The Role of Identity in Adopting Building Information Modeling: A Comparative Study

BIM is a modeling technology that allows architects and builders to visually create, analyze, and share building models. BIM is gaining a growing importance which may be reflected in the increasing number of owners who demand BIM use. However, despite the perceived uptick in demand for BIM, an industry wide adoption has not yet been reached. Likewise, the adoption of BIM enhanced business practices within both design and construction has been limited. While there are multiple barriers to BIM use, resistance to change has been identified by scholars as a major restraining force. Indeed, BIM prompts for substantial changes in the ways architects and constructors think and work which may question their performance and challenge their identities as competent workers. In this research, we address these dynamics, we use identity theory to gain an understanding on how identity accounts for acts of resistance and adoption of BIM in AEC industry. AMCIS TV LINK: https://youtu.be/pfUo4pEIjI

How and why physicists and chemists use blogs

This study examined how and why chemists and physicists blog. Two qualitative methods were used: content analysis of blog and “about” pages and in-depth responsive interviews with chemists and physicists who maintain blogs. Analysis of the data yielded several cross-cutting themes that provide a window into how physicists and chemists use their blogs and what value they receive from maintaining a blog and participating in a blogging community. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for supporting scientists’ work

Caring for Weak Ties - the Natural History Museum as a Place of Encounter Between Amateur and Professional Science

This article is concerned with a community of practitioners that does not hold together well: amateur scientists. It examines the interrelationships between amateurs and professionals in a museum of natural history and focuses, in particular, upon two \'community-making devices\' through which they meet: an annual conference and a journal. I consider these devices as a place of encounter, or \'boundary encounter\', between amateurs and professionals. These encounters provide for a combination of several practices – practices of naming, assuring linguistic heterogeneity and thematic flexibility, exchanging knowledge and symbolic gifts – that enables the museum to keep the heterogeneous group of the amateurs somehow together. Since the connections between amateurs and professionals are not permanent, nor strong, but rather partial and fragile, they have therefore to be nurtured and cultivated with care. In fact, the museum and its professionals cannot continue to control – to use technical and \'cold\' devices to discipline subjects – but have to care by fostering a \'warm\' world of people. As I will show then, beyond their role as a place that brings together an epistemic collective, the encounters described in this paper also function as devices that nurture weak ties.Amateur Scientists, Weak Ties, Community-Making Devices, Boundary Encounters, Museum of Natural History, Epistemic Collective

Digitalize Work in Health Organization during pandemic Covid-19

Covid-19 has impacted many aspects of daily life. The behaviors of organizations had to adopt this evolution. The Covid-19 emergency has put Smart Working at the center of attention. Working remotely made it possible to cope with the limitations due to the current health emergency while guaranteeing business continuity. This new intelligent mode is increasingly leading to the spread of autonomous, subjective and decentralized forms of work. Technological progress offers rapid access to information and reduces space-time constraints. Modern technologies put at the service of a new way of working, as experienced during the pandemic, allow the worker to manage the organization of space and the execution time of his employment in complete autonomy. On this basis, the work in progress study seeks to provide useful information to improve practices in the field of smart work, to better investigate the phenomenon in the healthcare sector, a field that has not been explored and debated in the literature

ICT4D in Samoa: The encounter of offline local traditions and online global trends

From 2005, 12 telecentres were implemented in the rural villages of Samoa as part of the national information and communication technology (ICT) strategy for development. The aim for the telecentres is to ensure the people of Samoa can be connected locally and globally. The telecentres provide access to ICT tools in villages where many have never seen a computer before. For the most, villagers take pride in the telecentre, praising the convenience of its services to the local people. However, the newly provided ICT tools also bring about some concerns, especially having access to the internet. Local villagers are now exposed to a vast amount of information whereby access is practically unlimited. While we cannot discount the fact that the internet makes available useful information, the question of how and to what extent this computer-mediated information may affect their traditions deserve some attention. Will local villagers use it to build up their society or will it compromise their cultural values? This research, which adopts an interpretive approach, focuses on the influence of telecentres on three rural villages in Samoa. The findings so far provide an insight into the encounter between the global environment and the local values, customs and beliefs of Samoans

