信息系统改变工作方式

…The paperless office will arrive at the same time as the paperless toilet‟. Critically discuss if technology has revolutionised the way we work using two concepts from the module. Drawing on your analysis, identify what are the practical implications for contemporary business organisations.Words count:1918Auther: Tian Yu ZhaoIn the past twenty years, a great changes have been taken place in the world economy with the development of information technology, it has rapidly changed and influenced the way people collaborate and work. The information managing skills are important to any business, such as the way how people mange and organize information and knowledge, by using appropriate information managing system can increase the efficiency and reduces costs. This essay will discuss the advantages and disadvantages how does technology has revolutionized the way we work using two information system concepts, which is …communities and practice‟ and …virtual organization‟. …C ommunities of practice‟ is a network that can link the people who share same interest and knowledge in a particular field. Those peopleare voluntary organized to work and study together and share and development knowledge. …V irtual organization‟ is different from traditional organization, it‟s supp orted by information technology such as modem communication technology, information storage technology in order to build organization structure, functions and achieve organization goals.“‘Communities of practice’ are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and also learn how to make it better as they interact regularly” (Wenger, 2006). Wenger believes that learning is a social activity, people can learn most effectively in groups. Here so-called “practice”, is the activel y involved in learning and interactions with experts. …communities of practices‟ as informal organization for enterprise to create a large numberof informal communication channels, for example regular meetings or discuss and share experiences during the lunch break, some just using emails and online chart network system to connect with each other. The common mode of communication in communities of practice which are face to face, telephone, network and written. Communities of practice are not just used in work but also in other places such as a group of students working on a group project or a group of techniques try to solve one problem. Not everything called communities is a communities of practice, Wenger mentioned that community of practice combines three characteristics which is domain, community and practice (Wenger,2006).Not every community is …Community of practice‟, COP defined by a shared domain of interest, therefore to join the COP member‟s commitment is required, because a shared competence can distinguishes members from other people. For example a network of connections between friends is not COP, because they don‟t share same interest and study or learn together. Community in COP is about how members share information, help each other, engage activities and discussions. “Having the same job or same title doesnot make for a COP unless members interact and learn together”(Wenger, 2006) . For example people who have same job does not make for a COP unless they interact and learn together.Members in COP build relationships and trust between each other and learn from each other because the major method to get information is receiving itfrom other members, therefore they need trust and rely on each other. This positive relationship may motivate group members and support each other‟s struggles(Hord, Sommers 2008) . There are big difference between COP and traditional/normal communities. The Culture of a COP is building when the group was developing, culture link members together and indicate the basic standards such as members in the communities share the beliefs, values and vision (Wenger, 1998). To contrast, normal team will only focus on their domain individually and they will not collaborate consistently as same as the COP.According to Wenger COP is not merely a community of interest people who like certain kinds of movies, members of COP is practitioners so they share resources, experiences and the way of recurring problems. The practice is the major role in the communities of practice, which is reflected in the members participate in the group, additionally, they develop the resources such as experience, stories, tools and knowledge (Wenger, 2006). Members in the COP will combines their knowledge to solve any problems they have. In COP each member might have different background and experience but they will share their knowledge and learn from each other. For example a Japanese car manufacturer called Mitsubishi who manage their knowledge though COP system, their engineers works in one COP to share their knowledge to develop and improve their technology to design better engines , so using the COP knowledge system allows them to improve their efficiency and quality of their outputs.There are also some disadvantages of the COP. COP is lack of group of core members for example members in COP do not have regular meetings and provide support to other members to solve their problem. Members do not thinking that participating the COP as important as their daily works, so that some members don‟t think that other can provide useful knowledge and practice. “Practice intangibility occur when members fail to engage with one another in a way that allows them to illustrate the practice to make it concrete enough for other members to understand and visualize it’s function”(Probst, Borzillo, 2008). In addition, COP need to prevent more problems as the development of the COP, such as the relationship between new member and preview. But in the new employee training process, if the company can set up communities of practice, the new employees can get the knowledge and experience from the leader directly (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002). In 1993, BusinessWeek defined virtual organization is a kind of new organization form that it uses the technology to link human resource, asset and creativity together dynamically. In general, virtual organization refers to two or more separate entities, they can quickly provide products and services to the market during a certain time of dynamic alliance. Additionally these collections are geographically dispersed and their working processes are depending on various electronic communication technologies (Mowshowitz, 1986 and Travica, 1997). Virtual organization does not have fixed organization level and internalcommand system, but it‟s a open organizational structure, so under the sufficient information conditions people can selects partners by using competitive bidding or free choice. Virtual organization can quickly form the unique advantages