Anomadic information environment is a heterogeneous assemblage of interconnected technological, and social, and organizational elements that enable the physical and social mobility of computing and communication services between organizational actors both within and across organizational borders. We analyze such environments based on their prevalent features of mobility, digital convergence, and mass scale, along with their mutual interdependencies. By using a framework that organizes research topics in nomadic information environments at the individual, team, organizational, and interorganizational levels and is comprised of both service and infrastructure development, we assess the opportunities and challenges for IS research. These deal with the design, use, adoption, and impacts of nomadic information environments. We conclude by discussing research challenges posed by nomadic information environments for information systems research skills and methods. These deal with the need to invent novel research methods and shift our research focus, the necessity to question the divide between the technical and the social, and the need to better integrate developmental and behavioral (empirical) research modes.

In this paper, we review and analyze the emerging network paradigm in organizational research. We begin with a conventional review of recent research organized around recognized research streams. Next, we analyze this research, developing a set of dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, levels of analysis, explanatory goals, and explanatory mechanisms. We use the latter two dimensions to construct a 2-by-2 table cross-classifying studies of network consequences into four canonical types: structural social capital, social access to resources, contagion, and environmental shaping. We note the rise in popularity of studies with a greater sense of agency than was traditional in network research.

This paper presents a framework that captures how the social nature of agents that are situated in a multi-agent environment impacts upon their individual mental states. Roles and social relationships provide an abstraction upon which we develop the notion of social mental shaping. This allows us to extend the standard Belief-Desire-Intention model to account for how common social phenomena (e.g. cooperation, collaborative problem-solving and negotiation) can be integrated into a unified theoretical perspective that reflects a fully explicated model of the autonomous agent’s mental state. Keywords: Multi-agent systems, agent interactions, BDI models, social influence. 2 1.

A Review and Assessment of Research This paper reviews and assesses the emerging research literature on information technology and organizational learning. After discussing issues of meaning and measurement, we identify and assess two main streams of research: studies that apply organizational learning concepts to the process of implementing and using information technology in organizations; and studies concerned with the design of information technology applications to support organizational learning. From the former stream of research, we conclude that experience plays an important, yet indeterminate role in implementation success; learning is accomplished through both formal training and participation in practice; organizational knowledge barriers may be overcome by learning from other organizations; and that learning new technologies is a dynamic process characterized by relatively narrow windows of opportunity. From the latter stream, we conclude that conceptual designs for organizational memory information systems are a valuable contribution to artifact development; learning is enhanced through systems that support communication and discourse; and that information technologies have the potential to both enable and disable organizational learning. Currently, these two streams flow independently of each other, despite their close conceptual and practical links. We advise that future research on information technology and organizational learning proceeds in a more integrated fashion, recognizes the situated nature of organizational learning, focuses on distributed organizational memory, demonstrates the effectiveness of artifacts in practice, and looks for relevant research findings in related fields. 2

Based on a study of knowledge transfer within more than 15 industries, across three forms of governance, and between both domestic and international R&D partners, knowledge transfer success was found to be associated with several key variables, and to hinge upon (a) both R&D units’ understanding where the desired knowledge resides within the source, (b) the extent to which the parties share similar knowledge bases, and the extent of interactions between the source and the recipient to (c) transfer the knowledge and (d) participate in an articulation process through which the source’s knowledge is made accessible to the recipient.

this paper, we examine the strategies managerial teams use to achieve coordination and the effects of coordination on team performance. We hypothesized that four coordination strategies---frequent communication, evenly distributed communication, shared cognitions about members' expertise, and team history---would lead to greater team coordination. We also hypothesized that there would be tradeoffs between several of these strategies. Greater coordination was expected to lead to better performance outcomes, regardless of the strategies a team used to achieve it. We examined our hypotheses within the context of a 14-week realistic management simulation. Coordination was influenced by evenness of communication, shared cognitions about the distribution of expertise within the team, and time working together. Coordination was also influenced by interactions between shared cognitions and frequency of communication, and between shared cognitions and team history. Contrary to our predictions, however, there was neither a main effect of communication frequency on coordination, nor an interaction of communication frequency with history working together. The level of coordination within a team was directly related to three of four outcome measures. Coordination in Teams: Evidence from Simulated Management Teams Groups are inherently different from individuals performing the same task because of a need to coordinate. Whenever the work of individuals is interdependent, they must coordinate to achieve success (Van de Ven, 1976). Malone and Crowston (1994) defined coordination as the extra work organizations and individuals must complete when individuals are working in concert to accomplish some goal, over and above what they would need to do to accomplish the goal individually. To w...

Virtual teams are becoming apreferred mechanism for harnessing, integrating, and applying knowledge that is distributed across organizations and in pockets of collaborative networks. In this article we recognize that knowledge application, among the three phases of knowledgemanagement,hasreceivedlittleresearchattention. Paradoxically, this phase contributes most to value creation. Extending communication theory, we identify four challenges to knowledge integration in virtual team environments: constraints on transactive memory, insufficient mutual understanding, failure in sharing and retaining contextual knowledge, and inflexibilityoforganizationalties.Wethenproposeknowledge management system (KMS) approaches to meet these challenges. Finally, we identify promising avenues for future research in this area.

The relative susceptibility of individuals and groups to systematic judgmental biases is considered. An overview of the relevant empirical literature reveals no clear or general pattern. However, a theoretical analysis employing J. H. Davis's (1973) social decision scheme (SDS) model reveals that the relative magnitude of individual and group bias depends upon several factors, including group size, initial individual judgment, the magnitude of bias among individuals, the type of bias, and most of all, the group-judgment process. It is concluded that there can be no simple answer to the question, "Which are more biased, individuals or groups?, " but the SDS model offers a framework for specifying some of the conditions under which individuals are both more and less biased than groups. A great deal of research in social and cognitive psychology has been devoted to demonstrating what is probably an uncontroversial proposition: that human judgment is imperfect. What makes this work interesting and useful is that such imperfections often constitute more than random fluctuations around "rational, " prescribed, or ideal judgments. Rather, humans consistently exhibit systematic biases in their judgments. Some of

The introduction of new communication and information technologies in work communities has primarily been used to create new channels of communication and/or reduce the cost of communication among members in the workplace. Ironically, the pervasiveness of electronic communication media in virtual work communities make it increasingly difficult for individuals to discern social structures. Fortunately, information technologies that are responsible for triggering this problem can also be used to overcome these obstacles. Because information transacted over electronic media such as the Web can be stored in digital form, a new generation of software called “collaborative filters ” or “communityware ” (Contractor, O’Keefe, & Jones, 1997; Kautz, Selman, & Shah, 1997) can be used to make visible the work communities ’ virtual social structure. One such tool, IKNOW (Inquiring Knowledge Networks On the Web;

This paper lays out a computational model for analyzing the relative efficacy of different C I architectures for teams with access to different types of databases (ITT). Then using this model, a virtual experiment is conducted. Aspects of this virtual experiment are patterned off of behavior and technology surrounding the knowledge wall. Results suggest that bringing ITT in to traditionally structured teams may reduce their efficiency. Some guidance is provided for how to design C I architectures for high performance and adaptive teams who are ITT enabled. Implications of these results for the knowledge wall are provided. This study, although preliminary, provides guidance for how to reason about team design in a network centric context.