Current trends and future directions in the practice of high-level data modeling: An empirical study

Many organizations now purchase and customize software rather than build information systems. In this light, some argue that high-level data modeling no longer has a role. In this paper, we examine the contemporary relevance of high-level data modeling. We addressed this issue by asking 21 experienced data-modeling practitioners to reflect on their work and to give their opinions on trends and future directions in high-level data modeling. We analyzed transcripts of our interviews with them using Klein and Myers’s (1999) framework for qualitative research. We found considerable variation in the practice of high-level data modeling. We also found that high-level data modeling is still considered important, even though organizations ultimately may purchase off-the-shelf software. The reason is that high-level data modeling assists organizations to obtain clarity about IT project scope and requirements, thereby reducing the risk that costly implementation mistakes will be made

THINKING ABOUT IDENTITIES OF INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS: EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF INTERSECTIONALITY

The changing information landscape is recasting the role of information managers as strategic leaders advising on business competitiveness and advocating organizational change. However there is considerable uncertainty as to how these roles are being interpreted and the extent to which this impacts upon professional identity. Recently there has been an emerging awareness in IS research of the need to further explore identity issues in organisations. The aim of this paper is to report on the first stage of a research project that is examining how the identities of information professionals, specifically information managers, are constructed as it has received limited attention in theory and practice. Further, we explore the concept of intersectionality as an analytic approach that simultaneously considers the effects of different social memberships at multiple levels in the identity formation process

Among Followers and Rebels: Professional Identity and Digitalization of Work

The digitalization of work practices has changed the conditions for many professions. In this study, we explore the relation between professional identity and digitalization in the workplace. We join the research stream within professional identity research that views identity as a narrative construction, a story that individuals tell themselves and others to tell who they are, in this case in relation to digitalization. The empirical data derive from two different contexts: Nordic primary school teachers and European hoteliers at an international hotel chain. In total, 72 interviews were conducted. The study contributes to existing literature by providing increased knowledge on digitalization of work practices by illustrating different approaches to digitalization of work that extend over a specific profession. Theoretical contributions involve suggesting four ideal types of categorization to explain the approach to digitalization in professional life

SOCIAL MEDIA IN PATIENTS’ SELF-MANAGEMENT OF CHRONIC DISEASE: THE ROLE OF NURSES AS BOUNDARY SPANNERS

This paper presents research-in-progress of the adoption and use of social media as part of patients’ self-management of their chronic disease. The purpose is to investigate the social and organizational challenges that social media bring to the healthcare setting. We focus on how nurses can act as mediators between the formal healthcare institution and the informal setting in which patients engage via social media. We discuss how the use of social media influences nurses’ professional identity, roles and responsibilities. Preliminary findings and existing literature point to two issues of interest: 1) The inclusion of the informal system of self-management and use of social media into the formal healthcare system and 2) The development of the role of nurses as boundary spanners. We wish to pursue these issues in a three-year research project, conducting in-depth case studies in 10 General Practices to investigate the collaborative partnership between patients and nurses

Understanding Human Enactment of Technology on Digital Labor Platforms

This study examines gig workers’ interactions with digital platforms to reveal how workers see technology in relation to their conduct of work. Gig workers are paid labors who find short-term tasks or projects through a digital labor platform (DLP) that connects clients and workers. Workers are intertwined with technologies in gig work. On DLPs such as Uber, tensions arise between humans and algorithmic management. Yet, our understanding of worker perceptions of DLP technologies remains limited. This study focuses on place-based gig work of delivery and grocery shopping (e.g., Instacart, Postmates) and draws upon sociomateriality research to reveal workers’ perceptions. Analysis of worker narratives revealed three themes related to worker enactments of technology on DLPs (affording, constraining, and seeking alternatives) and two co-existing, contradictory identities of technology (aid vs. obstacle). The dual relations suggest new dimensions of sociomateriality on DLPs and offer practical implications on the digitalization of work