Agile and Pro-Active Public Administration as a Collaborative Networked Organization

In highly competitive, globalized economies and societies of always-on-line people intensively using the Internet and mobile phones, public administrations have to adapt to new challenges. Enterprises and citizens expect public administrations to be agile and pro-active to foster development. A way to achieve agility and pro-activity is application of a model of Collaborative Network Organizations in its two forms: Virtual Organizations (VO) and Virtual Organization Breeding Environments (VOBE). In the paper, advantages are shown of public administration playing a role of a Virtual Organization customer on the one hand, and a Virtual Organization member on the other hand. It is also shown how public administration playing a role of a Virtual Organization Breeding Environment may improve its agility and promote advanced technologies and management methods among local organizations. It is argued in the paper that public administration should provide a Virtual Organization Breeding Environment as a part of public services.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

CrossFlow: Cross-Organizational Workflow Management for Service Outsourcing in Dynamic Virtual Enterprises

In this report, we present the approach to cross-organizational workflow management of the CrossFlow project. CrossFlow is a European research project aiming at the support of cross-organizational workflows in dynamic virtual enterprises. The cooperation in these virtual enterprises is based on dynamic service outsourcing specified in electronic contracts. Service enactment is performed by dynamically linking the workflow management infrastructures of the involved organizations. Extended service enactment support is provided in the form of cross-organizational transaction management and process control, advanced quality of service monitoring, and support for high-level flexibility in service enactment. CrossFlow technology is realized on top of a commercial workflow management platform and applied in two real-world scenarios in the contexts of a logistics and an insurance company

Managing Dynamic User Communities in a Grid of Autonomous Resources

One of the fundamental concepts in Grid computing is the creation of Virtual Organizations (VO's): a set of resource consumers and providers that join forces to solve a common problem. Typical examples of Virtual Organizations include collaborations formed around the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. To date, Grid computing has been applied on a relatively small scale, linking dozens of users to a dozen resources, and management of these VO's was a largely manual operation. With the advance of large collaboration, linking more than 10000 users with a 1000 sites in 150 counties, a comprehensive, automated management system is required. It should be simple enough not to deter users, while at the same time ensuring local site autonomy. The VO Management Service (VOMS), developed by the EU DataGrid and DataTAG projects[1, 2], is a secured system for managing authorization for users and resources in virtual organizations. It extends the existing Grid Security Infrastructure[3] architecture with embedded VO affiliation assertions that can be independently verified by all VO members and resource providers. Within the EU DataGrid project, Grid services for job submission, file- and database access are being equipped with fine- grained authorization systems that take VO membership into account. These also give resource owners the ability to ensure site security and enforce local access policies. This paper will describe the EU DataGrid security architecture, the VO membership service and the local site enforcement mechanisms Local Centre Authorization Service (LCAS), Local Credential Mapping Service(LCMAPS) and the Java Trust and Authorization Manager.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 7 pages, LaTeX, 5 eps figures. PSN TUBT00

Leading The Virtual organization: Success Strategies, Management Practices, and Skills

Virtual organizations have inherent strengths and weaknesses relative to traditional organizational forms. Their success depends heavily on the leaders of the organization leveraging these strengths, and not letting the weaknesses threaten the organization\u27s survival. We explore the character of virtual organizations and propose a value proposition as to why individuals seek employment in such organizations. We then examine several business strategies and management practices that have helped virtual organizations to succeed. Six leadership skills are discussed that the leaders of virtual organizations indicate are critical to their business success

Organizational Knowledge Network through Community of Practice

As the amount of critical information in companies continues to burgeon and employees’ knowledge is heralded as an organization’s key competitive advantage, knowledge management has become a compelling workplace topic of discussion. Communities of practice have recently been recognized as effective means for organizations to manage their knowledge. In order to determine how virtual communities of practice serve as knowledge management vehicles, the authors of this paper conducted a study on virtual communities of practice within twelve large, international companies by interviewing virtual community of practice builders and leaders within these organizations. This paper reveals the study’s findings. It outlines specific ways that organizations can benefit from sponsoring virtual communities of practice. It also identifies factors that community builders and leaders can influence to ensure a VCoP’s success as a knowledge management vehicl

Electronic Mailing List and Internet Forums - Tools for Management and Marketing within Educational Organizations

This paper is about the use of Electronic Mailing List and Internet Forums as tools for managers within educational organizations. In the same time, some of concepts, ideas and models can be used in other business organizations, especially in service providing organizations. Understanding management requires both learning and practicing, directly experiencing. People involved in electronic networks are experiencing the alternative to real communication. We considered Electronic Mailing List and Internet Forums both as marketing tool and a human resources management tool. The benefits of using discussion lists are: people informed, involved and improved.electronic mailing list, internet forums, virtual groups, educational organization, educational tool, working groups

A Typology of Virtual Teams: Implications for Effective Leadership

As the nature of work in today\u27s organizations becomes more complex, dynamic, and global, there has been an increasing emphasis on far-flung, distributed, virtual teams as organizing units of work. Despite their growing prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of work unit. The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework to focus research toward understanding virtual teams and, in particular, to identify implications for effective leadership. Specifically, we focus on delineating the dimensions of a typology to characterize different types of virtual teams. First, we distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams to identify where current knowledge applies and new research needs to be developed. Second, we distinguish among different types of virtual teams, considering the critical role of task complexity in determining the underlying characteristics of virtual teams and leadership challenges the different types entail. Propositions addressing leadership implications for the effective management of virtual teams are proposed and discussed

The organization and management of the Virtual Astronomical Observatory

The U.S. Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO; http://www.us-vao.org/) has been in operation since May 2010. Its goal is to enable new science through efficient integration of distributed multi-wavelength data. This paper describes the management and organization of the VAO, and emphasizes the techniques used to ensure efficiency in a distributed organization. Management methods include using an annual program plan as the basis for establishing contracts with member organizations, regular communication, and monitoring of processes.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. SPIE Conference 8449: Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy

Virtual Team Success: The Impact of Leadership Style and Project Management Experience

The ability of project managers to effectively lead virtual teams is an important factor in the teams\u27 success. Since the 1990s, organizations\u27 use of virtual teams to plan and execute projects has increased, yet virtual teams continue to have high failure rates. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine whether a relationship exists between leadership styles, years of project management experience, and success of virtual teams. I used the path-goal theory of leadership as the theoretical framework for this study. A nonpurposive random sample of 160 project managers in the San Francisco Bay Area who had obtained the Project Management Professional-® designation issued by the Project Management Institute completed an online survey. Multiple regression was conducted to determine whether a statistically significant relationship existed among variables. The results of the regression analysis were statistically significant, F(2, 142) = 39.21, p = .000, R2 = .35, indicating that a combination of leadership style and project management experience can predict success of virtual teams. Leaders of organizations can use the findings of this study in training virtual team leaders. The findings may contribute to social change in organizations that use or plan to use virtual teams in their operations. Team leaders can apply the findings in developing virtual team management strategies. Effective management may reduce the failure rate of virtual teams, which could lead to higher job satisfaction and employee retention among team members, increased employment opportunities, increased urbanization and gentrification of local communities, and reduced flight of capital. Effective management of virtual teams could thus support socioeconomic empowerment and a higher standard of living in local communities and improve knowledge and tolerance of cultural and geographic diversity