Media Repertoires - Making Sense Of The Dynamics Of Usage Practices

The concept of communication media repertoires introduced by Watson-Manheim and Bélanger (2007) has extended the existing literature by adding a technology-in-practice perspective to the examination of communication media choice in an organizational setting. While Watson-Manheim and Bélanger (2007) have focused on describing the existing media repertoires (set of available media and existing usage practices for specific purposes) and actual media usage decisions at two different companies at one point in time, this paper seeks to investigate dynamic transformations of communication media repertoires resulting from the introduction of a new platform technology over time. This paper is based on an in-depth case study on the roll-out of a Real Time Collaboration system to a financial service company. It reports on the resulting transformation of existing and the emergence of new usage practices for the purpose of coordinating team availability, thereby pointing out that (initial) usage practices of a new communication technology can only be understood against the background of already established practices and their history

Exploring Nature and Role of Voluntariness in the Roll-Out of Networked Workplace Technologies

In this abstract we elaborate on the changing role of voluntariness during the roll-out process of networked technologies by drawing on a case study of a medium-sized financial service company. We find that as voluntariness might act as a key enabler for adoption of technologies in the beginning, it can act as an inhibitor of full diffusion, and thus ultimate success of networked technologies

IT’S NOT A PROPERTY! EXPLORING THE SOCIOMATERIALITY OF SOFTWARE USABILITY

Usability is typically conceived of as a property of a software artifact (“a software product has good/bad usability”) and tested in user experiments. In this conceptual paper we challenge this established view. For doing so, we draw on the concept of sociomateriality and a case study, which illustrates how usability of a workplace telephony software is perceived and treated very differently in usage practices across use contexts. We find that the software interacts with different types of hardware and with institutionalized ideas and norms in the various contexts of user organizations in such a way that it renders defining usability as a property of the software artifact a pointless task. In fact, we question whether it is useful to conceptualize (workplace) software as artifacts with stable set of properties. Rather, we argue that usability manifests in the sociomaterial use context. We discuss methodological implications and identify areas for future research

DESIGNING THE ROLL-OUT OF ORGANIZATION-WIDE ICT INFRASTRUCTURES - THE FINTOP CASE

Implementing organization-wide ICT infrastructures is a challenging endeavor, even more so when the technology in question is both a network technology and raises privacy concerns among employees. This teaching case introduces students to the German insurance provider FINTOP in the final stages of planning its organization-wide roll-out of the Real Time Communication and Collaboration (RTC) technology IBM Lotus Sametime. FINTOP\u27s IT management is faced with the challenge of how to design the roll-out process in the face of a strong management vision, various stakeholder concerns and a culture of employee participation in decision making. The case is targeted at postgraduate or advanced undergraduate Information Systems students. Its aim is to provide instructors with a multi-faceted case that exposes students to the political nature of IT decision making, as well as the particular nature and characteristics of communication infrastructures. As network technologies, such infrastructures are quite different from more traditional enterprise systems due to their openness to accommodate a wide range of use cases. At the same time communication infrastructures, such as instant messaging and social media are making strong inroads into organizations currently

E-Collaboration Systems in Virtual Organizations - Recommednations for Tool Support Based on Genre Analysis

Advances in ICT have led to the proliferation of new organizational forms such as the virtual organization (VO). While ICT is seen as the key enabler of VO, its notion in the literature remains quite generic. Moreover, the VO itself is not well understood with regards to the work practices at the group level. Using a case study approach we investigate a subsidiary of a large multi-national corporation, which resembles the typical structures associated with a VO: a distinction between a long-term pool of competencies and the flexible configuration of geographically dispersed, short-term projects. The contribution of our study is twofold: first, we provide an empirical account of communication practices (and their differences) in VO pool and projects, based on a genre analysis. Second, we discuss appropriate e-collaboration systems to support these communication practices. We conclude with implications for future research

INCREASING TEAM COORDINATION AND SOCIAL MOTIVATION THROUGH AWARENESS PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY

People working in teams are vulnerable to so-called process losses, which occur when the teams output is less than what could be produced given the capabilities of the team members. Teams can develop practices that provide awareness of each other\u27s activities, thereby enabling them to coordinate activities better and reducing one of these process losses coordination loss. Such awareness is harder to maintain when team members are geographically dispersed, but can be promoted using social computing technologies. We present a framework derived from a case study that identifies drivers of awareness practices in geographically dispersed teams. Our investigation indicates that new awareness practices were developed at times when the teams faced changes in the team\u27s goals, social computing context, physical context, and team structure. The teams developed awareness practices to improve coordination in the teams, but the practices had the added effect of decreasing social motivation losses. Based on these results, organizations that are considering implementing social computing technologies such as life streaming and microblogging are advised to take social motivation into account formulating their implementation strategies. Designers and users of social computing technology are similarly advised to consider latent social motivation effects that might occur in organizational teams when social computing technology and practices are introduced

Should ‘Virtual’ Mean ‘Vague’? A Plea For More Conceptual Clarity in Researching Virtual Organisations

Around fifteen years ago the concept ‘virtual organisation’ (VO) was coined to describe changes in organisational structures of value creation as a reaction to developments in modern market environments. Since then, the VO as a concept has been used to describe different things in different contexts, so that today we find a rather unsatisfying mix of VO notions in the literature. Moreover, in many articles the VO remains underspecified and vague; sometimes even a mismatch exists between VO definitions provided and examples discussed. Motivated by these observations we carried out a literature analysis to explore differing notions of virtual organisation. The contribution of our study is twofold. First, we identify and describe in conceptual detail three distinct types of VO as the basis for future research endeavours. Second, we point to a need for conceptual clarity in researching VOs in practice, in light of the rather different management challenges of the three identified types

Exploring the Dynamics of Culture in the Roll-out and Adoption of eCollaboration Technology: A Case Study Comparison

Implementing eCollaboration technologies implies specific organizational challenges surrounding roll-out and adoption. IT adoption literature has researched the concept of culture and the notion of fit between IT and culture. However, in the context of eCollaboration technologies, cultural fit as a possible influence factor has not been explored sufficiently. Thus, we aim at closing this gap by exploring the role of culture in the roll-out and adoption of eCollaboration technologies. We present two cases of eCollaboration technology roll-out that contrast in the extent to which the technology was adopted. The cases were analyzed from a culture perspective. Although our results confirmed the relevance of cultural fit, they also revealed additional dimensions of the concepts of culture and cultural fit that should be investigated further. Our paper contributes to a better understanding of the nature of cultural influence in the organizational roll-out and adoption of eCollaboration technologies

Activity Awareness as a Means to Promote Connectedness, Willingness to Do Additional Work, and Congeniality: An Experimental Study

People have been shown to exhibit social loafing when working as a team, and these effects are thought to be enhanced when working in distributed contexts. This paper reports on an experiment that examined the effect of activity awareness on feelings of connectedness and willingness to work in virtual teams. The results show that activity awareness indeed had a significant impact on feelings of connectedness and that the relationship between activity awareness and willingness to work was fully mediated by feelings of connectedness. Higher feelings of connectedness and willingness to work were associated with higher feelings of congeniality toward the team, which in turn were associated better team performance. Thus, we suggest that social loafing can be decreased in distributed contexts by reporting the activities of team members

“Don’t pressure me!” Exploring the Anatomy of Voluntariness in the Organizational Adoption of Network Technologies

The design and management of the roll-out of new IT in an organization comprises several managerial decisions, one of which is whether IT adoption should be mandatory. Voluntariness to adopt has mainly been researched as a variable in explaining individual IT acceptance, however with contradicting results. By drawing on a case study of a financial service company, we aim to expand our understanding of the notion of voluntariness. We distinguish between management’s claim that adoption is voluntary (espoused voluntariness) and the perception of this claim at the employee (perceived voluntariness) and team level. Moreover we elaborate on the changing role of voluntariness in the different stages of the roll-out process of a particular network technology. This allows us to observe a dilemma presented in the case: While voluntariness initial seems to be prerequisite for implementation and technology roll-out, it may act as an inhibitor to full diffusion in later stages