Why are scientists not managers!?:the importance of interdisciplinary skills in business and science

Research is the translation from money to knowledge. Innovation is the metamorphosis of knowledge to money. Thus, business management and science are interdependent. That is no big news. But, in an ever faster changing economy, companies need a new type of scientist. Someone who knows not only science, but also business administration and management. Can the educational system satisfy those needs? In our opinion more work needs to be done – especially in the minds of scientists and managers alike

Effect of crystallization kinetics on the properties of spray dried microparticles

A droplet chain technique was used to study the influence of the crystallization process on the morphology of spray dried microparticles. A piezoceramic dispenser produced a chain of monodisperse solution droplets with an initial diameter in the range of 60–80 µm. Aqueous solutions of sodium nitrate were prepared in concentrations ranging from 5 mg/ml to 5⋅10−5 mg/ml. The solution droplets were injected into a laminar flow with gas temperatures varying from 25 to 150°C, affecting the droplet temperature and the evaporation rate, accordingly. Dried particles with diameters between 0.3 and 18 µm were collected. The properties of the collected microparticles were studied and correlated with a particle formation model which predicted the onset of saturation and crystallization. The model accounted for the dependence of the diffusion coefficient of sodium nitrate in water on droplet viscosity. The viscosity trend for sodium nitrate solutions was determined by studying the relaxation time observed during coalescence of two aqueous sodium nitrate droplets levitated in optical tweezers. The combination of theoretical derivations and experimental results showed that longer time available for crystallization correlates with larger crystal size and higher degrees of crystallinity in the final microparticles

Media Repertoires - Making Sense Of The Dynamics Of Usage Practices

The concept of communication media repertoires introduced by Watson-Manheim and Bélanger (2007) has extended the existing literature by adding a technology-in-practice perspective to the examination of communication media choice in an organizational setting. While Watson-Manheim and Bélanger (2007) have focused on describing the existing media repertoires (set of available media and existing usage practices for specific purposes) and actual media usage decisions at two different companies at one point in time, this paper seeks to investigate dynamic transformations of communication media repertoires resulting from the introduction of a new platform technology over time. This paper is based on an in-depth case study on the roll-out of a Real Time Collaboration system to a financial service company. It reports on the resulting transformation of existing and the emergence of new usage practices for the purpose of coordinating team availability, thereby pointing out that (initial) usage practices of a new communication technology can only be understood against the background of already established practices and their history

Exploring Nature and Role of Voluntariness in the Roll-Out of Networked Workplace Technologies

In this abstract we elaborate on the changing role of voluntariness during the roll-out process of networked technologies by drawing on a case study of a medium-sized financial service company. We find that as voluntariness might act as a key enabler for adoption of technologies in the beginning, it can act as an inhibitor of full diffusion, and thus ultimate success of networked technologies

DESIGNING THE ROLL-OUT OF ORGANIZATION-WIDE ICT INFRASTRUCTURES - THE FINTOP CASE

Implementing organization-wide ICT infrastructures is a challenging endeavor, even more so when the technology in question is both a network technology and raises privacy concerns among employees. This teaching case introduces students to the German insurance provider FINTOP in the final stages of planning its organization-wide roll-out of the Real Time Communication and Collaboration (RTC) technology IBM Lotus Sametime. FINTOP\u27s IT management is faced with the challenge of how to design the roll-out process in the face of a strong management vision, various stakeholder concerns and a culture of employee participation in decision making. The case is targeted at postgraduate or advanced undergraduate Information Systems students. Its aim is to provide instructors with a multi-faceted case that exposes students to the political nature of IT decision making, as well as the particular nature and characteristics of communication infrastructures. As network technologies, such infrastructures are quite different from more traditional enterprise systems due to their openness to accommodate a wide range of use cases. At the same time communication infrastructures, such as instant messaging and social media are making strong inroads into organizations currently

E-Collaboration Systems in Virtual Organizations - Recommednations for Tool Support Based on Genre Analysis

Advances in ICT have led to the proliferation of new organizational forms such as the virtual organization (VO). While ICT is seen as the key enabler of VO, its notion in the literature remains quite generic. Moreover, the VO itself is not well understood with regards to the work practices at the group level. Using a case study approach we investigate a subsidiary of a large multi-national corporation, which resembles the typical structures associated with a VO: a distinction between a long-term pool of competencies and the flexible configuration of geographically dispersed, short-term projects. The contribution of our study is twofold: first, we provide an empirical account of communication practices (and their differences) in VO pool and projects, based on a genre analysis. Second, we discuss appropriate e-collaboration systems to support these communication practices. We conclude with implications for future research

INCREASING TEAM COORDINATION AND SOCIAL MOTIVATION THROUGH AWARENESS PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY

People working in teams are vulnerable to so-called process losses, which occur when the teams output is less than what could be produced given the capabilities of the team members. Teams can develop practices that provide awareness of each other\u27s activities, thereby enabling them to coordinate activities better and reducing one of these process losses coordination loss. Such awareness is harder to maintain when team members are geographically dispersed, but can be promoted using social computing technologies. We present a framework derived from a case study that identifies drivers of awareness practices in geographically dispersed teams. Our investigation indicates that new awareness practices were developed at times when the teams faced changes in the team\u27s goals, social computing context, physical context, and team structure. The teams developed awareness practices to improve coordination in the teams, but the practices had the added effect of decreasing social motivation losses. Based on these results, organizations that are considering implementing social computing technologies such as life streaming and microblogging are advised to take social motivation into account formulating their implementation strategies. Designers and users of social computing technology are similarly advised to consider latent social motivation effects that might occur in organizational teams when social computing technology and practices are introduced

IT’S NOT A PROPERTY! EXPLORING THE SOCIOMATERIALITY OF SOFTWARE USABILITY

Usability is typically conceived of as a property of a software artifact (“a software product has good/bad usability”) and tested in user experiments. In this conceptual paper we challenge this established view. For doing so, we draw on the concept of sociomateriality and a case study, which illustrates how usability of a workplace telephony software is perceived and treated very differently in usage practices across use contexts. We find that the software interacts with different types of hardware and with institutionalized ideas and norms in the various contexts of user organizations in such a way that it renders defining usability as a property of the software artifact a pointless task. In fact, we question whether it is useful to conceptualize (workplace) software as artifacts with stable set of properties. Rather, we argue that usability manifests in the sociomaterial use context. We discuss methodological implications and identify areas for future research

Should ‘Virtual’ Mean ‘Vague’? A Plea For More Conceptual Clarity in Researching Virtual Organisations

Around fifteen years ago the concept ‘virtual organisation’ (VO) was coined to describe changes in organisational structures of value creation as a reaction to developments in modern market environments. Since then, the VO as a concept has been used to describe different things in different contexts, so that today we find a rather unsatisfying mix of VO notions in the literature. Moreover, in many articles the VO remains underspecified and vague; sometimes even a mismatch exists between VO definitions provided and examples discussed. Motivated by these observations we carried out a literature analysis to explore differing notions of virtual organisation. The contribution of our study is twofold. First, we identify and describe in conceptual detail three distinct types of VO as the basis for future research endeavours. Second, we point to a need for conceptual clarity in researching VOs in practice, in light of the rather different management challenges of the three identified types