Crisis response, organizational improvisation and the dispassionate communicative genre during the 2003 French heat wave.

Ce papier examine le rôle joué par les technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC lorsque les organisations qui répondent à des crises doivent improviser à l’échelle organisationnelle. La littérature sur le management de la crise et dans le domaine des systèmes d’information ne rend pas compte de toute la complexité du phénomène d’improvisation. Nous proposons donc de mener une étude qualitative rétrospective de la canicule de 2003 en France. En suivant une démarche inductive, nous identifions le genre de communication que nous qualifions de dépassionné, développé par les administratifs autour du fax et de l’email qui a compromis leur participation à l’improvisation organisationnelle.This paper seeks to understand the role played by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in organizational improvisation during crisis response. The crisis management literature and the IS literature do not fully capture the complexity of improvisation and crisis response. Due to the lack of theoretical background in relation to ICT support to crisis improvisation, we conduct a retrospective qualitative analysis of the 2003 French heat wave crisis response. Going back and forth between theory and data, we identify the dispassionate communicative genre, developed by the administrative actors around emails and faxes that hindered their participating in organizational improvisation.Organizational improvisation; communicative genre; crisis response; Improvisation organisationnelle; genre de communication; réponse à la crise;

What Support Does Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Offer to Organizational Improvisation During Crisis Response ?

While evidence of the exceedingly important role of technology in organizational life is commonplace, academics have not fully captured the influence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on crisis response. A substantive body of knowledge on technology and crisis response already exists and keeps developing. Extensive research is on track to highlight how technology helps to prepare to crisis response and develop service recovery plans. However, some aspects of crisis response remain unknown. Among all the facets of crisis response that have been under investigation for some years, improvisation still challenges academics as a core component of crisis response. In spite of numerous insights on improvisation as a cognitive process and an organizational phenomenon, the question of how improvisers do interact together while improvising remains partly unanswered. As a result, literature falls short of details on whether crisis responders can rely on technology to interact when they have to improvise collectively. This dissertation therefore brings into focus ICT support to organizational improvisation in crisis response in two steps: We first address this question from a general standpoint by reviewing literature. We then propose an in depth and contextualized analysis of the use of a restricted set of technologies – emails, faxes, the Internet, phones - during the organizational crisis provoked by the 2003 French heat wave. Our findings offer a nuanced view of ICT support to organizational improvisation in crisis response. Our theoretical investigation suggests that ICTs, in a large sense, allow crisis responders to improvise collectively. It reports ICT properties - graphical representation, modularity, calculation, many-to-many communication, data centralization and virtuality – that promote the settling of appropriate conditions for interaction during organizational improvisation in crisis response. In the empirical work, we provide a more integrative picture of ICT support to organizational improvisation in crisis response by retrospectively observing crisis responders’ interactions during the 2003 French heat wave. Our empirical findings suggest that improvisation enables crisis responders to cope with organizational emptiness that burdens crisis response. However, crisis responders’ participation in organizational improvisation depends on their communicative genres. During the 2003 French heat wave crisis, administrative actors who had developed what we call a “dispassionate” communicative genre in relation to their email use, barely participated in organizational improvisation. Conversely, improvisers mainly communicated in what we call a “fervent” communicative genre. Therefore, our findings reveal that the ICT support to organizational improvisation in crisis response is mediated by the communication practices and strategies that groups of crisis responders develop around ICT tools

Quel apport des technologies de l’information et de la communication (tic) a l’improvisation organisationnelle durant la réponse à la crise ?.

