Abstract
This paper introduces a newComputational organizational analysis and design model, Called the Virtual Team Alliance (VTA), that builds on the Virtual Design Team (VDT) (Jin and Levitt, 1996). VTA extends Galbraith’s framework implemented in VDT in two ways: (1) it addresses less routine tasks with some flexibility in how they are performed, and (2) it treats project participants as teleological professionals with potentially incongruent goals. Because tasks in the VTA model are flexible, differences in goals may influence which solution approach project participants prefer; thus, goal incongruencyCan have profound implications for the performance of project teams. We describe how VTA actorsComprise aComplex system that is endowed with fragments ofCanonical information-processing micro-behavior. TheCanonical micro-behaviors in VTA include exception generation, monitoring, selective delegation of authority, searching for alternatives,Clarifying goals, steamrolling, and politicking. The VTA model simulates the micro-levelCommunication andCoordination behavior of actors within the organization, including the impact of goal incongruency between individual actors, in order to determine the emergent, aggregate project behavior and performance. To Galbraith’s sociological analysis, based on information-processing “organizational physics,” we add new “organizationalChemistry” notions based on social psychological and economic agency theories.
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The National Science Foundation, Transformations to Quality Organizations program, Grant SBR-9422389, supported this research.
Jan Thomsen is a Director at Det Norske Veritas (DNV). (DNV is a global consulting, certification and classi-fication firm with approximately 6000 employees headquartered in Oslo, Norway). Thomsen earned his Ph.D. in Engineering Management at Stanford University’s School of Engineering in 1998. Before coming to Stanford in 1994, Thomsen worked six years in industry. He was a Management Consultant with Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting for four years before joining DNV. Thomsen’s current research interest is organizational analysis and design of semi-routine, fast-paced project organizations consisting of professionals with potentially incongruent goals.
Raymond Elliot Levitt is Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and, by courtesy, of Medical Informatics, at Stanford University. Since 1988, Dr. Levitt’s Virtual Design Team (VDT) research group has developed new organization theory and new computational analysis tools that enable managers to design organizations for executing projects and service/maintenance tasks systematically. His current research is extending VDT to predict and mitigate risks caused by gaps between the core values, behavioral norms and legal institutions of participants in global projects. He serves as Director of Stanford’s Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects, a multi-school, multi-university initiative aimed at enhancing the performance of global projects. He also founded and serves as Academic Director of Stanford’s Advanced Project Management (APM) Executive Program. He co-founded, and has served as a Director of, Design Power, Inc., Vité Corporation and Visual Network Design, Inc.
Clifford I. Nass (Ph.D., Sociology, Princeton University) is a professor of Communication at Stanford University, with appointments in Computer Science, Science, Technology, and Society, Sociology, and Symbolic Systems (cognitive science). He is Director of the SPEECH Lab and co-Director of the Kozmetsky Global Collaboratory at Stanford. Nass is author of two books—Voice Activated: How Humans areWired for Speech and How Computers Will Speak With Us (MIT Press), The Media Equation (Cambridge University Press), and over 75 articles on human-computer interaction and statistical methodology. Nass has consulted on more than 100 products for companies including Microsoft, BMW, Fidelity, Philips, Verizon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Toyota.
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Thomsen, J., Levitt, R.E. & Nass, C.I. The Virtual Team Alliance (VTA): Extending Galbraith’s Information-Processing Model to Account for Goal Incongruency. Comput Math Organiz Theor 10, 349–372 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-005-6286-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-005-6286-y