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This paper aims to report on a qualitative comparative case study of coordination in three ongoing research and development projects, each conducted by teams working virtually across multiple, geographically dispersed sites and involving varying degrees of task uncertainty at differing stages on an innovation continuum, from basic fundamental research to scale-up and commercial development.

This study investigated characteristics of effective virtual innovation teamwork, primarily using structured interviews, observation and a limited number of surveys. The analysis was based upon Pava’s (1983) methodology of sociotechnical systems (STS) for non-linear work and was used to assess the influence of virtuality and task uncertainty on the quality of team deliberations and the knowledge development barriers experienced at the various stages on the innovation continuum.

The study identified different technical and social coordination mechanisms and their impact in mitigating knowledge barriers for differing levels of task uncertainty. Technical elements, many based in digital information technology, appeared most significant for coordination where task uncertainty and ambiguity were low. However, with high task uncertainty, the most significant mechanisms were closely tied to the formal and informal social systems of virtual organization.

The key implication for future research is the development of further applications to evaluate this coordination model for modern teamwork in virtual contexts.

The findings extend previous theory about coordination of innovation to include fundamental research and virtual collaboration. Based on the results, a four-step STS methodology for design of virtual team coordination mechanisms was developed and piloted successfully by scientific teams at a prominent North American research laboratory.

This research project has shown that modern STS methodology, updated for non-routine work in a virtual context, can provide a way to assess and mitigate “coordination costs” associated with virtual teamwork. Further, it has identified clear categories of coordination mechanisms that are most effective when teams are working at different stages in the innovation process.

The classic tension between differentiation and integration is played out between local and global perspectives within a globally dispersed team (GDT). It occurs as organizations attempt to develop corporate-wide processes across globally dispersed sites while simultaneously encouraging local innovation and adaptation. The tension between local and global interests is apparent in GDTs comprised of part-time members, pulled from their daily jobs, and charged with developing global processes for implementation at their local sites. Team members share a global perspective of organizational conditions or competitive factors that is often not understood or appreciated by their local supervision and coworkers. They must also navigate local conditions not appreciated by their remote teammates. This chapter presents a model to help understand the dynamics at play and the issues still to be addressed by researchers and practitioners.

Within the past few years, responsible educators, librarians, parents, counselors, social workers, therapists, and religious groups of all sexual persuasions and lifestyles have recognized the need for readily available reading material for lesbian and gay youth. Unfortunately, this material is often buried, because it is embedded in larger works. To meet this need, I have compiled and annotated 100 of the best works for young homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. I have also included a few of the best works currently available on heterosexuality as a much needed source of knowledge for all young adults whether they are gay or straight, whether they remain childless or eventually become parents.

This paper poses the question of whether the mainstream feminist movement in the United States, in concentrating its efforts on achieving gender parity in the existing workplace, is selling women short. In it, I argue that contemporary U.S. feminism has not adequately theorized the problems with the relatively unregulated market system in the United States. That failure has contributed to a situation in which women’s participation in the labor market is mistakenly equated with liberation, and in which other far-ranging effects of the market system on women’s lives inside and outside of work – many of them negative – are overlooked. To theorize the effects of the market system on women’s lives in a more nuanced manner, I borrow from the insights of earlier Marxist and socialist feminists. I then use this more nuanced perspective to outline an agenda for feminism, which I call “market-cautious feminism,” that seeks to regulate the market to serve women’s interests.

This chapter focuses on how the repression of political ideologies can silence feminist voices. It examines how writings by women working with the U.S. Communist Party in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s have been overlooked even though they presaged important linchpins of U.S. second-wave feminist thought.

This study is based on historical and archival research.

Decades before the rise of second-wave feminism, women in the CPUSA had: (1) produced a political economy of domestic labor; (2) employed an intersectional analysis of the interlocking oppressions of race, gender, class, and nation; and (3) called for a global feminist analysis that linked these multiple oppressions to colonialism and imperialism.

This study illustrates the costs of political repression and how the canon of feminist thought can be enhanced by resuscitating subjugated knowledges.

Too little attention has focused on the silencing of women because of their political ideologies. This chapter addresses this lacuna in feminist studies and calls into question the oft-repeated notion that the periods between the waves of U.S. feminism were times of movement stagnation. It shows how theory construction can flourish even when feminist activism wanes.

The purpose of this paper is to present the views of people living with dementia in extra care housing (ECH). This is a model of housing with care and support aiming to support older people, including those with dementia, to live independently. Previous research identifies benefits but is predominantly derived from third-party accounts, with the voices of those living with dementia in ECH significantly absent.

This study adopted a qualitative approach conducting 100 interviews across 8 ECH schemes in England. Over half of the interviews were conducted with people living with dementia and their families with the remainder involving staff and commissioners.

Findings suggest there are a range of benefits including owning your own home, having a safe, age friendly location with flexible support, social interaction and continuing to live as a couple. Challenges included availability of staff, flexible resourcing, loneliness and the advancing symptoms of dementia.

Despite efforts to create an inclusive, diverse sample, the participants were all White British. Participants involved were identified by gatekeepers, which may present some bias in the selection.

Whilst ECH offers benefits to people living with dementia, addressing the challenges is essential for effective dementia care. Improving staff training, promoting person-centred care and fostering an inclusive community are critical for enhancing residents’ well-being and quality of life.

This paper explored the lived experiences of residents and family members, providing new insight into the advantages and disadvantages of ECH for people living with dementia.

The purpose of this paper is to advocate a “social representations” approach to the study of socio‐cognitive processes during information systems (IS) implementation as an alternative to the technological frames framework.

The paper demonstrates how social representations theory can improve research outcomes by applying it to three recent studies that employed the technological frames framework.

It is found that because the technological frames framework is overly technologically centered, temporally bounded, and individually focused, it may lead to symptomatic explanations of IS implementation. Alternatively, using the theory of social representations can offer more fundamental causal explanations of IS implementation processes.

IS researchers are encouraged to use a social representations approach to study IS implementation as the theory provides a rich vocabulary to examine the formation, change, and content of representations of IS, and their relationship to people's actions toward IS.

The paper introduces a new theoretical perspective into the IS research discipline, which can be applied to provide better research results concerning IS implementation.

In this paper we develop a model for researching the influence that a board of directors can have on improving an organization’s sustainability performance. Our model explores sources of cognitive flexibility of boards needed to recognize and respond to the need for improved sustainability performance. We first define concepts of sustainability, sustainability competence, and sustainability performance. We then analyze two forms of board capital (a board’s human capital and its social capital) and three aspects of a board’s information processing (its patterns of information search, discussion and debate, and information absorption) that we suggest affect a board’s cognitive flexibility and thereby influence whether a board decides to adopt sustainability performance goals. Our model also suggests that an organization’s strategic flexibility – as represented by its current endowments of resource flexibilities and coordination flexibilities – will moderate the relationship between a board’s decision to adopt sustainability performance goals and an organization’s subsequent achievement of those goals. We also suggest that our model is generally relevant to any research seeking to predict the influence of boards on strategic change in many forms, not just to research focused on sustainability issues.