Sunil Mithas

University of Maryland, College Park | UMD, UMCP, University of Maryland College Park · Department of Decision, Operations and Information Technologies

Contributions by individual open source software (OSS) community members are the lifeblood of the OSS projects that power today’s digital economy and are important for the very survival of such communities. Individual contributions by OSS community members to others’ projects and their own determine whether OSS communities are resilient in the face...

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistin- guishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts...

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts f...

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts f...

The implementation of digital transformation programs requires careful allocation of software developers to a variety of digital products and services with different levels of modularity. This paper investigates how deadline orientation (an individual‐level preference of developers for completing work close to deadlines) and architectural modularit...

How do green information technology (IT) standards and organizational strategies jointly influence firms’ environmental sustainability and financial performance? This is an important question, as many firms adopt green IT standards without considering the fit with their organizational strategies, and therefore face uncertain or mixed outcomes. We a...

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, autonomous vehicles, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are frequently mentioned as part of “Industry 4.0”. As such, how will they influence operations and supply chain management? We answer this question by providing a brief review of the ev...

This study examines the important roles that human resources (HR) for information technology (IT) professionals and information systems (IS) practices for all workers in an organization play in shaping returns on firms’ IT investments. In particular, we consider how incentives, autonomy, and training for IT professionals can enable a firm to better...

Service industries are increasingly unsustainable. Considering consumers as change agents, we show how service innovation may contribute to a service ecosystem that helps achieve emerging sustainability goals. To achieve sustainability the dyadic focus on value-co-creation is complemented with a broader stakeholder perspective, abandoning the share...

Advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the distributed nature of innovation in a culturally heterogeneous world raise an important question about how ICT and culture jointly influence innovation. We argue that ICT shapes the influence of cultural dimensions on national innovation in nuanced ways, depending on the nature of t...

When does IT-business alignment matter more for leveraging IT investment for firm performance? Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory, we posit that firms that focus on IT-business alignment at the later stages (IT delivery, and IT change) of the IT lifecycle are able to better translate their IT investment into revenue than firms that focus on IT-...

This study investigates how value‐added services (VAS) and customer care services (CCS) moderate the association between satisfaction with the core telephone service and overall customer satisfaction in base‐of‐the‐pyramid (BOP) markets. We propose that customers respond to VAS and CCS differently due to variations in price evaluations of these ser...

Because software is fungible, has low marginal replication costs, and requires relatively high levels of initial investment to develop, understanding how IT-producing firms can protect and leverage value from their research and development (R&D) investments is important. We examine how the positioning of IT-producing firms within their networks of...

Although the ability to produce exploratory innovations is important for firm performance, firms face difficulties in producing exploratory innovations because knowledge is often distributed across cultures and geographies. In this study, we examine whether information technology (IT) helps firms to overcome the liabilities of global operations par...

Many organizations and software firms these days use pair programming to meet the challenges posed by digital transformations and to meet customer needs. They use pair programming to become more agile and responsive to their competitive environment. Although some studies suggest that pair programming can potentially increase the quality of develope...

How do multinational corporations (MNCs) and domestic firms compensate technical and managerial skills of knowledge workers within and across geographies? This paper answers this question by examining how developed economy MNCs and emerging economy firms value MBA education and firm-specific IT experience of IT professionals in India; and how devel...

Organizations from nearly every industry face critical challenges of organizing for successful digital innovation. While the notion of digital innovation management has received increasing interest, prior IS research has offered limited insights into the effectiveness of specific organizing structures and mechanisms, such as the allocation of decis...

How will continuing developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning influence IT professionals? This article approaches this question by identifying the factors that influence the demand for software developers and IT professionals, describing how these factors relate to AI, and articulating the likely impact on IT professionals.

Driven by the growing importance of the digital provision of government services (e-government), recent research has sought to develop and test conceptual models of citizen satisfaction and trust with these services. Yet, there remains little agreement on how to optimally model these relationships with regards to the somewhat divergent goals of exp...

We study how platform owners’ decision to enter complementary markets affects innovation in the ecosystem surrounding the platform. Despite heated debates on the behavior of platform owners toward complementors, relatively little is known about the mechanisms linking platform owners’ entry and complementary innovation. We exploit Google’s 2015 entr...

Research in operations management and information systems suggests that information technology (IT) can play an important role in managing operations that support environmentally sustainable (green) growth. Yet, few studies have empirically assessed the efficacy of green IT investments and initiatives, particularly in emerging economies such as Ind...

How should digital platforms engage with and invest in their online communities to shape innovation and knowledge contributions from members in their platform ecosystems? This is an important question because user contributions are important drivers of technological progress and business value. We examine the effect of platform sponsors' investment...

