IS/IT plays an important role in our everyday life, especially in today's Internet era. This article discusses the roles of IS/IT in providing services and support on information gathering, analysis, and management during major public emergencies and pandemic crises such as the battle against the new coronavirus. The five selected papers in this special issue introduce advanced methods on data collection and social media user analysis to deal with the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper also presents future research directions on the use of IS/IT in emergency and pandemic management such as IS control and governance, intelligent health care, enhancing people's lives and mental health, and knowledge management.

This research aims to elucidate the service quality factors influencing customer satisfaction with ride-sharing services. Particularly, this research compares Chinese and US consumers to identify the influence of national culture on user attitudes. Empirical research was conducted via two online surveys in China and the US. Data were collected and analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) analysis. The results show that while the satisfaction of the Chinese ride-sharing consumers was affected primarily by reliability, followed by platform assurance and empathy, the satisfaction of American consumers was influenced mainly by the conditions of ride-sharing vehicles (tangibles). The PLS-MGA results indicate that satisfaction with ride-sharing services had a significantly stronger impact on American than on Chinese continuance intention. Managerial implications are provided.

With the diffusion of cloud computing, public and private enterprise resource planning (ERP) have received increasing attention. However, several prior studies have investigated the factors that affect cloud system adoption for either public or private cloud systems. This article attempts to compare public and private cloud ERP. A research model is developed based on Two-Factor Theory and empirically test our hypotheses by collecting 253 public cloud samples and 227 private cloud samples. The results show that system quality and perceived ease of use positively affect switching benefits, which in turn positively affect switching intention. Security risk, satisfaction, and breadth of use positively affect switching costs. The moderating effects of public and private clouds affect the relationships between perceived ease of use and switching benefits, between breadth of use and switching costs, and between switching costs and switching intention. The findings offer suggestions for promoting organizations to switch to cloud public and private ERP.

A major challenge for multinational companies is to motivate employees with different individual cultural characteristics and national cultures to share knowledge. Although comparative studies across different countries have been conducted, little is known about the effects of individual cultural differences in this context. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of individual and national cultures in knowledge sharing. The individual cultural characteristics of power distance, individualism/collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance are incorporated into the model as antecedents of knowledge-sharing motivations (organizational rewards, image, and reciprocal benefits). National cultural differences are examined by subjects conducted in the U.S. and China. Results show that power distance is significantly related to reciprocal benefits for the U.S. but not for China. Individualism/collectivism is related to organizational rewards and image for the U.S. but not for China, while individualism/collectivism is significantly related to reciprocal benefits for China but not for the U.S. Uncertainty avoidance is significantly related to reciprocal benefits for the U.S. but not for China. This study provides knowledge-sharing practices and managements for multinational companies attempting to motivate U.S. and Chinese employees to share knowledge.

In today’s knowledge-based economy, most of the knowledge-sharing studies have investigated the effects of cultural values at the national level. However, individual beliefs and behaviors might also be influenced and modified by individual cultural values. To understand the effects of cultural values, cultural effects at both the individual and country levels should be considered. This study is to investigate the integrative effects of the individual’s and country’s cultural values on knowledge sharing. We examine motivational factors affecting knowledge-sharing intentions based on social exchange theory and incorporate individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance as moderators. On the basis of a survey of 394 employees conducted in the United States and China, the results show that rewards are significantly related to knowledge-sharing intentions for Chinese employees but not for American employees. Reciprocity and knowledge self-efficacy significantly impact knowledge-sharing intentions in the two countries. Our results also demonstrate that the individual’s and country’s cultural values play important roles in knowledge sharing. In the United States, individualism/collectivism is found to moderate the relationship between rewards and knowledge-sharing intentions. In China, individualism/collectivism is found to moderate the relationship between reputation and knowledge-sharing intentions, while uncertainty avoidance is found to moderate the relationship between knowledge self-efficacy and knowledge-sharing intentions.