Fred Niederman

Issues and concerns about computer-supported meetings: the facilitator's perspective

In an effort to boost meeting productivity and success, managers may employ trained group facilitators. They may also implement group support systems (GSS) for the same reason. The two approaches can be taken separately or together. In this study, in depth interviews with 37 practicing facilitators provided their perspectives on critical factors that influence meeting success and potential benefits and concerns with the use of GSS. Respondents focused on a core of communication and group process skills as critical for facilitator success. Overall, the respondents observed or anticipated more efficient and effective task performance as benefits of GSS technology. Their concerns focused on technology related issues: participant anxiety, systems inflexibility, and systems reliability. Views of facilitators with high and low levels of GSS experience are largely consistent. High experience GSS facilitators viewed technical issues as more central to meeting success, while low experience GSS facilitators focused more heavily on attributes of the group. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for identifying and training GSS facilitators and comments on key issues of importance to GSS designers, based on the facilitators perspective.

Examining RFID applications in supply chain management

Technology infrastructure, business process, and managerial issues must be addressed by IT practitioners as they adapt to the business changes associated with the diffusion of RFID technology in the supply chain.

Sources of dissatisfaction in end-user support: an empirical study

Organizations are investing in information technology for an ever-increasing number of end-user tasks. Extracting benefits from these investments increasingly depends on supporting effective use of information technology and satisfying information technology users. This research explores the end-user support factors that correlate with user satisfaction. This survey of 484 end-users examines 21 potential end-user computing support factors, such as system response time and user training in terms of their perceived importance to the end-user and the performance of IS staff in supporting each. Service quality, the gap between perceived importance and performance for each support factor, is computed. The relationships between these service quality gaps and user satisfaction are tested across different user groups (faculty, non-IS staff and students). Larger service quality gaps in the following support factors were correlated with lower user satisfaction in at least one of the three user groups: IS staff response time, IS staff technical competence, software upgrades, ease of access, cost effectiveness of the system, user understanding, documentation to support training, and data security/privacy. These results are compared to the support factors identified as significant in previous empirical studies.

DSS theory: a model of constructs and relationships

Abstract A theoretical framework for DSS research is developed in terms of the key elements of theory: domain boundaries, constructs, and relationships among constructs. Eight broad DSS constructs (environment, task, implementation strategy, DSS capability, DSS configuration, user, user behaviour, and performance) are identified. Based on a review of the literature, 17 relationships among these constructs are examined. The most frequently studied relationships in the model are the influences of: (1) DSS capabilities on user behaviour; (2) user behaviour on performance; and (3) DSS capabilities on performance. Studies regarding these relationships use a wide variety of measures and present generally divergent results. Although studied less frequently, fairly consistent relationships were observed, suggesting: (1) the strategy used for DSS implementation influences both user behaviour and DSS performance; and (2) environmental factors such as top management support and user training influence DSS performance. Conclusions include: (1) there has been some progress toward understanding DSS based on the accumulation of research to date; (2) past research has examined less than half of the possible relationships among constructs, creating opportunities for new insights; and (3) divergent results on key pairs of constructs may result from interaction with other constructs, necessitating the simultaneous examination of fuller DSS research models to understand the contingencies influencing these relationships.

IT Software Development Offshoring: A Multi-Level Theoretical Framework and Research Agenda

The offshoring of IT development is a significant global economic phenomenon. It influences the lives and fortunes of individuals, organizations, and nations/regions. However, because offshoring so broadly affects different stakeholders, a multi-level theory is required so that influences that may positively affect one set of stakeholders while negatively affecting another are not misinterpreted by an overly narrow analysis. This article discusses how IT development is differentiated from other global labor sourcing and argues that it is worthy of investigation as an offshoring domain. The article proposes that the study of IT development offshoring needs to recognize precursors and results as they affect individuals, organizations, and nation/regions, and presents examples and discussion in each of these areas. The article further argues that the domain of IT development offshoring is incomplete without consideration of interactions between the individual and nation/region as well as between the organization and nation/region. The article concludes by considering the complexity of presenting a complete picture in this domain and suggesting some areas for future research.

