The Building of a Knowledge Portal for Supply Chain Co-Evolving

Today, companies are demanding more than just access to data. They want processed and refined information that will help them to reach more effective tactical decisions. With the global deployment of computers, inter-connecting network, mobile devices, and information architecture, participants can work collaboratively by sharing networked resources, and exchanging knowledge in order to improve corporate performance. The collaboration/cooperation feature is especially important in today’s supply chain practices. Under this paradigm shift, information-oriented productivity depends on the sharing of knowledge and skills among workers. Therefore, supply chain strategies can be driven by the collective intelligence and competence to meet today’s business challenges that enable organizational learning. Management of organizational knowledge for creating business values and generating competitive advantages is critical for organizational development. In other words, it is related to the efficient integration of enterprise system, e-business application framework, and knowledge portal in order to achieve the goal of a learning organization and a supply chain. co-evolving This paper focuses on the design of an enterprise knowledge portal in a supply chain scheme for today’s business. The ultimate goal is to develop a technological framework for a knowledge network that brings people, information, technologies, business processes, and organizational strategies together to better utilize knowledge in e-business. The benefits of knowledge portal in today’s e-supply chain collaboration will not only expand the learning capabilities of workers. It will also help supply chain trading partners to develop a more concrete vision and strategy for enhancing their market values

CSCW - Four Characters in Search of a Context

The title of this paper was chosen to highlight the fact that the label CSCW, although widely adopted as the acronym for the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work, has been applied to computer applications of very different ilk. It is not at all clear what are the unique identifying elements of this research area. This paper provides a framework for approaching the issue of cooperative work and its possible computer support. The core issues are identified and prospects for the field are outlined

Weaving Discourses and Changing Organizations: The Role of ICT in the Transformation of Healthcare Towards Patient-Centered Model

This paper illustrates ways in which ICT are implicated in transforming healthcare from an organization-centered model of delivery to a patient-centered model. Building on the literature on discourse analysis and organizational change it analyzes ICT-led organizational transformation and patient-centered healthcare discourses constructed in the UK’s policy papers and enacted in healthcare organizations. It suggests that ICT discourse performs different roles in relation to patient-centered healthcare discourse, and theorizes them as opening of possibilities, amplifying and re-focusing. The research reveals that Electronic Health Records both facilitate and obstruct the transformation of healthcare towards a patient-centered model. This contradiction arises from a number of contingent, interacting factors including different organizational characteristics, implementation strategies and work practice, as well as different conceptualizations of patient-centered care. Organizational transformation takes time and is characterized by detours and setbacks

An enquiry into the temporal coordination of Groupware Calendar Systems (GCS): Conceptualizing the private and public perspectives

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Groupware Calendar Systems (GCS), asynchronous on-line meeting schedulers are designed to fulfil the increased need for coordination of work, by supporting time management of temporally and geographically dispersed individuals and groups. From a study of the literature on GCS adoption, a premise was constructed that temporal coordination of GCS requires a marriage of conflicting private and public perspectives. This is based on the fact that firstly, the system has to support both individual and group work, and secondly, generally considered `private' information has to be publicized by individuals. However, there is a lack of understanding of the dynamism of these perspectives especially in relation to the process of temporal coordination in GCS. The aim of this thesis is to understand and conceptualize temporal coordination of GCS. The research strategy of this thesis adopts a `grounded approach' together with a `progressive research approach' to investigate the GCS phenomenon. The actions and processes of GCS-in-use are examined using the case study method. The research design progressively refines and reflects upon the findings in two stages: stage-one, two pilot studies and stage-two, two case studies. A selection of data collection techniques were used in order to obtain a rich data set via semi-structured in-depth interviews, observations, questionnaires, documentation and photographs. The analysis employed a pattern-matching technique and the `SCOT' framework, modified to examine the process of temporal coordination and the dynamic relationships produced in GCS which led to the construction of a new conceptual model. This model of 'reflective temporal equilibrium' presents the state of temporal coordination, formed by the phenomenon of continuous conflict between the private and public perspectives. The outcomes of this thesis provide a clearer theoretical picture of GCS, consequently leading to implications for its future design and adoption for better coordination and collaboration of work

The Virtual Organization: Evidence of Academic Structuration in Business Programs and Implications for Information Science

Virtual forms of organization, including outsourcing, are expected to bring broad, structural transformations to American business. Yet, little is known about the formal response of U.S. Business Schools to the boundary-spanning challenges that virtual organization presents. In this study, key elements of Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) are utilized as a means to investigate the effects of virtual organization on academic disciplines. Results of a survey of 471 Business School faculty members, including 63 Information Systems faculty, on the role of virtual organization in academic curricula are analyzed in the terms defined by the AST framework. Results indicate significant variation by discipline, concept area, and appropriation of the concepts related to virtual organization. Implications for Information Science include the need for establishing academic leadership as well as attending to perceived limitations in virtual organization tools and technologies. In addition, the results have implications for the ongoing dialogue on the role of Information Science and related academic disciplines

Connecting for a Social Good: A Multi-level Analysis of a Nascent Online Community

Online communities (OCs) such as Wikipedia have the potential to transform our global society and economy. Building and sustaining OCs, however, appears to be rather complex. Indeed, most OCs fail early on. The extant OC literature cannot fully explain this phenomenon. This thesis is thus motivated by the increasing importance of OCs and the unsolved complexities regarding building and sustaining them. In particular, it aims to answer the research question of how nascent OCs evolve and what the influences are on this evolution. To this end, it examines a longitudinal 34-months long case study of AshokaHub, a nascent global OC of social entrepreneurs, combining interview data with qualitative and quantitative data from the AshokaHub platform. Despite favourable conditions at AshokaHub’s launch and a re-launch with new functionality and curation strategies, user contributions remained limited. Drawing on the OC and social entrepreneurship literatures as well as the theories of affordances, technological frames of reference and groupware adoption, this thesis develops a multi-level model to address the research question. This model theorizes the evolution of nascent OCs and the influence of context and materiality on this evolution. It highlights that OC evolution happens as users across different social worlds within the OC continuously adopt and change their ways of using it. It also highlights that, on an individual user level, this OC evolution happens in a recursive process of framing, affordance perception and affordance actualisation that influences and is influenced by the material characteristics of the OC’s technological platform and is shaped by the OC’s context. This thesis thus contributes to the OC literature by providing insight into how nascent OCs evolve and what influences this evolution. In addition, it contributes to affordance theory by introducing the concept of a collaborative OC affordances. This concept aims to explain how collaborative affordances emerge and evolve on OCs given the generative nature of their underlying technological platforms. These findings have managerial implications as well. Good practices are identified that can support the successful start of an OC. This is complemented with a discussion on how to be situationally aware of the unpredictable evolution of an OC after its start