Over the last 10 years, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has identified a base set of findings. These findings are taken almost as assumptions within the field. In summary, they argue that human activity is highly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized and that computational entities such as information transfer, roles, and policies need to be similarly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized. However, current systems cannot fully support the social world uncovered by these findings. This paper argues that there is an inherent gap between the social requirements of CSCW and its technical mechanisms. The social-technical gap is the divide between what we know we must support socially and what we can support technically. Exploring, understanding, and hopefully ameliorating this social-technical gap is the central challenge for CSCW as a field and one of the central problems for HCI. Indeed, merely attesting the continued centrality of this gap could be one of the important intellectual contributions of CSCW. This paper also argues that the challenge of the social-technical gap creates an opportunity to refocus CSCW as a Simonian science of the artificial. To be published in Human-Computer Interaction Preprint- Ackerman- Challenge of CSCW 1 1.

To understand the economic value of computers, one must broaden the traditional definition of both the technology and its effects. Case studies and firm-level econometric evidence suggest that: 1) organizational “investments ” have a large influence on the value of IT investments; and 2) the benefits of IT investment are often intangible and disproportionately difficult to measure. Our analysis suggests that the link between IT and increased productivity emerged well before the recent surge in the aggregate productivity statistics and that the current macroeconomic productivity revival may in part reflect the contributions of intangible capital accumulated in the past.

scholars who argue that Simon’s work changed during the Cold War. This is due to the fact that Simon seemingly changed the substance of his research in the 1950s. This paper argues that Simon did not change in any signiªcant way, but was lead by his interest in decision making and rationality into areas of economics, political science, sociology, psychology, organization theory, and computer science. He used elements of different disciplines to address his overall interest and there is therefore a considerable continuity in Simon’s work. This paper also provides part of a background for the recent increase of interest in Simon’s ideas by providing some details of the RAND Corporation and the Ford Foundation’s support of scientiªc research through the post war years in general, and their connections to the behavioral science research

We propose a new theoretical framework for understanding simultaneous trust and distrust within relationships. grounded in assumptions of multidimensionality and the inherent tensions of relationships. and we separate this research from prior work grounded in assumptions of unidimensionality and balance. Drawing foundational support for this new framework from recent research on simultaneous positive and negative sentiments and ambivalence. we explore the theoretical and practical significance of the framework for future work on trust and distrust relationships within organizations.

This paper investigates the outcomes and durations of strategic alliances among competing firms, using alliance outcomes as indicators of learning by partner firms. We show that alliance outcomes vary systematically across link and scale alliances. Link alliances are interfirm partnerships to which partners contribute different capabilities, while scale alliances are partnerships to which partners contribute similar capabilities. We find that partners are more likely to reorganize or take over link alliances than scale alliances. By contrast, scale alliances are more likely to continue without material changes. The two types of alliances are equally likely to shut down, at similar ages. These results support the view that link alliances lead to greater levels of learning and capability acquisition between the partners than do scale alliances. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This study investigates the outcomes and durations of strategic alliances among competing firms, using alliance outcomes as indicators of learning by partner firms. We define strategic alliances as arrangements between two or more

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Businesses often benefit by forming alliances with other firms but risk becoming dependent on their partners. We discuss two situations in which dependence may create serious problems: first. if a partner shuts down and. second. if a partner forms a relationship with a new partner. We examine collaborative relationships fo rmed by businesses operating in the U.S. hospital software systems industry during the 1961-91 period. We find that businesses faced increased risk of dissolution if they did not form new partnerships after partners shut down or formed collaborative relationships with new pa rtners. The results have implications for del-eloping an evolutionary theory of business strategy and performance. Our approach implies that the performance of a focal business often depends 011 how the strategies of its business partners evolve over time. An evolutionary theory of strategy must incorporate key characteristics of actions and relationships throughout a web of business partnerships. The dual nature of interfirm relationships. which both help a business survive at one time and inhibit its ability to adapt at another. helps explain why so many successful businesses fail when their environments change. Formal interfirm collaboration has become an important means by wh ich busine sses in many industries gain access to capabilities needed to compete in changing markets. Empirical research suggests that collaborating firms sometimes realize corporate financial benefits (Berg, Duncan,

Network Organization Survey ii This article reviews the literature on network organizations and interprets explanations for its behaviors in terms of established analytical principles. Tools from computer science, economics, and sociology give three markedly different interpretations of its core attributes but they also settle on a handful of common themes. The proposed benefits are a clarification of what it means for an organization to be network structured, a few insights into its origins, and a suggestion of where the boundaries to some of its different forms might lie. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A helpful network of outstanding reviewers is responsible for many of the ideas appearing in this article. People who deserve special thanks for assistance on various drafts include Yaneer

We develop a theoretical model to describe and explain variation in corporate governance among advanced capitalist economies, identifying the social relations and institutional arrangements that shape who controls corporations, what interests corporations serve, and the allocation of rights and responsibilities among corporate stakeholders. Our “actor-centered ” institutional approach explains firm-level corporate governance practices in terms of institutional factors that shape how actors’ interests are defined (“socially constructed”) and represented. Our model has strong implications for studying issues of international convergence. Corporate governance concerns “the structure of rights and responsibilities among the parties with a stake in the firm ” (Aoki, 2000: 11). Yet the diversity of practices around the world nearly defies a common definition. Internationalization has sparked policy debates over the transportability of best practices and has fueled academic studies on the prospects of international convergence (Guillén, 2000; Rubach & Sebora, 1998; Thomas & Waring, 1999). What the salient national differences in corporate governance are and how they should best be conceptualized remain hotly debated (Gedajlovic & Shapiro,

While many theories about the relationship between information technology (IT) and organizational design have been proposed, there is little empirical evidence on the issue. We examine the influence of organizational design on the demand for IT and the productivity of IT investments, using data from approximately 380 US firms. We find greater demand for IT in firms with greater decentralization of decision rights (especially the use of self-managing teams), and greater investments in human capital, including training and screening by education. In addition, IT has a greater contribution to output in firms that adopt a more decentralized and human capital-intensive work system. This relationship is robust to alternative measures of IT and of work systems, as well as alternative specifications for demand and for productivity. These findings lend support to the idea that organizational practices are important determinants of IT demand and productivity.