Etiënne A. J. A. Rouwette and L. Alberto Franco
This chapter focuses on techniques and technologies to aid groups in making decisions, with an emphasis on computer-based support. Many office workers regularly meet colleagues…
Abstract
This chapter focuses on techniques and technologies to aid groups in making decisions, with an emphasis on computer-based support. Many office workers regularly meet colleagues and clients in virtual meetings using videoconferencing platforms, which enable participants to carry out tasks in a manner similar to a face-to-face meeting. The development of computer-based platforms to facilitate group tasks can be traced back to the 1960s, and while they support group communication, they do not directly support group decision making. In this chapter we distinguish four technologies developed to provide support to group decisions, clustered into two main traditions. Technologies in the task-oriented tradition are mainly concerned with enabling participants to complete tasks to solve the group's decision problem via computer-supported communications. Group Decision Support Systems and social software technologies comprise the task-oriented tradition. Alternately, in the model-driven tradition, participants use computers to build and use a model that acts as a referent to communicate, mostly verbally, about the group's decision problem. System modeling and decision-modeling technologies constitute the model-driven tradition. This chapter sketches the history and guiding ideas of both traditions, and describes their associated technologies. The chapter concludes with questioning if increased availability of online tools will lead to increased use of group decision support technologies, and the differential impact of communication support versus decision support.
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The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive…
Abstract
The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.
This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.
The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.
This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.
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Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured…
Abstract
Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.
The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.
The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.
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Robert J. McQueen, Karen Rayner and Ned Kock
Face‐to‐face business meetings are a widely used method of group interaction, and a rich source of data on what actually happens in group discussions. Active participation in a…
Abstract
Face‐to‐face business meetings are a widely used method of group interaction, and a rich source of data on what actually happens in group discussions. Active participation in a meeting is usually perceived to be making an oral contribution of some kind to the discussion. This paper describes a field study of ten face‐to‐face business meetings which were videotaped and subsequently analysed. Participant contributions were coded, and the data summarized. The mean contribution was approximately 12 seconds and 18 words. The most common contribution type was information giving. The highest single contributor in each meeting captured, on average, about 30% of the available airtime, while the two highest, combined, captured over half of the airtime. These findings are discussed within the context of requirements for designers of collaborative technology systems to support group interpersonal communication through the use of computing and data communication technologies.
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Xuan Yang, Hao Luo, Xinyao Nie and Xiangtianrui Kong
Tacit knowledge in frontline operations is primarily reflected in the holders’ intuition about dynamic systems. Despite the implicit nature of tacit knowledge, the understanding…
Abstract
Purpose
Tacit knowledge in frontline operations is primarily reflected in the holders’ intuition about dynamic systems. Despite the implicit nature of tacit knowledge, the understanding of complex systems it encapsulates can be displayed through formalization methods. This study seeks to develop a methodology for formalizing tacit knowledge in a dynamic delivery system.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a structured survey to gather experiential knowledge from dispatchers engaged in last-mile delivery operations. This knowledge is then formalized using a value function approximation approach, which transforms tacit insights into structured inputs for dynamic decision-making. We apply this methodology to optimize delivery operations in an online-to-offline pharmacy context.
Findings
The raw system feature data are not strongly correlated with the system’s development trends, making them ineffective for guiding dynamic decision-making. However, the system features obtained through preprocessing the raw data increase the predictiveness of dynamic decisions and improve the overall effectiveness of decision-making in delivery operations.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides a foundational framework for studying sequential dynamic decision problems, highlighting the potential for improved decision quality and system optimization through the formalization and integration of tacit knowledge.
Practical implications
This approach proposed in this study offers a method to preserve and formalize critical operational expertise. By embedding tacit knowledge into decision-making systems, organizations can enhance real-time responsiveness and reduce operational costs.
Originality/value
This study presents a novel approach to integrating tacit knowledge into dynamic decision-making frameworks, demonstrated in a real-world last-mile delivery context. Unlike previous research that focuses primarily on explicit data-driven methods, our approach leverages the implicit, experience-based insights of operational staff, leading to more informed and effective decision-making strategies.
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Electronic meeting facilitation (e‐facilitation) continues to be a critical success factor in the use of information technology to support face‐to‐face collaborative work. Yet…
Abstract
Electronic meeting facilitation (e‐facilitation) continues to be a critical success factor in the use of information technology to support face‐to‐face collaborative work. Yet researchers and practitioners continue to struggle to understand the subtleties and difficulties in the application of meeting facilitation techniques in the ‘electronic’ context. To clarify that understanding, this paper develops a new theoretical framework that examines how technology interacts with human facilitator behavior in an electronic group meeting. This framework, The Dualities of E‐Facilitation, is composed of two dualities: the Duality of Computer and Human Interaction, and the Duality of Routine and Intuitive Actions. The framework emerged from an analysis of the e‐facilitation behaviors of newly trained face‐to‐face electronic meeting facilitators.
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Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Joseph A. Allen and Mark van Vugt
Teams in organizations have weekly – or even daily – meetings to exchange information, generate ideas, solve problems, and make decisions. Yet, many team meetings are described as…
Abstract
Teams in organizations have weekly – or even daily – meetings to exchange information, generate ideas, solve problems, and make decisions. Yet, many team meetings are described as ineffective by the participants, due to either their design or dysfunctional communication practices within the meeting. To gain new insights into addressing these issues, this chapter goes back deep in history and discusses the origins and functions of group meetings. Building upon evolutionary theories of human behavior, the authors examine the evolutionary significance of meetings and the ways in which they were adaptive for our human ancestors. Drawing from this evolutionary perspective, we then compare meetings in ancestral times with their modern-day counterparts. Using evidence from (a) ethnographic studies of small-scale societies that model ancestral group life and (b) organizational and team science, we contrast the typical workplace meeting with its ancient counterpart. In this review of ancient and modern meetings, we identify meeting characteristics that have been maintained through time as well as those that are unique/new in the modern time. In doing so, we inspect to what extent meeting practices in ancestral environments are aligned or at odds with meeting practices in contemporary organizations (the notion of mismatch). From these similarities and differences, we derive novel theoretical insights for the study of workplace meetings as well as suggestions for improving contemporary meeting practice. We also include a series of testable propositions that can inform future research on team meetings in organizations.
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Christopher Hazlehurst and Keith D. Brouthers
In this chapter, the authors undertake a systematic review of the literature to identify research exploring the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT). New…
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors undertake a systematic review of the literature to identify research exploring the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT). New ICT include the use of the Internet, mobile communications, and social technologies. The authors find that while interest in the area is increasing, especially among marketing and information systems scholars, there seems to be far less research interest among international business (IB) and strategy scholars. This chapter provides a summary of the research that has been done and discusses some potential future research areas that IB and strategy researchers might wish to pursue. Among these projects are investigating the use of ICT as a tool to aid the internationalization process, improve location choice and entry mode decisions, and identify and create a sustainable competitive advantage. The use of ICT in business is pervasive; As research scholars, we need to build these technologies into our theories and research to help managers determine what works and where certain technologies can help create better performing firms.