Topic 3 - HI2

The following are links that relate to the content of the third topic in HI2. The aim of this section of the course is to be able to differentiate between two different views of a Group. These will be termed the Rational view and the Functional view of groups. We will illustrate these two views using the concepts of teams and communities from the previous topic

1. Teams - ‘Esprit de Corps’ or Contractual Relations?
2. Communities - Knowledge Work or Social Discourse?

Two key texts will be provided for this topic, these are:

1. Transitions in Teamwork in New Organizational Forms, G. DeSanctis and M.S. Poole, Advances in Group Processes, Vol 14, pp 157 - 176
   This not available in the library.
2. Chapter 10, Perspective Making and Perspective Taking in Communities of Knowing in Shaping organization form: communication, connection, and community, G. DeSanctis and J. Fulk.
   This book has recently been added to the library as an ordinary loan book, but does not have a shelf mark at present.

Teams and team work

• Teamwork and groups - http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~lsb/courses/map/map6.ps
  Postscript file on teamwork and groups from undergraduate course on Managing People (MAP)

• DOLPHIN - http://www.darmstadt.gmd.de/publish/ocean/activities/internal/dolphin.html
  DOLPHIN software supports the preparation and management of team meetings in different application scenarios: face-to-face meetings as well as meetings with remote participants.

• Technology, Teams and Organizations: Implementing Groupware at Texaco - http://www.hbs.harvard.edu/mis/multimedia/link/s_texaco.html
  Executive summary from Harvard Business School Colloquium 1995. Provides some background information on the growth of autonomous (or semi-autonomous) work teams and the use Groupware in an industrial setting.

• Center for the Study of Work Teams - http://www.workteams.unt.edu/links.htm
  Provides many links to sites related to Self Directed Work Teams, Virtual Teams, etc.

• Teamwork: a force for organizational improvement - http://www.free-press.com/journals/mlr/Volume1/Issue1/ingram.htm
  Reviews the literature about the nature of groups and teams. In particular, it addresses the role of the individual within a group and attempts to distinguish teams from work groups.

• Small Group Development - http://www.abacon.com/commstudies/groups/devgroup.html
  Material from Allyn and Bacon (publishers) - a commercial web site. Gives very brief overviews of different theories of the development of small groups with some follow up references.

• When Teams Aren't Important Or Desirable - http://members.xoom.com/cooperate/!teadesi.htm
  Teams aren't always a good idea in the workplace. When are they important? When are they NOT a good idea?

Communities and Communities of Practice

• Design Principles for Online Communities - http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/design.htm
  The key challenges the Internet community will face in the future are the challenges of social interaction and social organization. There is no algorithm for community. Building community is a fundamentally different activity than writing computer code.

• CoPs (Communities of Practice) - http://www.tcm.com/trdev/cops.htm
  A site from TCM that provides many links to Communities of Practice

• Communities of Practice - http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/index.shtml
  A site from the Knowledge Garden that also provides many links to Communities of Practice

• Extensively Computerized Work Groups as Communities-of-Practice - http://www.slis.indiana.edu/kling/pubs/amit95d.htm
  Two contrasting case studies of professional and clerical workers.

• Organizational learning and communities-of-practice - http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/members/brown/papers/orglearning.html
  Conventional descriptions of jobs mask not only the ways people work, but also significant learning and innovation generated in the informal communities-of-practice in which they work.

• The People Are the Company - http://www.fastcompany.com/online/01/people.html
  Learning is less about absorbing information than it is about becoming part of a community. It is a social process built around informed participation