Aim/Purpose: The research aims to investigate the factors that influence the continuous use of mobile banking applications to complete banking monetary transactions. Background: Despite a significant ...increase in the use of mobile banking applications, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, new evidence indicates that the use rate of mobile banking applications for operating banking monetary transactions has declined. Methodology: The study proposed an integrated model based mainly on the process virtualization theory (PVT) with other novel factors such as mobile banking application anthropomorphism and virtual process failure risk. The study model was empirically validated using structural equation modeling analysis on quantitative data from 484 mobile banking application users from Jordan. Contribution: The study focuses on continuing use or post-adoption behavior rather than pre-adoption behavior. This is important since the maximum and long-term viability, as well as the financial investment in mobile banking applications, depend on regular usage rather than first-time use or initial experience. Findings: The results indicate that process virtualizable and anthropomorphism have a strong positive impact on bank customers’ decisions to continue using mobile banking applications to complete banking monetary transactions. Meanwhile, the negative impact of virtualization process failure risk on continuous use has been discovered. The found factors explain 67.5% of the variance in continuous use. Recommendations for Practitioners: The study identified novel, significant factors that affect bank customers’ decisions to use mobile banking applications frequently, and these factors should be examined, matched, satisfied, or addressed when redesigning or upgrading mobile applications. Banks should provide users with clear directions, processes, or tutorials on how to complete monetary transactions effectively. They should also embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to improve their applications and products with anthropomorphic features like speech synthesizers, Chatbots, and AI-powered virtual bank assistants. This is expected to help bank customers conduct various banking services conveniently and securely, just as if interacting with real people. The study further recommends that banks create and publish clear norms and procedures, as well as promote tolerance and protect consumers’ rights when the process fails or mistakes occur. Recommendation for Researchers: The study provides measurement items that were specifically built for the context of mobile banking applications based on PVT notions. Researchers are invited to reuse, test, and modify existing measurement items, as well as submit new ones if necessary. The study model does not consider psychological aspects like trust and satisfaction, which would provide additional insight into factors affecting continuing use. Researchers could potentially take a different approach by focusing on user resistance and non-adoption. Impact on Society: Financial inclusion is problematic, particularly in underdeveloped nations. According to financial inclusion research, Jordanians rarely utilize mobile banking apps. Continuous usage of mobile banking applications will be extremely beneficial in closing the financial inclusion gap, particularly among women. Furthermore, it could help the country’s efforts to transition to a digital society. Future Research: The majority of study participants are from urban areas. Future studies should focus on consumers who live in rural areas. It was also suggested that the elderly be targeted because they may have different views/perspectives on the continued use of mobile banking applications.
Working in virtual teams is increasingly common, and the notion of team virtuality has received considerable academic attention. However, the definitions of team virtuality lack coherence, its ...theoretical integration is inadequate, and its effects on individual and team performance are not fully understood. To address these gaps, we systematically review the characteristics of team virtuality and its positive and negative effects based on various theoretical perspectives. Through this review, we find that no consensus is reached on the definition of team virtuality, and its dimensions are not fully identified. Moreover, we find that team virtuality positively influences individual and team performance through two mechanisms: resource and information, and motivation and ability. However, it also exerts negative effects through three mechanisms: cognition, emotion and relationship, and technology and media. Based on these findings, we propose several potential directions for future research: (1) integrate four characteristics of team virtuality by redefining its concept and dimensions based on process virtualization theory, (2) integrate the positive and negative effects of team virtuality using a resources conservation-based model, in which team virtuality positively and negatively affects individual and team performance through personal resource gain and personal resource loss, respectively, (3) integrate the different effects of team virtuality by exploring boundary conditions, and (4) integrate the dual effects by investigating the curvilinear relationship between team virtuality and its outcomes.
•A systematic review of virtual team literature is reported to advance the understanding of team virtuality functions.•The nature and dimensionality of team virtuality are proposed based on process virtualization theory.•Five theoretical perspectives are summarized to explain the positive and negative effects of team virtuality.•We propose a resources conservation-based model of the effects of team virtuality.
