Online Investing for Retirement

Researchers are investigating how new innovative self-service retirement Web sites are used by company employees to maximize their investment and retirement wealth. The team is comprised of researchers from the Fogelman College of Business & Economics in collaboration with researchers at the University of Montana and Grand Valley State University.

As companies continue to find ways to reduce costs by adopting online self-service technologies, this research is needed to explore how different Web site designs affect how successfully users can utilize the systems to achieve their goals. The Web site design features are assessed through a series of research projects that involve collecting data from users in an experimental laboratory setting involving simulated online retirement web sites. Specifically, the projects are designed to explore how user characteristics such as gender differences, user confidence, and user risk propensity, and system characteristics such as information delivery channels and investment advice credibility influence investing behaviors.

The research team comprises Dr. Robin Poston (rposton@memphis.edu, Department of Management Information Systems, University of Memphis), Dr. Clayton Looney (University of Montana), and Dr. Asli Akbulut (Grand Valley State University).

Understanding and Utilizing Medical Information Systems

Researchers in the Fogelman College of Business & Economics in collaboration with researchers at University of Tennessee Health Science Center are investigating how medical experts find answers to health-related questions using online and offline information sources. The researchers are gathering data from information search activities including sources used, sources found helpful, and the pattern followed to search for medical information.

It is useful to understand the way experts find and use medical information both online an offline in order to create better information systems and to train non-expert information seekers,” said Dr. Robin Poston, of the Fogelman College’s Department of Management Information Systems. Specifically, the project delves into exploring which sources are most helpful and how the Internet can be a valuable information source for medical information.

The research team comprises Dr. Robin Poston (rposton@memphis.edu, Department of Management Information Systems, University of Memphis), Dr. Katie Suda (University of Tennessee) and Colin Onita (PhD Student, Department of Management Information Systems, University of Memphis).

Understanding Best Practices in Offshore Outsourcing Management

Researchers in the Fogelman College of Business & Economics are investigating how to improve offshore outsourcing management in the system development process. In a unique collaboration with local Fortune 500 companies and the Project Management Institute of Memphis, the researchers are gathering both qualitative and quantitative data designed to highlight best practices in offshore outsourcing management.

As companies are increasingly adopting offshore outsourcing strategies, they are faced with how to answer the complex questions of what activities are best to send offshore, what is the best approach to controlling offshore activities, and how can communications be improved given time and culture differences? These questions are explored first with onshore employees through structured interviews, then through a more widely-circulated questionnaire with feedback from people involved in offshore outsourcing across a diverse set of industries and approaches, and finally with offshore employees at their global locations to gather their views. Specifically, the project will delve into the human, process, and technological aspects of offshore outsourcing management and develop a series of best practices for both researchers and practitioners to use.

The research team comprises several faculty members from the Department of Management Information Systems, all of whom are Systems Testing Research Fellows of the FedEx Institute of Technology: Dr. Robin Poston (rposton@memphis.edu), Dr. Sandi Richardson, Dr. Judith Simon, Dr. Tom Stafford, and Dr. Chen Zhang.