Because of changes in competitive and regulatory environment and customer expectations, organizations have to continuously transform their products, services or business models to meet customer needs. Information technology (IT) increasingly plays an important role in many transformations because of significant digitization of business processes an...

Health information exchanges (HIEs) are new organizational forms in the United States that facilitate digital exchange of health data across participants. Many believe that these multi-sided digital platforms will become key enablers of the digital transformation of healthcare in the United States. However, like other entrepreneurial ventures, thes...

How does information technology (IT) enable firms to globalize their operations and achieve higher foreign profits? We use archival data for multinational firms publicly traded in the United States for the years 1999–2006, and find indirect evidence for the role of IT to help firms achieve higher foreign profits through revenue growth rather than c...

How do IT-enabled capabilities influence the ability of firms to leverage customer involvement to shape amount of innovation? This study argues and theorizes that effective processing and management of customer information flows requires that organizations possess what we call as relational information processing capability (RIPC) and analytical in...

The ability to understand and utilize the power of IT to our advantage, also known as digital intelligence, is a critical skill for business and IT managers in today's economy. The authors examine the evolution of IT and digital intelligence and describe what it involves—specifically, an understanding of how to synchronize business and IT strategie...

Organizations face both opportunities and challenges thanks to increasing digitization, which can enable more freedom and sophisticated strategies that efficiently target specific customer segments or individual customers. However, in the face of digitization, organizations must become more innovative. Successful firms often demonstrate what the au...

This paper investigates how two key outcomes in software development-software quality and job satisfaction of software developers-are influenced by product modularity and developers' temporal work style, i.e., the preferences for completing the bulk of work closer to the deadlines. We argue that high deadline orientation positively interacts with p...

The ability of a firm’s managers to understand how its customers view the firm’s offerings and the drivers of those customer perceptions is fundamental in determining the success of marketing efforts. We investigate the extent to which managers’ perceptions of the levels and drivers of their customers’ satisfaction and loyalty align with that of th...

This paper studies the effect of aggregate information technology (IT) investments on customer satisfaction and profits at the firm level. Using data on 109 U.S. firms for the 1994-1996 and 1999-2006 periods, we find that aggregate IT investments have a positive association with customer satisfaction. However, the strength of the relationship varie...

This study examines the relationship between customer satisfaction, loyalty intention, and shareholder value at the firm and individual customer levels. The authors also explore industry differences by using a multilevel and random-effects approach in which individual customer scores are nested within firm-level data and the estimated Interrelation...

Firms are increasingly using a wide variety of strategies and technology tools for managing their innovation ecosystems for competitive advantage. This article describes the experience of a large global conglomerate at managing its innovation ecosystem in the last decade and the lessons learned. The authors clarify the role of disciplined autonomy...

This study examines the effect of disciplined autonomy within information systems development (ISD) work teams on innovation effectiveness. Within self-managed ISD teams, disciplined autonomy is often achieved by adopting personal and impersonal quality assurance techniques—e.g., pair programming, code reviews, or automated testing. Existing litera...

Not too long ago, desktop computers were provisioned for users, and applications were carefully vetted and controlled. Now, CIOs are dealing with laptops, smartphones, tablets, and a raft of new tools and technologies that present significant security, reliability, and IP protection challenges. Moreover, users have come to expect an information exp...

Human capital is becoming more critical as the global economy becomes more information intensive and service intensive. Although information systems (IS) researchers have studied some dimensions of human capital, the role of industry-specific human capital has remained understudied. The information technology enabled business process outsourcing (B...

Much attention is currently being paid in both the academic and practitioner literatures to the value that organisations could create through the use of big data and business analytics (Gillon et al, 2012; Mithas et al, 2013). For instance, Chen et al (2012, p. 1166–1168) suggest that business analytics and related technologies can help organisatio...

This study draws on team adaptation theory to examine how agile behavior within Information Systems development (ISD) teams influences team performance. We conceptualize agile behavior as the degree to which ISD teams use agile practices and test a theoretical model that links agile practice use to two key components of team adaptation-shared menta...

Service science perspectives highlight the central role of information technology (IT) in transforming the design and delivery of services. To discern the mechanisms through which IT impacts service innovation, we explore the dynamics of the relationship between enterprise IT and service architectures, and how these dynamics influence the performan...

The developing world doesnt approach innovation in the same way as the developed world. Therefore, as firms globalize, they must be mindful of some fundamental differences as they craft their innovation strategies. This article articulates key dimensions and innovation approaches that differ across developing and developed economies. It proposes a...

Big data projects and programs provide tremendous opportunity for organizations looking to transform their operations, innovate in their markets, and better serve their customers; however, these initiatives must be based on sound approaches and principles and not fads or empty vendor claims. This special issue aims to promote a better understanding...

