Virtuality in human supervisory control: Assessing the effects of psychological and social remoteness

Virtuality would seem to offer certain advantages for human supervisory control. First, it could provide a physical analogue of the 'real world' environment. Second, it does not require control room engineers to be in the same place as each other. In order to investigate these issues, a low-fidelity simulation of an energy distribution network was developed. The main aims of the research were to assess some of the psychological concerns associated with virtual environments. First, it may result in the social isolation of the people, and it may have dramatic effects upon the nature of the work. Second, a direct physical correspondence with the 'real world' may not best support human supervisory control activities. Experimental teams were asked to control an energy distribution network. Measures of team performance, group identity and core job characteristics were taken. In general terms, the results showed that teams working in the same location performed better than team who were remote from one another

Analysing teamwork in higher education: an empirical study on the antecedents and consequences of team cohesiveness

Uno de los factores más importantes del trabajo en equipo es la cohesión entre sus miembros. Sin embargo, escasos trabajos analizan sus antecedentes y consecuencias. El presente estudio utiliza el modelo Input-Process-Output para analizar el impacto de factores individuales y de la tarea sobre la cohesión del equipo, así como la influencia de la cohesión del equipo sobre la eficacia del mismo. En base a una encuesta a 160 alumnos que realizaron trabajos en grupo, los resultados muestran que el grado de cooperación y el comportamiento colaborativo tienen una influencia positiva en la cohesión del equipo, mientras que la carga de trabajo y la complejidad de la tarea tienen una influencia negativa en la misma. Además, la cohesión del equipo influye positivamente en el aprendizaje percibido, la satisfacción con el trabajo en equipo y la calidad esperada. Finalmente, tanto el aprendizaje percibido como la calidad esperada predicen la satisfacción con el trabajo en equipo.One of the most important components of effective teamwork is cohesiveness. However, few empirical studies on the antecedents and consequences of group cohesiveness exist. In response to this gap, the current study draws on the Input-Process-Output model of team effectiveness to investigate the impact of individual and task factors on team cohesiveness, as well as the influence of team cohesiveness on students’ perceived learning, satisfaction with teamwork, and expected quality in the outcome. Based on a survey of 160 undergraduate students who worked in groups, the findings show that cooperativeness and collaborative behaviour have a positive influence on team cohesiveness, while workload and task complexity have a negative influence on it. Additionally, team cohesiveness is positively related to perceived learning, satisfaction with teamwork, and expected quality. Finally, both perceived learning and expected quality predict satisfaction with teamwork

Ada software productivity prototypes: A case study

A case study of the impact of Ada on a Command and Control project completed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is given. The data for this study was collected as part of a general survey of software costs and productivity at JPL and other NASA sites. The task analyzed is a successful example of the use of rapid prototyping as applied to command and control for the U.S. Air Force and provides the U.S. Air Force Military Airlift Command with the ability to track aircraft, air crews and payloads worldwide. The task consists of a replicated database at several globally distributed sites. The local databases at each site can be updated within seconds after changes are entered at any one site. The system must be able to handle up to 400,000 activities per day. There are currently seven sites, each with a local area network of computers and a variety of user displays; the local area networks are tied together into a single wide area network. Using data obtained for eight modules, totaling approximately 500,000 source lines of code, researchers analyze the differences in productivities between subtasks. Factors considered are percentage of Ada used in coding, years of programmer experience, and the use of Ada tools and modern programming practices. The principle findings are the following. Productivity is very sensitive to programmer experience. The use of Ada software tools and the use of modern programming practices are important; without such use Ada is just a large complex language which can cause productivity to decrease. The impact of Ada on development effort phases is consistent with earlier reports at the project level but not at the module level

How to promote knowledge sharing in cross-functional NPD teams

This paper investigates the common issues that may arise in cross-functional new product development (NPD) teams from a Knowledge Management perspective. The study has been built around a contextualized trigger, where several factors were preventing a new-born NPD team from performing effectively. The purpose of this paper is to give insights of the main dynamics involved in the knowledge sharing process throughout the application of a systematic problem-solving approach to the case investigated by the authors. Due to the impossibility of building a universal recipe suitable for every team in every situation, this work represents a compromise trying to exemplify how to prioritise interventions in a given context, in order to provide a benchmark for similar circumstances. This paper, using an action research method within a single case context, takes shape around the advises and suggestions made by authors to Electronic Connected Ltd (disguised name), a small-medium enterprise (SME) in a situation of NPD paralysis. In particular, the paper emphasizes the importance of effective leadership and supporting environment in facilitating communication, enhancing cohesiveness, fostering joint commitment and giving direction in order to enable knowledge sharing and to leverage capabilities to conclusively deliver new products

Causes and Consequences of Collective Turnover: A Meta-Analytic Review

Given growing interest in collective turnover (i.e., employee turnover at unit and organizational levels), the authors propose an organizing framework for its antecedents and consequences and test it using meta-analysis. Based on analysis of 694 effect sizes drawn from 82 studies, results generally support expected relationships across the 6 categories of collective turnover antecedents, with somewhat stronger and more consistent results for 2 categories: human resource management inducements/investments and job embeddedness signals. Turnover was negatively related to numerous performance outcomes, more strongly so for proximal rather than distal outcomes. Several theoretically grounded moderators help to explain average effect-size heterogeneity for both antecedents and consequences of turnover. Relationships generally did not vary according to turnover type (e.g., total or voluntary), although the relative absence of collective-level involuntary turnover studies is noted and remains an important avenue for future research

Identification and Analysis of Factors Influencing the Efficiency of Web Development Team Projects from the Students’ Perspective

The postgraduate subject “Web Technologies” is offered to engineering students who have different engineering backgrounds. The students have generally studied other computer programming and design methodologies in their engineering domain. The major learning objectives of this subject include being able to critically evaluate web technologies, apply web design methodologies to web based systems, and work efficiently with groups. To achieve these objectives, we have designed a web development process to apply to the major assessment task of developing a web system as a group. This research is to study the efficiency of this process with regard to student learning

Diverse virtual social networks: Implications for remote software testing teams

This paper evaluates offshore outsourcing in the IT testing industry and determines what conditions determine its success. There is particular focus on the influence of diversity in teams on group relationships. Two studies are described: the first, investigated the perceptions of professional software testers on the critical factors of offshore outsourcing; and the second study looked at the ability for diverse teams to form close working relationships through virtual networks. We find that overt diversity factors inhibit interaction across nationality boundaries. The limitations of virtual networks for fostering personal communications is apparent in preventing group members from overcoming the initial aversion to mix with out-group members, which could be achieved with closer and more personal communications between members with different diversity factors in normal face to face communications. Where software testing teams are outsourced globaly, and must rely on virtual communications, there seems potential for significant difficulties in developing close working relationships, which on the one hand, can be negative for group cohesion, but one the other hand, can be positive for encouraging imparitality

Answering Wicked Questions: Dealing With Opposing Truths as a Nursing Associate Professor

Nursing associate professors frequently are confronted with increasing responsibilities and fewer resources. These challenges commonly contribute to declines in job satisfaction and may result in departing academe. This article addresses these challenges by providing answers to four common “wicked questions” experienced by nursing associate professors: (a) How do I decline a request from a supervisor to take on additional responsibilities while continuing to support the mission of the school and advance my own scholarly productivity? (b) How do I handle the workload of multiple doctoral students with a variety of content areas that are different from my own and maintain my own level of productivity? (c) How do I handle expectations for more service, and leadership for the school, university, and professional organizations, yet the teaching and research responsibilities have not changed or have increased? and (d) What are some additional tips to being a more productive nursing associate professor