The “Peripheral Plaintiff”: Duty Determinations in Take-Home Asbestos Cases

Since the 1970s, litigation concerning the dangers of asbestos in the workplace has transformed from a few workers’ compensation claims to hundreds of thousands of lawsuits against companies in nearly every industry. While the typical plaintiff in these claims is an employee injured while handling asbestos at the worksite, a new class of “peripheral plaintiffs” has recently emerged. These plaintiffs consist of family members who are exposed to asbestos after inhaling the dust that saturates an employee’s person and clothing. The family members then bring claims against the employers and the owners of the premises claiming that they were negligent in allowing the workers to carry asbestos home when the danger of asbestos was well known. The highest courts of six states stand divided on whether an employer or premises owner owes a duty to these third-party plaintiffs to protect them from asbestos-related harm. Two states have relied heavily on the foreseeability of the harm to hold that landowners and employers do owe a duty to third-party plaintiffs. On the other hand, four states have focused on a range of factors, like the lack of a relationship between the parties and the need to constrain asbestos litigation, to hold that landowners and employers do not owe a duty to third-party plaintiffs. This Note examines the interstate conflict and concludes that all six courts have engaged in an unclear and unnecessarily fact-specific analysis of duty. It argues that the Third Restatement’s method of determining duty represents a clearer approach, because it sends factual questions to the jury and encourages courts to take “no duty” decisions more seriously

Developing Internet-based integrated architecture for managing globally distributed software development projects

Given the increasing importance of globally distributed software development (GDSD) over the last decade, it is surprising that empirical research in this area is still in the very early stage. The few existing suggest that traditional coordination and control mechanisms can be effective for these projects only with support from appropriate information technology. However, at present, little is known about the success of current Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support in the context of GDSD projects. Therefore, the main question this research addresses is what ICT-based support is appropriate for globally distributed software development projects? The objectives of this research are to elicit and develop the functional requirements for ICT support for GDSD projects, to analyze the gap between existing tools and these requirements, and to develop an Internet-based integrated architecture of tools that would fill these gaps

Internal and contextual factors, knowledge processes and performance: From the Chinese provider's perspective

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Expert Systems with Applications. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier B.V.This paper explores the influences of two internal factors, i.e. supplier team’s IT-based skills and communication with client’s team, and two contextual factors, i.e. supplier team’s understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team, on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services from the Chinese provider’s perspective. Knowledge processes are characterized by knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management, and performance is measured by product success and personal satisfaction. Data have been collected in 13 companies in Xi’an Software Park, with 26 in-depth, semi-structured interviews held with top and middle managers, and 200 structured questionnaires distributed to knowledge workers who are involved in global sourcing projects. The results indicate that supplier team’s IT-based skills, communication with client’s team, cultural understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team are positively associated with knowledge process and performance. Also, knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management are found to be crucial for those influential factors to function positively and contribute to the performance. The findings of this study suggest that the effects of key factors on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services appear to transcend the social and cultural differences; however, contextual factors seem to have more significant influences on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services.National Natural Science Foundation of Chin

Primary vendor capabilities in a mediated outsourcing model:can IT service providers leverage crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing platforms that attract a large pool of potential workforce allow organizations to reduce permanent staff levels. However managing this "human cloud" requires new management models and skills. Therefore, Information Technology (IT) service providers engaging in crowdsourcing need to develop new capabilities to successfully utilize crowdsourcing in delivering services to their clients. To explore these capabilities we collected qualitative data from focus groups with crowdsourcing leaders at a large multinational technology organization. New capabilities we identified stem from the need of the traditional service provider to assume a "client" role in the crowdsourcing context, while still acting as a "vendor" in providing services to the end-client. This paper expands the research on vendor capabilities and IT outsourcing as well as offers important insights to organizations that are experimenting with, or considering, crowdsourcing

Digital resources and their role in advanced service provision:a VRIN analysis

Purpose: We examine the role of digital resources in the context of advanced service provision to determine their strategic potential. Approach: We conduct a theoretical review of the literature to identify digital resources which we subsequently analyse with regards to their value, rarity, inimitability and non-substitutability (VRIN). Findings: Our analysis shows that the strategic value of the digital resources is unlocked through their complementarity. Value: The research has implications for the management of advanced services and contributes towards the grounding of servitization research in the wider economic and management theory

Digital Sustainability in Information Systems Research: Conceptual Foundations and Future Directions