The Effects of Facilitator Characteristics on Meeting Preparation, Set Up, and Implementation

Organizational meetings represent a primary means of communication and coordination within and across work units. The trend toward team-based organizations has created a special need for meeting facilitation skills. Despite the growth in awareness of the importance of facilitation skills in both meetings, there has been little empirical research on the role of the organizational facilitator in preparing for and executing meetings. This study surveyed 238 group facilitators regarding facilitator characteristics, pre-meeting planning, room/facilitator preparation, and agenda use during meetings. The facilitator characteristics examined were amount of experience/training, amount of facilitation external to versus within one’s organization, and use of group support systems (GSS). Findings show that these facilitator characteristics each correlate with multiple aspects of pre-meeting planning and agenda use items. The data suggest a typology of facilitators based on the level of experience in facilitation and whether facilitators operate primarily within or outside their own organization.

Facilitation Roles and Responsibilities for Sustained Collaboration Support in Organizations

Research shows that under certain conditions, groups using collaboration technologies such as group support systems (GSS) can gain substantial improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of their work processes. GSS, however, have been slow to develop self-sustaining communities of users in the workplace. Organizations that use collaboration technology may require two kinds of support: process support and technology support. Both types of support involve (1) design tasks (e.g., designing a work process and designing the technology to support the process), (2) application tasks (to apply the process and to use the technology), and (3) management tasks (to monitor and control the process and to oversee the maintenance of the technology). This paper explores how these tasks and associated roles can be anchored in organizations, and the relationship of task allocation patterns to the sustained use of collaboration technology in organizations.

Organizational Meetings Formats and Information Requirements

Managers spend a great deal of time in meetings and the results of those meetings (decisions, shared understandings, action plans) are critical to organizational success. Despite this investment, organizational meetings remain understudied in structure and function. The purpose of this study is to provide additional knowledge regarding how groups use information in the course of meetings employing differentforinats. Based on observations of meetings within 35 different organizations: (a)forum meetings represented the most common meeting format,followedby round-robin and announcements meetings, (b) the use offormal mechanisms for storing and distributing information (agendas, supporting documents) wasfound to vary by meeting format, and (c) the availability and use of meeting technologies was limited. Implications for systems development andfuture research are discussed.

Design science and the accumulation of knowledge in the information systems discipline

Design science has emerged as an important research paradigm in the information systems (IS) discipline, and much has been written on how it should be conducted and evaluated (e.g., Hevner et al. [2004]; Walls et al. [1992]; Vaishnavi and Kuechler [2007]; Kuechler and Vaishnavi [2008]; Peffers et al. [2007]; Iivari [2010]; Pigneur [2011]). We contend that, as a socio-technical discipline, IS research must address the interaction between design and behavior. We begin with a background discussion of what we mean by IS research and the nature of the relationship between design and behavioral approaches to IS research. We discuss the nature of design, design science, and IT artifacts within information systems research and describe the importance of linking design and behavioral perspectives. We illustrate several key points using selected articles recently published in ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems [Schmidt-Rauch and Schwabe 2011; Lau et al. 2011]. We conclude with a vision of IS research in which the capabilities and affordances of IT artifacts are incorporated into behavioral studies; the results of behavioral studies are utilized in the development and evaluation of IT artifacts; and both behavioral and design perspectives are used to address the important problems of our constituent community.

The role of modelling in achieving information systems success: UML to the rescue?

Much computer science literature addresses the mechanics of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) and requirements modelling, but little research has addressed the role of UML in the broader organizational and project development context. This study uses a socio‐technical approach to consider UML as a technology embedded in a social environment. In this study, project developers were interviewed in detail about their use of UML along with influences on their decisions to use this approach and the results of using it. Data were analyzed using causal mapping. Major findings included: (1) that definitions of success may differ by unit of analysis (e.g., developer, project, organization) and that the relationship among these definitions are complex; (2) a very large number of variables impacting project success were identified; (3) a number of important variables exist in complex (non‐linear) relationships with project success; and (4) the majority of interviewees linked the use of UML to project success.