Collaborative Information Technology Research Articles

The role of knowledge sharing and trust in new product development outsourcing

The idea of forming strategic alliances with suppliers while developing a new product has been recognised as an effective strategy for hedging the risk in a dynamic business environment. To implement such strategy, new product development (NPD) team needs to understand the factor that may affect the suppliers' interest of involving in NPD. This study proposes a research model to study such emergent area and to explore the relationships among trust, knowledge sharing, adoption of collaborative information technology and supplier's involvement in NPD process.

Collaboration forms, information and communication technologies, and coordination mechanisms in CPFR

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) programmes seek to improve the ability to anticipate and satisfy future demand by enhancing collaboration among companies within the supply network. Despite the existence of a detailed and comprehensive process model—published by the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards Committee—in practice CPFR can take a number of different forms. This paper aims to investigate differences in CPFR implementation as to the type of inter-company collaboration put into practice, and the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and coordination mechanisms adopted to perform CPFR. Moreover, it seeks to analyse the relationships between these dimensions in order to comprehend and explain the rationale behind the managerial choices that lead companies to implement different CPFR configurations. The multiple-case study method is adopted to investigate the research questions. In particular, the implementation of CPFR in seven supply networks is examined. This research identifies six types of collaboration that can be performed to implement CPFR. Then, using this taxonomy as its starting point, it accounts for differences in the adoption of the ICTs and coordination mechanisms necessary to support CPFR. The paper's conclusions summarize the research's main theoretical and managerial contributions.

Information technology and learning: Their relationship and impact on organisational performance in small businesses

Information technology is seen as a key tool in knowledge management processes. Nevertheless, the presence of information technology neither guarantees knowledge creation, knowledge distribution nor knowledge use. In addition to information technology, a job environment and a culture that encourage sharing and continuous learning should also be created and maintained by management. This paper provides empirical evidence of the relationship between information technology and learning in small businesses as well as their impact on organisational performance. Furthermore, the level of sector knowledge-intensity is taken into consideration. Results show that individual learning along with individual and collaborative information technologies have a positive and significant impact on organisational learning. On the other hand, unlike individual and collaborative information technologies, individual and organisational learning have shown significant and positive effects on organisational performance. Therefore, information technology has a significant impact on outcomes only when in a proper context of learning is in place. Small businesses in sectors with high knowledge-intensity levels are more likely to use more frequently information technology tools and organisational learning practices.

Impact of Generalist Care Managers on Patients with Diabetes

To determine how the addition of generalist care managers and collaborative information technology to an ambulatory team affects the care of patients with diabetes. Multiple ambulatory clinics within Intermountain Health Care (IHC), a large integrated delivery network. A retrospective cohort study comparing diabetic patients treated by generalist care managers with matched controls was completed. Exposure patients had one or more contacts with a care manager; controls were matched on utilization, demographics, testing, and baseline glucose control. Using role-specific information technology to support their efforts, care managers assessed patients' readiness for change, followed guidelines, and educated and motivated patients. Patient data collected as part of an electronic patient record were combined with care manager-created databases to assess timely testing of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels and changes in LDL and HbA1c levels. In a multivariable model, the odds of being overdue for testing for HbA1c decreased by 21 percent in the exposure group (n=1,185) versus the control group (n=4,740). The odds of being tested when overdue for HbA1c or LDL increased by 49 and 26 percent, respectively, and the odds of HbA1c <7.0 percent also increased by 19 percent in the exposure group. The average HbA1c levels decreased more in the exposure group than in the controls. The effect on LDL was not significant. Generalist care managers using computer-supported diabetes management helped increase adherence to guidelines for testing and control of HbA1c levels, leading to improved health status of patients with diabetes.

