Towards a thematic dimensional framework of online fraud: An exploration of fraudulent email attack tactics and intentions

2023 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 1

Authors: Bera, Debalina; Ogbanufe, Obi; Kim, Dan J.

Abstract: Despite anti-phishing filters, social engineering-based cyber-attacks still resu ... Expand

Abstract: Despite anti-phishing filters, social engineering-based cyber-attacks still result in billions of dollars lost annually, significant personal identity theft, loss of corporate secrets, and espionage. We review the phishing literature on psychological attacks and design tactics employed for deception by attackers. The result reveals the need to continuously identify tactics embedded in fraudulent email content to understand why users still fall prey to phishing attacks. Using the literature as a backdrop, we identify and conceptualize a thematic dimensional framework of fraudulent phishing attacks. This study uses benchmark datasets of fraudulent email to empirically validate the proposed dimensional framework. Specifically, a combination of machine learning-based content analysis and topic modeling found a majority of the discovered topics were labeled against the proposed di­ mensions. Statistical analysis was employed to provide empirical evidence of the thematic dimensions of fraudulent email attacks. This study thus, not only extends the cybersecurity literature by identifying and vali­ dating eight dimensions that enrich our understanding of phishing and attack identification but stimulates cu­ mulative research endeavors to develop yet more comprehensive dimensional frameworks of phishing email attacks. Collapse

Topics: phishing email phishing electronic mail email spam personalization

Methods: term frequency–inverse document frequency natural language processing topic model discriminant analysis literature study

Recent Developments in PLS

2023 | Communications of the Association for Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Evermann, Jöerg; Rönkkö, Mikko

Abstract: Partial least squares (PLS) path modeling is a widely used method in the inform ... Expand

Abstract: Partial least squares (PLS) path modeling is a widely used method in the information systems (IS) discipline for estimating linear structural equation models. At the same time, researchers have debated its relative merits compared to simple summed scores or to covariance-based estimation of structural equation models. In this paper, we comment on recent developments in PLS to ensure that IS researchers have up-to-date methodological knowledge and best practices if they decide to use PLS. In particular, we briefly review its mechanisms, its well-known properties, and its usage history in IS research. We briefly revisit a high-impact critique and debate a few years ago to identify the critical arguments around current PLS practices and use. That critique proved to be the driver for many advances in the PLS method and its applications which we discuss extensively and use to make 14 recommendations for how and when to use PLS or alternatives.Simply put, most IS researchers do not study research questions where predictive modeling would be applicable but focus on testing theory that requires explanatory models. If predictive modeling pertains to their study, researchers should clearly explain the predictions' purpose and usefulness and use operative prediction (i.e., mixed formative-reflective) to assess their models' out-of-sample prediction at the individual level as Shmueli et al. (2016) and Evermann and Tate (2016) recommend. R8: If researchers use PLS for prediction, they should adequately justify and reflect this motivation and assess out-of-sample prediction at the individual level. Recent Developments in PLS Volume 52 10.17705/1CAIS.05229 Paper 29 R13: Researchers should compare PLS composites to unweighted composites to demonstrate any possible advantage that the PLS composites might have. Recent Developments in PLS Volume 52 Collapse

Methods: partial least squares regression consistent partial least squares path modeling simulation structural equation modeling partial least squares path modeling

Theories: information systems theory

Profit vs. Equality? The Case of Financial Risk Assessment and A New Perspective on Alternative Data

2023 | Management Information Systems Quarterly | Citations: 0

Authors: Lu, Tian; Zhang, Yingjie; Li, Beibei

Abstract: The importance of pursuing financial inclusion to accelerate economic growth an ... Expand

