PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Ambassador Crawford / Department of Management and Information Systems

This dissertation investigates how benefits derive from information systems (IS). Using theory and research from multiple disciplines, including psychology, strategy, and IS, I investigated the roles of system use, perceived information quality and the context of organizational culture in the realization of IS benefits. The productivity paradox (Brynjolfsson, 1993) suggests a consistent positive relationship between IS use and IS benefits has not been established or explained. Understanding, and resolving, the productivity paradox is paramount to the future of IS. A common explanation for this paradox is the mismanagement of IS resources. This means contextual factors within the organization affect the benefits derived from the IS. Specific guidelines have been recommended to integrate context specific theorizing in IS research (Hong, Chan, Thong, Chasalow, & Dhillon, 2014). Following these guidelines, I investigate the role of organizational culture in the Information Systems Success Model (ISSM; DeLone & McLean, 1992; 2003); a model that predicts a significant relationship between perceived information quality and net benefits, through the mediator of system use. I have identified two specific facets of organizational culture as meaningful factors influencing the benefits derived from IS, information sharing attitudes and perceptions of IS strategy. I considered not only direct effects of these factors, but also interplay between factors and alternative models through systematic model trimming. I used a survey to measure model variables, along with secondary data collection in the form of system use logs and individual performance scores. I found the system use variable to be sensitive to measurement. This sensitivity resulted in two separate and meaningful variables: computer-recorded objective system use and self-reported system use. My results indicated the benefits of IS are related directly to objective system use, but objective system use is not related (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alan Brandyberry PhD. (Committee Co-Chair); Mary Hogue PhD. (Committee Co-Chair); Dong-Heon Kwak PhD. (Committee Member); John Thornton PhD. (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Information Systems; Management

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Communication

This study investigated cancer patients' active involvement in their cancer care, their information-related preferences and behaviors, the extent to which they share cancer-related information with their health care provider, and whether having information to share leads to perceptions of increased participation in their cancer care. A questionnaire was mailed to callers to the Mid-West Region Cancer Information Service (CIS) who agreed to participate in the study and who had been diagnosed with cancer. Results reveal a general tendency among the participants for active participation, a general desire to be involved in decision making and a strong preference for being informed about their cancer. While generally satisfied with the information received from their doctors, they also seek information from many other sources and they consider that information to have more positive than negative effects on them. The study's biggest contribution to the literature is its investigation of whether patients mention the information they have found to their doctor, their perceptions of their doctor's reaction, and their assessment of whether they felt they participated more when they had information to share; the results reveal that information sharing occurs among all participants, although to varying extents, and that doctors' reactions were generally positive. Most importantly, most participants felt as though they participated more than usual when they had information to share, suggesting a critical link between having information and taking an active role in one's cancer care.

Committee: Donald Cegala (Advisor) Subjects:

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Engineering and Applied Science: Electrical Engineering

In an attempt to realize decentralized cooperation and coordination in a heterogeneous team of autonomous mobile agents, we have proposed a platform to model many practical issues encountered in the process. The system includes an unexplored environment and a team of agents with different capabilities. The agents' movement follows trajectories limited by speed and turning radius, and their actions may be affected by their orientation relative to targets. The stochasticity introduced by task transition makes o-line task assignment inapplicable. A basic distributed real-time assignment algorithm and an intelligent predictive decision making strategy are proposed and compared. The results show that prediction can help improve the performance of cooperative agent teams engaged in search-and-engage missions. These algorithms are implemented with the assumption of perfect communication. The assumption of perfect communication is relaxed in the second part of the work reported, resulting in a truly decentralized system that is simulated in a somewhat simpler mission scenario. Each agent in this decentralized model has its own subjective information base (SIB) based on limited observations and information sharing, and uses a set of information fusion heuristics to maintain this SIB. The performance of the system is evaluated relative to the degree of information sharing. The results indicate that cooperation based on information exchange { even if it is imperfect { can produce excellent performance. A hybrid communication strategy combining occasional limited-range communication and opportunistic peer-to-peer synchronization is then proposed. Using Monte Carlo simulations, it is shown that this strategy can significantly supplement the efficacy of a diffusive information sharing strategy.

