E-tailers normally have more accurate information regarding their products and services than consumers due to the nature of online transactions. To reduce consumers’ concerns of hidden information, e-tailers can use lenient return policies to attempt to signal high product and service quality. This research proposes a model to investigate the signaling effect of two components of return policy, return window—short return window vs. long return window and return depth—full refund vs. partial refund, on product quality and service quality. Data was collected using an online survey and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results show that both a long return window and a full refund signal high service quality, which then positively affects purchase intention. When it comes to product quality, return window does not have a signaling effect, while the signaling effect of return depth is moderated by service quality.

Commercial organizations and government agencies that gather, store, share and disseminate data are facing increasing concerns over individual privacy and confidentiality. Confidential data is often masked in the database or prior to release to a third party, through methods such as data perturbation. In this study, re-identification risks of three major additive data perturbation techniques were compared using two different record linkage techniques. The results suggest that re-identification risk of Kim's multivariate noise addition method is similar to that of simple noise addition method. The general additive perturbation method (GADP) has the lowest re-identification risk and therefore provides the highest level of protection. The study also suggests that Fuller's method of assessing re-identification risk may be better suited than the probabilistic record-linkage method of Winkler, for numeric data. The results of this study should be help organizations and government agencies choose an appropriate additive perturbation technique.

We utilize choice-based conjoint analysis (CBC), a novel methodological approach for IS decision-making research, to investigate the relative importance of the critical factors in the decision models of consumers when evaluating intention to use mobile office services. From a survey of working professionals, we extract the hierarchy of relative importance of each critical factor influencing the adoption decision. We found that moderate usefulness is the threshold that vendors should try to achieve and simple design does not differ significantly from the design with moderate complexity. The applicability of CBC analysis in IS research is established; guidelines and implications for IT designers, managers, and researchers are presented. Our findings enable practitioners to pursue practical questions such as: 1) which factors are consumers most concerned with when electing to adopt MO technology for professional communications? and 2) what is the tradeoff that consumers might make for accepting and adopting MO technology?

Instant messaging (IM) technologies are being rapidly deployed in the workplace. Current studies largely focus on the adoption of IM and how IM is used. Little research has been conducted to understand the potential impact of using IM in the workplace. This paper theorizes and empirically tests how the frequency of IM interruptions and the position power of message sender could interact with an individual’s polychronic orientation, that is, multitasking preference, and jointly influence employee satisfaction and subjective task complexity. The present study illustrates that polychronic knowledge workers are more satisfied with the multitasking work process deploying IM technology than monochronic ones. In addition, the effect of interruptions is dependent upon an individual’s polychronic orientation. The increase in interruption frequency only reduces the process satisfaction of monochronic individuals but not polychronic individuals. Further, the polychronic orientation of message receivers also influences how they process information. When IM messages are sent from their supervisors, monochronic individuals tend to prioritize tasks and perceive a lower level of overall task complexity. The information processing of polychronic individuals seem to be less influenced by the position power of message sender.