Browsing Department of Informatics (INF) by Subject "Ph.d.-afhandlinger"
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Enriching software process improvement with knowledge managementHansen Hansen, Bo (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Formålet med denne afhandling er at belyse, hvorledes softwarevirksomheder kan forbedre deres udviklingspraksis ved at udnytte deres vidensressourcer bedre. Afhandlingen belyser dette ved at besvare følgende forskningspørgsmål: • Hvorledes kan en softwarevirksomheds videnstyringsstatus bestemmes med henblik på at kunne identificere vidensrelaterede forbedringsområder? • Hvorledes kan forbedringer af sådanne områder planlægges via design og tilpasning af nye organisatoriske tiltag til styrkelse af organisationens læringsmuligheder? • Hvorledes kan sådanne forbedringsinitiativer faciliteres og implementeres for at sikre accept og fortsat udvikling? Afhandlingen er en del af det nationale forskningsprojekt Softwareprocesser og Viden og er udarbejdet som et aktionsforskningsprojekt hos softwarevirksomheden Systematic Software Engineering i Århus. Afhandlingen leverer, foruden forbedringer i den involverede organisation, teoretiske og metodiske bidrag til softwareprocesforbedringsfeltet ved at vise hvorledes teoretisk input fra vidensstyringsfeltet kan integreres i og styrke softwareprocesforbedringsfeltet, samt ved at vise hvorledes komplekse organisatoriske sammenhænge kan belyses ved at anvende en passende og fleksibel portefølje af analyse— og interventionsteknikker. Derudover bidrager afhandlingen med udviklingen af en balanceret teori om vidensstyring i softwareprocesforbedring. Til dette formål introduceres begreberne eksemplarisk og situeret videnstype og normativ og reflektiv processforbedring. Afhandlingen anskueliggør desuden, hvorledes et længerevarende samarbejdsbaseret studie har bidraget med resultater internt i case-organisationen ved at designe og tilpasse en ny projektevalueringsproces, der er baseret på et skifte mod en situeret vidensorganisation ved aktivt at involvere de eksisterende ekspertnetværk i organisationen. Gennem designet af denne ny proces belyses, hvorledes Softwareprocesforbedringsfeltet på et teoretisk niveau styrkes igennem integration af teorier fra beslægtede felter. Afhandlingen viser, hvorledes kulturanalyse og videnskort kan anvendes som softwareprocesforbedringsteknikker. Derudover antyder afhandlingen en balanceret teori om vidensstyring i softwareprocesforbedring, der beskriver betydningen af at søge en ligevægt imellem den herskende organisatoriske videnstype (eksemplarisk vs. situeret) og softwareprocesforbedringsmetode (normativ vs. reflektiv). Slutteligt viser denne afhandling, hvorledes et længerevarende forskningsprojekt, inspireret af aktionsforskning, kan styres og fokuseres igennem anvendelsen af Collaborative Practice Research URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7902 Files in this item: 1
Bo_Hansen_Hansen_1.pdf (16.57Mb) -
Politikernes og forvaltningens medkonstruktion og konsekvenserne herafSecher, Christine (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis is about how different e-participation user groups co-construct technology through the use in practice. It is studied how technology is used on a municipality level for citizen-communication and -participation with an online debate forum as a case in point. Users of online debates are citizens, politicians and the administration. In this thesis, I have chosen to focus on how politicians and the administration use online debates. I show how politicians and the administration participate in very distinct ways on the debate forum and thereby create specific forms of citizen communication and participation. Everybody can participate in the online debate as long as they give up their name and email. Periodically, citizens write quite a lot of contributions on the debate forum. But politicians’ and the administration’s perception of what is happening on the debate influence which role the citizens’s contributions will have for the politicians and administration, as well as forms of interaction between users. In this thesis, I argue that the users’ (politicians’s and administration’s) sensemaking about online debates as well as the mediation of the use of online debates have a crucial influence on which types of practice of online debate can develop. Online debate is perceived as an equivocal technology in the sense that the use of the technology is not clear cut but a result of the user’s sensemaking about the technology and thereby the sensemaking about possible acts and interactions with the technology and other users. Sensemaking is the primary theoretical frame with a special focus on situation-specific cue-frame-relations. The Municipality of Odder is the case and a unique one with its 11 years of experience within municipally facilitated online debate. The empirical data are contributions written from September 3rd, 2005 to April 15, 2008 (a total of 1983 contributions), 17 semi-structured interviews of ½-1½ hours length with administration and politicians in the municipality as well as different written documents from the municipality. In this thesis I show that politicians and administration act as users of the online debate in four different ways: Political candidate, councilor, administrator and mediator. The political candidate run for the municipal election and is only present in the debate the last three months before the election. The political candidate see online debates as a good opportunity to make him/herself visible to voters and competing candidates, and therefore (s)he writes a lot of contributions during this period. The political candidate rarely answers ordinary citizen’s contributions but instead decides to write new contributions or answer contributions started by competitors. The political candidate rarely gets involved in real discussions on the debate but instead choose to give his/her visions for the future of the Municipality of Odder. The councilor see the debate as the citizen’s opportunity to voice their meaning and therefore rarely participate in the debate, as this could have a negative effect on citizens motivation to write on the debate. The councilor reads the citizens’ contributions and once in a while the contributions act as input for internal council discussions. When the contribution reflect misunderstanding and when it is not only a few citizens who share the misunderstanding, the councilor chooses to write a report for the debate. It is usually the relevant committee chairman or equivalent who writes the contribution. The administrator believes that the