In this paper, we describe the influence of physical proximity on the development of collaborative relationships between scientific researchers and on the execution of their work. Our evidence is drawn from our own studies of scientific collaborators, as well as from observations of research and development activities collected by other investigators. These descriptions provide the foundation for a discussion of the actual and potential role of communications technology in professional work, especially for collaborations carried out at a distance.

It has been over two decades since Group Support Systems (GSS) emerged on the Information Technology (IT) scene. GSS have now been commercialized and are present in an increasing number of domestic and international contexts but only lightly studied in real organizational settings. A criticism of studies has been that many of the organizations involved had a vested interest in the outcome that extended beyond that which would normally occur in a typical organization. An additional challenge has been made with respect to the generalizability of field study results across corporate and national cultures. This paper compares and contrasts findings from International Business Machines (IBM) and Boeing Aircraft Corporation in the US with those from two European companies: Nationale-Nederlanden (NN), the largest insurance firm in the Netherlands and European Aeronautic Defense and Space company, Military division (EADS-M). Attention is given to aspects of efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction as well as group dynamics. 1.

. It has been argued in the literature that although specific types of computer-based information systems (CBIS) are powerful tools in certain parts of the decision-making processes in modern organisations, none of them provides integrated support. This lack becomes even more acute when one considers the operation of CBIS within an organisational setting, where consistent assistance of a multitude of users in different departments is required, together with facilities for modelling such features as cooperation, conflict, negotiation, etc. On the other hand, there are indications that the incorporation of abilities such as perception, interpretation, reasoning, explanation, goal-setting, and learning in computer-aided support, would greatly enhance the aforementioned decision-making processes. This paper reviews the evolution of CBIS, and attempts to synthesise current research towards the goal of competent and intelligent aiding of decisionmaking in organisational settings. The main argument of the paper is that decision-making functions in multi-participant organisations can be facilitated by the use of intelligent software entities with autonomous processing capabilities, that possess coordination and negotiation facilities and are organised in distributed, hierarchical societies. The paper presents a conceptual definition of these entities, outlines their structural characteristics, and describes a framework for research towards their development. Keywords: information systems; organisational environment; decision-making; artificial intelligence. Note. An earlier version of the paper was prepared as an invited lecture for the sessions 'OR and Information Management, of the XIII World Conference on Operations Research, IFORS'93, Lisbon, Portugal, 12-16 July. Acko...

This study is an examination of how GSS learning environments (face-to-face vs. distant) and task difficulty level (simple vs. difficult) influenced participation levels and social presence among accounting students working collaboratively on an accounting task. A sample of 128 volunteer accounting students, randomly assigned to groups of four, experienced either a faceto-face or distant GSS learning environment and completed either a simple or difficult collaborative accounting task. Participation levels and social presence perceptions were significantly higher in the face-to-face than in the distant GSS learning environment for both tasks. Perceived social presence related positively to participation in both learning environments and for both task difficulty levels. Task difficulty level did not have a major impact on student participation in either learning environment. This study suggests that the stronger the social presence, the more likely that accounting students will participate when using GSS. Distance learning, an instructional method in which teachers and students are physically separated from each other during a majority of the learning process (Barker & Holley, 1996), is growing in popularity among business schools (Albrecht & Sack, 2000).

In designing, implementing, and evaluating distributed group support, it is necessary to consider the organisational considerations that affect the nature of support required for distributed work environments. This paper describes some of the challenges facing organisations using distributed group support and explores alternative approaches for researching these it concludes with a multi-disciplinary research perspective for building improved knowledge. This has implications for both researchers attempting to explain and predict the contextual forces driving the use of and practitioners hoping to support changing organisations with distributed group support systems.

. Computer-based support for decision-making, with the use of Decision Support Systems (DSS), has focused mainly on primary decision processes, i.e. data and model manipulation, and failed to take explicitly into account the need to model the secondary decision processes, i.e. support on how to decide about the use of specific data and models. The main premise of the present paper is that effective, intelligent support of the secondary decision processes could be developed by exploiting the possibilities of coupling DSS and expert system (ES) approaches. Although such an integration has been flourishing in the literature, with the advent of Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSS), no efforts have been made to examine its potential for enhancing the support to secondary decision processes. The paper presents an IDSS architecture that models in a systematic way the decision-making process and illustrates the use of the architecture for the development of an intelligent system for business forecasting. RESUME: Les processus de decision soutenu par l' informatique et avec l' utilisation d'un Systeme de Support de Decision (DSS) s' est axe principalement sur le processus de decision primaire c-a-d sur les manipulations de modeles et les informations et a echoue de prendre explicitement en consideration le besoin de structurer des modeles sur les processus de decision secondaire c-a-d le base sur laquelle exploitite des informations specifiques et des modeles. L' idee principale de cette etude est qu' une aide efficace et informatique des processus de decision secondaire peut se developper en exploitant conjointement les possibilites du DDS et de l' ES (Expert Systems). Quoique que cette integration a ete florrissante dans la litterature et malgre l' avenement de syst...

Awareness of the need for business analysis has grown faster than the evolution of tools to support collaborative development of business analysis models. Involvement of key personnel is important for model accuracy and buyin, which is not trivial, especially if they are distributed geographically. Traditionally, models have been developed by individuals or small groups because of the complexity of collaborative modeling. University of Arizona researchers have created specialized electronic meeting systems tools and methods to support several types of collaborative business models. This paper discusses the creation of the Collaborative Distributed Scenario and Process Analyzer (ColD SPA) tool, developed to support collaborative business scenario and process modeling. The ColD SPA prototype serves as “proof-of-concept ” that a web-based tool can support collaborative modeling in face-to-face and distributed settings. Flexibility integrated into SPA enables it to support a wide range of problem analysis tasks and has resulted in a type of “build-your-own ” collaborative tool.

The evolution of a product is highly iterative in nature. Conflicts frequently occur during the design phase of products. Resolution of these conflicts typically involves negotiation among people from several departments across an organization. Once the conflict is resolved, the required changes are incorporated into the product model. Work on the design proceeds until either a satisfactory model is produced or another conflict is encountered. Often, the meetings held to resolve the conflict are face-to-face and require that all or most members be present in the same place. Furthermore, members from different disciplines use varied stand-alone tools to make their own calculations and arrive at alternatives. This group decision-making process requires organization and is time consuming. The process also involves gathering of information related to the product. Another limitation is that a person can be involved in only one group meeting at a time. All these factors contribute towards making group decision-making the major cause of delays in the design of a product. Therefore, a system that automates information gathering, provides the relevant information to each involved person, facilitates consensus-seeking and has tools integrated into it would enormously benefit group decision-making. This report gives a model for such a

Computer supported teams are capturing the attention of academics and practitioners as organisations increasingly put them into practice as virtual teams. The practical relevance of current research into computer supported teams could be increased if greater attention is paid to organisational challenges as they form the context within which virtual teamwork takes place. A model of organisational challenges mapped against processes of adaptation is developed to highlight principle factors affecting virtual teams. A sample of current research groups studying computer-supported teams is plotted onto this map to reveal the extent to which current research addresses these contextual factors. From this map insights are distilled with respect to what is known and is not known about virtual teams. This paper concludes with specific research needs in the study of virtual teams. 5001-6182 Business 5201-5982 Business Science Library of Congress Classification (LCC) HD 30.2 Informa...