TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS

Transcription

1 TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS

2 TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS Enabling the Intelligent Enterprise By ALEA M. FAIRCHILD, Ph.D. Vesalius College I Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium and Greiner International, Inc. Contribution by Bruno de Vuyst, Advocaat (Chapter 4, section 3) Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.

3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved 2004 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2004 No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informations storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

4 This book is dedicated to my husband Bruno and son Michael, for their strong support of my endeavours

5 Contents INTRODUCTION XI 1 INDIVIDUALS AND TECHNOLOGY INTERFACES INTRODUCTION LEARNING OBJECTIVES OF THE CHAPTER 1.1 USE OF TECHNOLOGY BY INDIVIDUALS, IN THE CONTEXT OF VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS Inteifaces: Synthesis of People and Technology Study of HCI 1.2 HYPERTEXT Aspects of the History of Hypertext (modified textfrom Nielson, 1990) Conceptual variables for hypertext development (modified from Romiszowski and Abrahamson, 1992) The Architecture of Hypertext Systems The Primary User Inteiface Issues Some Hypertext-Level Aspects Major Systems Internet Systems with Hypertext or Hypermedia Applications of Hype rtext Basic Elements of Hypertext Authoring Hypertext Usability and Intelligent Hypertext 1.3 MULTIMEDIA Multimedia Authoring 28 vii

6 Vlll Technological Aspects of Virtual Organizations Multimedia in Internet CASE STUDY: BOXMIND.COM CASE STUDY: OPEN HYPERMEDIA FOR SOFIW ARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT KEy TERMS REVIEW QUESTIONS 43 2 GROUPS AND COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY INTRODUCTION LEARNING OBJECTIVES OF THE CHAPTER 2.1 COLLABORATIVE SYSTEMS AND PRINCIPLES Messaging Systems Conferencing Systems Intelligent Agent Systems Coordination Systems Co-authoring and Argumentation Systems Electronic Mail and Messaging Calendaring and Scheduling (C&S) Conferencing Principles: Factors in Decision Making Multiparticipant Decision-Maker (MDM) Rationale Motivation and Methods GROUPWARE APPLICATIONS AND INTRANETS Asynchronous Groupware - Definitions Synchronous or Real Time Groupware - Definitions Ideal Groupware Groupware vs. Intranet Collaboration via Intranets Enterprise Network Environment Application Gateways Information Repositories Starting an intranet Intranet Reference Model Information Mapping CASE STUDY: INDUSTRY COLLABORATION VIA ISWORLD NET KEy TERMS REVIEW QUESTIONS 82 3 CORPORATIONS AND NETWORKS 83 INTRODUCTION 83 LEARNING OBJECTIVES OF THE CHAPTER TECHNOLOGY OF COMPUTER NETWORKS AND INTEGRATION INTO CORPORATE CAMPUSES 84 45

7 Contents ix OS1 Model and Network Protocols TCPIIP Network Model For Virtual Organizations, Why Does OSI Matter? Area Networks: The Difference between LAN, WAN, and MAN Communication Software and Network Management The Internet as a Communication Network Networked Applications 3.2 VIRTUAL NETWORKS IN CORPORATIONS Learning and Communities of Practice Networks and E-Commerce: The Role of Trust 3.3 CASE STUDY: CISCO'S E-LEARNING: FORTIFYING A SOLID ENVIRONMENT 3.4 KEy TERMS 3.5 REVIEW QUESTIONS 4 OVERALL VIRTUAL CONCERNS INTRODUCTION 109 LEARNING OBJECTIVES OF THE CHAPTER SECURITY: TECHNICAL AND MANAGERIAL ASPECTS OF COLLABORATION RELIABILITY AND RESPONSffiILITY OF TECHNOLOGY Management Functions Strategic Reach Technological Leverage Organizational Complexity Organizing the Virtual Partners Leadership Coordination and Control Technology Implications for Employees of Virtual Organizations Steps to Increase Effectiveness 4.3 VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS AND THE LAW The Concept of Undertaking The Issue of Applicable Law and Jurisdiction: Contracts The Issue of Applicable Law and Jurisdiction: No Written Contracts Agency and Distributorship; Employment Tax Consequences Accounting Law Intellectual Property Rights Who Represents a Virtual Organization?

8 x Technological Aspects o/virtual Organizations 4.4 PRIORITIZATION OF NEEDS: INDIVIDUAL, GROUP OR CORPORATION The Role of Trustfor the 1ndividual and the Virtual Organization CASE STUDY: GRID COMPUTING VIA SURFNET Extension ofsurfnet KEy TERMS REVIEW QUESTIONS PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY 139 INTRODUCTION 139 LEARNING OBJECTIVES OF THE CHAPTER PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND CUSTOMIZATION VIA VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY VIRTUAL MANUFACTURING SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION E-PROCUREMENT CASE STUDY: MACH SPEED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: INSIDE THE SKUNK WORKS KEYTERMS REVIEW QUESTIONS 155 REFERENCES 156 INDEX 162

9 INTRODUCTION This textbook was inspired by an undergraduate elective course given on virtual organizations and technology. The instructor could not find a suitable text that covered both the organizational and technological aspects including examples based on today's industry. Other books were either too strategic or too technical for an audience of undergraduate business and technology students who were to use the book. But why was that the case? For the same reason that business and IT people in industry tended not to speak the same "language": indeed, the integration of technology into business strategy has been a recent occurrence, and traditional strategy issues have been decided too high in the organizational structure while technology was too detailed in tactical implementation. With the Internet and the advent of e-commerce, m-commerce, and c-commerce (and the other letters of the alphabet soon to follow), business and technology finally started to become closer, and the interest in technology as an enabler for strategic business decision-making evolved into a mainstream concept. How are we defining a virtual organization? Most definitions of the concept of virtual organizations start with stating that it is "a network between organisations or individuals... ". The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines 'virtual' as: "that is such/or practical purposes, though not in name or according to a strict definition." An organization may be thought of as a number of individuals systematically united for some end or work. Perhaps in this case, we can view a virtual organization as a number of individuals united with a practical purpose, or a practical structure for the 21 sl century. The evolution of virtual organizations, based on economic principle and technological advance, has either focused on process or on structure within the organization. Table I (from Saabeel et al., 2002) shows how the literature has reflected these two views. xi

10 XlI Technological Aspects of Virtual Organizations Table 1. Authors and their main focus on virtual organizations Perspective Structure Process Author Bryne (1993) Aken et at. (1998) Strader et al. ( 1998) Wilderman (1998) Grenier and Metes (1995) WUthrich and Phillips (1998) Mertens et al. (1988) Goldman et at. (1995) Davidow and Malone (1993) Hale and Whitlaw (1997) Venkatraman and Henderson (1996) Mowshowitz (1997) Katzy (1998) Terminology Network Network Network Alliance Alliance Form of co-operation Form of co-operation Combination of core competencies Combination of activities Continuous or institutionalized change Strategic approach Management approach Action or ability If so many have segmented virtual organization in the literature, why are technological aspects important for us? It must be because technology is an enabling infrastructure to connect the structure of an organization to its processes. The constituting elements of a virtual organization, which is a set of independent organizations and their mutual relationships, should possess characteristics that enable them to function as a single organization to reach a common goal. For the network as a whole this implies that requirements posed by competitive and dynamic environment have to be fulfilled by leveraging the benefits of being a network of organizations, which includes the technical benefit of the network as well - a point rarely discussed in the previous literature. This textbook is designed for both undergraduate business and technology (CS) programs, as well as graduate management programs.