Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Adopt the viewpoint of a U.S. citizen and recall the contribution of knowledge exchanges (or lack thereof) to the major events of the last 6 years: incorrect estimates of the Al-Qaeda threat prior to the 9/11 attacks, failing to apprehend the culprit behind the anthrax events of 2001, inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Repeat investigations and comprehensive certifications by the U.S. General Accounting Office all report the same theme: more than sufficient knowledge existed to mitigate these events, but the knowledge was in a highly distributed and fragmented form across multiple departments, agencies, and the White House (; , , , , ).

This paper examines the implications for research on the diffusion of innovations (DOI) arising from a growing body of literature in two related fields. The first area concerns the debate on the role of regional and national systems of innovation in the innovation process. The second area deals with the argument that enterprises must move from a “closed innovation” to an “open innovation” paradigm. The review is presented in the context of a case study being undertaken in a subsidiary of American Power Conversion (APC) located in the West of Ireland. Based on the preliminary stages of our work, we present a conceptual 3-D model of Rogers’ innovation-decision process and suggest a series of propositions to stimulate future research efforts.

The intention in this position paper is to propose a possible new future for the technology diffusion research community, based on the integral approach of American philosopher Ken Wilber. The trends and current state of technology diffusion research are reviewed, and relevant aspects of Wilber’s integral approach and its possible contributions are described. These aspects include Wilber’s basic quadrants model and integral methodological pluralism, as well as the metapractices from which they arise.

This paper entertains the notion that software maintenance and innovation are more closely related than is commonly accepted. We consider perspectives where innovation projects are understood as attempts to engineer both the social and the technological, where processes of innovation imply the configuring of users, communities, and artifacts through the work of maintenance, manifest perhaps as bricolage or drift. If this alternate interpretation of innovation is accepted, it implies a renewed sensitivity to research and method aligned to innovation settings, emphasizing subjects’ interpretations, language, perceptions, behavior and even culture. This has implications for developing a deeper and more intimate understanding of processes surrounding software development.

In this study, we explore patterns of organizational communication during normal state and crisis state using e-mail communications data. We apply social networks analysis (SNA) to understand the communication behavior and its structural changes during crisis from a real-world organization’s communication data. By applying SNA, we first analyze the changes of social network structures from normal organizational state to crisis state. Second, we explore the changes of different positions or roles of the organizational communication networks during the crisis. Third, we apply measures of centrality (i.e., degree, betweenness, and closeness) for studying how different structural changes in social networks correlate to organizational hierarchy during normal and crisis state.

It is well known that information systems and technology can facilitate innovation in organizations. For example, companies in the automotive industry are leveraging product lifecycle management systems and advanced information technologies such as automated product design and testing tools, digital simulation and visualization, knowledge repositories of best practices, and collaboration tools linking globally distributed design teams. These technologies are revolutionizing the automotive product development process, facilitating the development of novel products, significantly reducing product development time and eliminating inconsistencies in product design, creation, and production ().

According to Brehm (1966), if a person’s freedom to behave as they choose is threatened in some way, then they will become motivationally aroused to either reestablish the lost freedom, or to ensure that there is no further loss. This hypothetical motivational state is referred to as psychological reactance. While resistance is defined as behavior against compliance, psychological reactance is a motive to behave to recover a lost freedom, and may result in behavior against compliance. It is argued that negative behaviors, which contribute to the poor record of information system implementation, likely contain some element of psychological reactance and that the latter may be brought about by threats directly or indirectly related to the implementation at hand. Therefore, an understanding of the interactions between system implementation, broader contextual influences, such as organizational climate and the formation of reactance, offer an opportunity to base interventions in strategies that avoid or minimize the motive to adopt negative behaviors, and therefore enhance the implementation of information systems in organizational settings.

When Working Group 8.6 was formed, there was only partial recognition among academics and practitioners that implementation of information technology did not automatically translate into adoption and diffusion. Rigorous study of these issues was thus well-motivated. In the last decade, focus on adoption has become mainstream for practice. For example, the UK’s National Health Service program has contractually required its suppliers not only to implement new medical record and booking systems, but also to secure their adoption.

The norm of the 21 century has been decentralization as competition in the marketplace has increased significantly. Organizations commonly freelance or outsource work to other professionals or manufacturers where it can be performed at lower cost. Thus, due to the changing nature of work, there is a need to reconsider the ETHICS of the past. Based upon the new work order, changes in ETHICS are proposed and will be discussed in this paper.

Technology offers great benefits to employees. This study draws from the theory of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and counterfactual thinking theory and posits anticipated emotion to be an important intermediate variable between adoption intention and exogenous factors (i.e., perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use). The proposed model lays the foundation for a richer understanding of employee’s adoption of technology.