Ben Martz

Students' Perception of IS Academic Programs, IS Careers, and Outsourcing

The authors compared the perceptions of information systems (IS) students with those of IS practitioners regarding IS careers, the practice of outsourcing, and academic programs. Results indicate that students and practitioners appreciate the integration of real-life practice in academic programs and that the general perception of IS careers is neutral by sex. However, student and practitioner perceptions differ about outsourcing, fundamental job skills, and IS-specific skills.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF CONTROL AND LEARNING TO PROJECT PERFORMANCE

ABSTRACT Management controls can be divided into two types that can have opposite effects on organizational learning: behavioral controls, which promote efficiency but also stifle much of the learning opportunity, and outcome controls, which foster interaction among stakeholders can add to the learning environment. This article reports on a study that confirms these observations and explores the nature of their direct and indirect influences on project performance. Data from a sample of software development professionals confirms that behavioral controls and learning directly influence project performance, while outcome controls contribute only indirectly through their impact on learning.

Groupware case studies: trust, commitment and the free expression of ideas

The use of teams and groups in the workplace continues to grow and trust and commitment to decisions remain desirable characteristics for team members. Group Support Software (GSS) or groupware software has been developed to automate the basic activities of group meetings and thus, help groups. This study combines the two sets of interests; specifically, it looks at the changes in trust and commitment to decisions exhibited by five teams using groupware. The data set was collected from five real‐world (federal, state and commercial) groups as they undertook their actual (Business Process Re‐engineering (BPR) and Joint Application Development (JAD)) projects using groupware. Using a case‐based research methodology, the data set was collected over a series of 41 meetings and organized around group characteristics such as commitment, trust, openness to express ideas, etc. The analysis hints at positive changes in desirable group characteristics over time when using GSS or groupware. However, the groupware characteristic of “more open expression of ideas” does not seem to be the source of the changes. Finally, based upon these findings, the authors suggest that GSS can impact the social components of a group as well as the production components but the cause of the impact resides deeper than a simple idea of providing an environment for more open expression of ideas.

Applying a standard performance model to a university setting

In 1991, the International Association for Management Education (AACSB) dramatically changed the way “intellectual contributions” (IC) of colleges of business are measured for accreditation. This fundamental change provided the impetus to re‐engineer a basic organizational process – the performance model – in an academic, not‐for‐profit organization. More specifically, this paper reports on one school’s experience with re‐engineering its IC policy under the newer mission‐driven standards without the overriding goal of “profit.” Our experiences are framed using a standard performance model.

Action‐centered team leadership influences more than performance

Purpose – Building on a social‐technical approach to project management, the authors aim to examine the effect of action‐centered leadership attributes on team members learning, knowledge collaboration and job satisfaction during IT‐related projects.Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling was utilized to assess the work environment of team members as well as the leadership practices of their respective project team leaders. Data were collected with a survey questionnaire from 327 team members in a variety of organizations in 15 industry sectors including financial services, software, manufacturing, retail, government and universities.Findings – The identified action‐centered project leadership practices (effective task management, team efficacy cultivation, and individual autonomy support) create a project team environment that fosters individual learning and knowledge collaboration along with individual performance and job satisfaction, and ultimately project success.Research limitati...

A Survey of Distance Education Programs

According to Martin and Samels (Martin & Samels, 1995), distance education is one of the least understood areas of technological change in higher education today. The constant improvement in technology, the rapidly changing student demographics, the constant demand for better educated students, the need for more Information Technology (IT) professionals, and the lack of more universally accepted definitions and learning models have all created a wealth of opportunities in this field. One of the challenges for researchers in this field is finding an accepted definition for “distance education.” For some (Keegan, 1986; Verduin & Clark, 1991), distance education takes place whenever the instructor and student are physically distant from each other. Others (Baird & Monson, 1992) require

Eliciting implicit paradigms in allocating resources

The negative framing and context of performance has received significant attention in decision research. At the same time, historical success appears to reduce openness to radical learning and the exploration of new, alternative approaches. This study elicited individuals’ implicit paradigms within a historically successful, progressive decision situation. Individuals, given the opportunity to re‐allocate time, gave more time to below performing ventures and took time away from above performing ventures. “Illusion of control” and “satisficing” theories were used to explain the individuals’ implicit paradigms.