Notre travail doctoral, structuré autour de deux études théoriques et d’une étude empirique, explore l’apport des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (TIC) à l’improvisation organisationnelle lors de la réponse à la crise. La première étude confirme la diversité de la littérature sur l’improvisation et révèle que les auteurs adoptent des postures différentes à quatre étapes du processus de recherche. La deuxième étude propose cinq mécanismes organisationnels fondamentaux au développement de l’improvisation organisationnelle. A partir de cette proposition, nous identifions six propriétés des TIC qui soutiennent l’improvisation de crise. Enfin, notre étude rétrospective qualitative du cas de la réponse à la crise provoquée par la canicule de 2003 en Île-de-France montre que le développement de l’improvisation, réponse au vide organisationnel qui pèse sur la réponse à la crise, dépend non seulement des propriétés des TIC mais également des genres de communication développés par les acteurs autour des moyens de communication. Durant la canicule, le genre fervent a facilité l’improvisation parmi les opérationnels. Au contraire, le genre dépassionné, prédominant dans les échanges électroniques, a freiné la participation des acteurs administratifs à l’improvisation. Certains d’entre eux sont tout de même parvenus à participer à l’improvisation en adaptant le genre dépassionné lors de leur utilisation du fax. Si les TIC facilitent certaines interactions, la faculté des acteurs à improviser dépend également de leur capacité à adapter leurs genres de communication.We explore Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support to organizational improvisation during crisis response by completing three studies. The first study confirms diversity in research on improvisation and suggests that author’s perspectives on improvisation diverge with respect to four tasks within the research process. The second study identifies five constituents of organizational improvisation. In addition, it reports six ICT properties that promote the settling of appropriate conditions for interaction during organizational improvisation in crisis response. In the empirical work, we provide a more integrative picture of ICT support to organizational improvisation in crisis response by retrospectively observing crisis responders’ interactions during the 2003 French heat wave. Our empirical findings suggest that improvisation enables crisis responders to cope with organizational emptiness that burdens crisis response. However, crisis responders’ participation in organizational improvisation depends on their communicative genres. During the 2003 French heat wave crisis, administrative actors who had developed what we call a dispassionate communicative genre in relation to their email use, barely participated in organizational improvisation. Conversely, improvisers mainly communicated in what we call a fervent communicative genre. Therefore, our findings reveal that the ICT support to organizational improvisation in crisis response is mediated by the communication practices and strategies that groups of crisis responders develop around ICT tools.Ile-de-France; Gestion de l'information; Vagues de chaleur; Comportement organisationnel; Nouvelles technologies de l'information et de la communication;

Sustaining collaborative knowledge building: continuity in virtual math teams

When virtual teams engage in knowledge building—the creation and improvement of knowledge artifacts, they can face significant challenges related to overcoming discontinuities, such as integrating the activities of multiple participants, coordinating sessions over time, and monitoring how ideas and contributions evolve. Paradoxically, these gaps emerge from the very factors that make collaborative knowledge building promising: diversity of actors, activities, and ideas engaged over time.This dissertation investigated how Virtual Math Teams (VMT) who participated in the Math Forum online community “bridged” the discontinuities emerging from their multiple episodes of collaboration over time and the related changes in participation, and explored the role that such “bridging activity” played in the teams’ knowledge building. Through Ethnomethodology-oriented interaction analysis of episodes of collaboration selected from 38 naturally-occurring, online sessions within two VMT “Spring Fests,” the following findings emerged: (a) Bridging Methods: 4 practices were central to how VMT teams sustained knowledge building: Reporting, Collective Re-membering, Projecting, and Cross-team Bridging. These practices intertwined 3 key interactional elements: Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts. (b) Temporality: VMT teams actively constituted temporal sequences of interaction as resources to organize their collective knowledge building over time. (c) Knowledge Artifacts. Each bridging method involved the co-construction of a bridging artifact interlinking group knowledge-building activity across different episodes or collectivities. (d) Positioning: VMT teams purposely placed individual and collective participants, their history of interaction, and relevant knowledge resources relative to each other in a situated field of interaction. (e) Continuity. The interactional relationships among Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts established through bridging were critical to establishing diachronic continuity of knowledge building for an individual team as well as the expansive continuity of a larger collective of multiple virtual teams.These findings offer a framework for understanding how online collectivities sustain knowledge building over time. This study does not represent a complete and general scheme of bridging mechanisms; however, it highlights the frequently overlooked role of constructed temporality within the situated knowledge field that VMT teams developed over time and the dialectical integration of temporality with the organization of participation and the development of knowledge artifacts.Ph.D., Information Studies -- Drexel University, 200

