Marshall Burns and James Howison
Looks at “fabbing” – digital fabricating of physical products and its future in the business world via the Internet. Concludes that this is a process that is here to stay and…
Abstract
Looks at “fabbing” – digital fabricating of physical products and its future in the business world via the Internet. Concludes that this is a process that is here to stay and therefore technology needs to become more sophisticated to accommodate it. The research register for this journal is available at http://www.mcbup.com/research_registers. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emerald‐library.com/ft.
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THE catalogue, as a library appliance of importance, has had more attention devoted to it than, perhaps, any other method or factor of librarianship. Its construction, materials…
Abstract
THE catalogue, as a library appliance of importance, has had more attention devoted to it than, perhaps, any other method or factor of librarianship. Its construction, materials, rules for compilation and other aspects have all been considered at great length, and in every conceivable manner, so that little remains for exposition save some points in the policy of the catalogue, and its effects on progress and methods. In the early days of the municipal library movement, when methods were somewhat crude, and hedged round with restrictions of many kinds, the catalogue, even in the primitive form it then assumed, was the only key to the book‐wealth of a library, and as such its value was duly recognized. As time went on, and the vogue of the printed catalogue was consolidated, its importance as an appliance became more and more established, and when the first Newcastle catalogue appeared and received such an unusual amount of journalistic notice, the idea of the printed catalogue as the indispensable library tool was enormously enhanced from that time till quite recently. One undoubted result of this devotion to the catalogue has been to stereotype methods to a great extent, leading in the end to stagnation, and there are places even now where every department of the library is made to revolve round the catalogue. Whether it is altogether wise to subordinate everything in library work to the cult of the catalogue has been questioned by several librarians during the past few years, and it is because there is so much to be said against this policy that the following reflections are submitted.
Sean P. Goggins, James Laffey and Michael Gallagher
This paper has two purposes. First, to provide insight into the formation of completely online small groups, paying special attention to how their work practices develop, and how…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper has two purposes. First, to provide insight into the formation of completely online small groups, paying special attention to how their work practices develop, and how they form identity. Second, to pursue conceptual development of a more multi‐level view of completely online group experience, which can be made visible through analysis of the unique interaction logging system used in this study.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct a mixed methods study that integrates interviews, grounded theory analysis, case study methods and social network analysis to build a multi‐layered view of completely online group and community development.
Findings
Completely online group formation is explicated as a socio‐technical system. The paper identifies themes of tool uptake and use, and patterns of interaction that accompany group formation and development of completely online group practices. These patterns show little respect for the boundaries of space and time. It then shows how groups who are paired together for two non‐sequential activities develop a common internal structural arrangement in the second activity, and are viewable as groups in the larger course context in four of six cases.
Research limitations/implications
The time bounded nature of the group and community, combined with the educational context limit the generalizability of these findings.
Practical implications
The study shows how completely online group development can be made visible. Managers of work teams and teachers who work with classrooms in completely online contexts need to recognize the dynamic structure and interaction practices of completely online teams.
Originality/value
First, little research has been conducted on completely online group formation. Second, a conceptual understanding of how group members relate to one another and how groups interact with other groups in the same socio‐technical context is not explored in prior work. Third, the paper performs this analysis including data from rich, contextualized usage logs, which enables greater insight into online group interactivity than prior research.
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Barry Wray and Richard Mathieu
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the relative performance of open source software (OSS) projects.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the relative performance of open source software (OSS) projects.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper evaluates the relative performance of OSS projects by evaluating multiple project inputs and multiple project outputs by using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. The DEA model produces an efficiency score for each project based on project inputs and outputs. The method of producing an efficiency score is based on the convex envelopment technology structure. The efficiency measure quantifies a “distance” to an efficient frontier.
Findings
The DEA model produced an index of corresponding intensities linking an inefficient project to its benchmark efficient project(s). The inefficiency measures produced an ordering of inefficient projects. Eight projects were found to be “efficient” and used as benchmarking projects.
Research limitations/implications
This research is limited to only security‐based OSS projects. Future research on other areas of OSS projects is warranted.
Practical implications
The result of this research is a practical model that can be used by OSS project developers to evaluate the relative performance of their projects and make resource decisions.
Originality/value
This research extends the work of previous studies that have examined the relative performance of software development projects in a traditional development environment. As a result of this research, OSS projects can now be adequately benchmarked and evaluated according to project performance. An OSS project manger can effectively use these results to critically evaluate resources for their project and judge the relative efficiency of the resources.
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Pavel Král, Věra Králová and Petr Šimáček
Most studies on workplace meetings have examined them as physical gatherings but have not linked them to interactions before and after meetings. Drawing upon coordination theory…
Abstract
Purpose
Most studies on workplace meetings have examined them as physical gatherings but have not linked them to interactions before and after meetings. Drawing upon coordination theory, this study aims to examine the impact of interactions before, during and after meetings on meeting effectiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey design was used, and regular workplace meeting attendees were recruited. A mediation model was developed to test the effect of interactions on perceived meeting effectiveness.
Findings
Interactions before meetings positively influenced attendee involvement during the meeting, and attendee involvement mediated the positive relationship between attendee interactions during the meeting and perceived meeting effectiveness. A novel finding of this study is that incorporating meeting outcomes in subsequent work positively influenced perceived meeting effectiveness because it fostered common understanding of the meeting agenda.
Originality/value
The present results link prior empirical findings on interactions before and during meetings to new predictions regarding the effect of interactions after meetings. Coordination theory expands current conceptualizations of workplace meetings by broadening the notion of meetings to cover a more extended period of interdependent interactions.
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In times of open and distributed innovation, many innovation activities that are important for firms' products and services take place beyond the boundaries of the firm and thus…
Abstract
Purpose
In times of open and distributed innovation, many innovation activities that are important for firms' products and services take place beyond the boundaries of the firm and thus beyond firms' direct control. A prime example for this phenomenon is open source software (OSS) development, where multiple actors contribute to a public good, which is also integrated into company-owned software products. Despite the importance of aligning community work on the public good with own in-house development efforts, firms have limited options to directly control the OSS project or the project's outcome. This research reflects on resource deployment control, a control mode in which firms assign own developers to work for an OSS project to influence the OSS project, and tests hypotheses on individual developer levels.
Design/methodology/approach
This research tests the effect of perceived resource deployment control on opinion leadership by analyzing employed Linux kernel developers.
Findings
The findings show that developers who perceive being assigned to an OSS project to enact control also exhibit opinion leadership. This research also investigates boundary conditions such as the OSS business model a firm operates and the reputation developers assign to the developers' employer.
Originality/value
This research is the first that is devoted to resource deployment control, and the research closes with a discussion of implications for control theory and the management of innovation beyond firm boundaries.
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Viktoria Dalko, Bryane Michael and Michael Wang
This paper aims to show that market power exists in financial markets and analyze how spoofing is used by a high-frequency trader to build market power by taking advantage of both…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to show that market power exists in financial markets and analyze how spoofing is used by a high-frequency trader to build market power by taking advantage of both behavioral weaknesses of individual investors and microstructural loopholes of trading venues.
Design/methodology/approach
After showing that market power exists in the financial market, this paper centers around the question of how market power is constructed in the financial market. To sharpen the answer to the question, the paper compares the conditions needed for market power construction in the financial market with those needed in the goods market. The paper selects spoofing, the frequently used order-based tactic in high-frequency trading strategies, to analyze in detail how spoof orders can ignite herding with market power building as the essence. The Flash Crash that occurred in the New York Stock Exchange on May 6, 2010 provides an excellent case of market power construction exhibited in spoofing.
Findings
The behavioral mechanism of market power construction in the case of spoofing is perception alignment. It becomes effective when two necessary conditions are met: the spoof trader takes advantage of the incomplete order display set up by the exchange; and the behavioral weaknesses exhibited by numerous individual investors. In addition to these key conditions, this paper finds other ones for market power to be created in the financial market. They are easier, quicker, more secret, more flexible and less risky relative to the conditions for market power building in the goods market.
Practical implications
The detailed analysis points to the behavioral mechanism, i.e. perception alignment, and microstructural mechanism, i.e. incomplete order display, that could be responsive to regulation.
Originality/value
The originality of the findings is to uncover the mechanism of spoofing in taking advantage of behavioral biases of individual investors. The value is to gain more complete understanding of the essence of herding caused by spoofing.