In this editorial, we develop the concept of digital sustainability for the IS community. By systematically reviewing the Green IT and Green IS literatures, we show that the IS field has lagged behind current discourse in practice and therefore lacks the conceptualization of the relationships between digital technologies and sustainability. Digital sustainability is defined in this editorial as the development and deployment of digital resources and artifacts toward improving the environment, society, and economic welfare. We hope that this editorial motivates IS researchers to engage in digital sustainability as an emerging research area

Re-representation as work design in outsourcing : a semiotic view

Outsourcing work relies on the supplier’s interpretation of the work delegated by the client. Existing streams of outsourcing literature tend to assume that the supplier should use the same convention as the client to make sense of the work package. In this research, we use a semiotic lens to challenge this assumption by viewing such sensemaking as a process of decoding symbolic representations. This complementary view involves innovative use of digital technology for re-representing the outsourced work through new conventions. We studied a Chinese business process outsourcing supplier in-depth to learn how such re-representation is achieved through the creation of special-purpose languages. Our research contributes to the Information Systems outsourcing literature by providing a semiotic view on the design of outsourcing work supported by digital technologies. Three re-representation practices (i.e., dissociating the signifiers, signifying through new conventions, and embedding new conventions in the digital infrastructure) constitute the core of this view. The results are highly significant for outsourcing theory and practice, not least since they suggest that the use of semiotics and visuals for re-representation may enable suppliers to reformulate outsourcing work and the expertise needed to deliver services

Coordinating Expertise Across Knowledge Boundaries in Offshore-Outsourcing Projects: The Role of Codification

The coordination of effort within and among different expert groups is a central feature of contemporary organizations. Within the existing literature, however, a dichotomy has emerged in our understanding of the role played by codification in coordinating expert groups. One strand of literature emphasizes codification as a process that supports coordination by enabling the storage and ready transfer of knowledge. In contrast, another strand highlights the persistent differences between expert groups that create boundaries to the transfer of knowledge, seeing coordination as dependent on the quality of the reciprocal interactions between groups and individuals. Our research helps to resolve such contested understandings of the coordinative role played by codification. By focusing on the offshore-outsourcing of knowledge-intensive services, we examine the role played by codification when expertise was coordinated between client staff and onsite and offshore vendor personnel in a large-scale outsourcing contract between TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) and ABN AMRO bank. A number of theoretical contributions flow from our analysis of the case study, helping to move our understanding beyond the dichotomized views of codification outlined above. First, our study adds to previous work where codification has been seen as a static concept by demonstrating the multiple, coexisting, and complementary roles that codification may play. We examine the dynamic nature of codification and show changes in the relative importance of these different roles in coordinating distributed expertise over time. Second, we reconceptualize the commonly accepted view of codification as focusing on the replication and diffusion of knowledge by developing the notion of the codification of the "knower" as complementary to the codification of knowledge. Unlike previous studies of expertise directories, codification of the knower does not involve representing expertise in terms of occupational skills or competences but enables the reciprocal interrelating of expertise required by more unstructured tasks

Can Client Firms Achieve Radical Innovation in IT Outsourcing?

There is growing evidence that client firms expect outsourcing suppliers to transform their business. Most outsourcing vendors indeed deliver incremental innovation to client firms. However, radical innovation in outsourcing is more challenging to achieve. While prior studies have provided some evidence regarding how innovation in outsourcing may take place, research has so far failed to conceptualize and operationalize the factors affecting radical innovation in outsourcing. It is not yet clear how contractual and relational aspects affect such innovation. This paper, therefore, is set about exploring the effect of contract types and client-supplier relationship on radical innovation. Results suggest that joint-venture contract and strong client-supplier relationship lead to radical innovation while time and materials and fixed-price contracts are less likely to lead to radical innovation. The strength of client-supplier relationship mediates the effect of joint venture contract on radical innovation. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and practical implications

New Capabilities: Can IT Service Providers Leverage Crowdsourcing?

Technological advancements enable new sourcing models in software development such as cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and crowdsourcing. While the first two are perceived as a re-emergence of older models (e.g., ASP), crowdsourcing is a new model that creates an opportunity for a global workforce to compete with established service providers. Organizations engaging in crowdsourcing need to develop the capabilities to successfully utilize this sourcing model in delivering services to their clients. To explore these capabilities we collected qualitative data from focus groups with crowdsourcing leaders at a large technology organization. New capabilities we identified stem from the need of the traditional service provider to assume a “client” role in the crowdsourcing context, while still acting as a “vendor” in providing services to the end client. This paper expands the research on vendor capabilities and IS outsourcing as well as offers important insights to organizations that are experimenting with, or considering, crowdsourcing