The present study aimed to examine the influence of facilitating conditions on the effectiveness of a Virtual Community of Practice. To do so, we first analysed the influence of facilitating ...conditions on the effectiveness of a Virtual Community of Practice. Second, we examined the mediating role of a sense of virtual community between facilitating conditions and effectiveness. Finally, we tested the moderating role of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in this relationship. The sample was composed of 110 employees of an NGO who used an intranet platform to create, share, store, and use knowledge about their practice. Results showed that facilitating conditions had a positive influence on effectiveness, and that a sense of virtual community partially mediated this relationship. We also found that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use moderated the effects of facilitating conditions on effectiveness through a sense of virtual community. The manuscript concludes with theoretical and practical implications of the study.
Blood banks are an important part of healthcare systems. They embrace critical processes that start with donor recruitment and blood collection, followed by blood processing to produce different ...types of blood components used in transfusions, blood storage, blood distribution, and transfusion. Blood components must be generated at high quality, preserved safely, and transfused in a timely manner. This can be achieved by operating interrelated processes within a complex network. There is no comprehensive blueprint of Blood Banking and Transfusion (BB&T) processes and their relationships; therefore, this study aims to develop and evaluate a BB&T process architecture using the Riva method. This research adopts a design science research methodology process (DSRM) that aims to create artifacts for the purpose of serving humanity through six phases: identifying problems, identifying solutions and objectives, designing and developing artifacts, demonstrating and evaluating the artifacts, and communicating the work. The adapted DSRM process is used to build a process architecture in the BB&T unit to improve the quality and strategic planning of BB&T processes. Applying the adapted DSRM process generated four increments before the outcomes were communicated as a highly comprehensive BB&T process architecture (BB&TPA) blueprint for virtual organizations. Finally, the generated BB&TPA is tested and validated at a reference hospital. A Riva-based process architecture diagram was successfully developed, acting as a reference model for virtual BB&T organizations. It is a novel output in the domain of BB&T and can also be considered as a reference model to evaluate the existing processes in BB&T real-world units. This assists domain experts in performing gap analysis in their BB&T units and paths for developing BB&T management information systems and can be incorporated in the inspection workflow of accreditation organizations.
The in-depth analysis of human behavior has been increasingly recognized as a crucial means for disclosing interior driving forces, causes and impact on businesses in handling many challenging issues ...such as behavior modeling and analysis in virtual organizations, web community analysis, counter-terrorism and stopping crime. The modeling and analysis of behaviors in virtual organizations is an open area. Traditional behavior modeling mainly relies on qualitative methods from behavioral science and social science perspectives. On the other hand, so-called behavior analysis is actually based on human demographic and business usage data, such as churn prediction in the telecommunication industry, in which behavior-oriented elements are hidden in routinely collected transactional data. As a result, it is ineffective or even impossible to deeply scrutinize native behavior intention, lifecycle and impact on complex problems and business issues. In this paper, we propose the approach of
behavior informatics (BI), in order to support explicit and quantitative behavior involvement through a conversion from source data to behavioral data, and further conduct genuine analysis of behavior patterns and impacts. BI consists of key components including
behavior representation,
behavioral data construction,
behavior impact analysis,
behavior pattern analysis,
behavior simulation, and
behavior presentation and
behavior use. We discuss the concepts of behavior and an abstract behavioral model, as well as the research tasks, process and theoretical underpinnings of BI. Two real-world case studies are demonstrated to illustrate the use of BI in dealing with complex enterprise problems, namely analyzing exceptional market microstructure behavior for market surveillance and mining for high impact behavior patterns in social security data for governmental debt prevention. Substantial experiments have shown that BI has the potential to greatly complement the existing empirical and specific means by finding deeper and more informative patterns leading to greater in-depth behavior understanding. BI creates new directions and means to enhance the quantitative, formal and systematic modeling and analysis of behaviors in both physical and virtual organizations.
Many large organizations are adopting agile software development as part of their continuous push towards higher flexibility and shorter lead times, yet few reports on large-scale agile ...transformations are available in the literature. In this paper we report how Ericsson introduced agile in a new R&D product development program developing a XaaS platform and a related set of services, while simultaneously scaling it up aggressively. The overarching goal for the R&D organization, distributed to five sites at two continents, was to achieve continuous feature delivery. This single case study is based on 45 semi-structured interviews during visits at four sites, and five observation sessions at three sites. We describe how the organization experimented with different set-ups for their tens of agile teams aiming for rapid end-to-end development: from component-based virtual teams to totally cross-functional, cross-component, cross-site teams. Moreover, we discuss the challenges the organization faced and how they mitigated them on their journey towards continuous and rapid software engineering. We present four lessons learned for large-scale agile transformations: 1) consider using an experimental approach to transformation, 2) consider implementing the transformation step-wise in complex large-scale settings, 3) team inter-changeability can be limited in a complex large-scale product — specialization might be needed, and 4) not using a common agile framework for the whole organization, in combination with insufficient common trainings and coaching may lead to a lack of common direction in the agile implementation. Further in-depth case studies on large-scale agile transformations, on customizing agile to large-scale settings, as well as on the use of scaling frameworks are needed.
