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As companies migrate their business processes to the Internet, they
will experiment with a range of new ways of organizing work. Already,
initiatives such as virtual work, geographically-dispersed teams, and
electronic collaboration have emerged as important new ways of
conducting business. Such initiatives fundamentally alter where,
when, how, and with whom work is carried out.
Most observers
expect that companies beginning to take advantage of the new
opportunities created by Internet and attempting to deal with the
competitive challenges associated with operating via the Internet will
increase their use of information technology to distribute and
restructure work, to facilitate new forms of electronic communication
over time and space, and to increase the pace and rhythm of
organizational processes. These changes may result in conflict
between traditional and new ways of organizing, between traditional
and newly established groups, and spur the need for accelerated
learning and communication among groups. Our research team is
focusing on the impact of the use of information technology in three
domains:
- changes in work practices
- changes in communication practices
- changes in temporal practices.
Research Sites and Methodology
For our research we plan to do in-depth observations of a division,
group, team, or project for a sustained length of time. We are in the
process of assembling a group of companies, or divisions of companies,
that are actively migrating their business processes to the Internet
so as to identify and understand the consequent changes in work,
communication, and temporal practices, and to examine the results of
those changes for both the organization design and capabilities, as
well as its performance over time. Because of the nature of this
research, the researchers working on this sub-project are particularly
interested in sites that are in the greater Boston area but are also
looking at sites in other locales.
Sub-project Investigators
Wanda Orlikowski
JoAnne Yates
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