I n today's networked economy, ideas that challenge existing business models and paradigms are becoming more important. This study investigated how individual differences, groupware-based creativity techniques, and ideas from others influenced the type of ideas that individuals generated. While individual differences were important (in that some individuals were inherently more likely to generate ideas that followed the existing problem paradigm while others were more likely to generate paradigm-modifying ideas that attempted to change the problem paradigm), the exposure to paradigm-modifying ideas from others and the use of intuitive groupware-based creativity techniques rather than analytical groupware-based creativity techniques were found to increase the number of paradigm-modifying ideas produced.

Delays are among the most frequently cited complaints of Web users. Long delays often cause users to abandon their searches, but do tolerable delays affect information search behavior?Intuitively, we would expect that delays should induce decreased information search. Prior research in non-Web environments shows that as delay increases, decision-makers tend to minimize effort by reducing information search and let decision quality slip. In contrast, information foraging theory suggests that decision makers in multi-page environments such as the Web would react to by searching more within each Web page. We conducted two experiments and, consistent with information foraging theory, we found that modest delays induced increased within-page information search but decreased between-page search; that is, tolerable delays increased the depth of search but decreased the breadth of search. In other words, tolerable delays, those that are noticeable but not long enough to cause the abandonment of search, will increase the "stickiness" of Web pages such that users will examine more information on each page before moving to new pages. The net impact of tolerable delays was counter intuitive: tolerable delays had no impact on the total amount of data searched in the first experiment, but induced users to examine more data points in total in the second experiment.Interestingly, there were no impacts on decision time, perceived effort or decision quality.

No abstract

Delays have become one of the most often cited complaints of Web users. Long delays often cause users to abandon their searches, but how do tolerable delays affect information search behavior? Intuitively, we would expect that tolerable delays should induce decreased information search. We conducted two experiments and found that as delay increased, a point occurs at which time within-page information search increases ; that is, search behavior remained the same until a tipping point occurs where delay increases the depth of search. We argue that situation normality explains this phenomenon; users have become accustomed to tolerable delays up to a point (our research suggests between 7 and 11 seconds) after which search behavior changes. That is, some delay is expected, but as delay becomes noticeable but not long enough to cause the abandonment of search, an increase occurs in the "stickiness" of Web pages such that users examine more information on each page before moving to new pages. The net impact of tolerable delays was counter intuitive: tolerable delays had no impact on the total amount of data searched in the first experiment, but induced users to examine more data points in the second experiment.

Chief information officers (CIOs) have the difficult job of running a function that uses a lot of resources but offerslittle measurable evidence of its value. Line managers are increasingly assuming responsibility for planning, building, and running information systems that affect their operations. To respond to business and technological changes, CIOs now must build relationships with line managers and assume new and more strategic roles. The strategic role of the CIO is becoming ever more complex, requiring an expansion of the organizational and structural possibilities for filling that role. This paper presents an extensive literature review on the role of the CIO. The research examines CIO role in Norwegian organizations. In this paper, results from a survey of Norwegian CIOs are presented. Norwegian CIOs have on average worked in the current organization for eight years, have worked in information technology (IT) for twelve years, report mostly to the CEO or CFO, and have eleven people reporting to them.A large percentage has a master degree. Also, formal IS planning tended to be adopted by organizations with higher annual revenue, larger number of total employees, and broader span of control (i.e., the number of people reporting to the CIO). Higher CIO reporting level was also associated with greater extent of information systems plan implementation.