Crowdsourcing in a Public Organization: Transformation and Culture

Employees increasingly want to participate in the decision-making processes of their organization. Approaches that facilitate organizational participation, such as internal crowdsourcing platforms, can achieve this. However, although organizations of various backgrounds should be able to reap benefits from such systems, in practice, implementation might fail due to an organizational culture built on hierarchical structures, low experience with employee participation and fixed processes. Taking a design science approach, we explore this relation in a five-month case study of a transformational process at a public organization. We design, implement and evaluate an information system for internal crowdsourcing. Based on the results from user-generated content analysis of the proposals and comments, survey data and several in-depth interviews, we observe an IT culture conflict that significantly affects system adoption and use. Our findings contribute to the discussion on theoretical and practical implications for design and implementation of information systems in organizational contexts

'Information in context': co-designing workplace structures and systems for organizational learning

Introduction This paper discusses an 'information in context' design project at Auraria Library in Denver, Colorado which aims to collaboratively create organizational structures and communication systems with and for library employees. Method This action research project is founded within shared leadership, informed learning and organizational learning principles and implemented using participatory design processes. The first phase involved an appreciative inquiry process resulting in an organizational realignment of personnel and the introduction of shared leadership. The second phase involved the co-design of organizational information and communication systems and subsequent implementation of initiatives. Results This project resulted in several of the co-designed knowledge initiatives being implemented within Auraria Library to enhance communication, decision making and planning systems. These included both face to face and technology enabled initiatives such as such as 'brown bag' lunches to a new wiki based intranet system. Conclusions This project advances professional practice through better understanding how to create workplace contexts that cultivate individual and collective learning through situated 'information in context' experiences. An appreciative framework was developed which values information sharing and enables knowledge creation through shared leadership

Designing an information system for updating land records in Bangladesh: action design ethnographic research (ADER)

Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Information Systems (IS) has developed through adapting, generating and applying diverse methodologies, methods, and techniques from reference disciplines. Further, Action Design Research (ADR) has recently developed as a broad research method that focuses on designing and redesigning IT and IS in organizational contexts. This paper reflects on applying ADR in a complex organizational context in a developing country. It shows that ADR requires additional lens for designing IS in such a complex organizational context. Through conducting ADR, it is seen that an ethnographic framework has potential complementarities for understanding complex contexts thereby enhancing the ADR processes. This paper argues that conducting ADR with an ethnographic approach enhances design of IS and organizational contexts. Finally, this paper aims presents a broader methodological framework, Action Design Ethnographic Research (ADER), for designing artefacts as well as IS. This is illustrated through the case of a land records updating service in Bangladesh

The organizational social context of mental health services and clinician attitudes toward evidence-based practice: a United States national study.

UnlabelledABSTBACKGROUND: Evidence-based practices have not been routinely adopted in community mental health organizations despite the support of scientific evidence and in some cases even legislative or regulatory action. We examined the association of clinician attitudes toward evidence-based practice with organizational culture, climate, and other characteristics in a nationally representative sample of mental health organizations in the United States.MethodsIn-person, group-administered surveys were conducted with a sample of 1,112 mental health service providers in a nationwide sample of 100 mental health service institutions in 26 states in the United States. The study examines these associations with a two-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis of responses to the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS) at the individual clinician level as a function of the Organizational Social Context (OSC) measure at the organizational level, controlling for other organization and clinician characteristics.ResultsWe found that more proficient organizational cultures and more engaged and less stressful organizational climates were associated with positive clinician attitudes toward adopting evidence-based practice.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that organizational intervention strategies for improving the organizational social context of mental health services may contribute to the success of evidence-based practice dissemination and implementation efforts by influencing clinician attitudes

Learning Lessons: Urban Water Supply Sector

Complementing a November 2009 guidance note that outlined risks to development effectiveness in the urban water supply sector, this brief provides relevant lessons from evaluations of Asian Development Bank programs over the last ten years. The findings warn against the sector's vulnerability to diverse institutional, organizational, operations, and project-level risks

Organization Development for Social Change

The field of organization development (OD) has emerged from efforts to improve the performance of organizations, largely in the for-profit sector but more recently in the public and not-for-profit sectors as well. This paper examines how OD concepts and tools can be used to solve problems and foster constructive change at the societal level as well. It examines four areas in which OD can make such contributions: (1) strengthening social change-focused organizations, (2) scaling up the impacts of such agencies, (3) creating new inter-organizational systems, and (4) changing contexts that shape the action of actors strategic to social change. It discusses examples and the kinds of change agent roles and interventions that are important for each. Finally, it discusses some implications for organization development intervention, practitioners, and the field at large.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 25. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers