Biography

Kunsoo Han is a PhD candidate in Information and Decision Sciences at the University of Minnesota. He got his B.S. degree in Management and Policy and M.S. degree in Industrial Management from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, Korea. He also spent one year in the PhD program in Accounting and MIS at the Ohio State University. One of his papers was recognized as the Best Doctoral Student Working Paper in 2003 by MIS Research Center. He is a recipient of the Carlson School of Management Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for the academic year 2004-2005. In addition, he has recently been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant by the University of Minnesota Graduate School.

Background: “During my four-year stint at an information technology (IT) consulting company in the late 1990s, I witnessed in many diverse industries how IT impacts firms' performance. Of particular interest was that despite the substantial investments in IT-related projects, firms did not fully realize the value from their investments. The problem seemed to be more severe in case of interorganizational systems (IOS) because the partnering firms have to share the value from their investments. My strong desire to look into this problem led me to academia.”

Research Interests: My primary area of interest for research is investigating mechanisms by which firms can maximize the value they can capture from their investments in IT, especially in IOS. Without properly tying firms' investments to the resulting benefits, they may underinvest in their IOS, which, in turn, will further limit the value that they can capture. A related research interest concerns the impact of IT on interorganizational relationships.

My referent discipline is economics. As major methodologies, I use analytical modeling and empirical analysis based on econometrics. I believe analytical modeling and empirical analysis together can be very powerful tools in building and validating theoretical frameworks. I received very solid training in economics and statistics at the Ohio State University. Also, I have honed my skills for empirical analyses through the econometrics courses at the University of Minnesota.

Current Research Project: Given the increasing importance of IOS and the substantial amount of investments required in IOS implementation, it is important to understand the mechanisms by which firms can maximize the value from their IOS investments. I am currently working with Professor Robert Kauffman to examine ownership of IT assets as such a mechanism. Although there have been a number of studies on IOS, the impact of ownership structure has not received much attention. Nor have the factors affecting the effectiveness of IOS ownership structures been studied. As a result, there is little guidance for senior managers on how to make value-maximizing decisions related to the ownership structure of their IOS. Drawing upon the theory of incomplete contracts and the related literature in IS, I am investigating how ownership structure of IOS—which participant owns the IOS assets—affects firms' investment incentives and the value that they can capture from their IOS.

To date, using case study methodology and analytical modeling, I have the following publications and working papers from the above project:

• “Information Exploitation and Interorganizational Systems Ownership,” forthcoming in Journal of Management Information Systems , 21(2), Fall 2004 (with R. J. Kauffman and B. R. Nault).
• “Innovator or Owner? Information Sharing, Incomplete Contracts and Governance in Financial Risk Management Systems,” in Proceedings of the 2004 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-37) , R. Sprague (ed.), Big Island, HI, January 2004 ( with R. J. Kauffman and B. R. Nault).
• “Who Should Own 'IT'? Ownership and Incomplete Contracts in Interorganizational Systems,” Working Paper, MIS Research Center, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, April 2003 ( with R. J. Kauffman and B. R. Nault).

To empirically validate the theoretical framework and results from the above papers, I am currently investigating the factors affecting IOS ownership structure decision and performance. Because IOS ownership structure is not easily observable in most cases, I am examining a context where ownership structure is observable: IOS outsourcing (or third-party ownership), in which participants outsource the entire IOS operation to a trusted third party. I focus on a specific case of IOS outsourcing, namely EDI outsourcing, and analyze the factors affecting firms' IOS outsourcing decisions and performance.

General Impressions: “My three years of experience in the doctoral program here have been great. The well-structured seminars for the first two years exposed me to different research topics and methodologies, which helped me to broaden my horizon. Close interaction with the renowned faculty helped me to find my areas of research interests based on my strengths. Last but not least, I have benefited a lot from interacting with other doctoral students in the program. I am confident that I will benefit from my valuable experience in the doctoral program throughout my academic career.”