Modeling and analysis of project team formation factors in a project-oriented virtual organization (ProVO)

In this era of rapid changes in the project-oriented R&D organization’s environment, some are actively pursuing joint research to gain a leading edge over other R&D organizations. The condition for joint research is the knowledge that an organization needs from other organizations and the capability of collaboration. This study presents a ProVO model using the concept of virtual organization and project team formation based on knowledge and collaboration. In this model, VO is represented by the capability of carrying out a project and the cost of employment. Capability consists of knowledge competence (KC) and collaboration competence (CC). KC, in turn, consists of individual knowledge and collective knowledge from social network, while CC consists of density, degree centrality, and closeness centrality. To verify the presented model, we conducted a case study on a research institute. The analysis results show that all five project team formation factors of KC and CC are statistically significant. A prototype was also developed for selecting project team members using the binary logistics regression model. The proposed ProVO model can assist quantitative decision making on the selection of project team members by a project-oriented R&D organization from the aspects of knowledge and collaboration.     

Should I e-collaborate with this group? A multilevel model of usage intentions

The use of online collaboration tools for virtual teamwork has been studied extensively, but mainly at the individual-level. We decided to examine the effect of macro-level factors (i.e., team attributes) and applied hierarchical linear modeling analysis to a sample of data collected from 96 individuals nested in 34 virtual teams. Our results suggested that the development of behavioral e-collaboration intentions by individual virtual team members was affected by their perceptions about the system, as described by individual-level IT use theories, and macro-level factors pertaining to the team. The collaboration technology was perceived to be less useful when employed to communicate with social loafers; and collective social loafing negatively influenced the teams’ potency assessments. After controlling for individual-level perceptions of system usefulness, team potency augmented team members’ intentions to use the online collaboration technology with similar teams. It also improved team performance.     

基于社会网络的DDoS防御协作关系优化算法

针对以往研究中协作关系建立过程不合理及其优化影响因素考虑不全面的问题, 基于社会网络思想, 提出了一种DDoS防御协作关系优化算法。从复杂适应系统和社会网络两个角度分析了DDoS防御协作关系特点, 给出了协作关系优化思路; 建立了一种五元组协作关系优化影响因素分析模型, 并阐述了模型内各元组之间的关系; 参考社会网络有效连带关系的建立过程, 采用强化学习思想, 设计了协作关系优化算法。DDoS攻防仿真实验结果验证了算法的有效性, 该算法能够获得较少交互关系数, 降低交互协作信息量, 提高整体防御能力。     

Research on group awareness of networked collaboration within the design team and between teams

Group awareness is the critical content of collaboration in a networked collaborative design team, and it is a meaningful way to study teamwork efficiency. However, existing methods that describe awareness information are not comprehensive. They all set an ideal collaborative environment of the single role and single activity, ignoring the bidirectional and overlapping of the collaboration process. To meet this gap, a novel group awareness method for the networked collaboration design team is proposed in this paper from the actual collaborative process. Firstly, the awareness information granularity in the joint work of the networked collaborative design team is described in detail, and the group awareness model is established. Then, the intra- and inter-team collaboration of networked collaborative design team is quantified, and correspondingly, combined with the degree of cooperation between members, a method for solving the group awareness ability of intra- and inter-team association by adopting awareness calculation is presented. Last, to illustrate the feasibility of the suggested approach, a vehicle interior collaborative design task is taken as an example. This study can provide practical guidance for a related design service platform to optimize team collaboration efficiency and select team members objectively and fairly.     

The co-learning process in healthcare professionals: Assessing user satisfaction in virtual communities of practice

Communities of practice are nowadays an important concept in the healthcare sector. Particularly, the intensive use of ICT has allowed their creation into a virtual environment – Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoPs) developing optimal conditions to make possible the collaborative learning process. The VCoPs antecedents can be situated on social network phenomenon, where individuals with different traits but a common interest/objective are linked, use ICT potency (especially social media) to interchange information, experiences and contents among them. And as a result, people create and share knowledge, and learn collaboratively. VCoP users have a higher satisfaction level in the collaborative learning process when they can: (1) Achieve benefits related to patient diagnosis and treatment (cost reductions, faster management, quality and accuracy of diagnosis, etc.); (2) Increase the share capital of participants and creating networks of trusted individuals. Given the interest in this topic, the objective of this work is to identify the factors that determine user satisfaction in relation to Community Practice (CoP) and the process of building shared knowledge. For this, a sample of 130 Spanish health professionals participating in an online community, and developed in a virtual community of practice, is discussed. The results obtained from an analysis of logistic regression show evidence of the perception of efficiency and effectiveness in collaboration with the members of the VCoP as positively influencing the perceived satisfaction with the CoP. Also, the degree of individual participation in the community affects the degree of perceived satisfaction. The conclusions provide interesting strategic recommendations in the management process of the CoP.     