The post-pandemic COVID-19 has been influential in accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises and business process virtualization. However, in a virtual working environment with no ...physical interaction, the psychological requirements of the communication between teleworkers and the negative impact of information systems are hindering the business process virtualization. Studying the relationship between the interaction between organizational members and job performance is an important part of organizational psychology. For an enterprise to maintain high-efficiency output, it is necessary to study psychological factors related to business process virtualization. This paper verified the factors hindering business process virtualization based on process virtualization theory (PVT). The research was implemented on a sample of 343 teleworkers in China enterprises. The structure of the model of this study includes two aspects that hinder the business process virtualization: the psychological requirements of teleworkers (Sensory requirements, Synchronism requirements, and Relationship requirements) and the negative effects of information systems (Information overload and Communication overload). The results show that teleworkers' sensory requirements, synchronism requirements, and communication overload negatively impact business process virtualization. However, unlike the results in the existing literature, the relationship requirements and information overload do not affect the business process virtualization. The results will help business managers, teleworkers, and information system developers develop strategies to address the negative factors hindering business process virtualization. In the so-called new "normal era," our research will help companies to create a successful virtual work environment.
Process Virtualization Theory (PVT) proposes a set of requirements and relationships to explain and predict whether or not a knowledge work process can be successfully virtualized. However, at least ...in remote work, the crisis-driven digital transformation (e.g., during the COVID-19 pandemic) shows that almost all knowledge work processes can be virtualized unexpectedly and immediately. Since the requirements for these processes remain the same and need to be met to continue the processes remotely, an interesting question arises of how information technology (IT) can help to meet these requirements in a crisis-driven digital transformation of knowledge work. To address this question, we conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with a multiple-case approach using a critical realist perspective. Our findings contribute to information systems (IS) research in a twofold way. First, we demonstrate that the crisis-driven digital transformation of knowledge work triggers a revisited perspective on PVT by turning virtualized knowledge work processes into a prerequisite. Second, we show how the IT characteristics of PVT (representation, reach, monitoring capability) help to fulfill knowledge work process requirements in remote work settings and outline two additional IT characteristics (social presence and situation awareness) that positively support the fulfillment.
•Crisis-driven revisited perspective on Process Virtualization Theory (PVT).•Dependent factor “Process Virtualizability” in PVT turns into a prerequisite.•IT characteristics of PVT help to fulfill virtualized KWP requirements.•Extension of PVT by new IT characteristics (social presence/situational awareness).•Explorative multiple case approach including 40 semi-structured interviews.
Green Information Technology (IT) tools and practices contribute to environmental sustainability and business processes virtualization. To assess whether IT-enabled process virtualization ...capabilities impact organizational Green IT initiatives, Bose and Luo
2011
proposed a conceptual model that combines three theories: technology-organization-environment framework, process virtualization theory, and diffusion of innovation theory. We conducted an empirical analysis of data from 251 European firms, and found that environment context (competition intensity and regulatory support) was more important to Green IT initiatives than organization or technology context. Technology factors (sensory readiness, relationship readiness, synchronism readiness, and identification and control readiness) facilitating process virtualization were not found significant to organizational Green IT initiatives.
Telehealth has emerged as a tool to improve patient access by virtualizing healthcare services, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, concerns have been raised that telehealth may ...actually increase healthcare spending by leading to new types of utilization. Our research provides empirical evidence that this concern is unfounded based on a state-wide study of patient visit-level data of telehealth use in 58 hospitals in Maryland from 2012 to 2021. On average, telehealth use can reduce future outpatient visits by 13.6% within 30 days after a telehealth visit, leading to a cost reduction of $239. The benefits of telehealth are most apparent for diseases with high potential for process virtualization, such as mental health, skin disorders, metabolic, and musculoskeletal diseases. Although telehealth has a substitution effect on future healthcare utilization, this effect is not observed among rural patients who use telehealth as a gateway to utilize more primary care and specialist services. Our findings suggest that policymakers should promote the use of telehealth in a value-based healthcare environment by providing monetary incentives to expand telehealth use among patients and providers, and expand the scope of telehealth services to include consultation with specialists especially among rural patients.
