189 research outputs found
EXPLORING BARRIERS IN EXPERTISE SEEKING: WHY DON’T THEY ASK AN EXPERT?
No full textThis is the published version: Helms, R. W., Diemer, D. and Lichtenstein, S. 2011, Exploring barriers in expertise seeking
Knowledge Perspectives on Advancing Dynamic Capability
No full textDynamic Capability is the organizational capacity to timely adapt to a changing market environment by reconfiguring resources and routines in order to stay competitive. Although dynamic capability is considered the Holy Grail of strategic management, a connection to the knowledge management domain is lacking. This connection is deemed necessary since knowledge and learning processes are the constituting forces of dynamic capability. This dissertation intends to close this gap by uncovering knowledge-related antecedents of dynamic capability from 3 key perspectives on knowledge: through knowledge management policy adoption, through the availability of social capital and through studying preferential knowledge network structures for dynamic capability. The first perspective is typified as a formal or engineering approach towards knowledge. The other approaches are typified as informal or emergent approaches towards knowledge. Where the social capital perspective is concerned with the availability of network structure, trust and shares values, the knowledge network perspective is considered a zoom lens on the network structure that uncovers its deeper properties. Based on several surveys in various organizations, this research quantitatively approached to what extent these knowledge-related antecedents can influence dynamic capability in organizations. In one project, the effect of knowledge management policy adoption on dynamic capability was studied, along with an investigation of organizational characteristics that are preferential for the adoption of these policies. In a second project, the impact of both knowledge management policy adoption and social capital availability on dynamic capability was studied. Moreover, both antecedents were compared in their effectiveness of advancing dynamic capability. In a third project, available tools and techniques for conducting knowledge network analysis were investigated and compared. Moreover, the effectiveness of several knowledge network data capturing techniques was studied in order to select a best method for further use. Furthermore, a tool was developed that is capable of extracting and refining knowledge networks based on raw email logs. This enabled the researchers to conduct longitudinal knowledge network analysis based on email data. In a forth project, the effectiveness of knowledge network structure on dynamic capability was investigated. More specifically, the impact of the knowledge networks of organizational teams was compared with their absorptive capacity, which is an expression for the extent to which these teams were capable of sensing, integrating and applying external knowledge. Absorptive capacity is closely related to dynamic capability and better operationalized. This dissertation concludes with a confluence of the three perspectives on knowledge and their potential to advance dynamic capability in organizations. The effectiveness of each knowledge perspective is considered and the relation between the perspectives is discussed. Finally, both scientific conclusions and avenues for further research are provided as well as practical advice and implications for organizations that wish to advance their dynamic capability
Who Reads Corporate Tweets? Network Analysis of Follower Communities
No full textSocial networking sites became very popular since the introduction of Six Degrees in 1997 and companies started to utilize them to build online communities. This research aims to further understand online communities by analyzing the network structure and composition of Twitter follower networks. An explorative analysis is conducted on the Twitter follower network of Europe’s twenty-five largest product software vendors, which includes 95,895 unique followers. A proprietary tool was built for data collection and social network analysis was used to analyze the data. Structural analysis shows that the networks have small-world characteristics and have high reciprocity in terms of following relationships. Analyzing the composition of the networks shows that a) they have a small internal audience and large external audience, b) Twitter is used for monitoring competitors by some, and c) the companies have very distinct and unique follower communities. Especially the uniqueness of the communities demonstrates the value of such communities to companies
Měření kvality e-služeb z pohledu zákazníka
No full textTato práce se zabývá vyhodnocováním kvality služeb, které jsou dodávány prostřednictvím IT artefaktů a internetu, známých jako e-služby, samoobslužné nebo IT služby. Práce reflektuje výzvy a příležitosti, které s sebou přináší digitální ekonomika. Zkoumá vztah mezi zákaznickou zpětnou vazbou a kvalitou služby. Tento problém dělí do dvou různých částí. První se váže k sentimentu zpětné vazby a druhá k její emocionalitě. Jelikož je zkoumaný problém široký, byl rozdělen do několika dílčích problémů. První řešený problém spočívá v klasifikaci sentimentu, potažmo emocionality ze zpětné vazby. Druhý problém se vztahuje k tomu, jakým způsobem mohou takto klasifikovaná data implikovat kvalitu služby. Pro vyřešení těchto problémů je provedena rešerše současné literatury o kvalitě služeb, ve které je uvedena konceptualizace kvality, přístupy k jejímu měření a výzkum dimenzí kvality. Dále je provedena rešerše literatury z oblasti opinion mining, ve které jsou popsány metody extrakce sentimentu, vyjádřených emocí a aspektů služby. Tato práce také obsahuje první rešerši literatury, která využívá metod z oblasti opinion mining pro vyhodnocení kvality služeb. Oproti článkům z rešerše se tato práce věnuje jednak konceptualizaci kvality služby a jednak její syntéze s oblastí opinion