Committee: Ali Minai PhD (Committee Chair); Raj Bhatnagar PhD (Committee Member); Arthur Helmicki PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Electrical Engineering

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2023, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) faces numerous challenges in partially-observable environments due to limited information and the non-stationarity of the learning process. This study aims to determine the optimal rate and type of information sharing in MARL algorithms to improve performance in such environments. Here, we benchmark the Independent Q-Learning (IQL) and Independent Proximal Policy Optimization (IPPO) algorithms, modifying them to facilitate various forms of information sharing in the Level-Based Foraging environment. Our experimental results reaffirm theorized downsides of na¨ıve information sharing from scientific literature and demonstrate that optimal sharing rates may be an additional hyperparameter for optimization: notably, when allowing agents to choose when to share information, models perform competitively while converging to rates of sharing as low as 10% while achieving improved short-term returns. Additionally, we find that pairing information about agents' actions with their observations yields the highest returns, possibly allowing agent networks to parameterize each others' policies.

Committee: Jia Liu (Committee Member); Parinaz Naghizadeh (Advisor) Subjects: Computer Engineering; Computer Science; Electrical Engineering

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Medicine: Genetic Counseling

Differences of sex development (DSD) are congenital conditions characterized by atypical development of internal and/or external reproductive organs, and can impact gonadal development, fertility, and hormone production or action. There is a paucity of data addressing the experiences that adolescents and young adults with DSD have had when sharing information about their diagnosis with others outside the family. We sought to identify the factors that influence whether an individual with a DSD chooses to tell others outside the family about their DSD, as well as their experiences with the process. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four individuals between the ages of 15 to 21 years who received care at the DSD clinic at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Audio-recorded transcripts were analyzed by two researchers using inductive and deductive coding, and common themes were identified. All participants identified as female and had chosen to share details of their diagnosis with others. Close friends and romantic partners were the two main groups with whom participants had chosen to share this information. They shared their initial concerns about acceptance or possible stigma from friends and romantic partners if they decided to share their diagnosis with them. Participants felt that some of these concerns were due to the lack of visibility surrounding DSD. For friends, trust and the closeness of the relationship were two factors that motivated them to share this information. For romantic partners, participants felt an obligation to share their diagnosis due to the impact of the DSD on fertility. Despite initial concerns about not being accepted after sharing their diagnosis, participants had subsequently felt supported and accepted by those in whom they had chosen to confide. The study is one of the first to explore the decisions and experiences of adolescents and young adults with DSD around sharing information about their diagnosis (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Melanie Myers Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michelle Ernst Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robert Hopkin M.D. (Committee Member); Jodie Johnson M.S. C.G.C. (Committee Member); Meilan Rutter (Committee Member); Howard Saal M.D. (Committee Member); Tara Schafer-Kalkhoff M.A. (Committee Member) Subjects: Genetics

Doctor of Healthcare Administration (D.H.A.), Franklin University, 2020, Health Programs

Health data are being created daily at diverse locations for a multitude of purposes. With the advent of electronic health record (EHR) systems, data are stored electronically, and the sharing of data should be seamless and transparent. However, this ease has not emerged (Holmgren et al., 2017). There is a complex policy and enforcement environment operating in the creation and sharing of health data. Unintended consequences seem to confront every piece of new legislation or health care regulation. Data sharing is incredibly complex from a system perspective; add in physicians' perceptions about the quality of data, and the resulting system quickly becomes a tangled web of computer code, data integrity, and possible data-sharing violations. Creating effective mechanisms for health-data sharing among organizations is difficult. Complex databases, created by profit-seeking companies and then customized for specific health systems, yield a confusing landscape when trying to map data between systems, even with the same vendor-supplied software. This qualitative study used twelve personal interviews to discover themes around barriers to sharing health data. Participants in this study reflected on the struggles and anxieties with data-sharing activities. The resulting analysis highlights possible changes in policy, technological advancements, and organizational activities to ease health-data-sharing burdens. Factors emerged from this research to touch on how data is kept secure, transparent, and private, all at the same time. The highest ideals would indicate that sharing activities should be seamless, easy, and risk free.

Committee: Karen Lankisch PhD (Committee Chair); David Meckstroth DHA (Committee Member); Olivia Pollard PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Care; Health Care Management; Information Systems