Abstract: The importance of pursuing financial inclusion to accelerate economic growth and enhance financial sustainability has been well noted. However, studies have provided few actionable insights into how financial institutions can balance the potential socioeconomic trade-off between profitability and equality. One major challenge arises from a lack of understanding of the impacts of various types of market information available on financial equality beyond economic profitability. Another challenge lies in how the socioeconomic trade-off under a large set of counterfactual policies in a real-world setting can be evaluated. Our motivation for the present study was the emerging sources of digitized user-behavior data (i.e., "alternative data") stemming from the high penetration of mobile devices and internet access. Accordingly, we investigated how alternative data from smartphones and social media can help mitigate potential financial inequality while preserving business profitability in the context of financial credit risk assessment. We partnered with a leading microloan website to design a novel "meta" experiment that allowed us to simulate various real-world field experiments under an exhaustive set of counterfactual policies. Interestingly, we found that profiling user financial risk using smartphone activities is 1.3 times more effective in improving financial inclusion than using online social media information (23.05% better vs. 18.11%), and nearly 1.3 times more effective in improving business profitability (42% better vs. 33%). Surprisingly, we found that using consumers' online shopping activities for credit risk profiling can hurt financial inclusion. Furthermore, we investigated potential explanations for financial inclusion improvements. Our findings suggest that alternative data, especially users' smartphone activities, not only demonstrate higher ubiquity but also appear to be more orthogonal to conventional sensitive demographic attributes. This, in turn, can help mitigate statistical bias driven by the unobserved factors or underrepresentative training samples in machine-based risk assessment processes. Collapse

Topics: website social media smartphone microblog electronic commerce

Methods: experiment XGBoost machine learning experimental design k-nearest neighbor

Performance of Accountable Care Organizations: Health Information Technology and Quality–Efficiency Trade-Offs

2022 | Information Systems Research | Citations: 0

Authors: Bao, Chenzhang; Bardhan, Indranil R.

Abstract: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) were established under the Affordable Care ... Expand

Abstract: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) were established under the Affordable Care Act to address systemic problems afflicting the U.S. healthcare system related to high costs and poor quality issues. ACOs represent groups of healthcare providers that are responsible for coordinating patient care with the goal of improving health outcomes for their patient population. To develop a better understanding of the role of health information technology (IT) in a value-based care environment, we study (a) whether there are potential trade-offs between ACO efficiency and quality and (b) whether effective use of health IT enables ACOs to balance competing efficiency and quality objectives. We test our models with a nationwide sample of ACO data using a two-stage approach based on data envelopment analysis and econometric estimation. We observe that efficient ACOs do not make trade-offs with respect to healthcare quality, compared with inefficient ACOs. Furthermore, we observe that hospitals that participated in ACOs, and used IT effectively for care coordination with other providers, exhibited a positive association between efficiency and quality. ACOs with higher levels of meaningful use achievement of health IT demonstrate better patient health outcomes because of greater information integration with other care providers. Our findings imply that value-based incentives alone are not sufficient to resolve trade-offs between healthcare quality and efficiency, and healthcare policy needs to incorporate appropriate incentives to foster effective IT use for health information sharing and care coordination between healthcare providers. Collapse

Topics: information system use health information system healthcare data information exchange database system

Methods: longitudinal research econometric modeling robustness check survey trade-off analysis method

Social Capital Accumulation through Social Media Networks: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment and Individual-Level Panel Data

2022 | Management Information Systems Quarterly | Citations: 0

Authors: Weiler, Michael; Stolz, Simon; Lanz, Andreas; Schlereth, Christian; Hinz, Oliver

Abstract: Work-related social media networks (SMNs) like LinkedIn introduce novel networki ... Expand

