Åke Grönlund and Mikael Wiberg: IT use in government organisations and report from HICSS33.

The seminar is in two parts.

In PART 1 we present the final report from the project "IT use in government organisations - centralisation or decentralisation?" (a joint project with the Department of Geography).

We found that IT was used as a centralisation technology. Power and control were centralised, whereas responsibilities were pushed downwards in the organisation, often to the individual employee. The result was a broadening of tasks and competence in combination with increased responsibilities and a tighter control system.

The number of jobs in rural areas and smaller towns decreased more rapidly than elsewhere. We saw a clear trend towards self-service which has led to a considerable increase in available services. The possibilities to take advantage of this increased service level are considarably better in cities because of institutional support,info-centers, qualified staff, etc.

In PART 2 Mikael Wiberg tells of the HICSS33 conference and presents the paper he presented there, "Knowledge Management and Mobility in a Semi-Virtual Organization: Lessons Learned from the Case of Telia Nära" (lessons learned during the above project). Abstract:

"This paper reports ethnographical research in search of new ways of designing CSCW systems that support knowledge management in a semi-virtual organization. One such way, suggested in this paper, is the design of mobile CSCW systems from the perspective of the developed NIR-model. According to the principles of the NIR-model and the empirical findings three concrete areas is worth mentioning; (1), There is a call for Responsibility Management. (2), Conflict Management becomes important. (3), Skill Management seems to be of great importance. The paper ends by concluding the impact of the NIR-model as an analytical tool, as well as highlighting important aspects of knowledge management of particular concern when designing CSCW systems for semi-virtual organizations."

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John Cumberbatch