Groups Formation and Operations in the Web 2.0 Environment and Social Networks

The Internet and the Web are evolving to a platform for collaboration, sharing, innovation and user-created content—the so-called Web 2.0 environment. This environment includes social and business networks, and it is influencing what people do on the Web and intranets, individually and in groups. This paper describes the Web 2.0 environment, its tools, applications, characteristics. It also describes various types of online groups, especially social networks, and how they operate in the Web 2.0 environment. Of special interest is the way organization members communicate and collaborate mainly via wikis and blogs. In addition, the paper includes a proposed triad relational model (Technology–People–Community) of social/work life on the Internet. Particularly, social/work groups are becoming sustainable because of the incentives for participants to connect and network with other users. A discussion of group dynamics that is based on the human needs for trust, support, and sharing, regardless if the setting is a physical or virtual one, follows. Finally, future research directions are outlined.     

Does rapid economic growth enhance democratization? Time-series evidence from high performing Asian economies

We examine the long-run relationship between economic growth and democratization for the high performing Asian economies using a time-series technique called the autoregressive distributive lag bounds test. For all eight of such economies, we do not find a statistically significant long-run relationship running from growth to democratization. Instead, we find a statistically significant long-run relationship running from democratization to growth, which can be either positive or negative. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, our results suggest that rapid economic growth in the high performing Asian economies appears to have little effect on democratization in the long run.     

Estimating elasticities with frontier and other regressions in evaluating two advertising strategies for US Army recruiting

To help resolve a long-standing debate in the US Government on advertising strategies for military recruitment, this study applies ordinary least squares (OLS), which here includes (1) stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and (2) frontierized least squares (FLS), to evaluate two distinct advertising strategies: Service Specific vs. Joint. Thus, in contrast to the customary use of a single central tendency method, such as OLS, on different models, we here use multiple methods on a single model to cross check and validate results. In addition to serving as cross checks, the methods can be used to identify classic problems, including biases in the data and shortcomings in one or more of the methodologies employed. To avoid dealing with problems on identifying motives underlying various patterns in advertising expenditure, data are drawn from a statistically designed experiment where the expenditures were controlled as part of the experiment to resolve the issue of a choice between the two advertising strategies of interest. In contrast to earlier studies, the current paper finds that all methods used lead to the same conclusion: Service Specific is more efficient than Joint, at least for the US Army—which is, by far, the largest military advertiser. Finally, the paper introduces a new method for reallocating advertising budgets between the Uniformed Services which (a) is simpler than the customary use of cross partial derivatives, (b) avoids the need for the ceteris paribus assumptions for each such allocation, as in customary reallocation methods and (c) simplifies matters so that, for instance, it is not necessary to introduce an entirely new organization to administer the desired coordinating activities.     

The Effects of Initial Location,Aspirations, and Resources on Likelihood of First Sale in Nascent Firms*

The formation of a new venture includes initial choices that affect the process of start‐up. Primary among these decisions is the choice of location whether to start from home or from an away location. This paper examines the impact of initial firm location choices and aspirations of the entrepreneur on the resource assembly process and the likelihood of first sale. Results show that home‐based businesses assemble different types of resources from their away‐based counterparts. Higher aspirations were associated with greater accumulation of organizational resources. The combined influence of location and aspirations showed that home‐based firms with high aspirations were less likely to achieve first sale. A post hoc analysis examined these affects within a subgroup of service firms and confirmed the previous results. This study suggests that in the initial stages of the new venture, there are processes and routines that home‐based businesses engage in that lead them to achieve first sales in a timelier manner than those businesses that are located away from home. Furthermore, high aspirations are associated with greater scale of organizational resources but not necessarily with achievement of sales. Implications are discussed.     

Knowledge exchange in networked organizations: does place matter?

While many studies of knowledge exchange have been undertaken in private and service organizations, government and R&D enterprises, few have studied scientific inter‐organizational collaborations. Furthermore, in the literature on international networks there has been a tendency to assume that knowledge exchange will be inevitably enhanced by global dispersion. Two linked dynamics deserving further study are the role of geographic proximity and the role of information and communication technologies in facilitating knowledge flow across international networks. Studies of intra‐ and inter‐firm knowledge transfer, managerial work values and cultural norms all point to China as being a fascinating counterpoint for the way knowledge exchange might occur in Europe. So in this study of the ATLAS collaboration, a ‘big science’ global network of 3,500 physicists, we explore the perceptions of two subgroups: UK physicists working in Europe and Chinese scientists based in Beijing and HeFei. Findings from 24 interviews and non‐participant observation reveal that face‐to‐face working at European Organization for Nuclear Research (Geneva) is not without its difficulties, but for a variety of sociocultural reasons, it is primarily the Chinese scientists who perceive themselves to be inhibited from full participation in effective knowledge exchange.     

Contents of Volume 35

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 35