The role of stories in understanding the cultural context surrounding information systems practices

The culture of an organization constitutes the environment into which information systems (IS) practices take place. Despite the importance of culture in the organizational theory and management literature, this topic has received little attention in the IS area. The culture of an organization can be looked at from different angles. In addition to the usual view of culture, the integration view, two other perspectives have been identified in the literature: the differentiation and fragmentation perspectives. While the integration perspective focuses on the assembling role organizational culture is normally said to play, the differentiation perspective highlights important differences among groups of people in the organization and the fragmentation perspective includes the notion of ambiguity and uncertainty in the conceptualization of culture. This study uses organizational stories as a way to investigate the culture of an organization and as a way to better understand IS practices. It uses simultaneously the three organizational culture perspectives in order to get a broad picture of the cultural context surrounding IS practices. More specifically, the objective of this interpretive study is to investigate three research questions related to (1) the nature of the stories told and the themes that they carry, (2) the functions that these stories play in the organization, and (3) the relationships between themes and IS practices. Using an in-depth case study strategy, stories and their interpretations were collected from a software-development company using primarily semi-structured interviews. The results emphasize the bias resulting from the use of the integration perspective as the only way to look at the culture of an organization. This bias had a profound impact on the literature; it helped shape the identification of important organizational actors, the definition of stories, and the conceptualization of their functions. In this study, a broader conception of significant stories is given along with a broader range of functions that stories may fulfill. Finally, the results highlight the importance of cultural elements in understanding the general context surrounding IS practices and explore in more detail two very contemporary IS activities: implementing team reorganization (change) and managing outsourcing relationships

Subsequent Event Risk in Individuals with Established Coronary Heart Disease:Design and Rationale of the GENIUS-CHD Consortium

BACKGROUND: The "GENetIcs of sUbSequent Coronary Heart Disease" (GENIUS-CHD) consortium was established to facilitate discovery and validation of genetic variants and biomarkers for risk of subsequent CHD events, in individuals with established CHD. METHODS: The consortium currently includes 57 studies from 18 countries, recruiting 185,614 participants with either acute coronary syndrome, stable CHD or a mixture of both at baseline. All studies collected biological samples and followed-up study participants prospectively for subsequent events. RESULTS: Enrollment into the individual studies took place between 1985 to present day with duration of follow up ranging from 9 months to 15 years. Within each study, participants with CHD are predominantly of self-reported European descent (38%-100%), mostly male (44%-91%) with mean ages at recruitment ranging from 40 to 75 years. Initial feasibility analyses, using a federated analysis approach, yielded expected associations between age (HR 1.15 95% CI 1.14-1.16) per 5-year increase, male sex (HR 1.17, 95% CI 1.13-1.21) and smoking (HR 1.43, 95% CI 1.35-1.51) with risk of subsequent CHD death or myocardial infarction, and differing associations with other individual and composite cardiovascular endpoints. CONCLUSIONS: GENIUS-CHD is a global collaboration seeking to elucidate genetic and non-genetic determinants of subsequent event risk in individuals with established CHD, in order to improve residual risk prediction and identify novel drug targets for secondary prevention. Initial analyses demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of a federated analysis approach. The consortium now plans to initiate and test novel hypotheses as well as supporting replication and validation analyses for other investigators

Étude des variables influençant l’efficacité de la formation à distance

Les nombreux changements technologiques que nous connaissons révolutionnent nos modes de penser, d'agir et de vivre. Aucune connaissance n'est désormais définitive, aucun savoir à son apogée. Il faut constamment se recycler, s'ajuster, se perfectionner : d'où l'expansion actuelle de l'enseignement des adultes à différents niveaux d'enseignement. L'idée que l'éducation soit réservée aux jeunes qui se préparent à la vie, tandis que les adultes doivent se consacrer au travail pour gagner la leur, est en train de se modifier. La période dévolue à l'éducation de type classique déborde sur la vie adulte à mesure que les études scolaires se prolongent et que le désir de découvrir, d'apprendre, se développe. L'éducation permanente, à laquelle l'adulte consacre une partie de son temps, devient une pratique de plus en plus courante. En effet, depuis la réforme amorcée avec le rapport Parent, le système d'éducation québécois a connu une augmentation continue de sa population adulte. De nos jours encore, on ressent cette demande de formation de la part des adultes et il y a tout lieu de croire que cette tendance se poursuivra. (Conseil supérieur de l'éducation, 1988). […

Étude des variables influençant l’efficacité de la formation à distance

Les nombreux changements technologiques que nous connaissons révolutionnent nos modes de penser, d'agir et de vivre. Aucune connaissance n'est désormais définitive, aucun savoir à son apogée. Il faut constamment se recycler, s'ajuster, se perfectionner : d'où l'expansion actuelle de l'enseignement des adultes à différents niveaux d'enseignement. L'idée que l'éducation soit réservée aux jeunes qui se préparent à la vie, tandis que les adultes doivent se consacrer au travail pour gagner la leur, est en train de se modifier. La période dévolue à l'éducation de type classique déborde sur la vie adulte à mesure que les études scolaires se prolongent et que le désir de découvrir, d'apprendre, se développe. L'éducation permanente, à laquelle l'adulte consacre une partie de son temps, devient une pratique de plus en plus courante. En effet, depuis la réforme amorcée avec le rapport Parent, le système d'éducation québécois a connu une augmentation continue de sa population adulte. De nos jours encore, on ressent cette demande de formation de la part des adultes et il y a tout lieu de croire que cette tendance se poursuivra. (Conseil supérieur de l'éducation, 1988). […

L: 'Structuring spontaneity': investigating the impact of management practices on the success of virtual communities of practice

Abstract. Despite the increasing number of virtual communities of practice (VCoPs), little is known about how organizations can help lead them to success. This paper aims to identify those management practices that are likely to increase their chance of success. Using an action research approach that brought together a multidisciplinary team of researchers, coaches and organizational participants, we closely followed the experiences of eight VCoPs over a six-to nine-month period and collected a large quantity of quantitative and qualitative data from many sources. Our results indicate that three types of management practices seem to have the most impact on a VCoP's success: taking ongoing actions to develop a knowledge-sharing culture, providing adequate resources to the VCoPs, and monitoring the leadership of the community in order to address any occurring problems. This study represents a first step towards building an empirically based understanding of how organizations can sustain their VCoPs

Rigor in Information Systems Positivist Case Research: Current Practices, Trends, and Recommendations

Case research has commanded respect in the information systems (IS) discipline for at least a decade. Notwithstanding the relevance and potential value of case studies, this methodological approach was once considered to be one of the least systematic. Toward the end of the 1980s, the issue of whether IS case research was rigorously conducted was first raised. Researchers from our field (e.g., Benbasat et al. 1987; Lee 1989) and from other disciplines (e.g., Eisenhardt 1989; Yin 1994) called for more rigor in case research and, through their recommendations, contributed to the advancement of the case study methodology. Considering these contributions, the present study seeks to determine the extent to which the field of IS has advanced in its operational use of case study method. Precisely, it investigates the level of methodological rigor in positivist IS case research conducted over the past decade. To fulfill this objective, we identified and coded 183 case articles from seven major IS journals. Evaluation attributes or criteria considered in the present review focuses on three main areas, namely, design issues, data collection, and data analysis. While the level of methodological rigor has experienced modest progress with respect to some specific attributes, the overall assessed rigor is somewhat equivocal and there are still significant areas for improvement. One of the keys is to include better documentation particularly regarding issues related to the data collection and analysis processes