Abstract: Work-related social media networks (SMNs) like LinkedIn introduce novel networking opportunities and features that promise to help individuals establish, extend, and maintain social capital (SC). Typically, work-related SMNs offer access to advanced networking features exclusively to premium users in order to encourage basic users to become paying members. Yet little is known about whether access to these advanced networking features has a causal impact on the accumulation of SC. To close this research gap, we conducted a randomized field experiment and recruited 215 freelancers in a freemium, work-related SMN. Of these recruited participants, more than 70 received a randomly assigned voucher for a free 12- month premium membership. We observe that individuals do not necessarily accumulate more SC from their ability to access advanced networking features, as the treated freelancers did not automatically change their online networking engagement. Those features only reveal their full utility if individuals are motivated to proactively engage in networking. We found that freelancers who had access to advanced networking features increased their SC by 4.609% for each unit increase on the strategic networking behavior scale. We confirmed this finding in another study utilizing a second, individual-level panel dataset covering 52,392 freelancers. We also investigated the dynamics that active vs. passive features play in SC accumulation. Based on these findings, we introduce the “theory of purposeful feature utilization”: essentially, individuals must not only possess an efficacious “networking weapon”—they also need the intent to “shoot” it. Collapse

Topics: social capital social network electronic mail IT career affordance

Methods: experiment survey longitudinal research field experiment experimental group

Theories: theory of affordance big five model

Mobile Money and Mobile Technologies: A Structural Estimation

2021 | Information Systems Research | Citations: 2

Authors: Dong, Yan; Song, Sining; Venkataraman, Sriram; Yao, Yuliang

Abstract: Using a data set on mobile technologies and mobile money in the emerging markets ... Expand

Abstract: Using a data set on mobile technologies and mobile money in the emerging markets from 2000 to 2014, we examine the demand patterns of mobile technologies and mobile money when multiple generations of mobile technologies coexist in the market and each generation of the technologies may be bundled with mobile money. Using a structural model, we estimate the own and cross price elasticities for both mobile technologies and mobile money, and the demand effects between mobile money and mobile technologies. We find that the current, dominant technology (i.e., 3G) tends to have more robust demand as compared with other technologies that are either declining (i.e., 1G and 2G) or new to the market (i.e., 4G), and that customers are more likely to substitute forward toward newer technologies than backward toward older technologies when the price increases for a technology. We also find that mobile money differentiates the market and mitigates competition for those firms that offer mobile money. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed. Collapse

Topics: mobile system mobile payment broadband cellular network database system digital innovation

Methods: instrumental variables estimation longitudinal research robustness check canonical correlation analysis chi squared test

Multi-view Latent Learning Applied to Fashion Industry

2021 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 0

Authors: Gardino, Giovanni Battista; Meo, Rosa; Craparotta, Giuseppe

Abstract: Demand forecasting is one of the main challenges for retailers and wholesalers i ... Expand

Abstract: Demand forecasting is one of the main challenges for retailers and wholesalers in any industry. Proper demand forecasting gives business valuable information about potential profits and helps managers in taking targeted decisions on business growth strategies. Nowadays almost all organizations use different data sources or databases for nearly every aspect of their operations so that the knowledge on products on sale belongs to several independent views. The methodology described in this paper addresses the issue of product demand forecasting in fashion industry exploiting a multi-view learning approach. In particular, we show how the integration and connection among multiple views improves results accuracy. In real-life applications not all the views are usually available before a product is put on the market but the utility of a proper demand forecasting increases if the prediction is available before the product launch. We show that missing views can be reconstructed by means of common latent factors; in particular, this paper presents a learning procedure that describes the connection between different views. This connection allows data integration from multiple sources and can be extended to the special case of partial data representation. The nearest neighbors in the latent space play a special role for this process and for a general improvement of the forecast quality. We experimented the proposed methodology on real fashion retail sales showing that multi-view latent learning provides a system that is able to reconstruct satisfactorily non yet available views and can be used to predict the volumes of sales well before the goods are put on the market. Collapse

Topics: missing data supply chain management database system data integration

Methods: computational algorithm k-nearest neighbor descriptive statistic convolutional neural network canonical correlation analysis

Knowledge Management System Use as a Key Driver of Professional and Organizational Cognitive Engagement

2021 | Journal of the Association for Information Systems | Citations: 2

Authors: Iyengar, Kishen; Montealegre, Ramiro

Abstract: This study aims to contribute to the literature on knowledge management systems ... Expand

