T.M.A. Bemelmans

Senior Executives' Use of Information Technology

Abstract There is a paucity of literature focusing on the ingredients for effective top management, i.e. senior executives, use of Information Technology (IT). In practice, many senior executives argue that they do not see a connection between what IT does and their tasks as executives. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a research model was developed and tested to assess the factors that influence the use of IT by senior executives. A dedicated system supporting the task of a senior executive, an Executive Information System (EIS), was used as the IT tool under review. A large number of external variables were identified and hypothesized, influencing the core elements of TAM. To test the research model using structural equation modeling, cross-sectional data was gathered from eighty-seven senior executives drawn from twenty-one European-based multinationals. The results supported the core TAM and found only a small number of antecedent variables influencing actual use, either directly or indirectly. In addition to identifying the external factors, three of these key variables are under managerial control. They can be used to design organizational or managerial interventions that increase effective utilization of IT.

e-collaboration: the reality of virtuality

With the development of new technologies, and particularly information and communication technologies (ICTs), teams have evolved to encompass new forms of interaction and collaboration. By focusing on the communicative dimensions of global virtual teams, this paper demonstrates that e-collaboration is more than a technological substitution for traditional face-to face collaboration. It places special emphasis on the importance of structuring activities for balancing electronic communication during e-collaboration (i.e., videoconference, email, chat session, distributed use of group support system) to bridge cultural and stereotypical gaps, to increase profitable role repartition between the participants, and to prevent and solve conflicts. During the past four years, the authors have developed a project involving hundreds of participants from different national cultures working together for six weeks on a specific project. In this paper, we present our experiences and draw conclusions, giving special attention to the structure of the electronic communication required to support efficient virtual teaming in education and industry.

Group support systems and virtual collaboration : The HKNet project

Groupware, and particularly Group Support System (GSS) tools, support organisational co-ordination and interaction between various organisational structures working within a decentralised market that evolves in different times and places. In 1998, 1999 and 2000 an educational project (HKNet) between the City University of Hong Kong (China) and the Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands) has shown that remote collaboration can lead to successful problem solving in multicultural groups. This study focused on 178 participants, all of whom were involved in academic courses on software engineering, informatics and management using e-mail, videoconferencing, Internet phone connections and GroupSystemsT for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions. The task was to participate in a joint project on a chosen IT-related subject resulting in a joint report. The HKNet project created a win-win situation for both universities. Throughout the three-year project, GroupSystemsT supported efficient group problem solving, development of new-shared meaning and cultural attitude changes. The groups wrote creative reports that reflected their having worked successfully together. This paper presents selected results in an abbreviated form and the lessons learned from the last three years of the HKNet experience. Special emphasis is given to social and cultural phenomena. Limitations of our study will be discussed before to conclude with future research plans.

Virtual Meetings with Hundreds of Managers

This paper describes the use of a Group Support System (GSS) in a distributed meeting with hundreds of managers. All were managing directors of the local banks of Rabobank. The distributed meeting has contributed to reducing the lead-time of a decision of hundreds of managers from an estimated 6 months to 4 weeks while at the same time increasing the involvement of the managers. The paper discusses the processes followed, the results achieved, the feedback from the managers as collected in a survey and the lessons learned. The experience shows that large-scale virtual meetings with business managers are feasible today. The participants recognize the usefulness of the virtual meeting but also indicate the need to improve the processes followed and the IT used.

GroupIntelligence: automated support for capitalizing on GroupKnowledge

Group support systems enable harvesting knowledge from groups. The minutes of a typical GSS meeting are mostly textual reports of 10 to 50 pages summarizing the issues discussed, the set priorities and proposed actions. Capitalizing on knowledge generated during GSS meetings appears to be very difficult without additional automated support. We describe our experiences with several prototypes for computer-aided support for consolidating the results of GSS meetings over time. The development of the prototypes resulted in an online service called GroupIntelligence/sup TM/. This service transforms accumulated group knowledge from various sources into a dynamic consolidated Web site.