University of Pittsburgh

Faculty

William R. King

University Professor of Business Administration

Office: 222 Mervis Hall
Phone: 412-648-1587
E-mail: billking@katz.pitt.edu

Degrees

PhD, Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University), 1964
MS, Operations Research, Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University), 1962
BS (with honors), Industrial Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 1960

Courses Recently Taught

MBA:
BMIS 2586 Impact Analysis
TELE 2411 Information Technology in Organizations                                      BMIS 2576 Knowledge Management Systems

PhD:
BMIS 3011 Current Issues in Information Systems Research
BMIS 3021 Knowledge Management Systems
BMIS 3108 Advanced Topics in Information Systems

Interest Groups

Management Information Systems
Strategy, Environment, and Organizations

Profile

William R. King's research interests are primarily in information systems, strategic planning, and management science. He is internationally known as a prolific and effective author, educator, researcher, and consultant.

He was the founding president of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and a past president of The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS) (1989–90), an international professional society with 8,000 members, which he guided to merge with the Operations Research Society of America to form INFORMS. He has twice served as chair of ICIS—the annual International Conference on Information Systems (1988; 2005), has served as editor-in-chief of the Management Information Systems Quarterly, the primary journal in the field of information systems, and was the key figure in the founding of a new journal, Information Systems Research.

King has been selected for many honors and awards, including the McKinsey Foundation Award as coauthor of Systems Analysis and Project Management, an "outstanding contribution to the literature of management," the Institute of Industrial Engineers Book-of-the-Year Award, designation as a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Decision Sciences Institute, and as an Inaugural Fellow by the Association for Information Systems.

He was designated an Inaugural Fellow by INFORMS with about 100 others, including John Nash of "A Beautiful Mind" fame and several Nobel Prize winners, who were honored as having the greatest impact in management science in the last 50 years. In 2004, he received AIS’s Leo Award for Lifetime Exceptional Achievement.

Since coming to the Katz School in 1967 after receiving his PhD from Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) and serving on the faculty of the Air Force Institute of Technology (while on active duty as an Air Force officer), King has directed numerous funded research studies. He was instrumental in the Katz School being successful in obtaining a multimillion-dollar grant from IBM that was awarded in a national competition involving hundreds of graduate business schools. This grant has resulted in significant changes in Katz's MBA program, the design and implementation of a double degree (MBA and MS in MIS) program, the development of significant research, and the establishment of relationships with corporations and other educational institutions. Earlier in his tenure at Katz, he designed and implemented the modern version of the school's PhD program, founded and directed the Strategic Management Institute, and was instrumental in the development of a graduate program in telecommunications that is supported by five schools of the University.

He serves in editorial roles with many journals, including Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, and OMEGA: The International Journal of Management Science, and numerous other journals. He has served as Guest Editor/Co-Editor for a special issue of OMEGA: The International Journal of Management Science on “Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning” (to appear in 2008) and a special issue of Management Information Systems Quarterly on “IT Offshoring” (to appear in 2008).  He is also serving as editor of a volume in the M.E. Sharpe “Advances in MIS” series entitled “Planning for IS.”

As a consultant, he has served a large number of Fortune 500 corporations, Congressional committees, government agencies, and overseas firms.

During 2002 and 2003, King had three major surgeries, including two liver transplants. In January 2004, he returned to his full-time duties at Katz.

Research Interest Areas

Information Systems, Strategic Planning and Policy, Quantitative Methods, Operations Research/Manufacturing/Operations Management

Publications

“Team Cognition: Development and Evolution in Software Project Teams” (with J. He and B. Butler), Journal of Management Information Systems, in press.

“Knowledge Management: A Systems Perspective,” International Journal of Business and Systems Research, in press.

“An Integrated Architecture for an Effective Knowledge Organization,” Journal of Knowledge Management; in press.

“An Agenda for Research in the Culture-Knowledge Management Relationship,” Knowledge and Process Management., in press.

“Peer-Based Computer-Supported Knowledge Refinement: An Empirical Analysis,” (with Kwangsu Cho, Rachel Chung and Christian Schunn) Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery; in press.

“Developing Global IT Capabilities,” (with P. Flor) OMEGA: The International Journal of Management Science; in press (currently on website  at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2006.02.004)

“Motivating Knowledge Sharing Through a Knowledge Management System,” (with Peter Marks), OMEGA: The International Journal of Management Science, in press (currently on website  at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2005.10.006)

“Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning,” (with R. Chung and M. Haney) OMEGA: the International Journal of Management Science, Vol. 36, 2008, pp. 167-172.

“Questioning the Conventional Wisdom: Culture-Knowledge Management Relationships,” Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 12, No. 6, 2008.

“Applying TAM Across Cultures: The Need for Caution,” (with Dennis Galletta and Scott McCoy) European Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 16, 2007, pp. 81-90.

“The IT Deniers Versus a Portfolio of IT Roles,” Information Systems Management, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2007, pp. 197.

“The IS Organization of the Future: Impacts of Global Sourcing,” Information Systems Management, Vol. 24, No. 2,  2007, pp. 121.

“Recent Innovations in Knowledge Management,” Information Systems Management, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter) 2007, pp. 91-93.

“IS Offshoring: Requirement for New Skills and Knowledge,” in Managing Global Information Technology: Strategies and Challenges, Ivy League Publishing, 2007. (P. Palvia, Editor)

“Close Encounters with Celebrity,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec 2, 2006, p. B-7.

“Offshoring Decision Time is at Hand,” Information Systems Management, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 102-103.

“IT Offshoring: History, Prospects, and Challenges” (with G. Davis, P. Ein-Dor, and R. Torkzadeh), Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 7, Issue No. 11, Article No. 31, Nov, 2006.