In this paper, we examine how the competitive industry environment shapes the way that digital strategic posture (defined as a focal firm's degree of engagement in a particular class of digital business practices relative to the industry norm) influences firms' realized digital business strategy. We focus on two forms of digital strategy: general I...

Multi-national corporations (MNCs) are increasingly using offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) to manage their primary and support functions and achieve their strategic objectives. Though India is regarded as the "undisputed leader in offshore services," the Indian BPO industry is plagued by high employee turnover and labor shortages. Indian...

Does information technology outsourcing reduce non-IT operating costs? This study examines this question and also asks whether internal IT investments moderate the relationship between IT outsourcing and non-IT operating costs. Using a panel data set of approximately 300 U.S. firms from 1999 to 2003, we find that IT outsourcing has a significant ne...

Motivated by the bond market's important role as the single largest source of financing for U.S. firms, this study investigates bondholders' assessment of the value of investments in information technology (IT) by examining the association between IT investment and initial bond ratings and bond yields. The results indicate that the impact of IT on...

This study investigates the effect of information technology (IT) architecture flexibility on strategic alliance formation and firm value. We first examine the effect of three dimensions of IT architecture flexibility (open communication standards, cross-functional transparency, and modularity) on formation of three types of alliances (arm's-length...

It's becoming increasingly important for companies to have a digital business strategy. Yet what drives these strategies, and how do they differ from more conventional strategies? How can they help companies leverage IT?

Many multinational corporations have implemented cross-national satisfaction measurement programs for tracking and benchmarking the satisfaction of their customers across their various markets. These companies measure satisfaction with the goal of maximizing customer loyalty and the financial benefits associated with loyalty. However, existing rese...

Do information technology (IT) investments improve firm profitability? If so, is this effect because such investments help improve sales, or is it because they help reduce overall operating expenses? How does the effect of IT on profitability compare with that of advertising and research and development (R&D)? These are important questions because...

A study of over 50,000 IT professionals suggests that efforts to restrict the numbers of skilled foreign professionals working in the US and foreign students seeking higher education in US universities are counterproductive.

Advances in social computing can help firms enhance and leverage internal capabilities, such as knowledge work and collaboration, and seamlessly integrate the vast information resources available on the Internet. Many firms, however, are still developing the practices that will enable them to leverage social networking in the enterprise. The articl...

How do information technology (IT) capabilities contribute to firm performance? This study develops a conceptual model linking IT-enabled information management capability with three important organizational capabilities (customer management capability, process management capability, and performance management capability). We argue that these three...

This paper identifies and analyzes firm-level characteristics that facilitate onshore and offshore business process outsourcing (BPO). We use organizational learning and capabilities to develop a conceptual model. We test the conceptual model with archival data on a broad cross section of U.S. firms. Our empirical findings indicate that firms with...

This paper seeks to understand how high-skill foreign IT professionals assimilate in the United States by examining the wage trajectories of foreign and American information technology (IT) professionals. While prior research shows that on average foreign IT professionals earn more compared to US citizen IT professionals, our focus here is on tempo...

This study investigates the business value of information technology (IT) in terms of performance in bond markets, which constitute the single largest source for firms' financing. We evaluate risk-adjusted benefits of IT investments in the bond market in the United States over the 1995-2002 period. We find a significant association between a firm's...

While senior managers sometimes ask what the return is from their investments in technology, a better question might be, how can we use technology as a strategic asset to enable new competencies or maintain a competitive advantage? The success of the IT effort depends on communicating the firm's strategy and enlisting managers at all levels in maki...

A growing body of research focuses on the relationship between e-government, the relatively new mode of citizen-to-government contact founded in information and communications technologies, and citizen trust in government. For many, including both academics and policy makers, e-government is seen as a potentially transformational medium, a mode of...

The use of H-1B and other work visas to hire foreign information technology (IT) professionals in the United States has attracted significant controversy and policy debates. On one hand, hiring high-skill foreign IT professionals on work visas can be advantageous for U.S. firms and the overall economy. On the other hand, high-skill immigration can...

Firms are increasingly using onshore and offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) to manage their front and back office functions. While most IS research uses transaction cost economics (TCE) to study the transaction-level characteristics that facilitate outsourcing, to advance theory there is a need to focus on the firm-level characteristics th...

Prior studies argue that information technology (IT) can play an important role toward sustainable and "greener" growth, yet few studies have empirically assessed the adoption and efficacy of green information technology initiatives at the firm level. This study investigates the factors that influence green IT implementation in organizations; and t...

Does information technology (IT) enable firms to globalize their operations and achieve higher foreign revenues and foreign profits? Although several studies have argued that IT can help firms globalize their operations, few studies have empirically tested this research question. We identify and discuss three mechanisms that explain why IT investme...

