Organisation design mechanisms encompass formal structures, comprising: hierarchies, linking pins, teams, and direct contacts. These structures provide a pillar for coordination support, as they form operational mental models. Organisation design mechanisms define roles for knowledge workers as well as patterns of dependence and cooperation. These provide structures for managing knowledge flows, which facilitate organisational learning and value creation (Kang et al., 2007). Organisational design contributes to concerted, unified actions by making explicit who is responsible for what; who is supposed to know what; and how individuals are supposed to collaborate. This assists in aligning and synchronising their actions. WFMS attempts to achieve such alignment by developing an underlying organisational model (process model), which relates roles and responsibilities to those who actually perform the work.
To cope with the coordination challenges of a distributed workforce organisations adopt various forms of flexible and decentralised work patterns (Mehandjiev et al., 2000). Coordination in a distributed environment often subscribes to a decentralised and network mode of governance, as indicated by the case of the South African public sector. Network structures, which are based on social interaction and informal control, provide coherence and direction to stakeholders in specified circumstances (Robins, Pattison & Bates, 2011; Powell, 1990; Sagers, Dickey & Wasko, 2004). Acha and Cusmano (2005) cite loose-coupling as a form of governance which extends across organisational boundaries and can assist distributed teams. Brusoni et al. (2001), commenting on governance in a networked system, emphasise the critical role of system integrators within loosely coupled organisations.
Furthermore, relative to the work-structure Hinds and McGrath (2006) assert that distributed teams will experience fewer coordination problems if there is less interdependence between members at distant sites. Responding to the challenges associated with and faced by distributed teams, certain scholars advocate for the loose- coupling of work between distant team members (Kiesler & Cummings, 2002). Olson and Olson (2000) note that, for example, distributed teams who modularise their work by site are able to function more smoothly and consistently. There are multiple risks, however, which include isolation, incoherence and the duplication of efforts, generating the need to maintain an awareness of team efforts.
78
Cramton (2001) and Borman (2010) posit that having the right governance structure to manage interdependencies can ease the coordination burden. Employing an informal hierarchical structure may ensure the flow of information to the correct people as it is needed, thereby making the flow of work more efficient and effective (Galbraith, 1973). A technological solution that presents such a flexible platform for creating and managing dynamic collaborative structures would be valuable. Members of virtual communities could form a specific functional or business unit or group, within the larger community, to provide support services, for instance. This would subscribe to a modular structure design to attain specific goals. Commonly, this would occur with a continuous flow of information, enabling decision-making and management, increasing the functionalities of the corporation.
Virtual communities as socio-technical entities also require control and steering to maintain the common interest of the community (Akram, et al., 2005). To ensure this they subscribe to certain codes of practice. Although virtual communities support decentralised and autonomic decision-making, there is a need to monitor structures, and control communication and information flow among members, in accordance with the operation principles of the community. To define the rules and to coordinate the actions of a community different governance models exist. A virtual game communal group has, conceptually, one large community made up of all the game players. For effective management the entire community comprises smaller, modular groupings. The primary community is composed of smaller communities or sub- communities, accounting for the different types of games and the varying skill levels of players, with community leaders controlling access and maintaining the reputation of the community (Zhan & Weiss, 2003). Furthermore, social networking sites, such as Facebook, make it possible for a number of organisations to generate several project groups, whether social or business in nature. For instance, this facilitates the organisation‘s having interactive spaces to engage with their customers, Table 3.5 presents some examples of how organisation design is influenced by aspects of collaborative tools.
Rosenkranz and Feddersen, (2010) underscore the role of management teams (centralised or decentralised) and their importance to the successful running of virtual communities. They define a virtual community management team as one which organises all administrative tasks in the community, providing a technical and organisational framework for interaction and communication. The specified framework is controlled by the management team and focuses on supporting the virtual community and its members. Chiu et al. (2006) add that there is a need to reinforce the mechanisms of mutual trust, interaction and reciprocity among individuals. This can be achieved with the right structure(s) in place.
79
Table 3.5: Examples of the Influence of Collaborative Tools on Organisational Design
PEOPLE COOPERATIVE GROUPWARE MANAGEMENT WORKFLOW VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES Organisational structure Direct contacts/supervision, committee, hierarchy/liaison devices Highly structured ‗heads-down‘ paper processing
Formal team formation Organise information according to specific relations
Grouping or classification schemes are, of course, used in
knowledge
management/decision support tools (Lotus Notes groupware )
Information flow pattern
Lotus Notes, SAP. IBM primary organising
structure is the ―routing‖ of information objects among users
Process model
directed Work list to specified roles in organisation Goal decomposition
Ad hoc/dynamic team formation Centralised to distributed governance structures Goal-based activity selection & composition
Modular classification and grouping of people in Facebook, and Amazon interest group like auction
Wikipedia, Dell, EBay, Linux
governance model
Various virtual communities have adopted single types or combinations of governance. The appropriateness of the selection of a governance structure or combination thereof, is dependent on the context of the existence of the community or group. Ahuja and Carley (1999) allow that, although virtual communities may be non-hierarchical and decentralised from the standpoint of authority, they may still be hierarchical and somewhat centralised from the standpoint of communication. In a continuum of two extreme modes of centralised and decentralised governance structures, as shown in Figure 2, with case examples, four basic modes of governance can be identified.
Figure 3.2: The Different Modes of Governance
(Adapted from Lattermann et al., 2007)
Virtual communities facilitate modular design structures, including: functional groups, the offering of a specific service support, or a task force. The virtual community
80
governance concept helps to formalise management under constant change, dynamically matching requirements to tangible satisfiers (Mehandjiev et al., 2003; Mowshowitz, 1994). Moor and Weigand (2007) affirm that the advancement of web applications makes virtual communities natural candidates to fill collaborative gaps in traditional, hierarchical organisations.
At a more technical level, knowledge management represents a form of organisation and reflects how efficiently information is organised and accessed to support day-to-day business operations and decision making (Chowdhury, 2000). The process includes: capturing, organising, refining, and disseminating information, relevant to the activities and interests of people within an organisation. Techniques associated with knowledge organisation include: cataloguing and indexing, ranking, and filtering. Whether utilised to support object-level or activity-level coordination, information access efficiency depends largely on the proper organisation of information, which can be available in a variety forms and formats.