Jens Erik Hoverby:
I've recently completes a book in the area of information technology and
its role in organizational learning. It is entitled "Collaborative
Technologies and Organizational Learning". It will be released in about 2
weeks from Idea Group Publishing (Harri sburg, PA and London). see
http://www.idea-group.com/coltech.htm for an outline. You may want to
look at it to see if it gives you any ideas for your own book. Following
is the Preface the book:
In the post-organizational reengineering era, public and private
organizations are searching for a new holy grail. Reengineering gurus and
corporate downsizing executioners are in the midst of their respective
"mea culpa" acts, claiming that they may h ave erred too much on the side
of structural organizational interventions at the expense of behavioral
interventions. Concurrently, announcements for a myriad of conferences,
symposia, and workshops for those seeking new insight cross my desk daily
showc asing the latest and greatest in balanced scorecards, knowledge
management, beyond reeningeering, organizational outcome measurement,
complexity and non-linear dynamics in a linear world, and so on. From a
technological perspective, organizations are tra nsferring larger and
larger bitstreams of information across, within, and among organizational
units and strategic partners. Much of this information is now transmitted
using collaborative technologies (groupware) or intranets in the hopes
that informati on will be shared across organizational boundaries thereby
"magically" creating an organizational vice individual asset.
These seemingly disparate occurrences have one thing in common.
The concept of organizational learning permeates much of the continuing
discussion among post-reengineering advocates, groupware proponents and
those who organize the plethora of conferences that seem to spring to life
like mushrooms. Organizational learning is a strong candidate to replace
reengineering as the next intellectual bastion on the continuously
twisting road to increased organizational productivity. However, there is
a paucity of research on how transferring intellectual materials via
groupware products fosters organizational learning. This book provides a
first glance into intellectual intersection between organizational
learning and collaborative technologies.
The book is intended to serve two audiences: (1) the academic
community; and, (2) public and private sector practitioners who seek
greater understanding of the underlying bases behind organizational
learning. Most importantly, the book contains practice prescriptions for
those interested in increasing the chances of successfully implementing a
collaborative technology (i.e. Lotus Notes.). The book begins with an
analysis of the organizational learning and collaborative technologies
literature to asce rtain if there are commonalities or themes that run
through each body of literature. Next, theoretical bases are discussed
and critically reviewed using a series five questions as a focal point of
discussion followed by a discussion of the methodology us ed in the case
study. Results of an exploratory case study are presented including a
series of practice prescriptions followed by a final section on building
organizational learning understanding through metaphors. Throughout the
book, I have tried to avoid taking a techno-utopiaist view of the subject
matter, a ttempting instead to steer a course between the
techno-utopiaists and techno-phobics.
Completing a book is an adventure yet also a journey. Several
individuals provided significant advice, counsel and encouragement
throughout the journey. I am indebted to Ronald Stupak for his academic
insight and encouragement. To Steve Knode, Dwight Toavs, and George
Alapas, I offer my sincere thanks for the time and effort spent on
discussing abstract concepts and wading through various iterations.
Lastly, I am also indebted to John Carabello and Robert Childs of the
Information Resources Manage ment College of the National Defense
University for their continuing support and encouragement over the last
four years.
Robert E. Neilson, DPA
Information Resources Management College
National Defense University
neilson@ndu.edu
>Dear members,
>I am collecting material for a book about Information technology as the
>backbone in learning organisations. I am also looking for a writing
>partner (co-author).
>
>If you are interested or know of somebody who could be interested in
>discussing the possibility of some co-operation, please mail or call.
>
>Jens Erik Hoverby
>DTI
>Center for Competence Development
>Teknologiparken
>8000 Aarhus C
>Denmark
>
>tel: +45 8943 8850
>fax: +45 8943 8843
>e-mail: jhv@dti.dk
[Host's Note: Our mail to Jens Erik Hoverby is "bouncing" and you may get
an undeliverable notice if you write to him. I doubt he is seeing these
replies to his msg, but I don't know for sure. ...Rick]
--Bob BN Neilson <NEILSON@NDU.EDU>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>