Knowledge management across boundaries: a case study of an interdisciplinary research project in Thailand

Despite existing work, the nature and construction of knowledge boundaries remains little explored. Moreover, previous studies that have examined how knowledge is managed across boundaries, have usually been in the context of new product development in industry. Models developed in this context may be less applicable in the public sector because of its hierarchical structures and requirements for accountability. The aim of this research is therefore to explore the nature of boundaries and how knowledge is managed across them in a public sector context. The research takes a case study approach focusing on an interdisciplinary research project that was set up to develop Computerised Tomography (CT) and Digital X-Ray (DR) scanners in a governmental research organisation in Thailand. This is an ongoing joint project between two different knowledge communities from different disciplines and national research centres. It proposed the first development of the cone-beam CT scanner in Thailand, called DentiiScan. The research adopts an interpretative methodology to explore multiple viewpoints and meanings that actors attach to phenomena. Data were collected through a multi-method qualitative approach based on: face-to-face interview; participant observation; and collection of documentation and other artefacts. Data were analysed through thematic analysis. The findings from this case study suggest, in line with previous research, that there are three progressively complex boundaries: information-processing, interpretative, and political boundaries; and three progressively complex processes to overcome them: transfer, translation, and transformation. However, the findings suggest that knowledge management in such contexts is a more challenging and complicated undertaking than currently portrayed in previous work because: (i.) knowledge boundaries are dynamic and tend to change throughout the project life cycle, often co-existing and overlapping; (ii.) different actors look at the same phenomena but sometimes perceive them as different types of knowledge boundaries; and (iii.) boundaries do not only arise from differences in knowledge and disciplinary perception, but also from ignorance of these differences between interacting actors from different communities. Furthermore, in this case, the hierarchical organisational structures help to clarify differences and dependencies in knowledge and responsibility among members, and create clear lines of communication. This helps overcome boundaries though the chain of command makes decision-making slow. A framework for managing knowledge across boundaries that emerges from the analysis is proposed. This research extends theory and a model for managing knowledge across boundaries, more specifically Carlile’s three-tier model (2004, 2002), and demonstrates their applicability in a new setting. The findings bring into focus the complexity of knowledge management across boundaries by suggesting that sometimes they cannot be categorised easily. There is a need to acknowledge the dynamic nature, blurring, and simultaneity of boundaries; the potential for different actors to perceive the same phenomena as different types of knowledge boundaries; and ignorance of differences in knowledge and disciplinary perceptions between different interacting actors. The findings of this research can be used to identify the nature and construction of knowledge boundaries, the types of knowledge boundaries and processes to overcome them, including boundary-spanning mechanisms and competences that actors, whether they are individuals, groups or organisations, can develop to bridge them. In practical terms, the findings of this study suggest that: (i.) actors should pay attention to flexible and multi-dimensional perspectives for addressing the dynamic nature, blurring, fluidity, overlapping, and simultaneity of boundaries; (ii.) they should broaden their perspectives to understand differences in perceptions of where boundaries lie; (iii.) they should also expand their perceptions to understand the construction of knowledge boundaries from different dimensions such as lack of a full understanding and awareness about differences in knowledge between different knowledge communities; and (iv.) they should consider what are effective organisational structures, which combine both hierarchical and flexible elements, to support knowledge management and collaboration across boundaries