Technological advancements and the COVID-19 pandemic have catapulted process virtualization across many industries, including healthcare, where telehealth has enabled significant digital transformation of care delivery. Although telehealth has been proposed as a potential solution to improve access to care and restrain runaway healthcare costs, it can increase spending if telehealth use leads to new types of resource utilization. Drawing on the lens of process virtualization theory, we study the impact of telehealth on healthcare utilization by examining visit-level patient data of telehealth use in facilitating e-visits with healthcare providers. On average, a telehealth visit reduces the number of future outpatient visits by 13.6% (or 0.15 visits), equal to a reduction of $239 in total cost within 30 days after the visit. Our results suggest that the benefits of telehealth use are observed primarily among diseases with high virtualization potential. Specifically, patients with mental health, skin, metabolic, and musculoskeletal diseases exhibit a significant reduction of 0.21 outpatient visits per quarter (an equivalent cost reduction of $179) when they are treated via telehealth, suggesting a
substitution effect
with respect to traditional clinic visits. Our research identifies the boundary conditions that determine the nuanced impact of telehealth on care utilization and shows that its effectiveness depends on the process virtualization potential of different diseases. Our findings have several practical and theoretical implications for fostering telehealth use in a value-based healthcare environment, especially for diseases with high virtualization potential where telehealth use should be promoted to bend the cost curve.
History:
Rajiv Kohli, Senior Editor; Wenjing (Wendy) Duan, Associate Editor.
Funding:
I. R. Bardhan thanks the Foster Parker Centennial Professorship and the Dean’s Research Excellence Grant at the McCombs School of Business for generous financial support.
Supplemental Material:
The online appendices are available at
https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2023.1220
.
► We develop framework to assess a firm’s readiness to go green via virtualization. ► Virtualization drives the integration of sustainability and business and IT practice. ► Virtualization can ...respond to the requirement for “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.
Green IT (information technology) has recently emerged into an active research area in the information systems (IS) discipline. A major gap that exists in the Green IT research literature today is the absence of a theoretical framework that can be used to assist organizations in assessing their potential for undertaking Green IT initiatives and implementing them via modern technological means such as virtualization. This study attempts to bridge this gap by developing and proposing an integrative framework which focuses on identifying and examining the factors that contribute to the assessment of a firm’s readiness to go green via IT-enabled virtualization. The framework is firmly grounded using three well-established IS theories: (a) technology-organization-environment, (b) process-virtualization, and (c) diffusion of innovation. It integrates these three theoretical lenses to utilize the strengths of each for assessing the potential for undertaking Green IT initiatives and the stages of Green IT implementation at the organizational level. The implications of the outcome of this study, both for the IS researchers and for the practicing managers are discussed. The plan for empirical testing and validation of our propositions is presented, as well as suggestions for future extensions of this study.
•Supports Collaborative enterprises (CE) in adopting environmental-friendly initiatives.•Aims to evaluate the factors required for successful deployment of Green IT/IS practices.•Propose a model ...based on Perceived Organizational e-Readiness Theory (POER) and Process-Virtualization-Theory (PVT).•Examines variables that influence IT professionals and IT managers intention to deploy Green IT/IS practices.•Identifies environmental-friendly practices deployed in CE towards sustainability attainment.
This study investigates the perception of Information Technology (IT) professionals and IT managers towards deployment of environmental-friendly practices in Collaborative Enterprise (CE). Through literature review this study develops a model based on Perceived Organizational e-Readiness Theory (POER) and Process-Virtualization-Theory (PVT) to investigate the factors that influence IT professionals’ and IT managers intention to deploy Green IT/IS practices which are based on the current environmental-friendly initiatives deployed in CE. Data was collected using questionnaire and results indicate that the POER factors influence CE’s perception towards Green IT/IS. Moreover, results also reveal that PVT initiatives are influenced by the current environmental-friendly initiatives.
PurposeThis study investigated the impact of the virtualization requirements of the learning process on students' satisfaction and their intention to continue using online ...learning.Design/methodology/approachA research model was developed using the process virtualization theory (PVT); it was validated empirically using data obtained from an online questionnaire-based survey of 489 undergraduate students.FindingsThe main results support the role of representation for sensory requirements, sensory requirements, reach, representation for relationship requirements and relationship requirements on shaping students' satisfaction, which all also have a significant influence on students' intention to continue using online learning. Relevance factors are responsible for 61.6% of the variance in students' satisfaction and 83.6% of the variance in their intention to continue using online learning. However, neither the synchronism requirements nor the identification and control requirements had a significant effect on students' satisfaction or on their intention to continue using online learning.Originality/valueThe present research focused on PVT in an online learning context; consequently, a new set of factors that influenced students' satisfaction with and intentions to continue using online learning was empirically tested for the first time. This research contributes to the literature on information systems because it advances the generalizability and applicability of the PVT in a new context and new cultural setting. Moreover, the research apprises researchers and practitioners of new factors, which should be understood and fulfilled to make virtual learning equivalent to the face-to-face learning experience.