UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF ADVICE NETWORKS IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

The demand for software-enabled products and services continus unabated in almost all facets of life. With this increasing demand comes an intense pressure on the developers of software to be innovative in all aspects. While researchers have examined how a variety of individual, group, and organizational factors shape innovation in information systems development, the role of advice networks has received limited consideration to date. A greater understanding of advice network structures in software development is important as numerous studies from the social network tradition demonstrate that advice seeking behaviors play a key role in people´s ability to do their jobs effectively. Drawing from social network theory, we develop a number of hypotheses relating the structure of a software developer´s advice network for technological developments to personal innovativeness. To test these hypotheses, social network analysis and interview data will be gathered from a software development division of a large organization

Becta Review 2005. Evidence on the progress of ICT in education.

Drawing on Becta national surveys of ICT use and implementation within the education system, the Becta Review identified the ways in which ICT could be used to support the DfES 5 year strategy, to introduce greater efficiencies in educational provision and more choice/personalisation of content and delivery

Understanding Mathematics and Science Advice Networks of Middle School Teachers

We report findings from a research project designed to examine the mathematics and science advice networks of teachers who participated in professional development under the auspices of the NSF-funded Rocky Mountain-Middle School Math and Science Partnership. We provide descriptive statistics of results. Additionally, we reflect on the research process and discuss some of the practical challenges involved

Social ties, prior experience, and venture creation by transnational entrepreneurs

The interaction between resources, and host and home country contexts of transnational entrepreneurs (TEs), is important for understanding their strategies and hence performance of their ventures. Yet, how they deploy their unique experiences and social networks in the founding of ventures in multiple institutional contexts is less understood. Based on 15 in-depth interviews with TEs of Indian origin in the UK, and nine of their counterpart heads of transnational venture (TNV) operations, we explore the use of prior experience, and personal and industry ties in the founding of TNVs in their home country. Our findings show that the way TEs use personal and industry ties in the host and home countries is contingent on whether they have prior experience of: 1) entering the home country; 2) implementing the business opportunity underlying the TNV in the home country, respectively, with a former employer. The implications of these findings are discussed

Web 2.0 and micro-businesses: An exploratory investigation

This is the author's final version of the article. This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here. Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.This article was chosen as a Highly Commended Award Winner at the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2013.Purpose – The paper aims to report on an exploratory study into how small businesses use Web 2.0 information and communication technologies (ICT) to work collaboratively with other small businesses. The study had two aims: to investigate the benefits available from the use of Web 2.0 in small business collaborations, and to characterize the different types of such online collaborations. Design/methodology/approach – The research uses a qualitative case study methodology based on semi-structured interviews with the owner-managers of 12 UK-based small companies in the business services sector who are early adopters of Web 2.0 technologies. Findings – Benefits from the use of Web 2.0 are categorized as lifestyle benefits, internal operational efficiency, enhanced capability, external communications and enhanced service offerings. A 2×2 framework is developed to categorize small business collaborations using the dimensions of the basis for inter-organizational collaboration (control vs cooperation) and the level of Web 2.0 ICT use (simple vs sophisticated). Research limitations/implications – A small number of firms of similar size, sector and location were studied, which limits generalizability. Nonetheless, the results offer a pointer to the likely future use of Web 2.0 tools by other small businesses. Practical implications – The research provides evidence of the attraction and potential of Web 2.0 for collaborations between small businesses. Originality/value – The paper is one of the first to report on use of Web 2.0 ICT in collaborative working between small businesses. It will be of interest to those seeking a better understanding of the potential of Web 2.0 in the small business community.WestFocu

The economic ecology of small businesses in Oxfordshire

Report by the Oxfordshire Economic Observatory (OEO) for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), Oxfordshire Branch

The Revolution of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Agricultural Development (m-Agri Services) in Africa: The Challenges for Sustainability

The provision of information through mobile phone-enabled agricultural information services (m-Agri services) has the potential to revolutionise agriculture and significantly improve smallholder farmers’ livelihoods in Africa. Globally, the benefits of m-Agri services include facilitating farmers’ access to financial services and sourcing agricultural information about input use, practices, and market prices. There are very few published literature sources that focus on the potential benefits of m-Agri services in Africa and none of which explore their sustainability. This study, therefore, explores the evolution, provision, and sustainability of these m-Agri services in Africa. An overview of the current landscape of m-Agri services in Africa is provided and this illustrates how varied these services are in design, content, and quality. Key findings from the exploratory literature review reveal that services are highly likely to fail to achieve their intended purpose or be abandoned when implementers ignore the literacy, skills, culture, and demands of the target users. This study recommends that, to enhance the sustainability of m-Agri services, the implementers need to design the services with the users involved, carefully analyse, and understand the target environment, and design for scale and a long-term purpose. While privacy and security of users need to be ensured, the reuse or improvement of existing initiatives should be explored, and projects need to be data-driven and maintained as open source. Thus, the study concludes that policymakers can support the long-term benefit of m-Agri services by ensuring favourable policies for both users and implementers

Who has influence in multistakeholder governance systems?

As multistakeholder governance has emerged as an important feature in development, new governance structures that foster the participation of multiple stakeholders from the public sector, civil society, and the private sector have emerged in various fields, ranging from the management of natural resources to the provision of public services. To make such governance structures work, it is essential to understand how different stakeholders influence decisionmaking and what determines their influence. This paper uses Net-Map, an innovative participatory method, to analyze how networking influences decisionmaking in multistakeholder governance structures, using the case of the governance board of the White Volta River Basin in northern Ghana as an example. The method visualizes both the relations between all stakeholders in watershed management as perceived by the 17 members on the board and their influence on development outcomes. The study suggests that significant effects of social networking are at play beyond the formal lines of command and funding as stakeholders in watershed management make decisions. Stakeholders are more influential if they participate more prominently in information exchange and provide more advice to others. This counterbalances the overrepresentation of government actors on the board. Meanwhile some government organizations have a low level of influence, even though they are central in giving funding and command. These findings may be interesting for program leaders and policymakers in watershed management: when designing governance structures they need to take into account the importance of social networking to attain main objectives of watershed development; it is important to provide space that allows the exchange of information and advice among stakeholders. Meanwhile, policymakers and program leaders as well must consider overrepresentation of social network champions in multistakeholder governance structures and the limited capacity of government bodies in social networking. The paper serves to introduce not only the specific findings concerning this case study but also the participatory research method (Net-Map) that was used.decisionmaking, multistakeholder governance, Natural resource management, Social networks,

Detecting Coordination Problems in Collaborative Software Development Environments

Software development is rarely an individual effort and generally involves teams of developers collaborating to generate good reliable code. Among the software code there exist technical dependencies that arise from software components using services from other components. The different ways of assigning the design, development, and testing of these software modules to people can cause various coordination problems among them. We claim\ud that the collaboration of the developers, designers and testers must be related to and governed by the technical task structure. These collaboration practices are handled in what we call Socio-Technical Patterns.\ud The TESNA project (Technical Social Network Analysis) we report on in this paper addresses this issue. We propose a method and a tool that a project manager can use in order to detect the socio-technical coordination problems. We test the method and tool in a case study of a small and innovative software product company