Abstract: This study aims to contribute to the literature on knowledge management systems (KMS) through investigating the role of engagement as an important intermediary in the relationship between KMS use and outcomes. Building on prior literature, we propose a theoretical model that conceptualizes KMS use as a valuable resource and distinguish between two types of cognitive engagement: professional cognitive engagement and organizational cognitive engagement. These, in turn, mediate the KMS use-job performance and KMS use-organizational commitment relationships. We tested the model on a sample of 3354 real estate agents using an extensive dataset comprised of primary and secondary data. The findings show that KMS use has an impact on individuals' professional and organizational cognitive engagement, which then impacts their job performance and organizational commitment. However, our findings indicate that professional cognitive engagement only partially mediates the relationship between KMS use and job performance. We conclude the paper with a discussion of theoretical contributions and practical implications. Collapse

Topics: task productivity knowledge management system missing data cognitive absorption information system use

Methods: instrumental variables estimation theory development structural equation modeling robustness check survey

Monetization Of Digital Content: Drivers Of Revenue On Q&A Platforms

2021 | Journal of Management Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Ye, Hua; Yang, Xueping; Wang, Xinwei; Stratopoulos, Theophanis C.

Abstract: Valuation of digital content has important individual, organizational, and micro ... Expand

Abstract: Valuation of digital content has important individual, organizational, and microeconomic implications. Yet, the existing understanding of digital content consumption is focused primarily on consumption of free content. This means, that digital content is not a source of revenue for contributors and not directly tied to the revenue or expenses of these platforms and that it is practically impossible to capture its value in national income accounts. Academic and anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that sharing of revenue from paid viewership in paid question-and-answer (Q&A) platforms is a factor that differentiates successful platforms, such as Weibo Q&A, from unsuccessful ones, such as Google Answers. Yet, the growing paid Q&A literature does not shed much light on our understanding of the drivers of revenues from paid viewership. Our study focuses on the unique revenue sharing of paid viewership among stakeholders because this feature makes paid Q&A a success and helps ensure the sustainability of the hosting social media platform. This study draws upon signaling theory to identify the drivers of the sales of paid viewership. We further draw on the cognitive view of signal attention and interpretation and the literature on social media trend and the literature on information perishability to hypothesize the differential moderating impacts of question price and content perishability. Consistent with the literature, we found the positive impacts of social media status and social endorsement on the sales of paid viewership. Extending past literature, we found an inverted-U impact of social feedback and the differential moderating effects of question price and content perishability on the sales of paid viewership. Collapse

Topics: social media price management data breach website decision making

Methods: robustness check longitudinal research instrumental variables estimation theory development question answering

Theories: signaling theory

Ubiquitous Computing Capabilities and User-System Interaction Readiness: An Activity Perspective

2020 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 0

Authors: Sun, Jun

Abstract: Based on mobile computing technologies, ubiquitous systems enable people to acce ... Expand

Abstract: Based on mobile computing technologies, ubiquitous systems enable people to access information anywhere and anytime. In addition to the capability of interactivity concerning inquiry processing based on user input through interfaces, ubiquitous systems may offer contextualization and personalization dealing with information filtering based on task contexts and user preferences, which help relieve user effort on the move. This study investigates how different combinations of these major ubiquitous computing capabilities affect user behavior. Using the unifying framework of Activity Theory, it conceptualizes user-system interaction as a tool-mediated activity, the different aspects of which are facilitated by interactivity, contextualization, and personalization. It is hypothesized that such capabilities shape user experiences including sense of control, motive fulfillment, and perceived understanding, which lead to how ready people are to interact with ubiquitous systems. The results from an experiment support the hypothesized relationships, and suggest that different capabilities are interdependent in their effects. The findings yield insights on how to take a systematic and balanced approach of ubiquitous system design to enhance user experiences. Collapse

Topics: usability ubiquitous computing personalization user behavior systems design

Methods: experiment canonical correlation analysis chi squared test descriptive statistic survey design

Theories: activity theory