Results
This page gives a slightly more detailed presentation of the results obtained by the project, including links to the most relevant deliverables. A list of all deliverables from the project is available in the project's archive.
Forces and restructuring
The operating environment of organizations has changed considerably during the last three decades. Organizations face more global competition, deregulated markets, increased customer selectivity on price, quality and service, environment protection issues and rapid technological development. In response to these forces many companies are restructuring their organizations to become more flexible and dynamic. The resulting new forms often involve inter- and intraorganizational collaboration.
Recent technological developments, specifically the integration of information and telecommunication technologies, have made possible an entirely new set of more disaggregated, distributed, and flexible production arrangements, as well as new ways for firms to organize their internal operations and their transactional ties to external firms.
Key deliverables: (Munkvold, 1995; Evjemo, et al. 1996; Rønholt, et al. 1998)
Challenges
Companies that turn to network-based organizations of work will face a number of challenges. This project has addressed challenges that might appear within the areas of coordination, management, trust, organizational memory and learning, customer relations and quality control.
These challenges arise in particular in network-based work arrangements because the organization(s) must relate to many and shifting actors which may be both geographically and organizationally dispersed. Also, the relations are often of a temporary character. Flatter organizational structures imply broader contacts and increased amount of information for each unit. Less daily face-to-face contact and more dynamic staffing of tasks (new "crews" relieve old ones on milestones, outsourcing and more specialization) make it difficult to utilize the organizations' total knowledge and experiences. Direct control is seldom feasible and this imposes therefore other demands for quality assurance and management. Network-based work arrangements finally imply a dispersion of customer relations, which challenges the organization's ability to "face" their customers in a uniform way.
Key deliverables: (Akselsen, et al. 1996; Akselsen, et al. 1997a)
Impacts of ICTs for visualizing results, activities, presence and availability in distributed teams
The project has studied impacts of ICTs over time and within a well-defined conceptual framework (that includes input factors, process variables and output factors). We have argued strongly that visualization by ICT can have positive effects in distributed teams both with regard to group belonging, the members' degree of satisfaction and the groups productivity. Today, commercially available software for providing some of this information is starting to show (i.e. awareness information given by so-called buddy-lists). The functionality of these can however be improved considerably, especially with regard to quality, precision, intrusion (automatic/manually provision) and integration with other communication software. Further, we have argued that this kind of visualization will play an important role in the management of distributed teams (as management of distributed teams has to be based more on observation of results than observation of presence). These effects have also to some extent been confirmed in the project's studies of real groups over time. A bit surprising in this connection is the potential negative effects of such ICT-solutions might have with regard to the organization, social networks and group identity, showing as fractionating, i.e. appearance of strong in-/out-groups.
Key deliverables: (Akselsen, et al. 1997b; Evjemo, et al. 1998; Bergvik, 1998; Stenvold, et al. forthcoming; Evjemo, et al. forthcoming)
Barriers to knowledge creation and management in networked organizations
The project has studied the conditions for knowledge creation and transfer in Telenor's Product Development Process. One of the greatest barriers seems to be the differences in the norm systems (what is considered rational and irrational) within the various business units - the conceptions of what is valuable knowledge differs (justification criteria), and the demands for short-term profits make it less legitimate to spend resources on documenting experiences. Possible improvements might be found in changing the incentive system (adjustment of knowledge and economic systems), increasing the focus on training in managing and participating in projects (common routines), legitimating the need to spend resources on documenting experiences, establishing permanent structures (arenas - also ICT enabled), and incorporating expectations to key roles responsible for the organization's knowledge creation and management.
Key deliverables: (Moe, et al. 1997; Lind, et al. forthcoming)
Implementation of collaborative technologies
The project's studies in this area have focused on factors that influence the different stages of the implementation of collaborative technologies, especially in distributed organisations. Some examples of challenges are differences in views of the strategic importance of the technology in the various units, problems tied to technological integration of the units, and planning and co-ordination of the activities in the implementation project. Further, the studies show that an efficient use of the technologies often require some time for maturing, over which the developers and the users gradually gains an understanding of how the technology can be tailored to solve the needs of the different units.
Key deliverables: (Evjemo, et al. 1997; Munkvold, 1998)
Miscellaneous
In addition we have conducted a limited study of MITs process handbook for "modeling of and, providing IT-support for, various business processes". Our conclusion as of December 1998 is that the concept is quite interesting, but that the tool still needs some more work to be taken into practical use.
In several of our activities we have seen that the approaches to investigation will often need to include a mixture of different methods.
Suggestions for further studies
Based on our experiences from NETTO, we list the following topics as interesting ones for further studies:
 | How can the net and the organization's web-presence best be used in various business processes? |
| How can web-sites be designed to stimulate the initiation of network-based organizations of work, including building of alliances? |
| How can ICTs support management in distributed teams? |
| How to build and maintain trust in network-based work arrangements? |
| Which ICTs are more suitable for which group processes, e.g. information processing, knowledge creation, conflict resolution? |
| How to provide awareness and availability information (functionality and form)? |
| How can ICTs be utilized for knowledge creation and management? |
| How should the tensions between privacy and the need to make work visible, inform our design and use of ICTs? |
| Which (other) mechanisms for shaping the individual, the group and the organization's identity (self-presentation/impression management), exists when part of the work takes place at electronic arenas - compared to traditional face-to-face interactions? |
| In what way might the "meaning of work" change for the individual and for the organizations (c.f. individuals gained control over the production means, changes in working location, project organization, loyalty, companionship, mobility, ...)? |
Summary
We believe that the activities described above contribute to provide deeper insight into problem areas that only to some extent have been reported before, and that our findings make a good basis for further studies. Also, the findings could be useful in the planning and implementation of network-based work arrangements in organizations that are currently in the process of restructuring their operations.