The Adoption and use of Collaboration Information Technologies: International Comparisons

Information technology (IT) applications to support group decision processes have been of considerable interest over the years. With the emergence of virtual team arrangements and the advent of emerging information and networking technologies, an increasing amount of attention is now being aimed at understanding collaboration among group members, as they make decisions to accomplish tasks. Effective and efficient collaboration is critical from a decision quality and decision timeliness standpoint. Commonly known as collaborative information technologies (CITs), many technology solutions have the capability to enhance collaboration and facilitate group decisions in task accomplishment by enabling better communication, sharing of information, ideas, expertise, and evaluating alternatives, irrespective of time and distance barriers. Many studies have investigated such individual CIT solutions in different regional settings. However, despite the fact that no single medium can support collaboration in different types of tasks, there is a scarcity of research investigating the adoption and use of multiple CIT options across regions. This paper builds upon innovation diffusion theory and tests a research model to validate five antecedents of collective adoption and use of seven CITs in the US, Australia, and Hong Kong. Sub-sample analyses of data collected from 344 organizations in these three regions suggest that not only do adoption and use patterns of some CIT solutions vary across regions but so do the antecedents that explain their proliferation. Implications of our findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers.

Using Information Technology to Improve the Public Health System

Information technology can be both a vital tool and critical link in the modern public health system. This article discusses the role of information technology in public health and the activities of the Information Technology Collaborative, one of the collaboratives that comprise the national Turning Point initiative. Data are presented from a nationwide survey investigating local health department information technology needs and information technology use. This data, and data from an investigation of state-level public health information technology, will be presented in a more complete format on the Information Technology Collaborative's online Public Health Information Systems Catalog, a free resource for individuals interested in public health informatics. Recommendations for future initiatives, policy changes, and information technology standards are discussed.

An Empirical Assessment of the Assimilation Patterns and the Benefits of Collaborative Information Technologies

The increasing focus on group work and teams to accomplish tasks has resulted in a parallel increasing need to support collaboration in the modern organization. Information technologies (ITs) are often cited as potentially helpful in this regard and their benefits in supporting collaboration are likely to drive their assimilation in organizations. This study assesses the assimilation patterns of seven categories of information technologies used to support task-oriented collaboration in U.S. and Australian organizations. These include: stand-alone e-mail systems, audio teleconferencing, videoconferencing, dataconferencing, web-based tools, proprietary groupware technology, and electronic meetings systems (EMS). Based upon the availability and utilization of each of the seven collaboration ITs, an assimilation framework is presented to benchmark the current state of practice. An investigation of organization profiles for each IT between the two extreme assimilation sectors suggests that organizations with fewer resources are capable of attaining greater assimilation of certain ITs to support collaboration than their resource rich counterparts. Our findings also suggest that perceptions of benefits of ITs in supporting collaboration vary across the ITs and that perceived benefits of some ITs in supporting collaboration are positively associated with the extent of their assimilation in organizations. Implications of our framework and findings are outlined for future research and practice.

Constructing Interdependencies with Collaborative Information Technology

Constructing Interdependencies with Collaborative Information Technology

Implementing information management in construction: establishing problems, concepts and practice

Information management practice falls under various themes: vision and policy, change implementation, alignment of strategies to information technology (IT), business process re‐engineering, the review of new systems and IT infrastructure. It has been found from exploratory case studies in the construction industry that the current management of information is characterized by systems in which: (1) information exchange between project parties is limited to paper, a medium in which retrieval is very slow and inefficient; (2) functional departments maintain their own data structured to suit their particular needs; (3) most information searching and transfer between project parties and clients are paper based, providing constant source of delays; (4) no efficient interfaces exist between departmental systems to access information electronically;and (5) the impact of IT investment to date has been limited. These characteristics can be first traced to the general lack of coherent management policy and vision on information management. Also, although construction is a distinctly collaborative business environment, for historical, cultural and legal reasons, there is no desire to consider seriously the use of collaborative IT tools. Thirdly, although there is a degree of knowledge of business process evaluation and improvement techniques such as business process re‐engineering (BPR), it appears there is less confidence for management to adopt such tools in its drive to solve information management problems. Finally, the lack of progress in adopting IT to widely improve communication is related to the fact that until now stand‐alone departmental systems have been the norm. Above all, the culture of the industry dictates that each function maintains total independence in all aspects including information retrieval and exchange. The result is that experience of implementing corporate IT systems is lacking and it is clearly affecting the ability to examine the potential of emerging IT or appraise current infrastructure.

