks will have varying effects on phenomena of interest.
An important philosophical view I hold is that in order to conduct relevant and rigorous research, cross-pollination of ideas, methods and perspectives is necessary. Beyond the multiple methods that I have used in my work, I have developed several collaborative relationships, not only with my advisor (Dr. Venkatesh) and dissertation committee members (Dr. Johnson and Dr. Rai), but also with my fellow Ph.D. students (Srini Venkatraman and Xiaojun Zhang) and scholars outside of my department (Dr. Gosain). By cultivating effective collaborative relationships as a junior faculty member, I ensure not only a varied and intellectually stimulating pipeline of research, but also a source of lifelong learning. Working for the National Science Foundation in 2008-2009, has underscored this even more deeply into my research philosophy. I have personally been involved with over a dozen panels, most of which have drawn from multiple fields of study. Some of the most successful research employed an interdisciplinary approach. Participating in these panels has provided me the opportunity to interact with scholars in different disciplines and helped me develop an even greater appreciation for the importance of multidisciplinary and multimethod research.
Against the above backdrop, I organize my research into three distinct, yet related, streams: (1) social networks and technology implementations; (2) technology implementations in developing countries; and (3) technology and healthcare. Below, I present an overview of these streams.
Stream 1: Social Networks and Technology Implementations
MIS 101 textbooks discuss information systems as collections of technology, people and processes. My early forays into research, even before I enrolled in a PhD program, began with understanding the role of gender in technology implementations (Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2004 and social network studies in Nokia as far back as 2001). I soon discovered that while gender differences were important, interactions among individuals were significantly more complex than was currently conceptualized. This led to the development of my first stream of research that focuses on understanding these interactions, particularly the interaction between technology and people. To add richness to our understanding that has primarily been based on psychology and management theories, I use social networks as the theoretical lens. More specifically, I seek to understand how social structures in organizations influence technology implementation and the reciprocal effects technology has on social structures. This, I believe, will result in a more holistic understanding of technology implementations. Social networks as a lens is only beginning to be leveraged in the IS field. Using social networks as a theoretical lens can help shed light on how and why technologies are adopted (or not) by employees, the conditions for success, and provide insights into potential interventions to foster success.
My research in this area, including my dissertation research, has focused on how the users of an information system use their own informal advice network ties to help them adjust to a new technology implementation in the organization, and how employee job performance is affected by the new technology implementations. This is only the tip of the iceberg. My work also explores the rich issues related to the co-evolution of individuals, their social networks and technology use. The third essay of my dissertation seeks to explicate this by examining the co-evolution of social networks and individual characteristics longitudinally after an organizational change event in the form of a new technology implementation.
Return
Stream 2: Technology Implementations and Developing Countries
It has been suggested by several organizational behavior researchers that context is king. Echoing such a sentiment, several IS researchers have promoted a focus on specificity in our work, over the more traditionally accepted generalizability as the key strength of theory. While I do not believe that we should focus on specificity to the exclusion of generalizability, there is a need to examine context more fervently than in the past. This is especially true given that many new frontiers in global business are developing rapidly. Nowhere is this perhaps more true than in developing countries that are different in so many ways, from infrastructure to culture to labor economics, from developed countries where much prior theory has been developed and empirical studies have been conducted.
In terms of technology implementations in the developing world, several factors make understanding these unique contexts important. First, several countries in the developing world are being viewed as attractive areas for investment by large multinational corporations, such as Microsoft and Cisco. Second, many large development organizations, such as the United Nations' Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), have touted technology as a key component for advancing the development of these countries. Both large corporations and the United Nations are investing heavily in technologies for organizations and societies of developing countries. Finally, the contexts of developing countries are often very different from that of their more developed counterparts. As noted earlier, not only are the infrastructure and cultural norms different, but also developing country contexts deal with issues that the developed world did not have to, such as leapfrogging of technologies. By examining technology implementations in developing countries, we not only expand the nomological network related to implementations in general, but also contribute to the betterment of large groups of less economically fortunate citizens of the world.
My work in this area focuses on how technology implementations impact individuals in the workplace and in home settings. One project, based on extensive longitudinal data collection in a bank in India, examines how new technology implementations influence job characteristics and employee job satisfaction in India. I am also involved in a long-term project in India that seeks to increase our understanding in digital divide contexts in rural areas.
Return
Stream 3: Technology and Healthcare
One of the most current issues facing not only the United States but also the world at large is healthcare. Massive amounts of resources, in the form of human hours and money, are being spent in the healthcare industry annually, with the industry being anywhere from a sixth to a quarter of the GDP of many nations. The current U.S. Federal government administration, much like the one before it, has made healthcare one of its top priorities for reform including wanting all U.S. medical facilities to be up and running with electronic healthcare systems in short order. This important practical issue spurs my third stream and is at the nexus of the previous two streams as the study of healthcare organizations represents an important organizational contextual focus of work in stream #1 and the focus on healthcare and health outcomes in developing countries is an important aspect related to my work in stream #2.
Research on health informatics has evolved rapidly in recent years. Much of the emphasis in this body of work has been at the macro-level, ranging from policy issues and challenges, to questions arising in small physician practices to firm-level outcomes, such as profitability and compliance to standards, to quality of care at the level of the hospital and the group. One area that has generated interest examines why certain technologies fail or succeed within a given health organization context. Several issues exist that are unique to the healthcare context, such as not being able to shut down a business unit for the duration of an implementation, having a power structure that does not automatically facilitate hierarchical obedience with organizational initiatives, and possible catastrophic outcomes of a mistake made on the job.
My current work in the area of technology and healthcare is organized as two projects: (1) understanding factors that influence and consequences thereof of healthcare professionals' adoption and use of new healthcare systems; and (2) health outcomes in developing countries related to technology implementations. In the first project that follows from my first stream of work, I am working with a hospital that is implementing an IT-based enterprise-wide healthcare solution to try to better understand the drivers and consequences of various healthcare professionals' (physicians, nurses and administrative personnel) adoption and use of such a system. During a study of the impacts of an information kiosk technology on agriculture and economic outcomes in villages in India, I began to focus on health outcomes as well, because many health problems, such as high infant mortality rates, in the developing world can be improved by providing the right information, such as informing parents that inoculating their children against measles is something that should be done. Yet several barriers exist.
Return