Sustaining collaborative knowledge building: continuity in virtual math teams

When virtual teams engage in knowledge building—the creation and improvement of knowledge artifacts, they can face significant challenges related to overcoming discontinuities, such as integrating the activities of multiple participants, coordinating sessions over time, and monitoring how ideas and contributions evolve. Paradoxically, these gaps emerge from the very factors that make collaborative knowledge building promising: diversity of actors, activities, and ideas engaged over time.This dissertation investigated how Virtual Math Teams (VMT) who participated in the Math Forum online community “bridged” the discontinuities emerging from their multiple episodes of collaboration over time and the related changes in participation, and explored the role that such “bridging activity” played in the teams’ knowledge building. Through Ethnomethodology-oriented interaction analysis of episodes of collaboration selected from 38 naturally-occurring, online sessions within two VMT “Spring Fests,” the following findings emerged: (a) Bridging Methods: 4 practices were central to how VMT teams sustained knowledge building: Reporting, Collective Re-membering, Projecting, and Cross-team Bridging. These practices intertwined 3 key interactional elements: Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts. (b) Temporality: VMT teams actively constituted temporal sequences of interaction as resources to organize their collective knowledge building over time. (c) Knowledge Artifacts. Each bridging method involved the co-construction of a bridging artifact interlinking group knowledge-building activity across different episodes or collectivities. (d) Positioning: VMT teams purposely placed individual and collective participants, their history of interaction, and relevant knowledge resources relative to each other in a situated field of interaction. (e) Continuity. The interactional relationships among Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts established through bridging were critical to establishing diachronic continuity of knowledge building for an individual team as well as the expansive continuity of a larger collective of multiple virtual teams.These findings offer a framework for understanding how online collectivities sustain knowledge building over time. This study does not represent a complete and general scheme of bridging mechanisms; however, it highlights the frequently overlooked role of constructed temporality within the situated knowledge field that VMT teams developed over time and the dialectical integration of temporality with the organization of participation and the development of knowledge artifacts.Ph.D., Information Studies -- Drexel University, 200

Practice-centred e-health system design for cross-boundary clinical decision support

The idea of cross-boundary clinical decision support has the potential to transform the design of future work environments for e-health through a connected healthcare system that allows for harnessing of information and peer opinion across geographical boundaries for better decision-making. The trouble, however, is that the use of healthcare information in decision-making usually occurs within the context of a complex structure of clinical work practices that is often shaped by a wide range of factors, including organisational culture, local work contexts, socially constructed traditions of actions, experiences and patients’ circumstances. They vary across geographical boundaries, and have remained largely unaccounted for in the design of current e-health systems. As a result, achieving the visions of e-health, particularly in relation to cross-boundary clinical decision support, requires a rethinking of key clinical and organisational processes in a manner that accommodates work practice as a fundamental part of how clinicians work and make decisions in the real-world. This thesis investigates the concept of work practice as a design requirement for cross-boundary clinical decision support systems in e-health. It is argued that the task of enabling informed decision support across geographical boundaries in e-health can be enhanced through an understanding, and a formal characterisation, of work practices in various healthcare work contexts, and a specification of how practice can be used, managed and transformed to suit various clinical problem situations and patients’ needs. This research takes a clinical practice-centred approach to inform e-health system design, and draws on the concept of work practice and cultural-historical theory in social science as well as situation awareness in order to describe the local traditions of actions that guide clinicians’ work in the real world. It contributes a coherent conceptual architecture comprising a practice-centred awareness model for cross-boundary awareness, a frame-based technique, named PracticeFrame, for formalising and representing work practice for system design, and ContextMorph, for adaptively transforming a suggestion across work boundaries to suit a user’s local work context and practices. An in-depth user-informed requirements capture was used to gain an understanding of clinical work practices for designing e-health system for cross-boundary decision support. A proof of concept prototype, named CaDHealth, which is based on the Brahms work practice modelling tool and includes a work practice visualisation model, named the practice display, was developed and used to conduct user-based evaluation. The evaluation revealed that incorporating practice-centred awareness enhances usefulness, acceptance and user adoption of e-health systems for cross-boundary clinical decision support