Information Technology Choices in Dissimilar Cultures

Empowerment is an important and desirable state for employees within business enterprises around the world. Yet, the pursuit of empowerment across national boundaries may vary due to innate diferences within cultures. This may be particularly true with respect to choice of technologies for achieving empowerment. Using an interpretive field study of Fellows within the Japanese MITI and U.S. Department of Commerce Manufacturing Technology Fellowship (MTF) Program, this study suggests that the achievement of empowerment through choice of information technology is matched to cultural context. Specifically, employees of Japanese companies prefer, need, and use media-rich information technologies in their efforts to achieve empowerment. In contrast, employees of American companies prefer, need, and use collaborative information technologies in the pursuit for empowerment. These findings suggest that information technology is used synergistically with cultural attributes in the enhancement of employee empowerment.

Communities of practice with and without information technology

AbstractDespite strong interest among practitioners and scholars, the study of communities of practice (CoPs) and Information Technology (IT) is short of empirical research. This paper presents a theoretical framework for communities of practice and provides alternative perspectives on IT supports for communities of practice. The framework was developed based on the literature and ethnographic case studies of communities of practice within two organizations. The study examines how people share and construct their knowledge and how they use collaborative IT to support work practices in two organizations. The surprising finding is that the groups that used IT most intensively had the least well‐developed CoPs. The results of the study would inform practice and research in Knowledge Management.

Using Collaborative Information Technology Learning More about Saftety-Critical Events

Common accident and near miss analysis systems (ANMAS) often fails to transfer safety-related knowledge, which match to the demands of technicians in operating, maintaining and designing technical components in high hazard industries. This paper emphasis on problem solving processes in safety-critical event analysis teams, which are identified as key units for the transfer and storage of implicit knowledge in ANMAS. Computer-mediated communication is evaluated in terms of considered event information, the quantity of identified causal relations and learning gains through the analysis. Results indicate a acceleration in collecting information and a suppression of the learning success in computer-mediated event analysis teams. No significant differences were found between FTF and CMC were found for the conceptualization of causes and contributing factors. Results are discussed according to current issues of computer-supported ANMAS.

Infocentric Automation: An IT View of Controls

The world of industrial automation is colliding with the information technology (IT) world. Business trends and technology are bringing these domains ever closer though the convergence of key shared technologies. The organizational and technical collaboration of controls and IT will become a differential factor for visionary manufacturers that link their manufacturing systems tightly to their business systems.

Collaboration and collaborative information technologies

Collaborative information technologies have been claimed to enhance collaboration in organizations, under certain conditions. This claim was found problematic in several respects, also in the light of the results of 18 case studies of Lotus Notes use, taken from the literature. The cases may be split into three groups: (1) exploratory, conservative, or cautious use; (2) planned and expanding use; and (3) extensive and engaged use of Notes. In the first group, no changes in work arrangements due to Notes use could be found. In the second group, the planned Notes applications supported the established work arrangements, both collaborative and hierarchical. Only in the third group were there significant changes towards more collaboration. These changes were due to a conscious and continued effort to bring about new work arrangements and new kinds of Notes support.A number of issues emerged in the review that could help to understand the relationship of collaborative information technologies and changes in work and organization. The issues included the role of the specific capabilities of the technology; the difference between technology as a product and technology-in-use; the kind of care needed in bringing about desired changes; the emergent, drifting nature of the change process; the role of the technology as a constructive tool in improvising and enacting the changes; and the gradual translations of influences from work practices to organizational practices.