majority of the contributions on the debate are political and therefore (s)he should not participate in the debate. The administrator sees citizens and business as partners. It is groups of professionals, which cover associations, organizations etc. and does not necessarily, see the individual citizen as a key stakeholder. The groups of professionals use other media, such as mails and letters, in their communication with the administration, as their input is often long reports and technical judgments. The administrator chooses only to answer factual misunderstandings in ongoing processes or more general issues in the municipality. The mediator, which is a role only a small part of the administration acts in, generally works with the implementing and forming the use of technology in the municipality. (S)he sees ICT as a way of increasing openness and effectiveness in the municipality. Online debates is a solution which the mediator believes especially increases openness and (s)he works with the aim of ensuring a continued debate. The mediator focuses on maximizing the number of contributions, on making it easy to participate and to make it possible to discuss anything, which is why the debate is in no editor or guided use of the debate. The result is that the individual user – political candidate, councilor and administrator – mediate the use of the debate and develop filters for their own and others’ ability to act on the online debate. That politicians and administration appear in these four roles in relation to online debate problematic several aspects of the use of e-participation practices in a municipal context. One aspect is that the four roles develop different practices for the use of the debate which function parallel on the debate without the development of a common practice. A second aspect is that a mediator role is established. An actor who mediates the interaction between citizen and politician, and thereby an actor who has a high degree of importance for what online debating becomes in practice. A third aspect is that the administration takes the mediating role and becomes a political advisor or an administrator of political decisions. A shift which neither the politicians nor the administrator are aware of. At the same time, the way the technology is mediated creates both synergy and conflict between the councilor, the political candidate and the administrator. Synergy and conflict which primarily can be related to the focus of the mediator on the increased use of the technology and the missing focus on contextualization of the online debate. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8000 Files in this item: 1
christine_secher.pdf (6.411Mb) -
A multi-method inquiry on online communitiesKorfiatis, Nikolaos Theodoros (, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This dissertation studies the behavioral characteristics of participants engaged in information exchange in the context of online communities. Online communities are defined as collectives of individuals that use computer mediated communication to facilitate interaction over a shared purpose and/or objective. It is argued that this interaction creates externalities, for example, in the form of codified information that others can use through web search tools. These externalities assemble a virtual form of social capital, a commonly shared resource. The research objective of this thesis is to examine how the behavioral tendencies of the participants in online communities are affected by the way this common resource is formatted, administered and shared. The dissertation consists of two parts: a theoretical part where the empirical background and the object of research inquiry is highlighted, and an empirical part which consists of four empirical studies carried out in the context of three online communities, namely, Google Answers, Yahoo!Answers and Amazon Online Reviews. The empirical part of this dissertation starts with a controlled experiment emulating a well known social dilemma: the public goods game. It provides substance as to whether and when participants in online communities behave (un) cooperatively. The next two studies focus on a special case of online communities where participants ask questions and other participants post answers conditionally on social and monetary incentives. The results of these two studies confirm that community participants do care about the contributions of others and engage in incentive compatible behavior. Yahoo!Answers participants exercise effort in the community by posting answers to questions conditionally on benefits provided by other participants. The empirical findings show that contributing participants in an online community receive answers faster, while those that do not contribute much effort are sanctioned in the form of longer response-time to their questions. In Google Answers this thesis, interactions can be observed that are based on monetary rewards (rather than social rewards in the form of a reputation index as in Yahoo Answers). Participants make use of voluntarily awarded payoffs (tips) along with stated rewards, in order to motivate those that provide answers (answerers) to provide better quality in their responses. The findings of this study confirm the symmetric effect between monetary rewards and quality. However, this study also identifies cases where social norms have a significant effect on response behavior. When participants seek to get better service with less effort (in terms of total cost), a reputation index which is constructed by the history of their previous interactions supports such an attempt. In other words, reputation history influences information sharing behavior in online communities. The last chapter of the empirical part focuses on another crucial aspect of information as a shared resource: Clarity and understandability. The study examines online product reviews on Amazon.com. The results suggest that participants do care about the clarity of this codified form of experience which increases a helpfulness index accordingly. The thesis overall finds symmetric effects between participation in online communities and output of interaction, but also identifies the ability of the participants to interact strategically as they seek to minimize the effort they provide in order to find the information they seek. The results underline the importance of signaling and quality evaluation mechanisms as counter-balancing control that can enhance activity on online communities. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7797 Files in this item: 1
Nikolaos_Theodoros_Korfiatis.pdf (3.777Mb)
Now showing items 1-3 of 3