The Importance of Studying Organizations Including Virtual Organizations

The Importance of Studying Organizations --Including “Virtual” Organizations SBE/IOS OCI/VOSS CISE/HCI Jacqueline Meszaros, Ph. D. Program Director Innovation and Organizational Sciences

SBE – IOS • Dedicated to organization-level phenomena – – – Norms, Cultures, Subcultures Groups, Teams, Movements Structure, Function, Power Designed, Informal, Emergent Dynamic, Complex Innovative, Effective, Competitive • ORGS = KEYS TO INNOVATION, KNOWLEDGE, COMPETITIVENESS

VOSS and the Science of Orgs • Cross-disciplinary enablers of Knowledge Creation: EQ, cancer, climate • Facilitate access: Nano. HUB, HASTAC • The VOSS Dream: – Evidence-based Advice and Principles for Science Practice

VOSS COMPETITION Scientific Understanding to Enhance Distributed, Cyberenabled Scientific Organizations Diana Rhoten Wayne Lutters Jack Meszaros Julia Lane Mary Lou Maher Stephen Nash Phil Westmoreland Arlene De. Strulle Barbara Olds Gregg Solomon

VOSS COMPETITION 68 Submitted Projects 15 Funded (22% funding rate) Approx $4 million from OCI, $225 k from CISE $300 k from SBE

Meyer, U Oregon Virtual Teams & 3 D Virtual Environs • 9 comparative cases of R&D teams – 3 using traditional coordination devices – 3 using company 3 D virtual world – 3 using Second Life • Starting with knowledge of the basic activities associated with evolution of strong teams, the researchers will assess the way virtuality affects the basics (e. g. , virtual storming, norming, etc. )

Carayon, Wisconsin Virtual Intensive Care • Virtual ICU nurses serving multiple patients in multiple hospitals • What are the keys to sustaining multiple simultaneous virtual collaborations (with diverse orgs, strucs, norms, procedures) • High performance context generalizes to many other situations (police, disasters, education) • Interpersonal, procedural, structural, human-computer insights

Dourish, UCI Spacecraft and Sociotech Systems • Comparative case studies at NASA • Compare successful and “unsuccessful” teams, all of which were cybermediated • Access to the unsuccessful is unusual and valuable • “Flat and consensual” vs “hierarchical and owned” strategies in virtual contexts.

Wigand/Korsgaard Communication, Trust, Leaders • Massively Multiplayer Online Game • Access to demog, surveys, experimental subworlds with constraints on entry • Factors promoting team formation/longevity, leadership emergence, performance • How to compose and manage virtual teams; compare with non-virtual

Tapia, Penn State HRCT Scanning as “Glue” • Rare asset: HRCT Scanner • Loose community forming around it – important to all of physical anthropology • Like watching the formation of astronomy – Norms, structures, power issues: evolution

NSF-Wide Interest in VOSS (and IOS) issues: – – – NSF-Wide: CDI, OCI ENG: NEES, Other Centers CISE: GENI, HCI GEO: Sensor Networks Polar: Climate Modeling SBE: Sci. SIP • EVIDENCE AND PRINCIPLIES FOR SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION, KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND DISSEMINATION (thru VO)