mining. Případová studie z prostředí elektronického bankovnictví je použita pro ověření vybraných metod pro extrakci aspektů a klasifikaci sentimentu. Emoce vyjádřené ve zpětné vazbě a jejich extrakce jsou zkoumány ve druhé případové studii, kde je ověřen jejich vztah ke kvalitě služby. Nakonec je provedena kvalitativní studie, která ověřuje předpoklady z rešerše týkající se vztahu mezi nestrukturovaným textem a strukturovaným hodnocením kvality na jednotkové úrovni.This thesis focuses on the quality diagnosis of services delivered using IT artefacts over the internet that are also known as e-services, IT services or self-services. The thesis reflects new challenges and new possibilities that digital economy brings. This work examines the relationship between consumers’ feedback and service quality. The research issue is split in two particular branches. One branch is related to feedback sentiment and the other to feedback emotionality. The first particular issue refers to classification from unstructured feedback, the second to service quality implication. In order to solve the issues, the thesis presents the literature review of current service quality research and the review of opinion mining methods that can help with a large customer-generated online service feedback. This work contains the first literature review of papers that use opinion mining technique to service quality diagnosis. In contrast to the reviewed work, the thesis conceptualises service quality theory and synthesises it with opinion mining taxonomy. The case study from e-banking service is used for demonstration of opinion mining methods for service quality diagnosis. The emotions are examined in the second case study. Finally, the qualitative study on the level of a review is conducted
Artefacts in Agile Team Communication
No full textAgile software development (ASD) has become standard in software development. ASD methods share a preference for face-to-face communication rather than formal comprehensive documentation. As agile teams are independent in their internal processes they can decide on, whether or not, to use documentation artefacts. Their decisions elaborate the Agile Manifesto’s second statement: “Working software over comprehensive documentation”. Therefore, our main research question is: What is the role of artefacts in communication in agile software development teams? The hypothesis underlying this research is that artefacts have proven their value in traditional software development and that agile teams will carry over some of this value to their current practices. In first instance the use of artefacts in agile teams was investigated through interviewing team members in three agile teams in a case study. Its conclusions demonstrated the basic validity of our hypothesis. The teams did use artefacts and we partially confirmed previous findings and complemented them with additional artefacts. Having established the blend of traditional and agile artefacts does not shine light on reasons for using them. In a holistic view we first investigated the existence of a relation between maturity of an agile team’s ASD and its use of artefacts. Evidence was found for maturity to be negatively correlated with the non-agile/all artefacts ratio. In a follow-up study we explicitly investigated rationales for the use of artefacts. In fourteen agile teams interviews were held with prominent team members to discuss the use of artefacts and the motivation for using them. Agile teams stated five groups of rationales, among which one for agile artefacts and four for traditional artefacts, for instance to promote internal team communication. Formal and informal communication in ASD are often regarded as two distinct end points, resembling the distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge. This distinction is recognized not to be a black and white one and this raised the question whether or not agile teams also experience intermediate appearances between formal communication (artefacts) and informal communication (face-to-face). We coined this appearance a ‘fuzzy’ artefact, an artefact which is not formally documented, but one that is still explicitly recognized by an agile team. The findings confirmed their existence and teams use them, for instance, in the requirements process, the elaboration of user stories and in taking Go/ No-Go decisions. The overall answer to our research question thus is: Yes, artefacts play an important role in the communication within agile teams. This is no surprise as far as agile artefacts, artefacts that are inherent to ASD, are involved, for instance a product or sprint backlog, or user stories. Agile teams use, in addition, non-agile artefacts, which are associated with traditional software development rather than ASD. However, they have sound reasons to do so. Two examples: (1) Team-internal communication benefits from functional and technical design artefacts, (2) Quality assurance leads to test-related artefacts. In general, agile teams are able to explain why they are using the artefacts they use. Artefacts do not replace face-to-face communication, but complement it
Měření kvality e-služeb z pohledu zákazníka
