Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Support for human-to-human interactions over a network is still insufficient, particularly for professional virtual communities (PVC). Among other limitations, adaptation and learning-by-experience capabilities of humans are not taken into account in existing models for collaboration processes in PVC. This paper presents a model for adaptive human collaboration. A key element of this model is the use of negotiation for adaptation of social protocols modeling processes. A second contribution is the proposition of various adaptation propagation strategies as means for continuous management of the PVC inheritance.

Online communication technologies enhance the ability of firms to engage in on-going dialogue with their customers and leverage valuable knowledge. However, there is little formal research on virtual customer communities. The aim of this paper is to offer new insights of the different customer roles and business benefits of virtual customer community-based collaboration in product development. We present a case study from the media industry, and demonstrate how the roles and interactions have been integrated into a novel form of a virtual customer community, supporting continuous product development with a large base of paying customers.

The concept of business ecosystems is a new, powerful metaphor that steps forward the movement towards symbiotic and co-evolutionary business networks. The literature describes business ecosystems as economic communities comprised of a number of business entities that are closely related the one to the other with symbiotic relationships; as a result, they constantly interact and seek to co-operate to fulfill their particular goals and attain mutual benefits. In this paper we discuss the role of customers in business ecosystems. We argue that the concept of business ecosystems is focused on the needs and the roles of the producers and neglects the customers, especially the end-customers. We analyse the impact of customers’ participation as active members in business ecosystems and suggest that it intensifies their co-evolutionary character and increases their dynamism. We discuss technological aspects of customer participation in business ecosystems.

The paper presents a Virtual Organization (VO) framework which incorporates wireless technologies support at the point of care in the clinical healthcare environment. It reflects the move to patient-centric healthcare given by multi-disciplinary care team collaborating in the patient’s treatment. The work sheds light into how VOs incorporating wireless technologies can meet the needs of the care team. It describes technical factors of Virtual Organizations and discusses their role in a clinical environment. It identifies how existing virtual infrastructures in the healthcare literature relate to the development of Patient Centric Virtual Organizations (PCVOs). It addresses the issues and results determined by a case study. These results inform the design, development and evaluation strategy of the pilot project to achieve sustainable collaborative working of care teams for possible improvements in patient care infrastructure.

This research examines results from a dual case study in defining a model for high productivity and performance of cross-functional development teams in an aerospace engineering community. More specifically it explores cohesiveness and team dynamics over an approximate 4-year period in a project team that recently designed and built a highly innovative propulsion system. The ‘successful’ team delivered this propulsion system ahead of schedule, below cost, and was considered a highly productive team within the researched Aerospace firm. Ucinet is used to map k-cores, month by month, for the entire life cycle of the project. This methodology is then compared to a ‘less successful’ team to determine those variables responsible for high productivity and overall success of a highly technical research and development team. The results encompass the critical times in networked teams that inclusion in membership of the team is most critical for success.

We have visualised informal internal and external networks of practicing forensic scientists and now set out to understand how such collaborative networks function. We propose that tacit knowledge acquired through relational mechanisms of social interaction is a major contributor to the functioning of collaborative networks. In our case study on a forensic science community, we examine empirically such tacit knowledge transfer flows at an inter- and intra-organisational collaborative level.

Electronic collaborative networks are a prevailing concept in actual scientific business management literature. Because of the occurrence of newly concepts as “service orientation” and service oriented architectures, electronic networks and business intelligence, has gained momentum and revival. In the paper we look at the conceptual design of a framework for the development of collaborative services to maintain electronic business relationships. The reader gets acquainted with relevant theories and research strands that need to flow into a design framework of collaborative services.

The goal of achieving full interoperability is still not achieved, despite the high number of tools and infrastructures developed. The objective of this article is to present a framework aiming at supporting seamless interoperability in a business collaborative networked environment. An implementation example from the footwear sector validating the framework proposed is also described.

In order to perform enterprise interoperability projects in an organised and efficient way, this paper presents a methodology which aims at helping establishing interoperability in enterprises in a step-by-step manner. A novel barrier-driven approach is adopted. An interoperability framework is elaborated to structure interoperability issues and concerns. An interoperability measurement approach is drafted to characterise the degree of interoperability achieved. A structured approach is defined showing the main phases to follow to use the interoperability framework and interoperability measurement methods.

The success of change depends greatly on the ability to respond to human needs and to bridge the gap between humans and machines, and understanding the environment. With such experience, in addition to extensive practice in managing change, knowledge sharing and innovation, it would be interesting in offering a contribution by facilitating a dialogue, knowledge café (i.e. bringing in knowledge) on these issues, and how to apply them to new and altering scenarios. When one comes into the area of health care, one major limitation felt by those institutions is in the selection process of physicians to undertake a specific task, where there is a lack of objective, of validated measures of human performance. Indeed, objective measures are necessary if simulators are to be used to evaluate the skills and training of medical practitioners and teams or to evaluate the impact of new processes or equipment design on the overall system performance. In this paper it will be presented a logical theory of Situation Awareness (SA) and discusses the methods required for developing an objective measure of SA within the context of a simulated medical environment, as the one referred to above. Analysis and interpretation of SA data for both individual and team performance in health care are presented.