Business Commons^™

Modeling Usage Of An Online Research Community, Yi Zhang

Dissertations

Although online communities have been thought of as a new way for collaboration across geographic boundaries in the scientific world, they have a problem attracting people to keep visiting. The main purpose of this study is to understand how people behave in such communities, and to build and evaluate tools to stimulate engagement in a research community. These tools were designed based on a research framework of factors that influence online participation and relationship development.

There are two main objectives for people to join an online community, information sharing and interpersonal relationship development, such as friends or colleagues. The tools …

Relationship Analysis : Improving The Systems Analysis Process, Joseph Thomas Catanio

Dissertations

A significant aspect of systems analysis involves discovering and representing entities and their inter-relationships. Guidelines exist to identify entities but do not provide a rigorous and comprehensive process to explicitly capture the relationship structure of the problem domain. Whereas, other analysis techniques lightly address the relationship discovery process, Relationship Analysis is the only systematic, domain-independent analysis technique focusing exclusively on a domain's relationship structure.

The quality of design artifacts, such as class diagrams, and development time necessary to generate these artifacts can be improved by first representing the complete relationship structure of the problem domain. The Relationship Analysis Model is …

A Discovery And Analysis Of Influencing Factors Of Pair Programming, Kyungsub Steve Choi

Dissertations

The exploration into the underlying psychosocial links of pair programming. a new and unorthodox programming paradigm in which two programmers share one keyboard and monitor during real-time programming sessions, is undertaken. These complex psychosocial relationships, along with cognitive process exchanges, ultimately mold the programming output as well as determine the level of communication, satisfaction. confidence and compatibility. Laying the framework for this research, a through review of traditional and contemporary paradigms with a special focus on their limitations and a list of current software development problems are presented. Next, a detailed summary of pair programming and related agile software paradigms, …

Cleaner Technologies As An Aspect Of Sustainable Tourism: Carribbean Case Studies, Fitzgerald J. Yaw Jr.

Dissertations

Tourists are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their selection of tourism destination. A major factor that has been gaining importance in their choice set is the environmental quality of their preferred destination. Tourism planners need to recognize that the sustainability of their destination and its various offerings necessitates the consideration of environmental protection and conservation-related issues. This dissertation undertakes the case study methodology to explore the link between implementing cleaner technologies, a major environmental issue, and sustainable tourism.

The Caribbean is a region in the world that is strongly dependent on tourism for its economic development. Thus the analysis of how …

Increasing The Awareness Of Human Resource Development Activities In Small Firms, Hanacho Michael Nmom

Dissertations

Much of what is known today concerning organizational human resource development efforts (those being employee training, education, and development activities) has steadily and favorably come from large firms. Conversely, very little is known about the extent of HRD activities in small firms, especially those with fewer than 300 employees. To correct this imbalance of awareness the primary aim of this study is to delineate the learning activities of four successfulsmall service-oriented firms in Kalamazoo (Michigan) county.

The study sample consists of seven "purposeful informants". A mixed-method case study, employing the quantitative and qualitative fact-finding strategies ofa simple survey questionnaire and …

Virtual Teams Combining Mobile Devices With Web-Based Communication On Group Decision Making, Hyo-Joo Han

Dissertations

Organizations have moved from a face-to-face team environment to a virtual team environment using communication technology during the last decade. More and more workers use asynchronous tools (including email, discussion groups, information sharing tools, and group calendaring systems), and synchronous tools, such as instant messaging and web-based chatting features, to coordinate and share information with people within and outside of organizations. This empirical study on how virtual teams work, integrating mobile devices with web-based group communication for decision-making tasks, examines which technologies and communication modes are the best for distributed group teamwork, and, mainly, what are the predictive characteristics making …

The Impacts Of Delphi Communication Structure On Small And Medium Sized Asynchronous Virtual Teams, Hee-Kyung Cho

Dissertations

The improvement of Internet technology has motivated distributed work groups to collaborate without meeting face to face. Although asynchronous meetings through Web-based group communications systems enable groups dispersed temporarily and geographically to collaborate more flexibly, parallel and non-linear communication among dispersed members also challenge effective and efficient group coordination. Moreover, the Web-based asynchronous meeting is distinguished not only from the face-to-face meeting but also from the synchronous computer-supported meeting in terms of coordination process. However, previous asynchronous group communications or virtual team research focused more on the comparison of this new type of meeting with the face-to-face meeting. Not many …

An Examination Of Cross-Cultural Understanding In A Global Automotive Company, A. Dale Phillips

Dissertations

Purpose of the Study

Global Motors o f the United States and Baumgart AG of Germany came together to produce an automobile that was marketable in both countries. Since this project involved people from two cultures, the purpose of this study was to examine perceived cultural markers at work during this joint vehicle development project by identifying these markers and investigating their effects on the overall success of the joint-venture project.

Methodology

I chose to use a qualitative methodology, specifically focus groups. All engineers who worked on the project team received an email inviting them to participate and assuring them …