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Business Administration

The three essays in this dissertation collectively contribute new insights about the disruption recognition and diagnosis stages of supply disruption management. Disruption recovery plans, developed ex-ante, are effective only to the extent that they are activated in a timely manner. Timely activation, in turn, requires sourcing firms to possess relevant information to efficiently and effectively recognize and diagnose (i) the occurrence of and (ii) the magnitude of loss from supply disruptions. The first essay offers a new concept, Supply Disruption Ambiguity, to characterize the lack of relevant supply disruption trigger and occurrence information in the “disruption recognition” and “disruption diagnosis” stages. Supply Disruption Ambiguity is defined as the inability of a sourcing firm to attach probability point estimates (i) to the occurrence of a supply disruption given the manifestation of one or more supply disruption triggers and (ii) to the magnitude of loss associated with imminent or unfolding supply disruption. This inability stems from the unavailability of relevant information. The results from analyzing a unique dataset combining primary survey data and objective performance data for 88 publicly-held and 83 privately-owned North American manufacturers reveal that the inability decreases when sourcing firms establish strong ties, and invest in IT-enabled data exchange, with their supply base. The decrease in Supply Disruption Ambiguity, in turn, improves inventory turns. Extending the investigation of the role of information during the “disruption recognition” and “disruption diagnosis” stages, the second essay considers a context wherein relevant information is available to recognize a supply disruption trigger and occurrence. In this context, the focus is on two attributes about the available information (timing of information availability and instability of the available information) to hypothesize that these attributes are associated with th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: M. Johnny Rungtusanatham (Advisor); James Hill (Committee Member); Hyunwoo Park (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2016, Genetic Counseling

Introduction: Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome (HBOC) is a cancer-predisposition syndrome that affects both men and women, with more significant cancer risk elevations in women. Because there are well-established guidelines for cancer risk reduction and prevention in HBOC, it is critical that health care professionals understand information-sharing patterns among patients to facilitate communication processes and identify at-risk family members. Dissemination of familial genetic risk information in females with HBOC is well defined, but knowledge about how males share this information is limited. The aims of this study include: to describe participants' feelings and opinions about HBOC; to ascertain participants' extent of information sharing with family and medical personnel; and to describe the needs of participants for information and resources provided by genetic counselors and other health care providers. Methods: We interviewed 21 primarily Ashkenazi Jewish men who were accrued through Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE). Interviews focused on family cancer history, experiences with cancer and genetic testing, motivations to pursue genetic testing and subsequently disclose genetic test results, information sharing patterns, healthcare provider response, and participants' emotional support systems. The interviews were transcribed in their entirety, coded, and analyzed based on grounded theory. Results: Eighteen transcripts were used for the analysis. Results can be classified into 5 main themes. Participants (n=8) were most concerned about cancer risk for their children and female family members, and most (n=11) mentioned HBOC provides them increased personal awareness, but has a negligible impact on their life overall (n=9). Men (n=11) were interested in a male focused support group to discuss HBOC and gain knowledge and information. Participants (n=9) took on active and open communication roles with family members and health care p (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Leigha Senter MS, LGC (Advisor); Robert Pilarski MS, LGC (Committee Member); Doreen Agnese MD (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender; Genetics

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2015, Communication

This study investigated three factors that might impact persuasion in health as well as message characteristics and individual differences related to health-news sharing. The source expertise cue was found to have a significant impact on message credibility and behavioral intention even when the source was a mere “sharer” of the message. An interaction effect between sharing frequency and framing was significant. However, sharing frequency did not function as a bandwagon cue. In regard to the intention to get a colonoscopy, loss-framed messages were shown to be more effective than gain-framed messages, but only when shared by a non-expert in the health field. The perceived novelty of a message and the behavioral intention to engage in the behavior the message was intended to promote were strongly correlated with news-sharing intention. Finally, public self-consciousness moderated the effect of behavioral intention on information-sharing intention. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

Committee: Roselyn Lee-Won (Advisor); Nancy Rhodes (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Communication

The convergence of mass media and interpersonal media has brought enhanced opportunities for people to share media with each other. The ability to rate and recommend media, see what others are consuming and evaluating, and make public displays of personal tastes all suggest that social influences on the selection and use of media content are more important than ever. This study examines how social factors in new media environments impact selective exposure to media. Both the situational influence of impression management when sharing is anticipated as well as one's willingness to comply with norms regarding media use are examined as possible explanations for selective exposure to media that is variably prestigious and popular. An experiment was conducted in which the anticipation of sharing a video with computer-mediated others was induced. Participants' actual media use behavior was unobtrusively measured in the lab, to examine their selectivity toward videos on a website. The results indicated that indicators of prestige and popularity both had positive influences on selective exposure. Furthermore, anticipation of sharing one's taste with others led to more viewing of highly popular videos and less viewing of moderately popular videos. Exposure to highly prestigious videos was greater when individuals had more positive attitudes toward sharing, but was lower when willingness to comply with norms was high. Moderating effects of need for cognition and enjoyment were found, which showed less exposure to moderately popular videos and more exposure to highly popular videos.

