Systemic effector conceptual model in groupware implementation

Network software systems and groupware within organizations differ from other information technologies, requiring individuals to 'design' their own use. Users and groups can choose how to engage with these systems (Hassall, 1998), and use is dependent upon existing technological framing (Orlikowski, 1992). Groupware provides opportunities to study interaction between technological and organizational potentials. The action and structure duality of structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) points to the need for systemic understandings. Moreover, deconstructive schemes (e.g. Dudley and Hassall 1995,1996) demonstrate a plurality of overt and ulterior motivations in use. The Systemic Effector Model has been developed based upon longitudinal research in groupware implementation. This abstracted perspective relates choice of facility and design of action to important motivators at the individual and systemic levels. The genesis and explanatory power of the model is explored through survey and case study data

Contextual analysis: a multiperspective inquiry into emergence of complex socio-cultural systems

This paper explores the concept of organizations as complex human activity systems, through the perspectives of alternative systemic models. The impact of alternative models on perception of individual and organizational emergence is highlighted. Using information systems development as an example of management activity, individual and collective sense-making and learning processes are discussed. Their roles in relation to information systems concepts are examined. The main locus of the paper is on individual emergence in the context of organizational systems. A case is made for the importance of attending to individual uniqueness and contextual dependency when carrying out organizational analyses, e.g. information systems analysis. One particular method for contextual inquiry, the framework for Strategic Systemic Thinking, is then introduced, The framework supports stakeholders to own and control their own analyses. This approach provides a vehicle through which multiple levels of contextual dependencies can be explored and allows for individual emergence to develop

E-mail and Direct Participation in Decision Making: A Literature Review

This paper reviews the literature on the effects of the use of e-mail on direct participation in decision making (PDM) in organisations. After a brief review of the organisational literature on participation the paper distinguishes e-mail theories on direct participation in three different theoretical perspectives. Then the paper focuses the attention on the role of e-mail in affecting task type, vertical and horizontal communication and their consequences for PDM. Finally the paper presents indications and open questions for future research.email, e-mail, decision making, participation in decision making, literature review,

Proceedings of the ECCS 2005 satellite workshop: embracing complexity in design - Paris 17 November 2005

Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr). Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr)

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Two-person neuroscience and naturalistic social communication: The role of language and linguistic variables in brain-coupling research

Social cognitive neuroscience (SCN) seeks to understand the brain mechanisms through which we comprehend others? emotions and intentions in order to react accordingly. For decades, SCN has explored relevant domains by exposing individual participants to predesigned stimuli and asking them to judge their social (e.g., emotional) content. Subjects are thus reduced to detached observers of situations that they play no active role in. However, the core of our social experience is construed through real-time interactions requiring the active negotiation of information with other people. To gain more relevant insights into the workings of the social brain, the incipient field of two-person neuroscience (2PN) advocates the study of brain-to-brain coupling through multi-participant experiments. In this paper, we argue that the study of online language-based communication constitutes a cornerstone of 2PN. First, we review preliminary evidence illustrating how verbal interaction may shed light on the social brain. Second, we advance methodological recommendations to design experiments within language-based 2PN. Finally, we formulate outstanding questions for future research.Fil: García, Adolfo Martín. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Lenguas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; ChileFil: Ibanez Barassi, Agustin Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chile. Universidad Autónoma del Caribe; Colombia. Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders; Australi

Investigating graphical user interface usability on task sequence and display structure dependencies

Designing Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) requires the consideration of task sequence requirements (sequence of operations arising from task structures and application constraints) and display structure (layout of the elements of the interface) relationships. The basic purpose was to understand the usability differences of the interfaces through efficiency, motor performance, and search performance. Thirty-two subjects performed experiments in four groups. The experiments differed in display structure and compatibility of task sequences. Subject mouse actions, mouse coordinates and eye positions were recorded. The derived measures, click efficiency, mouse traversal and eye visits to different areas of interest (namely the tool, object, and goal), were analyzed in a repeated measures factorial design with compatibility and display structure as the between subjects factors and phase of learning as the within subject factor. A significant interaction between compatibility and phase of learning (p\u3c.01) was observed. Mouse traversal per unit time increased significantly (p\u3c. 05) across phases of learning. The phase of learning affected the number of eye visits for all groups. Compatibility had a significant ((p\u3c.005) effect on the average processing time during search. The results establish that the compatibility of task sequence requirement with the display structure affecting the performance of subjects and hence the usability of the interface was thus obtained. However, through learning, subject performance showed considerable improvement and the effects of task sequence and display structure diminished at final stages of user learning. Based on this evidence, a systemic structural activity approach was used to develop a model of human performance on the eye movement and mouse action data. This structural model of human performance is defined as an algorithm and can be used for estimating complexity of task performance. In this study only the assumptions for development of the model and the formulation of the model are explained as an application of the results of the study. The study hence served a dual purpose in the long run: understanding the compatibility of the task sequence with the interface display structure as well as establishing eye and mouse movements as a viable tool to study task performance at human computer interfaces