Asymptotics of solutions in nA+nB->C reaction Diffusion systems

We analyze the long time behavior of initial value problems that model a process where particles of type A and B diffuse in some substratum and react according to $nA+nB\to C$. The case n=1 has been studied before; it presents nontrivial behavior on the reactive scale only. In this paper we discuss in detail the cases $n>3$, and prove that they show nontrivial behavior on the reactive and the diffusive length scale.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figur

Strategies for Dealing with Drift during Implementation of ERP Systems

Research on the relationship between Information Technology (IT) and organizations emphasizes the complexity of adaptation processes and the potential of drifting. Drifting means that an organization encounters unexpected circumstances that show the incompleteness and possible failure of an initial technological design without organizations having yet feasible alternatives. This conceptual and empirical paper investigates the origins and nature of drifting, and strategies for dealing with drift. Three strategies have been proposed to deal with drifting: control, incremental, and drift containment. We explore the third option that seems most realistic and relevant from an organizational point of view. We empirically investigated how drift containment could be accomplished in practice in a multi-site ERP implementation project. Our results suggest three phases of dealing with drift. Organizations must first recognize when drifting occurs. Next, they must develop a dual focus. On one hand, they must differentiate between a project’s overarching objectives (which remain relatively stable). On the other hand, they attend to and resolve their operational drifting experience. The dual focus thus means that while organizations stay focused on their objectives, they address the causes of drifting. During the final phase, lessons learnt during drifting resolution must be shared and applied to accelerate accomplishment of project objectives. Implications for research and practice are elaborated

Is Management Interdisciplinary? The Evolution of Management as an Interdisciplinary Field of Research and Education in the Netherlands

Management research and education are often characterized as being interdisciplinary. However, most discussions on what interdisciplinarity in management studies means have bogged down in ideological fixations. In this paper we alternatively take a historical perspective and analyze the evolution of the interdisciplinarity concept in management studies during the last decades in the Netherlands. We distinguish between two opposite versions of interdisciplinarity: a synoptic (conceptual) and an instrumental (pragmatic) one. Both versions resulted from different knowledge strategies (boundary-work) of competing and cooperating disciplines. We conclude that in the Netherlands instrumental versions of interdisciplinarity in management research and education prevailed

Extending the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) Framework to the Digital World

The rapid rise of digital technologies forces us to re-think our current conceptualization of Information Technologies (IT) where recent theoretical approaches like complexity, evolutionary and network theories tend to remain silent on human (managerial and organizational) choices underlying the development of digital technologies. In this Research-in-Progress paper, we first describe the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework, originating in the 1980s. We then propose extending the SCOT framework along four dimensions in order to ensure its suitability for the digital world: (1) Technology – focus towards digital technologies, (2) Interaction – focus on interpersonal, person-technology, technology-technology and technology-physical environment interactions (3) Social Groups – focus on networked individualism, and (4) Context – focus on socio-digital context. We conclude by proposing to co-develop and -test the extended framework as a joint effort across several academic disciplines in order to use it when conducting research on the social construction of digital ecosystems

The Social Shaping of the early Dutch Management Schools - Professions and the power of Abstraction

In this paper we provide an alternative explanation for the rise of modern management schools at the turn of the 20th century. We argue that these schools were not just responses of the higher education system to the demand of industrializing companies for a new class of professional managers, like Chandler suggests. Based on our historical research we found that the struggle for emancipation of the new professions (engineers and accountants) was the main driver for the founding of these schools. Management schools were viewed as the main vehicles to raise the social status of these new professions. To legitimize their position in the higher education system, abstraction appeared to be the dominant strategy of the professions. By abstraction they could distinguish themselves from the lay public and other professional groups in the domain of management. At the moment the new professions had a foot in the higher education system the engineers and the accountants contested for the new management domain. Abstraction appeared also the successful strategy of the accountants to distinguish themselves from the engineers and to establish a sound base for the development of the Dutch variant of business economics

Multiple Inclusion and Community Networks

Community membership has changed over the last decades. Most people participate in different communities simultaneously in order to satisfy different individual interests. This network individualism might threaten the sustainability of modern communities, like communities of practice (CoPs). In this paper we discuss the consequences of this notion for membership in a community. The unit of analysis in this paper is not a ‘stand-alone’ community of practice but the multiple included individual as a node of various networks. This multiple inclusion is deemed to be important for the knowledge sharing between different CoPs. Taking this idea into account our analyses reveals the need to redefine the concept of ‘legitimacy’ in a community. Our underlying assumption is that broadening legitimacies facilitates multiple inclusion of an individual and, in this way, supports the sustainability of a community of practice

Please, Do Not Disturb. Telework, Distractions, and the Productivity of the Knowledge Worker

An unanswered question regarding telework is how differences in workplace distraction levels influence the effect of the extent of telework on productivity. Drawing from research and theory on cognitive overload and distraction conflict, we developed a quasi-field experiment to test the influence of so-called \u27distraction gains\u27 (indicating lower distraction levels at home compared to the office work environment) on the telework-productivity relationship. The results of our study (N=141) show that distraction gains will increase the positive effect of telework on productivity for knowledge workers (i.e. those with high levels of task complexity, novelty and non-routineness). A subgroup characterized by low knowledge work did not show any relationship between telework and productivity. This study provides much needed longitudinal research findings on the relationship between telework and productivity, and may serve as a basis for future studies on the importance of situational factors regarding telework

Relational Model Conflicts in Knowledge Sharing Behavior

The distributed nature of organizational knowledge makes that knowledge sharing an important factor for unlocking its potential value. In practice, however, people may have different motivations for not sharing knowledge with colleagues, which in part may be due to the relational context. In this paper, we adopt Fiske’s Relational Model Theory to investigate relational dynamics in knowledge sharing behavior. Our objective is to gain insight into how relational model conflicts affect knowledge sharing in organizations. A series of experiments have been conducted, in which the consequences of relational model conflicts for the willingness to share knowledge are evaluated. Each experiment contained four scenarios reflecting different relational models. Participants were faced with different scenarios reflecting particular relational models, and a fictitious other colleague who behaved according to a conflicting relational model. Our analysis shows that the recognition of relational model conflicts strongly depends on the relational models involved. The extent of recognition seems to be related with the nature of the exchange relationships involved in the conflict. For instance, the relational model conflict was more acutely felt by a communal sharing participant facing a market pricing colleague, than by the same participant dealing with an authority ranking response. Likewise, we find that the impact of relational model conflicts on the willingness to share knowledge depends on the relational models involved. Specifically, it appears that market pricing responses have a negative influence on participants’ willingness to share, while communal sharing responses generally have positive effects. Our research serves as a starting point for other studies aiming at a deeper understanding of the dynamics of knowledge sharing behavior of employees and for solving conflicts at work