Dianne Willis

Sociotechnical Study of e-Business: Grappling with an Octopus

This paper reports on a study that investigated the status and anticipated development of e-Business activity. A prime aim of the study was to increase understanding of the human and organizational issues that arise with e-Business, and the extent to which these are currently addressed. An expert panel method was used, which involved interviewing 70 leading practitioners of, and experts in, e-Business in the UK. The findings identify the distinguishing novel features of e-Business, highlight the key issues it raises, and provide evidence of current uptake and impacts. The findings include ideas on good practice. The study emphasizes the importance of taking a holistic, sociotechnical view of the complex set of interrelated changes involved in e-Business.

Communication methods to support ‘virtual teams’ as Communities of Practice in teaching and research

This paper looks at communication methods in an academic environment. It discusses how a virtual team may operate within a ‘normal’ academic team working on academic and research activities. Virtual teams in such an environment, the paper argues, develop significant aspects of Communities of Practice (CoPs) as the communication methods utilised such as email, enable the sharing of experience and knowledge. However, virtual educational teams may develop dysfunctions in their working practices and our case study demonstrated a number of these. In particular, the academic team had difficulty in meeting deadlines; experienced ‘free-riders’ (members who contributed little to the team activities); and a lack of social exchange within the preferred communication method of email, meant that creative work was done through physical meetings rather than virtual.ICT we conclude has a role to play in supporting virtual team work and the work of CoPs, and assists on goal accomplishment but care is needed to understand its limitations and to ensure that those do not outweigh its value in the task situation.

Graffiti on The Long Wall: a Sociotechnical Conversation

During one of our many editing meetings we decided to record a conversation which would form our introduction to the book. What follows is a transcript of our conversation which we believe is in keeping with the spirit of what is discussed in the following chapters.