Managing collaboration performance to govern virtual organizations

The ability to collaborate with partners will become an essential core competence that is required from companies when they are going to take up future challenges. Growing complexity of products and services, increasing global competition and accelerated business processes will exceed in many cases the capabilities and capacities of single companies. The involvement of other companies can help to overcome these limitations. However, only what is measured can be managed. Consequently it is necessary to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of how partners work together in joint processes for a common goal. In other word: the collaboration performance has to be measured. But traditional Performance Measurement (PM) methodologies and indicators are designed to assess the performance of single companies or static cooperation like in supply chains. Evaluation and management of collaboration performance as a particular performance perspective in cooperation is not covered by existing approaches so far. Therefore there is still a need for an approach that provides an information basis for the management of collaboration when companies work together in in cooperation. In this paper, which is initially based on a paper presented on the ProVE conference in 2007, different perspectives of collaboration performance are identified and structured. The considerations are based on Virtual Organisations VOs, a particular type of cooperation that requires usually intensive collaborative interactions between the partners.     

A collaborative design appraisal system for water treatment engineering projects

Water treatment projects usually involve large capital investment. Design appraisal is crucial to ensure project quality and cost effectiveness. The aim of design appraisal is to give the design team an opportunity to evaluate a proposed solution at the design stage when the benefits for change are high and cost is low. Design appraisal is a collaborative decision-making process that requires good communication and knowledge sharing between all the team members. Unfortunately, at present in practice there are many communication bottlenecks that result in decisions being made without proper evaluation and appraisal. The paper describes the development of a collaborative design appraisal system, which facilitates a remotely located design team to work in collaboration, carry out what-if analysis and optimise the design of water treatment projects.     

Utilizing knowledge context in virtual collaborative work

The understanding of knowledge can be impaired if it is isolated from the proper context. Despite the importance of contextual information, there has been limited support for utilizing context in current knowledge management and collaborative systems. This paper presents a knowledge context model, called KC-V, which facilitates the use of contextual information in virtual collaborative work. Four benefits of using KC-V are suggested: evolutionary accumulation of knowledge aligned with collaborative activities, supporting the virtual team lifecycle, improved understanding by rich navigation paths, and searching for knowledge with similar context. A web-based collaboration system called VWSS is developed using KC-V.     

Perceived enablers of 3D virtual environments for virtual team learning and innovation

Virtual teams consist of geographically distributed employees working with a common goal using mostly technology for communication and collaboration. Virtual teams face a number of challenges, discussed in the literature in terms of communication through technology, difficulty in building trust, conveying social cues, and creating awareness, as well as cultural differences. These challenges impact collaboration, but also learning and innovation. This research focuses on how a social medium, the 3D virtual environment, is perceived to enable learning and innovation in virtual teams. We study this through a qualitative study based on interviews of distributed work managers’ perception of VEs. The major findings are that VEs are perceived to create collaborative learning atmospheres for virtual teams in terms of enabling engagement, a shared context awareness, and support in social network building. Another finding is that VEs are perceived to enable team learning, knowledge development, and collaboration through persistence of content, information sharing, learning through role-plays and simulations, and visualization. Furthermore, VEs enable the development of co-created content as well as new ways of working in virtual teams.     

VSculpt : a distributed virtual sculpting environment for collaborative design

A collaborative virtual sculpting system supports a team of geographically separated designers/engineers connected by networks to participate in designing three-dimensional (3D) virtual engineering tools or sculptures. It encourages international collaboration at a minimal cost. However, in order for the system to be useful, two factors need to be addressed: intuitiveness and real-time interaction. Although a lot of effort has been put into developing virtual sculpting environments, only limited work addresses collaborative virtual sculpting. This is because in order to support real-time collaborative virtual sculpting, many challenging issues need to be addressed. We propose a collaborative virtual sculpting framework, called VSculpt. Through adapting some techniques we developed earlier and integrating them with some techniques developed here, the proposed framework provides a real-time intuitive environment for collaborative design. In particular, it addresses issues on efficient rendering and transmission of deformable objects, intuitive object deformation using the CyberGlove and concurrent object deformation by multiple clients. We demonstrate and evaluate the performance of the proposed framework through a number of experiments.     

