Join the Network Stock Research Type ticker or keyword Information Now! News Portal Time; Weather; Currency Research, Books & Articles on New Organization Forms [IS Productivity & Outsourcing Policy] [Virtual Corporations & Network Organizations | Outsourcing] [Other WWW Resources on New Organization Forms] Intranets: What? Why? How? Research, Books & Articles on New Organization Forms Virtual Corporations & Network Organizations Virtual Corporations, Human Issues & Information Technology (Malhotra) The viability of a virtual corporation depends on the technological infrastructure as well as the human infrastructure which facilitates effective communication via the mediating technologies. Neither of them is less important: deployment of advanced information technologies needs to be informed by the advanced thinking on the issues of organizational control. Role of Information Technology in Managing Organizational Change and Organizational Interdependence (Malhotra) This paper discusses the application of open systems theory for generating propositions regarding the management of organizational change and organizational interdependence by application of IT. The commonly preferred approaches - goal theory, population ecology, systems resource theory and transaction costs theory - are inadequate in providing a "wholistic" perspective of the organizational issues. The article argues that the survival and growth of organizations in an increasingly turbulent environment would depend upon effective utilization of information technology for aligning the organizational structure with environmental preferences and for creating symbiotic interorganizational structures. The Virtual IT Organization (Information Week) How companies are assuming 'virtuality' by forming outsourcing alliances. For more on Outsourcing, CLICK HERE Remote Access On The Rise (Information Week) Outsourcers tapped to support telecommuting. Information Technology and Productivity: A Review of the Literature (Brynjolfsson & Yang) Information Technology, Incentives and the Optimal Number of Suppliers (Bakos & Brynjolfsson) Despite cheap communication costs and aggressive competition, many firms are finding it profitable to work with selected "partners" instead of exploiting the choice offered by the 'electronic market' model. Shifting from the earlier focus on coordination costs, this paper builds its argument based upon the need to provide relationship-specific incentives for the suppliers to invest in "non-contractibles" such as innovation, responsiveness and information sharing. An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Information Technology and Firm Size (Brynjolfsson et al.) (157K) Based on industry-level data, this paper attempts to assess if rapid growth of [and related investments in] information technology is related to decrease in average size of firms. Positive support is found in terms of correlations of data items. The authors suggest that the effect of IT investment on the organization size is generally most pronounced after a lag of two to three years. Also of related interest: An Incomplete Contracts Theory of Information, Technology and Organization (Brynjolffson). Abstract Available. Restructuring Networks: Legacies, Linkages, and Localities in Postsocialism Interorganizational Networks and the Changing Employment Contract A Conceptual Model of Interorganizational Networks - A Parsonsian Perspective Information Networks Policy: Readings Wiring the "New Organization": Integrating Collaborative Technologies and Team-Based Work (Ruhleder, Jordan & Elmes) Presented at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management; Recipient of the "Best Paper" Award in the OCIS Division. At Verifone It's a Dog's Life (And They Love It!) Lessons on technology and psychology from a virtual organization. This radically decentralized organization holds together within a global 24-hour workday by means of robust computer networks, yet realizes that "the true power of growing any enterprise is 5% technology and 95% psychology." Also see Remote Control: 'It's the People, Stupid' by Bill Pape, co-founder of Verifone. Trust and its Relevance to Individuals and Groups in Institutions Facing Chang (Chapman) This Organization is Dis-Organization A brief on the Danish company that stimulates innovation by encouraging dis-organization of the organization. The company thrives on the philosophy of achieving breakthroughs by combining 'technology with audiology, psychology, and imagination' and treats the organizational metaphor as the enemy of the emergent organization that needs to thrive on employees who are creative and action-oriented. Computing for the People: Social Computing in 'Virtual' Domains High Concepts and Low Hanging Fruit: Using Information Technologies to Mobilize Organizational Change (Tillquist) Virtual Enterprises: Some Definitions Virtual Enterprises: Some Publications (Non-english) The Boundaryless Organization (Ashkenas): A Review (Wensle) Ashkenas et al. argue that to be responsive, innovative, flexible and integrated, organizations need to break four different types of barriers: vertical , horizontal, external, and geographic. Accordingly, all transformation efforts must be assessed in terms of their contribution to improved performance