“A Meta-Analysis of the Technology Acceptance Model,” (with Jun He) Information and Management, (43), 2006, pp, 740-755.

“Deriving Managerial Benefit from Knowledge Search: A Paradigm Shift?” (with William Lekse) Information & Management, Vol. 43, No. 7, 2006, 874-883.

“Developing Global IT Capabilities,” Information Systems Management, 23(4),      Fall 2006, pp. 78-79.

“External Validity, Coverage Error and Nonresponse Error in Survey Research,”  Chapter 2 in Current Topics in Management, MA Rahim (ed) Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, Vol. 11, 2006.

"The Critical Role of Information Processing in Creating an Effective Knowledge Organization," Journal of Database Management; Special Issue on Knowledge Management in Organizations: Systems and Methodologies, Vol. 17, No. 1, Jan-March 2006, pp 1-15.

"External Validity in IS Survey Research", (with J. He). Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 16, 2006.

“The Collaborative Web,” Information Systems Management, Vol. 25, No. 2, Spring, 2006.

"Knowledge Sharing," The Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management, (David G. Schwartz, ed.), Idea Group Publishing, 2006, pp. 493-498.

"Knowledge Transfer," The Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management, (David G. Schwartz, ed.), Idea Group Publishing, 2006, pp. 538-543.

"External Validity, Coverage Error and Nonresponse Error in Survey Research," (with J. He), book chapter in Current Topics in Management, A. Rahim (ed), Vol. 11, 2006.

“Planning for Information Systems,” in Vol. XII Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management (2E), (C.Cooper and C. Argyris, eds.) Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2005, pp. 245-250

"Innovation in Responding to the "Threat" of IT Offshoring," Information Systems Management, 22(4), Fall, 2005, pp. 80-81.

"Measuring the Performance of Information Systems: A Functional Scorecard" (with J. Chang) Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 22, No. 1, Summer, 2005, pp. 85-115.

"Ensuring ERP Implementation Success," Information Systems Management, Vol. 22, No. 3, Summer, 2005, pp. 83-84.

"For Manufacturers, It Seems It’s More About Financing than About Making Things," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 19, 2005, C-2.

"Our Nation Needs Everyone," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 12, 2005, J-3.

"Communications and Information Processing as a Critical Success Factor in the Effective Knowledge Organization," International Journal of Business Information Systems, Vol. X, No. V, 2005, pp. 31-52.

"Outsourcing and Offshoring: The New IS Paradigm?" Journal of Global Information Technology Management, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2005, pp. 1-4.

"Antecedents of Knowledge Transfer from Consultants to Clients in Enterprise System Implementations," (with L. Kirsch and D. Ko) Management of Information Systems Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1, March, 2005, pp. 59-85.

"Outsourcing Becomes More Complex," Information Systems Management, Vol. 22, No. 2, Spring 2005, pp. 89-90.

"An Androgogy Model for IS and Management Education," International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, Vol. 1, No. 3, 2005.

"Integrating National Culture into Individual IS Adoption Research: The Need for Individual-Level Measures" (with D. Galletta and S. McCoy) Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 15, No. 12, 2005, pp. 211-224.

"Process Improvement in IS Development," Information Systems Management, Vol. 22, No. 1, Winter, 2005.

"The Effective Knowledge Organization," book chapter, in Current Topics in Management (Rahim, M.A., R.T. Golembeski and K.D. Machenzie, eds.), Vol. 10, 2005, pp. 13-37.

"IT Offshoring: Prospects, Challenges, Educational Requirements and Curriculum Implications," (with G. Davis, P. Ein-dor, and R. Torkzadeh) Senior Scholars Paper, Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), December, 2004.

"Outsourcing and the Future of IT," Information Systems Management, Volume 21, Issue 4, Fall, 2004.

"Stop the Grandstanding: In-sourcing Outstrips Outsourcing, but Politicians Can Harm the Balance," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 28, 2004, C-13.

"The Donald Trumped," Pittsburgh Post Gazette, April 27, 2004, p.C11.

"Outsourcing: As Natural as the Sunrise!" Pittsburgh Tribune Review, March 26, 2004, p. A15.

"Kill the Hubble?" Pittsburgh Post Gazette, February 14, 2004, p. A13.

"Strategic Planning for Management Information Systems," Encyclopedia of Information Systems (H. Bigdoli, Ed.) Academic Press, 2004.

"Management Information Systems," Encyclopedia of Information Systems (H. Bigdoli, Ed.) Academic Press, 2004.

"IT Capabilities, Business Processes, and Impact on the Bottom Line," IS Management Handbook, 8th Edition, Chapter 2 (Carol V. Brown and Heikki Topi Eds.) New York, Auerbach, 2003, pp. 21-24.

"The Most Important Issues in Knowledge Management," (with P. Marks and S. McCoy) Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, Vol. 45, No. 9, September 2002, pp. 93-97.

"IT Capabilities and IT’s Impact on the Bottom Line," Information Systems Management, (Spring) 2002.

Awards and Honors

AIS Leo Award for Lifetime Exceptional Achievement

INFORMS Inaugural Fellow

Association for Information Systems Inaugural Fellow

American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow

Decision Sciences Institute Fellow

Institute of Industrial Engineers Book-of-the-Year Award

McKinsey Foundation Award

External Service

Founding president of the Association of Information Systems (AIS)

Past president of The Institute of Management Sciences (now INFORMS)

General chair of International Conference on Information Systems, 1988

Co-General chair of International Conference on Information Systems, 2005

Past editor-in-chief of the Management Information Systems Quarterly