in various professions such as integration of external resources, with the low cost in structural and maneuverability advantages to complete individual enterprise such as product development, production and sales.Nowadays collaboration and working between employees was influenced by virtual origination. Virtual organization is much more flexible than traditional origination, because virtual organization dispersed the location can brought people from all over the world working on one project, employees do not have to go to different country or city to work, thus the flexible of the virtual organization can reduce office pressures. Members of the virtual organization can be spread all over the world and each other may not have any connections, they can either work at home or some other suitable places and this can improving their family life and eventually avoid family conflicts. This is very different from a multinational companies, the relationship between each other is dynamic, in other words virtual organization completely broke through the basis of the internal organization system or traditional management methods. The development of the network promoted the development of the virtual organization. Virtual business is an effective method to expand client base, because they are not confined to geography. For example, Virtual Accounting Services is an accounting firm which was set up in USA, according to their website they provide accounting service no matter where is the client allocated. What does virtual organization attract customers is the perfect cooperation, for example customers who bought a Ford don‟t know that a virtual design studio in responsible for the design of Ford motor, designer electronically designs from all over the world together, who actually belong to Ford‟s seven design center.Members in virtual organization have to trust each other, because cooperation is the foundation of the virtual organization. However sense virtual organization have break through the basis of the internal organization management method of the traditional management methods, members will do things in their original style, in this case members will have coordination problems and they will depend on each other to obtain a common market opportunities. During the cooperation they must trust each other to share success, so that the members will depend on each other. Otherwise, these can not succeed and customers will not do business with them. Some companies in the centre of the virtual organization by having prominent ability, and have strong impact on other members, allows virtual organization coordination becomes relatively easy. Such as Nike with excellent design and marketing capabilities to bring their Asian production partners closely together to implement effective control and coordination. In the virtual organization employees‟ position is different from the traditional, they are much more independence because they are no longer under direct control from managers. So that increased dependence in virtual organization leads to a greater equality in participant. Under those conditions employees in virtual organization have to make decisions themselves because they are notworking at same location can the way they structured. According to John“ High tech has to be balance by high touch to built high trust organizations (John 1994)”. T herefore, they must be a high amount of trust between partners to collaborate and gain success.Using the internet is the key part of the virtual organization, because of the existence of flexible features and the virtual working situation, staffs have to rely on the internet functions to communicate with colleagues and customers, such as Email, online chart function and other communication software. Information and communication technology(ICT) is the major part that changes the way people work and collaborates, different types communicate methods allows people communicate without the consideration of the space can location, this is why employees in virtual organization can dispersed all over the world and they still can work on same project because ICT makes possibilities to instantly communicate the whole world by just in second. Irrespective of the role of ICT in communication and sharing explicit knowledge, but it still deprived the tacit knowledge sharing and face-to-face interaction (Wenger, 1998). Nowadays, the client knowledge is the most essential information to all business, this information is reflected from client‟s characteristic, habits, family situation, personal background and local culture. However in virtual process, this type of information is difficult to share between employees during the virtual process. The lack of client knowledge may influence the business‟ service quality and further marketing expand.Communities of practice and virtual organization have changed they way we collaborate and work. COP is a informal group that changed the process of knowledge management that allows member to share and learn knowledge from each other. COP pay more attention on knowledge management and connect each members closely and they normally have the opportunity to communicate face to face. Virtual organization have changed the employees working techniques and makes work much more flexible. Employees in virtual organization do not have any limitations from location and time but they are depend on different types of technology to communicate with each other. In addition COP is focus on the relationship between members, but in virtual organization employees may never meet face to face because they can be working at different time zone. Communities of practice and virtual organization have changed they way we work, communication, group development, working techniques and knowledge management, etc. With the development of the information system, more and more different tech and ways that can change the way we collaborate and work just like COP and virtual organization.ReferencesCentral Desktop. Available from:/overview (Accessed 4 Dec 2012).Hord, S., & Sommers, W. (2008). Leading professional learning communities: Voices from research and practice. SAGE Publications.John, N (1994), Global Paradox: The Bigger the World Economy, the More Powerful Its Smallest Players, William Morrow & Co.Mowshowitz, A. (1986) Social dimensions of office automation, in Advances in computers, Vol. 25, p. 335-404.Travica, Bob. (1997). The design of the virtual organization: A research model. In Gupta, J., Proceedings of the conference of the Association for Information Systems, August 15-17, 1997, pp. 417-19.Virtual Accounting Service. Available from:/about-vas/ (Accessed 4 Dec 2012). Wenger, E, McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Wenger, E (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge University Press, New York.。