Anita D. Bhappu, Ph.D.

Organization-Sponsored Sharing Platforms: Designing Technology-Enabled Service Systems That Engage Employees

Organization-sponsored sharing platforms are service systems that extend the sharing economy to work environments. These platforms connect coworkers in private online communities where they can exchange goods and services, which has the potential to provide organizations and their employees with social, economic, and environmental benefits. Organization-sponsored sharing platforms, therefore, offer employers new avenues for engaging employees and demonstrating corporate social responsibility. My research indicates, however, that individuals’ assumptions and expectations about an organization-sponsored sharing platform influence how they interact with this new class of information technology. My findings across three different studies provide a contextualized understanding of how and why employees use different technology features, as well as how employers frame and promote organization-sponsored sharing platforms to internal stakeholders. As a whole, this research offers key insights for designing technology-enabled service systems that engage employees.

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Anita D. BhappuBiography

Anita D. Bhappu is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Management of Complex Systems, as well as Associate Dean for Student Success, in the School of Engineering at the University of California Merced. Dr. Bhappu conducts interdisciplinary management research on organizational behavior and information systems. She studies how information and communication technologies influence coworker collaborative consumption, decision-making in diverse work teams, and customer-provider service interactions. Her research is published in top-ranked journals such as the Academy of Management Review, Frontiers in Psychology, Internet Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of the Association for Information Sciences, Journal of Service Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Management Information Systems Quarterly Executive. She serves on the editorial board of Organization Science and has been an Associate Editor of special issues at Information Systems Journal and Management Information Systems Quarterly. Insights from her research have been featured by Fast Company, Huffington Post, Marketwatch, Mother Jones, NPR Marketplace, Slate, Time, The Washington Post and USA Today. Prior to academia, Dr. Bhappu worked as a product development engineer for Procter and Gamble. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Management from the University of Arizona.