VOSS: Virtual organizations in action: Understanding socio-technical systems through changes in structure and technology

VOSS：行动中的虚拟组织：通过结构和技术的变化了解社会技术系统

• 批准号: 1122286
• 负责人: Jonathon Cummings
• 金额: $ 39.99万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1122286&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: VOSS; Virtual; organizations; action; Understanding

Virtual organizations are groups of individuals whose members and resources may be distributed geographically and structurally, yet who function as a coherent unit through the use of collaborative technology. In the context of business, virtual organizations offer the promise of growth and innovation through flexible and fluid structures, yet employees face the challenge of managing coordination costs as a result of the dynamic and evolving work. New collaborative technologies, such as those that facilitate communication and knowledge sharing as well as social media and task integration capabilities, offer coordination benefits that could counter, and possibly exceed, the coordination costs that arise from working in virtual organizations.Through qualitative interviews of individuals and an online survey of working groups, this project will: (a) define and measure features of organization structure, collaborative technology, and workflow outcomes in a range of structures (including virtual organization structures) within a business organization adopting a new and emergent organizational structure, (b) describe the consequences (positive and negative) of different organization structures and collaborative technologies in terms of their impact on workflow outcomes, and (c) create a public web-based resource that can be used by the organizational and technology communities to better understand the kinds of structures and technologies that affect workflow outcomes.Research on the intersection of virtual organization structures and collaborative technology is still in its infancy. Data collected from this unique empirical setting will provide critical insight into how new structures and new technologies influence each other as well as workflow outcomes. In addition to furthering scientific understanding of virtual organizations, a potentially transformative outcome of this research is facilitating understanding of virtual organizations for science, education, healthcare, and other types of organizations. Moreover, study results can be incorporated into the design and testing of collaborative technology, which could contribute to new advances in tools to support distributed work.

虚拟组织是一组个人，其成员和资源可能在地理上和结构上分布，但通过使用协作技术作为一个连贯的单位发挥作用。在商业环境中，虚拟组织通过灵活多变的结构提供增长和创新的承诺，但由于动态和不断变化的工作，员工面临着管理协调成本的挑战。通过对个人的定性访谈和对工作组的在线调查，本项目将：(A)在采用新的和新兴的组织结构的商业组织内定义和衡量组织结构、协作技术和工作流程结果的特征；(B)描述不同组织结构和协作技术对工作流程结果的影响(正面和负面)；以及(C)创建可供组织和技术界使用的公共网络资源，以更好地了解影响工作流程成果的各种结构和技术。虚拟组织结构和协作技术的交叉研究仍处于起步阶段。从这一独特的经验背景中收集的数据将为新结构和新技术如何相互影响以及工作流程结果提供重要的洞察力。除了促进对虚拟组织的科学理解之外，这项研究的一个潜在的变革性成果是促进对科学、教育、医疗保健和其他类型组织的虚拟组织的理解。此外，研究结果可以纳入协作技术的设计和测试，这可能有助于在支持分布式工作的工具方面取得新的进展。