One factor receiving contemporary interest from virtual team researchers is collective‐level efficacy, that is, a team's shared belief in its collective abilities to work effectively. However, our ...understanding of this literature leads to two concerns. First, depending on traditional team‐focused collective‐level efficacy concepts conveys an indifferent view of technology that ignores decades of research explaining how virtual teams' reliance on collaborative technologies differentiates them from traditional teams. Second, the information systems literature has largely ignored the concept of collective‐level efficacy in virtual team research. That collective‐level efficacy is underexamined in IS research is disappointing, given the growing recognition (outside the IS literature) that it is crucial to virtual team success. This absence becomes even more concerning given that IS researchers developed the concept of virtual team efficacy (VTE) specifically for virtual team settings. Unlike collective‐level efficacy measures designed for traditional team settings, VTE incorporates technology into its conceptual definition and the operationalization of its measurement indicators. Thus, it is a stronger predictor of virtual team outcomes. To demonstrate its importance to IS research, we used a deductive theory‐driven approach to propose and empirically evaluate whether VTE indirectly acts on virtual team effectiveness through the critical concepts of trust and participants' perceptions of problems associated with the collaboration inhibitors of time difference, geographical separation, and cultural differences. This research contributes significantly to the literature by confirming VTE's relationship to important virtual team success factors and informing IS researchers about the appropriate choice of constructs when studying collective‐level efficacy in virtual team settings.
The optimization of energy use in family homes and public buildings is an ongoing topic of discussion. State-of-the-art research has almost always focused on reducing the consumption of heating ...systems, air-conditioning or lighting. Despite their importance, user-related variables, such as comfort, are normally not included in the optimization process. These aspects should be considered to be able to effectively minimize energy consumption. Thus, there is a need for a comprehensive energy optimization approach, one that will consider both climatological factors and user behaviour. Learning about user behaviour is key to effective optimization. In this work, the proposed architecture’s capacity to organize Virtual Agent Organizations (VAO) allows it to adapt to highly variable user behavior and preferences. This agent methodology has the ability to manage Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) to obtain user preferences and predict their behaviour in the home or building. The proposed approach has been tested in two different buildings, a traditional-construction house and a modular home, obtaining savings of 30.16% and 13.43%, respectively. These results validate the proposed mixed approach of temperature adjustment algorithms together with the extraction of user behavior patterns for the establishment of a threshold based on preferences.
In this study we investigate how shared leadership is coordinated in global virtual teams and how it relates to team effectiveness. Based on 71 interviews with team members and leaders from eight ...teams from two global software development companies, we found that shared leadership had a more positive effect on team effectiveness when shared leadership was coordinated both implicitly and behaviorally. Implicit leadership coordination is about members sharing same perceptions or cognitive schemas regarding who has leadership over what, and influences whether leadership actions are acted upon. With a mix of national cultures in the team, members are less likely to share the same leadership expectations, which may make shared leadership less effective. In turn, behavioral leadership coordination is associated with the explicit actions aimed at coordinating the leadership activities taking place in the team. This behavioral coordination increases in importance with a higher degree of shared leadership. Our findings contribute to theory and practice by showing that when leadership is highly shared in the team and uncoordinated, it may actually lead to detrimental effects in terms of lower team effectiveness. In contrast, shared leadership may reap its potential benefits if it is well coordinated.
Nowadays, using the online whiteboard to share knowledge in distributed meetings has become a common practice. Existing studies and practices have attempted to visualize attendees' interactive ...activities in whiteboard tools to support the virtual team's workspace awareness (WA). However, the impact of such visual cues on meeting success remains unclear. For this purpose, we primarily explore whether and to what extent WA cues are conducive to meeting outcome. This study applies activity theory to guide our prototype design and research analysis. A customized web-based whiteboard interface is implemented under two conditions. We conduct a study with 42 subjects in a distributed meeting scenario via a controlled experiment. Also, we analyze the system affordance via user experience. The results demonstrate that the benefits of WA cues to meeting outcome are especially embodied in goal attainment and quality of contributions, but not effectively supported in productivity and user satisfaction. Moreover, subjects report that they do not feel distracted by the system's visual cues because they do not notice those cues most of the time and use them only when needed. Drawing upon findings from our trial work, we provide several implications for designing a collaborative knowledge-sharing environment to assist the visual support of WA in distributed meetings.
Organizations are beginning to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) agents as members of virtual teams to help manage information, coordinate team processes, and perform simple tasks. How will team ...members perceive these AI team members and will they be willing to work with them? We conducted a 2 x 2 x 2 lab experiment that manipulated the type of team member (human or AI), their performance (high or low), and the performance of other team members (high or low). AI team members were perceived to have higher ability and integrity but lower benevolence, which led to no differences in trustworthiness or willingness to work with them. However, the presence of an AI team member resulted in lower process satisfaction. When the AI team member performed well, participants perceived less conflict compared to a human team member with the same performance, but there were no differences in perceived conflict when it performed poorly. There were no other interactions with performance, indicating that the AI team member was judged similarly to humans, irrespective of variations in performance; there was no evidence of algorithm aversion. Our research suggests that AI team members are likely to be accepted into teams, meaning that many old collaboration research questions may need to be reexamined to consider AI team members.
Fast-response virtual teams (FRVTs) have been developed as a response to emergent challenges faced by organizations that need to be addressed urgently. Even though FRVTs offer enormous potential in ...terms of their benefits, their success is not guaranteed. When used, the need for high performing FRVTs has become critical for organizational success. However, there is a lack of detailed understanding of how sensemaking can potentially influence FRVT performance. Drawing on social exchange theory, we identify swift trust as a potential antecedent of sensemaking. In this paper, we report the results of a study that examined the effects of swift trust on sensemaking and the effects of sensemaking on team performance in FRVTs. The study included 20 FRVTs and 80 team participants. Analysis of data shows that FRVTs' swift trust is positively correlated with all three dimensions of sensemaking and only the linguistic and conative development aspects of sensemaking affects FRVT performance.
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