The Role of Group Learning in Implementation of a Personnel Management System in a Hospital

A new HR system was introduced in a Dutch hospital. The system implied collaborative work among its users. The project planning seemed to be reasonably straightforward: the system's introduction was intended to take place gradually, including pilots in different departments and appropriate feedback. After some time, the system was successfully adopted by one group of users, but failed with another. We conceptualize the implementation process of groupware as group learning to frame the adoption of the system, and analyze the qualitative data collected during the longitudinal case study. We found that in the user group with strong group learning, adoption of the system occurred effectively and on time. In another user group with rather weak group learning, the use of the system was blocked after a short time. The results provided a first confirmation of our assumption about the importance of group learning processes in the implementation of groupware

A Learning Perspective on Groupware Implementation

We propose to look at the implementation of groupware from a learning perspective. In this paper we motivate this view and outline our research model. Research questions of the project are: What are the influential characteristics of learning for the implementation of groupware? And: how can this implementation process be improved

Supporting knowledge exchange isn't easy: lessons learnt from a case study

A knowledge management system is introduced in a large insurance company. It is meant to become a virtual knowledge network for a group of insurance professionals. Despite the fact that the introduction was met with enthusiasm and user participation in the design was ensured, the system did not live up to the expectations. In this paper we investigate this failure by uncovering and analyzing the requirements engineering processes underlying the system's\ud conception, design and introduction. The demise of the system can be attributed to a lack of attention for the use context of the end users and a tendency in the development process to focus mostly on the technical solution instead of problem analysis

E-HRM: Innovation or Irritation

Technological optimistic voices assume that, from a technical perspective, the IT possibilities for HRM are endless: in principal all HR processes can be supported by IT. E-HRM is the relatively new term for this IT supported HRM, especially through the use of web technology. This paper aims at demystifying e-HRM by answering the following questions: what actually is e-HRM?, what are the goals of starting with e-HRM?, what types can be distinguished? and what are the outcomes of e- HRM? Based upon the literature, an e-HRM research model is developed and, guided by this model, five organizations have been studied that have already been on the ‘e-HR road’ for a number of years. We conclude that the goals of e-HRM are mainly to improve HR’s administrative efficiency/to achieve cost reduction. Next to this goals, international companies seem to use the introduction of e-HRM to standardize/harmonize HR policies and processes. Further, there is a ‘gap’ between e-HRM in a technical sense and e-HRM in a practical sense in the five companies involved in our study. Finally, e- HRM hardly helped to improve employee competences, but resulted in cost reduction and a reduction of the administrative burden

Discourse Analysis: Making Complex Methodology Simple

Discursive-based analysis of organizations is not new in the field of interpretive social studies. Since not long ago have information systems (IS) studies also shown a keen interest in discourse (Wynn et al, 2002). The IS field has grown significantly in its multiplicity that is echoed in the discourse, which policy makers and end-users use when they talk or write about IS. Understanding their discourse might shed light on understanding their behavior with information technologies. However, so far discourse-based IS studies lag both a conceptual grounding and the ‘route descriptions’ of the method. The paper illustrates the multidisciplinary genesis of what actually constitutes “discourse” and elaborates on the main principles of doing discourse analysis in IS studies. By examining the theoretical foundations of discourse analysis, we show that its goal is to interpret the hidden meaning about information technologies, covered by a text. A researcher achieves that by a constant interplay between texts (project documents, interviews with the end-users or managers, manuals of IS), discourse (sets of the texts), and context (historical an, social background). We shall analyze the practical applications of the method and demonstrate an eight-steps mode for conducting discourse analysis for interpretive IS studies. By elaborating on “doing discourse analysis” we shall give an example based on the interviews conducted with the end-users regarding implementation of a personnel management system in a larger Dutch university

Implementation of Collaborative Technologies as a Learning Process

Implementation of technology in an organization can be regarded as a learning process and, in particular, implementation of groupware technology, as a collaborative learning process. In this chapter we propose a model of learningoriented implementation of groupware technologies. We believe that the model is useful in several ways. The model provides novel insights, highlighting issues relevant to the human aspects of implementation processes. Moreover, we envisage that is it possible to improve such processes, based on the understanding provided by our model