along these directions. They relate this discussion to the company's choice of strategic direction and emphasize the need for experimentation and communication. Working at Home: The Right Way to Be A Star in Your Bunny Sleepers (Fortune, March 1997) How the virtual corporations are defining the 'task-mobility' fit. The New Workplace (Business Week, April 29, 1996) The 'Office of the Future' is shaping up to offer 'Work Anywhere, Anytime' through means such as Telecommuting and Hoteling in order to reduce Cycle Time. This article offers an overview of how some companies are making it all happen. The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems (Book Review & Links) The Death of Competition: Rise of the Business Ecosystems (Network Organizations) Bionomics: Articles Competitiveness through 'Complementarities' (CIO Interview with Michael Porter) According to this concept, sustainable competitive advantage is a derivative of systems that are complementary or synergistic in nature. As a result, emulation of a specific system or strategy - because of its systemic synergistic nature - doesn't yield a comparable advantage to the competitor. Porter highlights that information technology can play an important role in achieving complimentarities across various activities. October '96 issue of Technology Review profiles research from some leading technology research programs which suggests that productivity gains from expanded use of technology cannot occur in the absence of a number of corresponding developments, such as the introduction of more flexible workplace structures, more delegation of responsibility to lower-level workers, increased skills training for workers and managers, etc. CLOs: An Industry Case Study of the Electronic Markets Hypothesis (Hess & Kemerer) MIS Quarterly Paper of the Year 1994 Using five cases from the Computerized Loan Origination systems (CLOs), the authors test the predictions from the Electronic Markets Hypothesis. Their findings suggest that some predictions of EMH are validated, while others are not. Provide theoretical and logical arguments for augmenting the EMH. Co-opetition Co-opetition Interactive (Brandenburger & Nalebuff) Online complement to the book of the same name: Co-opetition. Extended Enterprises Spell Success: Network Organizations Now That Travel Can Be Virtual, Will Congestion Virtually Disappear? (Scientific American, Oct. '97) Telecommuting '96 Proceedings (Eds: Richard T. Watson & Robert P. Bostrom) Full-Text Articles in PDF and HTML formats Telecommuting: Culture, Social Roles, and Managing Telecommuters Telecommuting: The New Product Opportunity (Chevron & Primeau) Telecommuting and Home Office Resources on the Internet (Global Virtual Team Collaboration) Telecommuting Links: Home Office Mall The Many Virtues of the Virtual Office Mutable Markets: 'Marketspace' How Internet Eliminates the Middlemen: Car Dealers on the Chopping Block Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication: Play & Performance in Computer Mediated Communication Rethinking the Impact of Information Technology on Transaction Costs and Outsourcing Practices (Jacobides) From Vendors to Partners: Information Technology and Incomplete Contracts in Buyer-Supplier Relationships (Bakos & Brynjolfsson) The Productivity of Information Technology: Review and Assessment (Brynjolffson) Explicit and Implicit Structuring of Genres: Electronic Communication in a Japanese R&D Organization Papers on Virtual Corporations (Virtuelle Unternehmen): German (Pascal Sieber) Getting the Seats of Your Pants Dirty: Strategies for Ethnographic Research on Virtual Communities Internet Communities (Business Week, Cover Story, May 5, 1997) How some Internet entrepreneurs are making the buck... by not focusing on net surfing. They are setting up virtual communities having shared interests and providing them with a sense of community. Virtual Learning Communities Links to Papers & Resources Electric (Cyberspace) Communities Home Page Electric Communities: The Habitat Papers The Interdisciplinary Study of Coordination (Malone & Crowston) A Taxonomy Of Organizational Dependencies and Coordination Mechanisms (Crowston) The Theory of Coordination: A Critique (Malhotra) Virtual Offices: New Arrangements for Redefining Organization Boundaries The Strategist and the Web: a Guide to Internet Resources Beyond the M-Form: Toward a Managerial Theory of the Firm Changing the Centralized Mind (Technology Review) What Will the Future Hold? IT & Business Trends in the Next Millenium Trends in Technology over the Next Few Years Mapping the Future of Information Technology [Organization] Winners And Losers: Industry Structure In The Converging World Of Telecommunications, Computing And Entertainment An Empirical Study on Orientation of Shared Workspaces and Interpersonal Spaces in Video-Mediated Collaboration Building a Media-Space across Wide-Area General Purpose Networks Communicating About Communicating: Cross-Disciplinary Design of a Media Space Interface Issues In Deploying The Technology For A Media Space Field Study Managing Cross-Disciplinary Research : A Case Study A Network Services Interface for Telepresence Applications Future of IS Organization Infrastructure 1995 (NCRI) Future of IS Organization Infrastructure 1994 (NCRI) Banking and Investing on the Web: Redefining the Business of Finance Growing Pains: Hostile Exchanges [between Old and New Organizational Models] Information Entrepreneurs (CW 1995 Report on Premier 100) Internet Information Services, Inc.: Outsourcing Vendor The Internet: A Future Tragedy of the Commons? Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century (Sloan CCS) Papers on Doing Business on the Web Using Internet Tools to Unify the Organization WWW-based Home Banking Services In Switzerland Electronic Markets in Tourism IT-Enabled Cooperations: A Resource-Based Approach The Adoption of Financial-Edifact in the United Kingdom and Switzerland Application of Life Cycle Theory to Interorganisational Systems Research Electronic Markets as Emergent Organizations We Have the Information You Want, But Getting It Will Cost You: Being Held Hostage by Information Overload The Sociable Web (Paper) Trying to Grasp the Intangible (Virtual Corporation) Organizational and Corporate Info Systems (2nd WWW Conference: Papers) Commercialization and Economics of the Web (2nd WWW Conference: Papers) Evolving Novel Organizational Forms (Crowston) This paper reports research that used genetic algorithms (GA) to search for novel organizational forms by reproducing some of the mechanics of organizational evolution. The paper provides an overview of GA and its application to organizational forms. A simple model is presented to illustrate the approach. Technology, Teams and Organizations: Implementing Groupware at Texaco (Applegate, DeSanctis & Jackson) Learning from NOTES: Organizational Issues in Groupware Implementation (Orlikowski) Genre Repertoire: Norms and Forms for Work and Interaction (Orlikowski & Yates) Shaping Electronic Communication: The Metastructuring of Technology in Use (Orlikowski et al.) More WWW Sites Related to 'Virtual Organization' Outsourcing Latest ASP / Outsourcing Headlines [Computerworld] An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Information Systems Productivity and the Role of Outsourcing Policy IS Productivity And Outsourcing Policy: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Analysis (Malhotra) This paper proposes an integrative conceptual framework for analyzing the interrelationships between IS outsourcing policy, the business and financial strategy considerations, and IS productivity. Published in the Proceedings of Inaugural Americas Conference on Information Systems (Managerial Papers), 1995. This study is based on a different research model and research methodology, however the key findings parallel those from Strassmann's analysis documented in Outsourcing: A Game for Losers. IS Productivity And Outsourcing Policy: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Analysis (Malhotra) Presentation made at the Inaugural Americas Conference on Information Systems, Association for Information Systems (Managerial Papers), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, August 25-27, 1995. (378K) Needs Powerpoint Viewer. Surviving Supply Chain Integration: Strategies for Small Manufacturers Full-Text Book Breaking Away: The Thrills and Chills of Launching an [Internal] IS Business An increasing number of corporate IT departments have declared themselves independent consulting organizations with their own profit and loss responsibilities. This story discusses the case study of the Hartford's internal IS division that has been spun of as an autonomous entity with its own profit-and- loss responsibilities and gathering the capability of providing not only internal customers, but also external clients. Information Technology Outsourcing Articles: Computerworld Outsourcing Backlash (Information Week, Sep. 29, 1997) Many companies aren't getting what they wanted from their outsourcing deals. Some are so disillusioned that they're bringing IT back in-house. Piece Meal Ticket (Information Week, July 14, 1997) The art of the outsourcing deal is shifting away from the megadeals to small and selective outsourcing contracts in which in-house talent is usually retained for development of new strategic and technical skills. Global Connection to Shared Services Defines the insourcing response to outsourcing... with full-time employees acting as intrapreneurs and consultants within internal service units. Why need to outsource if you can have all the benefits and more by insourcing? The Downside to Outsourcing (Electronic Buyers News, July 14, 1997) The downside of outsourcing in the electronics industry, specifically the impact it has on industry marketing and distribution patterns, has not been adequately considered. As a result, various intermediaries in the pipeline end up fighting for the same piece of the pie. Hidden Partners, Hidden Dangers (Information Week, Jan. 20, 1997) When your outsourcing vendor subcontracts the services to another subcontractor, it opens up a Pandorra's box of issues related to control, communication and security issues - two times over. While some corporations such as GM ensure strategic control of the outsourced services, others such as UPS rule out outsourcing to retain flexibility in face of rapid business change. CIO Group With Clout: Collaboration of Outsourcing Buyers (Information Week, June 23, 1997) A group of CIOs at 16 major companies with megadeal outsourcing