No full textTato práce se zabývá vyhodnocováním kvality služeb, které jsou dodávány prostřednictvím IT artefaktů a internetu, známých jako e-služby, samoobslužné nebo IT služby. Práce reflektuje výzvy a příležitosti, které s sebou přináší digitální ekonomika. Zkoumá vztah mezi zákaznickou zpětnou vazbou a kvalitou služby. Tento problém dělí do dvou různých částí. První se váže k sentimentu zpětné vazby a druhá k její emocionalitě. Jelikož je zkoumaný problém široký, byl rozdělen do několika dílčích problémů. První řešený problém spočívá v klasifikaci sentimentu, potažmo emocionality ze zpětné vazby. Druhý problém se vztahuje k tomu, jakým způsobem mohou takto klasifikovaná data implikovat kvalitu služby. Pro vyřešení těchto problémů je provedena rešerše současné literatury o kvalitě služeb, ve které je uvedena konceptualizace kvality, přístupy k jejímu měření a výzkum dimenzí kvality. Dále je provedena rešerše literatury z oblasti opinion mining, ve které jsou popsány metody extrakce sentimentu, vyjádřených emocí a aspektů služby. Tato práce také obsahuje první rešerši literatury, která využívá metod z oblasti opinion mining pro vyhodnocení kvality služeb. Oproti článkům z rešerše se tato práce věnuje jednak konceptualizaci kvality služby a jednak její syntéze s oblastí opinion mining. Případová studie z prostředí elektronického bankovnictví je použita pro ověření vybraných metod pro extrakci aspektů a klasifikaci sentimentu. Emoce vyjádřené ve zpětné vazbě a jejich extrakce jsou zkoumány ve druhé případové studii, kde je ověřen jejich vztah ke kvalitě služby. Nakonec je provedena kvalitativní studie, která ověřuje předpoklady z rešerše týkající se vztahu mezi nestrukturovaným textem a strukturovaným hodnocením kvality na jednotkové úrovni.This thesis focuses on the quality diagnosis of services delivered using IT artefacts over the internet that are also known as e-services, IT services or self-services. The thesis reflects new challenges and new possibilities that digital economy brings. This work examines the relationship between consumers’ feedback and service quality. The research issue is split in two particular branches. One branch is related to feedback sentiment and the other to feedback emotionality. The first particular issue refers to classification from unstructured feedback, the second to service quality implication. In order to solve the issues, the thesis presents the literature review of current service quality research and the review of opinion mining methods that can help with a large customer-generated online service feedback. This work contains the first literature review of papers that use opinion mining technique to service quality diagnosis. In contrast to the reviewed work, the thesis conceptualises service quality theory and synthesises it with opinion mining taxonomy. The case study from e-banking service is used for demonstration of opinion mining methods for service quality diagnosis. The emotions are examined in the second case study. Finally, the qualitative study on the level of a review is conducted
Sociality and the rate of molecular evolution
No full textCopyright © The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved.The molecular clock does not tick at a uniform rate in all taxa but may be influenced by species characteristics. Eusocial species (those with reproductive division of labor) have been predicted to have faster rates of molecular evolution than their nonsocial relatives because of greatly reduced effective population size; if most individuals in a population are nonreproductive and only one or few queens produce all the offspring, then eusocial animals could have much lower effective population sizes than their solitary relatives, which should increase the rate of substitution of "nearly neutral" mutations. An earlier study reported faster rates in eusocial honeybees and vespid wasps but failed to correct for phylogenetic nonindependence or to distinguish between potential causes of rate variation. Because sociality has evolved independently in many different lineages, it is possible to conduct a more wide-ranging study to test the generality of the relationship. We have conducted a comparative analysis of 25 phylogenetically independent pairs of social lineages and their nonsocial relatives, including bees, wasps, ants, termites, shrimps, and mole rats, using a range of available DNA sequences (mitochondrial and nuclear DNA coding for proteins and RNAs, and nontranslated sequences). By including a wide range of social taxa, we were able to test whether there is a general influence of sociality on rates of molecular evolution and to test specific predictions of the hypothesis: (1) that social species have faster rates because they have reduced effective population sizes; (2) that mitochondrial genes would show a greater effect of sociality than nuclear genes; and (3) that rates of molecular evolution should be correlated with the degree of sociality. We find no consistent pattern in rates of molecular evolution between social and nonsocial lineages and no evidence that mitochondrial genes show faster rates in social taxa. However, we show that the most highly eusocial Hymenoptera do have faster rates than their nonsocial relatives. We also find that social parasites (that utilize the workers from related species to produce their own offspring) have faster rates than their social relatives, which is consistent with an effect of lower effective population size on rate of molecular evolution. Our results illustrate the importance of allowing for phylogenetic nonindependence when conducting investigations of determinants of variation in rate of molecular evolution.Lindell Bromham and Remko Ley
Developments in knowledge discovery processes and methodologies:Anything new?
No full textThe process of turning data into knowledge is referred to as “knowledge discovery” (KD) and originated in the 1990s. Since that time many different process models and methodologies have been developed. A genealogy presented in 2010, showed how the different models evolved and presented a refined process model, which represents a synthesis of the models presented before. However, the rise of data analytics and big data have changed how organizations do business. The key to these changes is to use data and turn it into knowledge to create value for the organization. Therefore, this study aims to update our understanding of knowledge discovery processes by reviewing the research into KD processes since 2010 in order to understand if there have been considerable changes and developments in this field. The developments in KD process models and methodologies that were found are threefold: tasks, steps and agile practices
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