In search of GSS impact on groups: an exploratory field study

The fundamental goal of a group support system (GSS) is to support the work performed by groups and teams. More often than not, the projects undertaken by groups and teams occur over a period of time longer than a single meeting. However, the lack of longitudinal studies is a concern that has been highlighted in meta‐analyses of GSS research. For example, little is known in regard to the GSS impacts on group member behavior in traditional meetings after their exposure to GSSs. This field study looks at a single work group using a GSS to complete an organizational restructure over a period of ten weeks. The goal is to observe the impact of changes in two sets of groupware‐team member characteristics: the perceptions of groupware over time and the impact of GSS usage on individual team member behavior in future meetings.

Problem Based Learning Systems and Technologies

We are pleased to offer the first installment of this mini-track at HICSS-38. We believe the Problem Based Learning activities can easily be implemented in an electronic environment. In turn, this can lead to a better understanding of learning in general, and more specifically the newer technology-based learning environments like distance learning. The breadth of these applications seems almost without limit. This year’s mini track has our general introduction and two examples of the environments. Problem Based Learning (PBL) is used to enhance student involvement, student learning, student comprehension and overall knowledge retention. PBL takes on many forms, from simple hands-on, in-class exercises to semester long projects and/or case studies. Mel Silberman’s Active Learning Credo sums this up well with his point that states: “What I hear, see, discuss, and do, I acquire knowledge and skill”. With PBL, students are actively engaged in exercises or real-world examples to help them better assimilate the material by showing them the potential application of that material. For example, you can explain to a student how spreadsheets are a series of rows and columns with figures and formulae and give them some exercises to do. With the PBL approach the student might be required to use a spreadsheet to set up, or run a business. Granted, this may be more work for the student but serves to show the student how powerful spreadsheets can be. The goal is to actively engage the student. Problem Based Learning helps students see how their education relates to career fields and daily work tasks. It helps students see that they are not simply being asked to do busywork, but are being prepared for the real world. Utilizing technology for PBL allows a couple of advances. We can now add supporting tools to the process. Students are better able to see what is going on in the problem. In the classroom, students can use the tools that they will be required to use in their future jobs. This allows them to get some real-world experience, and apply that to real-world types of problems. And the use of technology allows us to reach a broader based audience, even to the extent that we are bringing in professionals in the field. We start with the paper “Problem Based Learning and the Business School Environment”. Martz and Shepherd bring up the benefits of using PBL in the business school, and how research streams can come from it. The tie between PBL and action research is also explored. The paper finishes by presenting a model for using and justifying PBL in the business school curriculum. In their paper “Cases as Minimalist Information”, Carroll and Rosson describe using cases to enhance learning in an undergraduate usability engineering class. The paper covers orienting information toward action, anchoring information in activity, leveraging errors and increasing user autonomy. The concept of using a minimalist design for cases is also covered. The next paper “Model Driven Development of Cooperative Problem-Based Learning Situations – Implementing tools for teachers and learners from pedagogical models” describes how technology can be used to support PBL. Sallaberry et al. describe how they built on the Cooperative Problem-based learning Meta-model (CPM) to better allow instructors to describe a learning scenario and document it. They discuss the advantages to tutors and learners of this system, and further discuss the technical architecture which they used to implement other educational tools.

Managing Teams of Teams: Lessons Learned

Recruiters continuously report that one of the attributes that they like about California State University (CSU), Chico graduates is that they know how to work in teams and they are good team players. In addition, every year our Industry Council (an Advisory Board to the MIS program) identifies team skills as one of the most important recruiting characteristics. They consistently vote for continued emphasis of these skills in our program. For the MIS discipline, the ability to work in teams is a given prerequisite for the competitive workplace; one that bases more and more work performance evaluation on group and team skills and less on individual accomplishment.