Gaming the system: The effects of social capital as a resource for virtual team members

Increasingly individuals interact with one another through information and communication technologies in virtual teams. Leveraging the resource-based view of the firm and social capital theory, we examine how a team member’s social capital (a resource) affects the team member’s perception of the quality of knowledge shared within the team (a capability) and the benefits to the individual team member (an outcome). Using the context of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, we find that within virtual teams, relational and cognitive social capital contribute to knowledge quality, which in turn positively benefits the outcomes of individual team members.     

Distributed recommender for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing

A novel model of distributed knowledge recommender system is proposed to facilitate knowledge sharing among collaborative team members. Different from traditional recommender systems in the client-server architecture, our model is oriented to the peer-to-peer (P2P) environment without the centralized control. Among the P2P network of collaborative team members, each peer is deployed with one distributed knowledge recommender, which can supply proper knowledge resources to peers who may need them. This paper investigates the key techniques for implementing the distributed knowledge recommender model. Moreover, a series of simulation-based experiments are conducted by using the data from a real-world collaborative team in an enterprise. The experimental results validate the efficiency of the proposed model. This research paves the way for developing platforms that can share and manage large-scale distributed knowledge resources. This study also provides a new framework for simulating and studying individual or organizational behaviors of knowledge sharing in a collaborative team.     

Science of Scientific Team Science: A survey

Scientific teamwork collaboration is an integral element of the scientific process that often leads to significant findings. Systematic analysis of scientific teamwork collaboration continues to influence both the advance in science and knowledge production. This paper presents an overview of Science of Scientific Team Science (SSTS). SSTS explores the behaviors and attributes of teamwork and team-based collaboration specific to scientific teams from the perspective of quantitative analysis, which refers to a branch of science that analyzes and discovers scientific collaboration patterns inter- or extra-team. Aiming at assisting scientific team formation, improving collaboration environment, evaluating team performance, and fostering collaborative behaviors, this survey presents an overview in SSTS. Theoretical background of SSTS at different team development stages has been discussed. In addition, three classifications of SSTS, including interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research approaches have been investigated. Their associated similarities and differences, challenges and benefits, are also examined. This paper also summarizes web-based tools that enhance one’s understanding and opinion of SSTS. Key technologies and open issues are then discussed. The association among scientific collaboration, scientific teamwork, SSTS, and cross-disciplinary research gives rise to critical implications for scholars who wish to employ and invest in those issues.     

Institutional boundaries and trust of virtual teams in collaborative design: An experimental study in a virtual world environment

Members of virtual teams often collaborate within and across institutional boundaries. This research investigates the effects of boundary spanning conditions on the development of team trust and team satisfaction. Two hundred and eighty-two participants carried out a collaborative design task over several weeks in a virtual world, Second Life. Multigroup structural equation modeling was used to examine our research model, which compares individual level measurement between two boundary spanning team conditions. The results indicate that trusting beliefs have a positive impact on team trust, which in turn, influences team satisfaction. Further, we found that, compared to cross-boundary teams, within-boundary teams exhibited not only higher trusting beliefs and higher satisfaction with the collaboration process but also a stronger relationship between team trust and team satisfaction. These results suggest that trust and group theories need to be interpreted in light of institutional affiliation and contextual variables. An important practical implication is that trust can be fostered in a virtual world environment and collaboration on complex tasks can be carried out effectively in virtual worlds. However, within-boundary virtual teams are preferred over cross-boundary virtual teams if satisfaction with the collaboration process is of the highest priority.     

Modeling job effectiveness and its antecedents from a social capital perspective: A survey of virtual teams within business organizations

This study develops two alternative models concerning job effectiveness, knowledge sharing, and their antecedents related to individuals’ perception about their job effectiveness in a team. Model 1 of this study intends to be as parsimonious as theoretically justifiable. It posits that three dimensions of social capital - structural, relational, and cognitive social capital - simultaneously influence knowledge sharing and job effectiveness indirectly through the mediation of team commitment, while job effectiveness is also influenced by knowledge sharing. Based on Model 1, Model 2 further adds that knowledge sharing is influenced directly by three dimensions of social capital. The two models are tested by collecting data from professionals of virtual teams in high-tech industries. The test results support seven out of nine hypotheses in Model 2. Finally, managerial implications of the empirical findings are also discussed.     

