Borgs in the Org? Organizational Decision Making and Technology

Data warehousing and the development of the World Wide Web both augment information gathering (search) processes in individual decision making by increasing the availability of required information. Imagine, for example, that one wanted to buy new golf clubs. Thirty years ago, the cost of information gathering would likely have limited an individual\u27s search process to geographically proximal vendors and the golf clubs they stocked. Today, a prospective purchaser can log onto the World Wide Web to find out what types of golf clubs are available anywhere; consult databases, chat rooms, and bulletin boards (e.g., epinions.com) to gather product information and user opinions; and compare prices across vendors around the world

Thermal simulation studies of a low energy university building in Australia

A key criterion by which any building will be judged when its environmental impact is assessed is its thermal performance. This paper describes the simulation of an office module in a three-storey university building in south eastern Australia. The module, located at the north-west corner of the top floor of the building, was chosen because it is likely to have the highest cooling load - a primary concern of energy conscious designers of commercial buildings for most parts of Australia. In the paper, the initial key assumptions are stated, together with a description of a &quot;reference&quot; or base case, against which improvements in thermal performance were measured. The simulation process identified the major influences on thermal performance. This enabled changes in materials and construction, as well as basic design concepts to be evaluated. Features incorporated into the base case such as a metal roof and glazed walkway were found to have adverse influence on energy consumption, and were consequently rejected in preference for an improved design which included a hypocaust slab system on the roof of the office module. The final design was predicted to reduce the annual energy consumption for heating and cooling by 72% and 76% respectively.La performance thermique est l\u27un des critegraveres cleacutes de l\u27eacutevaluation environnementale de tout bacirctiment. Cet article deacutecrit la simulation d\u27un module de bureau appartenant agrave un immeuble de trois eacutetages d\u27une universiteacute du sud-est de l\u27Australie. Ce module, situeacute agrave l\u27angle nord-ouest de l\u27eacutetage supeacuterieur du bacirctiment a eacuteteacute choisi car c\u27eacutetait lui qui, vraisemblablement, avait la charge de refroidissement la plus eacuteleveacutee, ce qui est une preacuteoccupation majeure des concepteurs conscients des problegravemes d\u27eacutenergie des bacirctiments commerciaux dans la plus grande partie du pays. Le processus de simulation a fait apparaicirctre trois influences principales sur la performance thermique par rapport agrave un cas de base. Cela a permis d\u27eacutevaluer les modifications apporteacutees aux mateacuteriaux et agrave la construction ainsi qu\u27aux avant-projets. Les caracteacuteristiques inteacutegreacutees dans le cas de base comme le toit meacutetallique et la passerelle vitreacutee avaient une influence neacutefaste sur la consommation d\u27eacutenergie et ont donc eacuteteacute rejeteacutees au beacuteneacutefice d\u27un concept ameacutelioreacute qui comprenait une dalle de type hypocauste sur le toit du module de bureau. Le concept final devrait reacuteduire la consommation annuelle d\u27eacutenergie pour le chauffage et le refroidissement de 72 % et 76 % respectivement, ce qui donne une ideacutee de la valeur ajouteacutee au processus de production agrave partir de proceacutedures avanceacutees de modeacutelisation et de simulation.<br /

Five minutes with Steve Fuller: “The best teachers are like the best jazz artists – drawing on multiple texts simultaneously”

Mark Carrigan interviews Steve Fuller about the act of improvisation and how it shapes creativity and learning. Through improvisation, the mind is gradually freed up from reproducing past social structures. Improvisation depends on having read sufficiently what others have written to be able to create something that is interestingly new. As such, Professor Fuller finds that improvisation is one of the few things equally valued by the Humboldtian university and the neo-liberal academy

Introducing new building technologies : lessons from a case study

Hypocaust systems, where conditioned or non-conditioned air is passed through ducts within the concrete floor or ceiling of a building prior to its delivery to the rooms, are starting to appear in new buildings in Australia.This paper describes the lessons that can be learned from the early experiences with a hypocaust system, installed in a new building in Melbourne. It concludes that a more cooperative process between all those involved in introducing and using a new \u27technology\u27 is essential if the problems described are to be avoided or at least minimized.<br /

The Effects of Trustworthiness Perceptions on the Formation of Initial Trust: Implications for MIS Student Teams

Teamwork is a growing part of management education. One aspect of ensuring a successful team experience as part of the educational process involves the formation of trust between teammates. We present the results of an experiment that examines how students form initial trust under two general conditions - when selecting teammates to complete class assignments (task context) and when selecting teammates to forge new relationships (relationship context). The findings indicate that the factors that result in trust are weighted differently, depending on the purpose of the teams. Teams that are focused on completion of a task weighed prospective team members\u27 ability the most, while teams that were focused on forming friendships focused on the prospective team members\u27 integrity. We present specific recommendations and an exercise that MIS instructors can use to encourage trust formation in their teams

Leaving Nothing to Chance: Modeling the Proactive Structuration of a New Technology

Adaptive structuration theory (AST, DeSanctis and Poole 1994) describes how people come to understand and use a technology. In this paper we develop the idea of proactive structuration--how social networking can be proactively managed in order to speed the comprehensive adaptation of a technology within a community of users. We examine two facets of proactive structuration--formal institutionalization of a community of practice and socialization of users--and stochastically model the impact of proactive structuration on comprehensive adaptation latency. Implications for the effective management of new technology adoption are discussed.

Study of heat flow through a rammed earth wall building

In 1999, a 2100 m2 (GFA) two-storey rammed earth building was built on the Thurgoona campus of Charles Sturt University. The climate at Thurgoona is considered Mediterranean &ndash; hot dry summers and cool winters. The internal and external walls of the building are constructed from 300-mm thick rammed earth (pise) and are load bearing. The thermal performance of the building has been investigated, both experimentally and theoretically over the summer and winter seasons of 2000/1. As part of these investigations heat flux sensors and thermistors were embedded in one of the external walls of a ground floor office, and data from the transducers has been used to determine the heat flow at the internal and external wall surfaces. The simulation software, TRNSYS, has been used to model the thermal performance of the same office. The programme allows the user to calculate the heat flow at the walls, which define any particular thermal zone. A comparison of measured and predicted values of heat flows and air temperatures has been used to validate the model. The model has then been used to simulate the effect of shading and added insulation on the thermal performance of the external walls in both summer and winter and these results are also presented in this paper.<br /