Committee: Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick (Advisor); David Ewoldsen (Committee Member); Daniel McDonald (Committee Member); Brandon Van Der Heide (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Experiments; Information Science; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Motion Pictures; Multimedia Communications; Social Psychology; Web Studies

Doctor of Manufacturing Management, University of Toledo, 2007, Manufacturing Management

This research studies the impact of various supply chain management (SCM) practices - external to the organization - and modularity based manufacturing practices - within the organization - on supply chain responsiveness. The study, further investigates the dimensions of supply chain responsiveness through an extensive literature review. It develops a reliable and valid instrument for the supply chain responsiveness construct, which will be beneficial for both practitioners and academicians. The study also assesses the impact of supply chain responsiveness on the outcome variable - competitive advantage - of the firm. The large scale web-based survey yielded 294 responses from industry professionals in the manufacturing and supply chain area. The data collected was put through rigorous statistical analysis to test for content, construct, and criterion-related validity, as well as reliability analyses. Further a structural equation model was developed to test the relationships between SCM practices, modularity based manufacturing practices, supply chain responsiveness, and competitive advantage. In addition, rigorous regression analyses and MANOVA were performed to analyze the effects of various relationships at the sub-construct level as well as item level. The research findings supported the hypotheses that SCM practices positively impact supply chain responsiveness, modularity based manufacturing practices are positively associated with supply chain responsiveness, supply chain responsiveness positively impacts competitive advantage of a firm, and SCM practices are positively associated with competitive advantage of a firm. The research also uncovered the critical and specific practices (at the sub-construct and item level) that increase supply chain responsiveness. Furthermore, the study uncovered the specific SCM practices and supply chain responsiveness criteria that increase competitive advantage of a firm.

Committee: Subba Rao (Advisor) Subjects: Business Administration, Management

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, Business Administration

Supply chain process and information sharing play critical roles in today's supply chain management. Previous research in supply chain management has studied various supply chain processes and different aspects of information sharing separately. Therefore, this dissertation proposes a comprehensive framework to study the relationships among supply chain process, information sharing, supply chain dynamism, and business performance. The dissertation starts with mathematical models and simulation models to better understand the relationships among the variables. The theorems derived from the mathematical models are tested in more generalized supply chain settings. The results from the mathematical models and simulation models provide several managerial insights and help develop the empirical models. The empirical part of this dissertation uses a cross-sectional survey method. Structural equation modeling is used to explore the relationships among five supply chain processes, four aspects of information sharing, supply chain dynamism, and five dimensions of business performance. Responses from 120 executives in manufacturing industries, representing a 18 percent response rate, suggest that both effective supply chain process and effective information sharing are necessary to achieve optimal business performance. When supply chain dynamism increases, effective information sharing becomes more important. Information sharing does not have direct positive impact on business performance, but it has positive impact on business performance through effective supply chain process. Effective supply chain process has positive influence on all performance dimensions, but the degrees of positive influence vary for different performance dimensions. The analytical methodology tests three of the six research hypotheses. The empirical methodology tests five of the six research hypotheses. The analytical and empirical research methodologies corroborate and complement each other. The resu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: W.C. Benton (Advisor) Subjects: Business Administration, Management

PHD, Kent State University, 2008, College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Ambassador Crawford / Department of Management and Information Systems

An extensive review of the current literature on supply chain management research shows that, traditionally, a supply chain is typically viewed as a hierarchical structure in which the information and materials flow in a vertical point-to-point fashion and each individual at a level is independent and does not interact with others horizontally. The methodologies often found are mathematical deduction or induction with, sometimes, numerical simulation or empirical data analysis to support the theories. These traditional approaches are very powerful and efficient in solving many problems. However, they are inadequate in the areas that the agent based modeling is capable of. These areas include capturing emergent phenomena; providing a natural description of a supply chain system; and being flexible (scalable and adaptive). This dissertation investigates the supply chain system in a way different from the traditional approaches. Our view of a supply chain is a hierarchical structure with horizontal layers, in which exist interactions between the members (retailers, in our case, who exchange information and stocks). We no longer treat the system as point-to-point, but point-to-layer relationships. We use the agent based modeling to represent in a more natural way the individual interactive entities in the supply chain system and investigate the emergence due to the interactions between these entities. In this dissertation we have demonstrated that interactions between retailers have plausible consequences on the supply chain performance. In particular, we look at the total average costs at the supplier side and find significant improvement in cost reduction as the interactions among the retailers increase. Through the external validation, we confirm that the new agent based modeling method produces the exact results as those from the previous research with traditional approaches. We use agents to represent the firms in the supply chain and program the behaviors for each (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Marvin Troutt Dr. (Committee Chair); Murali Shanker Dr. (Committee Member); Michael Hu Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Systems; Operations Research