contracts has quietly emerged as one of the most powerful user groups in the has quietly emerged as one of the most powerful user groups in the IT industry. The organization is known as the International Information Technology Users Group Inc. (IITUG). How We Evaluated Productivity Computerworld Premier 100 rankings using Strassmann's Information Productivity(tm) Index. Outsourcing: A Quick Overview from CIO Outsource! Manufacturing, Distribution And Product Development (Information Week, Dec. 09, 1996) Taking Outsourcing To The Next Level -- A Step-By-Step Approach To Becoming A Virtual Corporation. Outsourcing Success Means Making the Right Moves A review of some outsourcing case studies suggests contract management as the key component of an IS outsourcing deal. However, in the final analysis, outsourcing is about people and jobs, hence human factors need careful consideration. The Myth of Best Practices Paul Strassmann's analysis reveals an interesting aspect about the 'best practice' of outsourcing. The Premier 100 firms do selective outsourcing, but retain most of their information management capabilities as their core competence for leveraging company-specific know-how. Outsourcing: A Game for Losers In contrast to the widely popularized notions of improving performance by 'strategic' IS outsourcing (cf: HBR's articles on Saber and Continental Bank), IS outsourcing is being mostly pursued by corporations that are in financial trouble. Outsourcing Contracts: Hanging Tough (CIO) Relationship Management: The Art of the Deal (CIO) CISM Collaboratory Discussion Forum on IS Outsourcing Buying Core Competencies?: A Study of the Impact of Outsourcing on IT Infrastructure Flexibility (Duncan) Mission Control (Datamation, July, 1997) While many companies spell out the standards of customer service they want from their IT vendors [err... suppliers], at Unum, the nation's largest disability-insurance provider, the benchmark is defined by the internal IS department against which external providers need to compete for internal customers. Outsource Your Maintenance Migraines (Datamation, June 1997) Given the application development backlogs, some companies such as AT&T HR Information Systems go about outsourcing time-consuming and labor-intensive maintenance tasks such as error correction, testing, user support, and enhancements. However, please note that one needs to be cautious in deciding what to outsource, and what not to outsource... unfortunately, there is no silver bullet that can fix the problem. Managed Care Outsourcing Offers Flexibility (Case Study) How United Wisconsin Services, a billion-dollar health care company headquartered in Minneapolis, devised and implemented the outsourcing strategy for its desktops. Desktop Outsourcing: Pry Open the Black Box Synopsis of the key issues that you need to take care of when outsourcing your desktop acquisition, installation, and support. Drive a Hard Bargain with Network Outsourcers Reviews the risks involved in network outsourcing and the precautions you need to observe when outsourcing your network services. AIS '95 Papers on "IS Productivity & Outsourcing" Information Systems Outsourcing: Myths, Metaphors and Realities (Book Abstract) Beyond the Information Systems Outsourcing Bandwagon: The Insourcing Response (Book Abstract) Latest Headlines from the IT Sourcing Industry (TPI) Outsourcing: Take My Website Please Wall Street Deals: Information Week Top Story on Outsourcing (Oct 9, '95) Outsourcing: Managing Pieces Of The Enterprise A Two Stage Investigation of the Determinants of Information Systems Outsourcing Focus on Making Outsourcing Work for Customers (Jarvlepp) Evaluating the Pros and Cons of Software Outsourcing (Jones) Farming Out Client-Server SourceRoads: On Outsourcing & IT Consulting Competitive Tendering & Contracting Newsletter Electronic Buyers' News Online: Interactive Sourcing Directory Information on components manufactured and stocked by component manufacturers and distributors. Searchable by product type or company name. Other WWW Resources on New Organization Forms Electronic Markets and Electronic Commerce Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning Business Process Reengineering/Innovation Virtual-Organization Net (University of Berne) "Dedicated to replacing the traditional, mechanistic view of the economy with economy-as-ecosystem thinking." Emergent Communities (ISWorld) Multimedia & the Boundaryless World: 1995 HBS Colloquium Investigating New Frontiers: Understanding When and How to Implement Empowerment (Symposium) ISWorldNet Information Technology Outsourcing (Proposal) ?? Technology Partners Sourcing Directory Virtual Cultures and Virtual Architecture Links to Virtual Company and Teleworking Sites Ontario Telepresence Project Computer-Mediated [Tele]Cooperative Work Hal Varian's Works: Economics of the Internet Discover Internet (a Business Guide): INSEAD Change Management (The Change Project) Futures Studies Mini_Articles: Business & Organizations Organizations & Markets (HBS) Research in 'Supra-Organisational Systems' (Roger Clarke, Aus.) InterOrganizational Systems (ISWorld) Electronic Proceedings of the Second World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web Soros: An Organization Supporting Emergent Organizations: Links