Library

Edel Keville contributed a new white paper from Sun's Open Work Services Group. The paper lists ten common myths (Examples: #3 -Teams can't be productive if they don't sit together; #4 - Employees prefer traditional work arrangements; #8- If managers allow mobile work, they will lose control). It then provides research-based information to help organizations assess distributed work options. http://www.newwow.net/members/node/956

Joe Ouye has posted his paper, In Search of Measuring Workplace Productivity, to the library. Joe presented this paper at the ProWork Seminar in Helsinki, Finland this past May. His paper reviews the difficulties and approaches of measuring knowledge worker productivity and suggests a Workplace Performance Model, based on principles from Human Performance Technology (HPT) for understanding and designing multiple measuring approaches.

Summary:

Our latest library entry is the research paper, Intercultural Collaboration in Global Team by Professors Pamela Hinds and Catherine Cramton. The authors describe the challenges and opportunities in intercultural collaboration and the impact of culture on best practices for globally distributed work teams. Their goal is to provide a framework for thinking about cultural differences and intercultural collaboration in globally distributed teams. This is an understudied area with perhaps as many questions as answers.

This study reviews approaches that some firms are taking to provide new services and products that integrate place, ICT, and organizational behavior to create what the authors call “integrated workplaces.” Redefining workplaces and real estate projects as integrated spaces and projects where technology and place become interwoven with organizational and personal behavior will require a substantial mind shift, the authors maintain. Their paper explores the premise that this integration will transform the workplace and large-scale real estate projects and examines how this transformation will create new business opportunities. The report was prepared for Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, and the findings will be used in the future Spaces and Places Tekes Program.

The US General Services Administration initiated a new program that aims to understand better the linkages between the workplace and organizational effectiveness. This program was motivated by the desire to bring the federal workplace into better alignment with the technological, organizational and demographic shifts that characterize work today. The process and methodologies in pilot projects are used to develop a workplace that more effectively supports the client organization’s business goals and needs than current workspaces. The research approach studies these sites pre- and post-occupancy to identify the extent to which desired outcomes have been achieved. The research approach uses the Balanced Scorecard as a framework for developing goals, hypotheses and metrics for each project.

This paper reviews research on and
 explores the links between aspects of new ways of working and sustainability. The basic question asked 
is whether new ways of working can contribute to a more sustainable way of working and a more
 sustainable world – and if so, how?

Dr. Tarja Häkkinen, Chief Research Scientist at VTT
 Finland presented Sustainable Workplaces, Sustainable Office Buildings: Influencing Factors, Indicators and Assessment Methods at Symposium III. Her presentation was an overview of the influences, indicators and ways to assess sustainable workplaces and office buildings.

Dr. Suvi Nenonen, Research Manager, Workplace Management, Facilities Services Research Group, Construction Economics and Management, Helsinki University of Technology
 made a presentation on the productivity of knowledge work at Symposium III.

This document contains the notes of the sessions. The symposium began July 29th, 2007 and ended July 31st.

Sun's Scott Ekman sent us their new white paper on business continuity. The paper details some of disasters a business may have to face and lists ten steps companies can take to insulate their business from the effects of an unforeseen disaster. In addition to the steps, the paper provides practical advice on how to implement those steps.