The Last Research Mile: Achieving Both Rigor and Relevance in Information Systems Research

Augmenting Password Strength Meter Design Using the Elaboration Likelihood Model: Evidence from Randomized Experiments

In this research, we study an effective method to encourage users to generate stronger passwords. Specifically, we propose a novel design of password strength meters that incorporates contextual information to help users digest the message generated by the password strength meter. We evaluate our design by leveraging three independent and complementary methods: a survey-based experiment using students to evaluate the saliency of our conceptual design (proof of concept), a controlled laboratory experiment conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk to test the effectiveness of the proposed design (proof of value), and a randomized field experiment conducted in collaboration with an online forum in Asia to establish proof of use. In each study, we observe that users exposed to the proposed password strength meter are more likely to change their passwords, leading to a new password that is significantly stronger. Our findings suggest that the proposed design of augmented password strength meters is an effective method for promoting secure password behavior among end users. Our design also requires minimal computational resources and technical capabilities.

Knowledge Accumulation in Design Science Research

Design science research (DSR) is increasingly prominent in the information systems discipline. However, despite a lively discourse, and methodical and conceptual advances notwithstanding, DSR contributions are rarely cumulative and mostly remain isolated. This lack of cumulative research impedes scientific progress and practical impact. Our goal in this paper is to help establish a cumulative tradition in DSR by proposing (1) a general, consensus-oriented, evolutionary process model of scientific progress based on a synthesis of different streams in the philosophy of science, (2) quality criteria for DSR contributions corresponding to the individual steps in the process model, (3) actions that the IS community as a whole can take to facilitate adherence to these quality criteria. We expect that our work can pave the way towards developing a more cumulative research tradition in DSR and thereby foster genuine scientific progress in the field.

Business Process Management and Digital Innovations: A Systematic Literature Review

Emerging technologies have capabilities to reshape business process management (BPM) from its traditional version to a more explorative variant. However, to exploit the full benefits of new IT, it is essential to reveal BPM’s research potential and to detect recent trends in practice. Therefore, this work presents a systematic literature review (SLR) with 231 recent academic articles (from 2014 until May 2019) that integrate BPM with digital innovations (DI). We position those articles against seven future BPM-DI trends that were inductively derived from an expert panel. By complementing the expected trends in practice with a state-of-the-art literature review, we are able to derive covered and uncovered themes in order to help bridge a rigor-relevance gap. The major technological impacts within the BPM field seem to focus on value creation, customer engagement and managing human-centric and knowledge-intensive business processes. Finally, our findings are categorized into specific calls for research and for action to let scholars and organizations better prepare for future digital needs.

Quality of Research Practice - An interdisciplinary face validity evaluation of a quality model

There are few acknowledged multidisciplinary quality standards for research practice and evaluation. This study evaluates the face validity of a recently developed comprehensive quality model that includes 32 defined concepts based on four main areas (credible, contributory, communicable, and conforming) describing indicators of research practice quality. Responses from 42 senior researchers working within 18 different departments at three major universities showed that the research quality model was–overall–valid. The vast majority believed all concepts in the model to be important, and did not indicate the need for further development. However, some of the sub-concepts were indicated as being slightly less important. Further, there were significant differences concerning ‘communicable’ between disciplines and academic levels, and for ‘conforming’ between genders. Our study indicates that the research quality model proposes the opportunity to move to a more systematic and multidisciplinary approach to research quality improvement, which has implications for how scientific knowledge is obtained.