A u-IT collaboration evaluation model for value networks

The paradigm of competition between companies has been changed from the competition between individual businesses to the one between the supply chain management. To gain a comparative advantage in this supply chain management, IT collaboration, which has an important strategic location for cooperation between manufacturers, sectors, systems, applications, and processes and supports them, has begun to emerge as an important key. To date, however, most of the studies have searched factors constructing collaborative networks between companies, and there are few studies on performance analysis for activating collaborative networks between companies. Accordingly, this study would like to conduct performance analysis on collaborative networks between companies for measuring performance of constructing concrete collaborative networks and activating improved collaborative network systems from an industrial viewpoint. In detail, it would like to design a model for determinants to make construct collaborative networks and to analyze the utilization level and performance of collaborative networks between companies. In addition, it conducts correlation analysis on determinants of collaborative networks to improve performance of these collaborative networks.     

Agents-supported adaptive group awareness: smart distance andWWWaware

We study how agents can facilitate and mediate interaction, communication, and cooperation among people. We propose the concepts of a smart distance and an awareness network in a distributed collaborative environment. We illustrate the architecture of an agent-mediated collaborative system - the agent-buddy system that can create a sense of group presence and, at the same time, preserve the privacy of each user. Virtual springs systems are used to model the awareness degrees among team members. Each agent makes decisions by considering multiple factors. The goal of the multi-agent team is to minimize the global awareness frustrations with respect to different kinds of tasks. Empirical studies were conducted to analyze the influence of individual behavior on global performance for various kinds of tasks     

校企合作创新网络信任的动态演进分析

从动态角度研究校企合作创新网络中知识转移中信任的演进,构建校企合作创新网络知识转移的非对称演化博弈模型,分析了参数变化对合作创新网络信任的影响,研究表明,收益分配系数、投机收益、知识转移成本、知识转移量等因素影响了校企合作创新网络知识转移中信任的动态演化路径及结果,并通过netlogo仿真,验证了企业和高校知识转移中不同得益情况下策略的选择及信任的演进趋势。     

Contextualising collective efficacy in virtual team research: The essential role of collaborative technologies in the virtual team efficacy conceptual framework

One factor receiving contemporary interest from virtual team researchers is collective-level efficacy, that is, a team's shared belief in its collective abilities to work effectively. However, our understanding of this literature leads to two concerns. First, depending on traditional team-focused collective-level efficacy concepts conveys an indifferent view of technology that ignores decades of research explaining how virtual teams' reliance on collaborative technologies differentiates them from traditional teams. Second, the information systems literature has largely ignored the concept of collective-level efficacy in virtual team research. That collective-level efficacy is underexamined in IS research is disappointing, given the growing recognition (outside the IS literature) that it is crucial to virtual team success. This absence becomes even more concerning given that IS researchers developed the concept of virtual team efficacy (VTE) specifically for virtual team settings. Unlike collective-level efficacy measures designed for traditional team settings, VTE incorporates technology into its conceptual definition and the operationalization of its measurement indicators. Thus, it is a stronger predictor of virtual team outcomes. To demonstrate its importance to IS research, we used a deductive theory-driven approach to propose and empirically evaluate whether VTE indirectly acts on virtual team effectiveness through the critical concepts of trust and participants' perceptions of problems associated with the collaboration inhibitors of time difference, geographical separation, and cultural differences. This research contributes significantly to the literature by confirming VTE's relationship to important virtual team success factors and informing IS researchers about the appropriate choice of constructs when studying collective-level efficacy in virtual team settings.     

航空制造业虚拟企业协作平台设计研究

航空制造业虚拟企业的生产计划和控制有赖于联盟企业的信息协作。虚拟企业协作平台使航空制造业生产网络内部不同企业主体之间的知识与技术的传递与转移机制与路径得以实现。本文设计的CSSCM平台提供的企业服务和项目服务,主要功能有保障全局信息与共享信息的传递与转移,内部信息的控制和维护,同时其协同管理的功能能将分布式协同项目管理与协作支持技术进行有机的结合,有力地保障航空制造业虚拟企业间信息的处理与传递。