TY  - JOUR
A1  - Caliendo, Marco
A1  - Clement, Michel
A1  - Papies, Dominik
A1  - Scheel-Kopeinig, Sabine
T1  - The cost impact of spam filters measuring the effect of information system technologies in organizations
JF  - Information systems research
N2  - Dealing with spam is very costly, and many organizations have tried to reduce spam-related costs by installing spam filters. Relying on modern econometric methods to reduce the selection bias of installing a spam filter, we use a unique data setting implemented at a German university to measure the costs associated with spam and the costs savings of spam filters. Our methodological framework accounts for effect heterogeneity and can be easily used to estimate the effect of other IS technologies implemented in organizations.
 The majority of costs stem from the time that employees spend identifying and deleting spam, amounting to an average of approximately five minutes per employee per day. Our analysis, which accounts for selection bias, finds that the installation of a spam filter reduces these costs by roughly one third. Failing to account for the selection bias would lead to a result that suggests that installing a spam filter does not reduce working time losses.
 However, cost savings only occur when the spam burden is high, indicating that spam filters do not necessarily reduce costs and are therefore no universal remedy. The analysis further shows that spam filters alone are a countermeasure against spam that exhibits only limited effectiveness because they only reduce costs by one third.
KW  - spam
KW  - spam filter
KW  - selection bias
KW  - propensity score matching
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.1110.0396
SN  - 1047-7047
VL  - 23
IS  - 3
SP  - 1068
EP  - 1080
PB  - INFORMS
CY  - Hannover
ER  -