Collaborating with Virtual Assistants in Organizations: Analyzing Social Loafing Tendencies and Responsibility Attribution

2022 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 3

Authors: Stieglitz, Stefan; Mirbabaie, Milad; Möllmann, Nicholas R. J.; Rzyski, Jannik

Abstract: Organizations increasingly introduce collaborative technologies in form of virtu ... Expand

Abstract: Organizations increasingly introduce collaborative technologies in form of virtual assistants (VAs) to save valuable resources, especially when employees are assisted with work-related tasks. However, the effect of VAs on virtual teams and collaboration remains uncertain, particularly whether employees show social loafing (SL) tendencies, i.e., applying less effort for collective tasks compared to working alone. While extant research indicates that VAs collaboratively working in teams exert greater results, less is known about SL in virtual collaboration and how responsibility attribution alters. An online experiment with N = 102 was conducted in which participants were assisted by a VA in solving a task. The results indicate SL tendencies in virtual collaboration with VAs and that participants tend to cede responsibility to the VA. This study makes a first foray and extends the information systems (IS) literature by analyzing SL and responsibility attribution thus updates our knowledge on virtual collaboration with VAs. Collapse

Topics: virtual teamwork brainstorming personality team productivity IT enabled teamwork

Methods: descriptive statistic experiment survey survey design statistical power analysis

Understanding Collaboration with Virtual Assistants – The Role of Social Identity and the Extended Self

2021 | Business & Information Systems Engineering | Citations: 0

Authors: Mirbabaie, Milad; Stieglitz, Stefan; Brünker, Felix; Hofeditz, Lennart; Ross, Björn; Frick, Nicholas R. J.

Abstract: Organizations introduce virtual assistants (VAs) to support employees with work- ... Expand

Abstract: Organizations introduce virtual assistants (VAs) to support employees with work-related tasks. VAs can increase the success of teamwork and thus become an integral part of the daily work life. However, the effect of VAs on virtual teams remains unclear. While social identity theory describes the identification of employees with team members and the continued existence of a group identity, the concept of the extended self refers to the incorporation of possessions into one’s sense of self. This raises the question of which approach applies to VAs as teammates. The article extends the IS literature by examining the impact of VAs on individuals and teams and updates the knowledge on social identity and the extended self by deploying VAs in a collaborative setting. Using a laboratory experiment with N = 50, two groups were compared in solving a task, where one group was assisted by a VA, while the other was supported by a person. Results highlight that employees who identify VAs as part of their extended self are more likely to identify with team members and vice versa. The two aspects are thus combined into the proposed construct of virtually extended identification explaining the relationships of collaboration with VAs. This study contributes to the understanding on the influence of the extended self and social identity on collaboration with VAs. Practitioners are able to assess how VAs improve collaboration and teamwork in mixed teams in organizations. Collapse

Topics: social identity social media team productivity online chat cloud computing

Methods: survey experiment parametric test descriptive statistic Shapiro-Wilk test

Theories: social identity theory

Organizing knowledge workforce for specified iterative software development tasks

2014 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 5

Authors: Shao, Benjamin B. M.; Yin, Peng-Yeng; Chen, Andrew N. K.

Abstract: Organizing knowledge workers for specific tasks in a software development proces ... Expand

Abstract: Organizing knowledge workers for specific tasks in a software development process is critical for the success of software projects. Assigning workforce in software projects represents a dynamic and complex problem that concerns the utilization of cross-trained knowledge workers who possess different productivities and error tendencies in coding and defect correction. This complexity is further compounded when the development process follows a software release life cycle and involves major releases of alpha, beta, and final versions in the context of iterative software development. We study this knowledge workforce problem from three essential project management perspectives: (1) timeliness — obtaining shortest development time; (2) effectiveness — satisfying budget constraint; and (3) efficiency — achieving high workforce utilization. We explore ideal workforce composites with two strategic focuses on productivity and quality and with different scenarios of workload ratios. An analytical model is formulated and a meta-heuristic approach based on particle swarm optimization is used to derive solutions in a simulation experiment. Our findings suggest that forming an ideal workforce composite is a non-trivial task and task assignments with divergent focuses for software projects under different workload scenarios require different planning strategies. Practical implications are drawn from our findings to provide insight on effectively planning workforce for software projects with specific goals and considerations. Collapse

Topics: productivity systems development project management IT project knowledge work

Methods: simulation computational algorithm experiment design methodology pilot experiment

Advances in enterprise information systems

2008 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 1

Authors: Li, Ling; Valerdi, Ricardo; Warfield, John N.

Abstract: ... Expand

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Topics: enterprise modelling logistics management supply chain management enterprise information system enterprise application integration

Methods: business process modeling data transformation machine learning qualitative content analysis longitudinal research

Enhancing the efficiency of supply chain processes through web services

2007 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 9

Authors: Rhee, Seung-Hyun; Bae, Hyerim; Choi, Yongsun

Abstract: Among business enterprises, keen competition is accelerating the introduction of ... Expand

Abstract: Among business enterprises, keen competition is accelerating the introduction of Supply Chain Management (SCM). SCM entails the utilization of cutting-edge information technology in elaborately designing, managing and integrating supply chain processes so that participating companies’ processes are interoperational at the global level. Recently, new Business Process Management (BPM) technology has attracted much attention as an indispensable tool for managing the supply chain synthetically and systematically. This next-generation technology, a great advance on existing BPM systems, can greatly enhance overall process efficiency in run-time. The critical path(s) in a process, and the slack time of each task, being the typical determiners of supply chain process efficiency, are the basis of a method, proposed in this paper, of efficiently executing global supply chain processes. The proposed method acts as a dispatching rule that can guide prioritization of the tasks in order to improve the run-time efficiency of supply chain processes. We provide several simulated results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, propose a web-service-based system architecture for the communication of the run-time data of tasks among processes in heterogeneous environments, and present a prototype of the system implemented. Collapse

Topics: supply chain management enterprise architecture web service business process management system electronic commerce

Methods: design artifact simulation business process modeling experiment Student's t-test

A cost-effective critical path approach for service priority selections in grid computing economy

2006 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Lin, Mei; Lin, Zhangxi

Abstract: The increasing demand for grid computing resources calls for an incentive-compat ... Expand

Abstract: The increasing demand for grid computing resources calls for an incentive-compatible pricing mechanism for differentiated service qualities. This paper examines the optimal service priority selection problem for a grid computing services user, who is submitting a multi-subtask job for the priced services in a grid computing network. We conceptualize the problem into a prioritized critical path method (CPM) network, identify it as a time–cost tradeoff problem, and differentiate it from the traditional problem by considering a delay cost associated to the total throughput time. We define the optimal solution for the prioritized CPM network as the globally cost-effective critical path (GCCP), the optimal critical path for the solution that minimizes the total cost. As the exponential time complexity of GCCP makes the problem practically unsolvable, we propose a locally cost-effective critical path (LCCP) based approach to the prioritized CPM problem with a heuristic solution. The locally optimized priority constituting the configuration for LCCP can provide a lower bound for the throughput time of GCCP with the same time complexity as that for a traditional CPM problem. To further improve the quality of the solution, we conceive a priority adjustment algorithm named Non-critical Path Relaxation (NPR) algorithm, to refine the priority selections of the nodes on the non-critical paths. A discussion of the effects of the users' priority selections on the grid network pricing is provided to elicit future research on the computing resource pricing problem on the service-side. Collapse

Topics: grid computing price management supply chain management pricing information system virtualization technology

Methods: computational algorithm integer programming theoretical contribution