Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper explores the management of expertise in offshore outsourcing projects. While the study of expertise development and coordination gained some attention in recent years, much of this research has been on co-located teams. Little is known about the way expertise is managed in distributed contexts and the challenges distributed teams face when attempting to develop and share expertise. To address this gap this paper discusses the notion of expertise management and concludes that it consists of three key processes; namely, development, coordination, and integration. To illustrate the challenges involved in expertise management processes, an in-depth case study of an ABN AMRO — TCS outsourcing project is outlined. In this case study onsite and offshore teams developed, coordinated, and integrated expertise despite geographical distance, time-zone differences, and different local contexts. Evidence from this case suggests that this outsourcing project jointly developed expertise while coordinating and integrating expertise in a distributed manner. Finally, conclusions are made and implications for research are discussed.

The percentage of young women choosing educational paths leading to science and technology-based employment has been dropping for several years [, ]. In our view, the core cause for this phenomenon is a lack of interest and social support on the part of the girls and their families and not a lack of ability. The specific aim of this paper is to evaluate the utility of building virtual environments in influencing girls’ interest in computer-related educational paths and careers. This is evaluated through an intervention, or action-research, in the form of a class named . This class was offered to middle and high school girls three times over the years 2005–2006. We assert playing and developing computer games can lead to the acquisition of tangible IT skills and a higher sense of self-efficacy in terms of computer use. In particular, we discuss intervention methods that aim at changing socialization patterns by bringing girls into an all-girl classroom, reducing game violence by altering the forms of game action, and removing potentially negative character designs by allowing girls to design characters and game interaction themselves. We assert that within the information economy, playing video games is an advantage.

Massively-multiplayer online games, or “synthetic worlds,” represent a rapidly-growing industry with far-reaching social, technical, and economic implications. In this position paper, we draw on literature from anthropology, sociology, and film to challenge long-standing misconceptions of “games” and “work” and of “virtuality” and “reality” as dualisms that have obscured synthetic worlds from serious consideration by IS scholars. Building on this work and recent reports of businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and educational institutions incorporating synthetic worlds into their day-to-day practices, we argue that synthetic worlds represent a legitimate arena for IS research. We begin by offering a framework for characterizing the nature and structure of the social activity occurring in the diverse array of synthetic worlds currently available. Then we illustrate our position by considering synthetic worlds from the perspective of organizational communication, a substantive area with a rich tradition in IS research. Employing a genre lens as an illustrative example, we identify phenomena and raise research questions the IS community is uniquely positioned to explore.

This essay advances a supplementary definition of “the virtual” that is aimed at helping our research community speak more clearly to the organizational changes and the place-time reinventions taking place in connection with the virtual in the more customary sense(s) of that term. The intent in linking the issue of definition to organizational transformation is not to make proposals about the specific forms, functions, and reinventions that might, or ought to, appear, but rather to reflect on the through which such changes, whatever their character, come about. Adapting Deleuze’s conceptualization of the virtual, I extend virtuality to include the imaginary and fictitious. The focus, in particular, is on the kind of fiction that, in Latour’s phrasing, is “seeking to come true”; thus, our interest is in the fictionalizations in which real actors engage as they struggle discursively to construct their future realities. This calls for attention to the social and political context and, more specifically, to the manner in which the privileges of “author-ity,” for fictionalization, impact what is actualized as organizational structure and practice. The paper concludes with a consideration of the implications for research practice of viewing IT-enabled change, like that which is producing virtual work and virtual organizations, as a form of authorship.

This panel explores the value of institutional theory in understanding ‘virtualization (in its varieties of meanings) and the impact on work practices, organizations and society.’ In 2001, Orlikowski and Barley made an initial appeal in this direction suggesting that IS research could benefit from institutional theory and that organization theory could also learn from IS research in taking the materiality of technology seriously. Since this earlier call, there have been significant developments in institutional theory from within organizational theory, particularly at the micro-level of analysis. However, apart from some notable exceptions at the macro-level, IS research is yet to explore the value of institutional theory for understanding virtualization of work practices. A particular focus of this panel, therefore, is to explore the potential of micro and macro level developments in institutional theory, and the value of a multilevel approach for the virtualization of work.

There has been considerable interest in the topic of virtuality over the last few years among both academics and practitioners. The focus of attention has generally been on how to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing, how to develop trust and cohesiveness within virtual organizations, virtual teams and virtual communities, and how to best support virtual interactions. Underlying this research area is the assumption that we possess sufficient understanding about the nature of virtuality and that we know how to distinguish ‘what is virtual’ to ‘what is not virtual’. Even though several of us have attempted on various occasions to make a contribution in this field, we increasingly recognize that the nature of virtuality has not been well conceptualized in the literature. Part of the reason for this is that researchers, including us, often have the tendency to compare the virtual (distributed and CMC-based) to the traditional (collocated, and face-to-face) environment. We question this purely technological distinction, but recognize that virtuality, as an IT-enabled phenomenon, is increasingly extending its reach, becoming more global and more pervasive across all spheres of society. The theme of this panel is to examine, appreciate, and debate the multi-dimensional nature of what virtuality has been, is, and may become-specifically, its global and local dimensions, including the different interpretations that are and should be given to these dimensions.

Virtuality is often defined solely as that which lacks or is not material reality, and as such, much of the social order that is uniquely engendered within technologically-mediated realities has been inadequately described. This panel attempts to define virtuality on its own terms, instead of as reality-negative, by showcasing four perspectives of social interaction in virtual space. Panelists Elizabeth Churchill, Thomas Erickson, Cliff Lampe, and Rosanne Siino will share insights into the social orders in the virtualities of their interests. Presentations will be followed by a discussion among panelists and panel participants.

Wikis are a collaborative technology that allows for new ways of working and sharing knowledge. While most firms today have been experimenting with wikis, an important element of the use of wikis that has generally been ignored is the role of the people who shape the wiki pages. Shapers ensure the sustainability of a wiki community by helping to ensure that new ideas and contributions are made and organized. This panel consists of four practitioners who play critical shaping roles in their wiki communities, and two academics who will begin, moderate, and summarize the session. The panel of practitioners will share their thoughts on why they shape, how they shape, and how other communities can help to encourage participants to adopt the shaping role.

The panel will provide some variety to the general conference content in the sense that it represents technology solutions and experiences that are socially aware. At this point, technologies and capabilities have advanced to the point that many previous socially-oriented issues have been overcome without this necessarily being widely known. This is the point for a good conjuncture of social informatics perspectives and technological developments. The audience is strongly encouraged to pose questions from their own frameworks for the enlightenment of all, bringing together some disparate disciplines in a common conversation.

Research on the concept of telecommuting or telework, as it is known in various areas of the world, has appeared in information systems (IS) and non-IS publications for more than 20 years. Research areas with respect to telecommuting are quite varied, from Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) use, to transportation, managerial control, work-life issues, and more. A significant number of these studies have taken into account the role of technology in enabling telecommuting. However, recent awareness of the IT artifact issue [] has raised concerns for some authors, reviewers, and editors as to when the technology component is significant enough to consider some of the telecommuting research as IS research. Others, meanwhile, believe that by definition telecommuting addresses the IT artifact issue, and that this should not be a concern. In this panel, we explore the question of whether the IT artifact is an issue in IS-related telecommuting research by examining topics from multiple and sometimes competing perspectives.