Harnessing Intellectual Resources in a Collaborative Context to Create Value

The value of electronic collaboration has arisen as successful organisations recognize that they need to convert their intellectual resources into customized services. The shift from personal computing to interpersonal or collaborative computing has given rise to ways of working that may bring about better and more effective use of intellectual resources. Current efforts in managing knowledge have concentrated on producing; sharing and storing knowledge while business problems require the combined use of these intellectual resources to enable organisations to provide innovative and customized services. In this chapter the collaborative context is developed using a model for electronic collaboration through the use of which organisations may mobilse collaborative technologies and intellectual resources towards achieving joint effect.electronic collaboration;value creation;collaborative computing;knowledge management and intellectual resources

Expanding Group Support System Capabilities from the Knowledge Management Perspective

A group support system (GSS) is a computer-based system that enables people in different places to discuss and make decisions on connected computers. Expanding GSS capabilities from the knowledge management perspective is believed to significantly improve the performance and satisfaction of group meetings. This study develops the organizational knowledge management process, proposed by Alavi and Leidner (2001), to expand the capabilities of a GSS. Additionally, a prototype system has been implemented. Finally, an experiment is conducted to evaluate the system and demonstrate its applicability and usability. Experimental results indicate that users perceive a web-based GSS with knowledge management capabilities to be more helpful and more satisfying than a conventional GSS. They also perceived that using a web-based GSS with knowledge management capabilities can improve the decision quality

The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness

By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that womenâs happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of womenâs declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging − one with higher subjective well-being for men.job satisfaction, women's movement, gender, happiness, life satisfaction, subjective well-being

PROCESS SUPPORT FOR THE OPTION GENERATION PHASE IN WIN-WIN NEGOTIATIONS: COMPARISON OF THREE COMMUNICATION MODES

Analytically oriented Negotiation Support Systems have been studied and developed for decades, but they have not become widely adopted by negotiation practitioners. Along with the phenomenal growth of e-commerce, a need has arisen for information systems that support the parties’ “soft” negotiation processes and communications in addition to the “hard” quest for a mathematically optimal solution. In this study, we report an experiment about applying three different communication modes in integrative win-win negotiations following the principled negotiation tactics. We focus on integrative negotiation’s dialoguing phase where the parties share information, brainstorm options together, and establish an appropriate atmosphere. We compare computer-supported same-time same-place negotiations aided by group support systems (GSS) - either anonymously or non-anonymously - with the control treatment group that uses verbal communication backed up with flipcharts and Post-it notes. Due to the recent social media revolution, the role of anonymity might have changed from the GSS research results obtained decades ago. Our goal is to find out possible differences in the negotiation outcomes: meeting satisfaction and productivity. We discovered that all three modes worked well when used together with a carefully structured and facilitated process, although the number of unique ideas generated was significantly higher in the computer-supported groups

The Impact of GSS on an Organization\u27s Information Accessibility

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in groups in business and other organizations. Concepts such as interactive meetings, empowered work teams, participative management, and total quality management have altered the dynamics and significance of group work within organizations (Finley 1992; Hunt 1993). Most managers agree that both formal and ad hoc groups significantly influence the behavior of individuals in larger organizations in which they work. The impactof groups on the organization is so pervasive that rarely will managers spend an entire day without attending at least one group meeting (White and Bednar 1991). Drucker (1988) suggested that the new organization would consist of groups of knowledge specialists and that the traditional command and control organization was on the way out. According to Finley (1992), the new ethic for success in business is that every person has to contribute to team decisions. This focus on teams has provided a challenge to information system (IS) specialists as far as providing necessary facilitative technology to fulfill the needs of companies focusing on groups and group work. George, Nunamaker, and Valacich (1992) suggested that one of the most promising trends for the IS field was this focus on groups and group work. The technology that supports the group decision making process has been referred to as group support systems. Most of the research in the GSS area has focused on decision room technology and most of this research has focused on theoretical, conceptual, and empirical research concerned with the design, implementation, and impact on the group process and outcomes (cf, Jelassi and Beauclair 1987, Gray 1987, DeSanctis and Gallupe 1985, Gallupe and McKeen 1990). Little research has been conducted concerning the impact of decision room use on the organization; specifically how the use of decision room use impacts the organization\u27s design, its nature, and its decision making process. In 1993, Huber, Valacich,and Jessup, proposed a theory for the impact of GSS on an organization. Their theory consisted of four concepts: a) availability of GSS leads to use of GSS;b) use of GSS leads to increased information accessibility;c) increased information accessibility leads to changes in organizational design;d) increased information accessibility and changes in organizational design lead to improvements in the effectiveness of intelligence development and decision makin

Socio-Psychological Aspects of Group Processes

The original working paper had no abstract. The purpose of the working paper was to document previous research undertaken in group research (broadly) from the socio-psychological perspective. Some of this directly related to work on GSS, some of it was antecedent to that research

Employee Empowerment: The Key to Foundation Staff Satisfaction

Although few in numbers, foundation staff are responsible for managing hundreds of billions of dollars in charitable assets. These staff make crucial decisions about how best to allocate those resources to address some of our most pressing domestic and global challenges -- from child welfare to climate change. Given the important goals that foundation staff members are working to achieve, their performance should be a concern not just to those who supervise them, but to all of us. If we accept the argument that staff experiences are connected to performance, then foundation staff perceptions matter greatly. To better understand the experience of foundation staff, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) surveyed 1,168 staff members at 31 foundations. The surveys were conducted from 2007 to 2011 as part of CEP's Staff Perception Report (SPR) process. Through these surveys, we collect quantitative and qualitative data from respondents. Though our dataset is limited to the 31 foundations that chose to commission an SPR from CEP, it is the largest dataset that exists about foundation staff members' job satisfaction. We have sought, therefore, to analyze it to understand the answers to some basic questions: How satisfied are foundation staff in their jobs? What contributes to their satisfaction? What the data strongly indicate is that leaders set the tone. Their choices -- about a wide range of issues, including communication, delegation of authority, role definition, availability of resources, provision of feedback, recognition of contributions, and opportunities for learning and growth -- shape staff experiences. These dimensions matter far more than the issues that often are the focus of conversations about staff retention and satisfaction, such as pay levels or workload.Also included in this report are case studies of two foundations whose SPR results were particularly strong: The Commonwealth Fund and The Skillman Foundation. These two foundations' staff members rated highly on satisfaction and a host of other dimensions