Purpose: Electronic medical records (EMRs) can potentially improve quality of care, reduce risk of medical errors, decrease redundancy of work, and improve practice efficiency. However, several studies suggest that adoption of EMR is relatively low in the US and the current state of EMR adoption among pediatric physician practices remains unknown...

According to Jacobson and Mizik [Jacobson, R., N. Mizik. 2009. The financial markets and customer satisfaction: Reexamining possible financial market mispricing of customer satisfaction. (5) 810–819], excess stock portfolio returns for firms with strong customer satisfaction are small and statistically insignificant, and if there is any above-marke...

This paper examines the federal government's success in implementing and providing high-quality service through e-government, something that has received very little attention. We define quality from the perspective of the end users of federal agency Web sites, as measured through customer survey data. Using data from the American Customer Satisfac...

Despite the importance of causal analysis to build a valid base of knowledge and to answer managerial questions, the issue of causality rarely receives the attention it deserves in published empirical work in information systems (IS) and management research that uses observational data. In this paper, we discuss a potential outcomes framework for e...

The use of H-1B and other work visas to hire foreign information technology (IT) professionals in the United States has attracted significant controversy and policy debates. On one hand, hiring high-skill foreign IT professionals on work visas can be advantageous for U.S. firms and the overall economy. On the other hand, high-skill immigration can...

Do countries with higher IT spending have higher life expectancy? Recent policy debate on healthcare in the United States has focused on the role of IT in reducing costs and improving healthcare access and quality. An implicit assumption in this debate has been that greater infusion of IT into healthcare will lead to better health outcomes. We inve...

This paper examines how strategic posture in IT investment with respect to industry peers (i.e., level of IT investment compared to the industry norm for IT investments) and competitive environment influence IT investments of a firm. We synthesize prior literature on determinants of IT investments and competitive dynamics to develop our theoretical...

While IT vendors have made significant improvements in the process maturity of software development, growth of information technology outsourcing and distributed software development have posed new challenges in managing software projects. In this paper we develop and test empirical models of productivity and conformance quality in the context of d...

Information technology enabled exchanges in electronic markets have significant implications for buyer-supplier relationships. Building on studies that emphasize the role of intangible assets in interorganizational relationships, this study argues that buyers are less likely to use reverse auctions for supplier relationships involving a high degree...

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology promises to transform supply chain management. Building on previous research in information systems and supply chain management, this paper proposes a theoretical framework for RFID adoption and benefits, and tests the framework using data on U.S. firms. Our analysis suggests that there is a positive...

This paper studies the influence of supply-side and demand-side factors on the compensation of information technology (IT) professionals and considers the human capital and institutional explanations. We focus on returns to an MBA and the IT-related experience of IT professionals and use the largest data set of IT professionals that has been compil...

Although firms have invested significant resources in implementing enterprise software systems (ESS) to modernize and integrate their business process infrastructure, customer satisfaction with ESS has remained an understudied phenomenon. In this exploratory research study, we investigate customer satisfaction for support services of ESS and focus...

This study investigates how firms compensate IT professionals in an emerging market. Using data on compensation of more than 8000 Indian IT professionals, the study finds evidence that returns on MBA grow or stay constant with overall work experience for IT professionals, a finding consistent with the human capital view, than with the sorting view....

Alliances represent a variety of governance contexts, and hence provide a rich empirical setting for studying the value-creation mechanisms of Information Technology (IT). We examine the influence of IT investment and flexible IT infrastructure, through Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), in the effect of alliance activity on firm performance. We...

Is information technology (IT) a substitute or complement for inventories? This study answers this question by understanding substitution and complementarity of IT and inventories insofar as they impact profitability of a firm. We use data on IT expenditures and inventories of U.S firms and find support for the substitution between IT and overall i...

This paper develops a conceptual model to study the role of outsourcing strategies and plant-level information technology (IT) application infrastructure in the outsourcing of production and support business processes, as well as their subsequent impact on overall plant performance. We validate this model empirically using cross-sectional survey da...

Which service occupations are the most susceptible to global disaggregation? What are the factors and mechanisms that make service occupations amenable to global disaggregation? This research addresses these questions by building on previous work by Apte and Mason (1995) and Rai, Patnayakuni, and Seth (2006) that focuses on the unbundling of inform...

Although the initial euphoria about Internet-enabled reverse auctions has given way to a cautious but widespread use of reverse auctions in business-to-business (B2B) procurement, there is a limited understanding of the effect of auction design parameters on buyer surplus. In this paper, we study the effect of bidding competition, information asymm...

We examine the relationship between firms’ human resources (HR) practices and their information technology (IT) practices, focusing on the dichotomy between autonomy and control. We define facilitating HR practices as those that exhibit the following characteristics: worker autonomy, connectedness, learning, valuing individuals, trust, and flexibil...