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MCM 2573 Last Class Assignment 2(a) - (dated 7 September 08) - GSS case study

GSS case study question link attached as follows:-

Group Support Systems in Hong Kong : An Action Research Project

Name: Wong Jee Foong
Matric Number: MC061505
Subject: MCM2573

Case Study Topic:Group Support Systems in Hong Kong : An Action Research Project
Date:7 September 08

Synopsis of the case study:
This case study describes how a Group Support System (GSS) was used to support a process improvement project in a Hong Kong Accounting firm, in which, action research was selected here as the guiding methodology to support the whole project process. In this case study, two sample cycles of activities along the project process are presented, while key problems encountered and the measures taken are described. The lessons learned, and their implications for researcher and methodology alike, are discussed.

The author of this case study, Robert Davison and Doug Vogel are playing the role here as the researchers to intervene in this problem situation context.

According to the author of this case study, five key problem areas were encountered during this project:-



Chargeable Time
According to the author, the time project team members spent on this project development (a project designed to improve the quality of billing services offered to clients) was not chargeable. Hence, the project team members are not motivated here to take part along the project meeting process like contributing new ideas or response to the raised up topics.

Empowerment
The CIO clearly identified the need to empower the team members and entrust them with the responsibility for re-engineering the billing process. However, he did not explicitly communicate his rationale to them, nor could he appreciate their lack of interest in solving the task. Indeed, the workers here had little interest in being empowered. For example, they were not volunteers to the team, but had been picked by their department heads. Secondly they did not believe either that it was their job to participate in the business improvement process (believing that the task of re-engineering was more properly the CIO's), or that the new process would necessarily be a good thing.

Misappropriation of anonymity
The CIO misappropriated the anonymity of the GSS, projecting large numbers of the ideas without their authorship being positively attributable. Team members noted, individually, to the researcher that they would prefer that the communications using the GSS be identified, not anonymous, since this might improve the meaningfulness and sincerity of the discussions.

Conflict between the CIO and the researcher
Initially the researcher was identified as being primarily responsible for technical issues, advising the CIO how to use the GSS most effectively in order to achieve his objectives in running the project. While this worked well for the first few weeks as the researcher was familiarizing himself with the task and process of the project, it became an increasingly untenable role to play as the overt and covert dominance of the CIO increased. In this case, the researcher was careful not to align himself with either the CIO or the other participants, in order not to be accused of bias. However, his dissonant stance clearly aggravated the CIO in this case.

Data quality
The instrument employed here was designed to collect perceptions of the participants concerning five key meeting processes: discussion quality, communication, efficiency, teamwork and status effects. While useful, the instrument only measured perceptions within a single meeting. After the third meeting, the CIO criticized the instrument design, arguing that it would be more useful to make comparative measurements from week to week.

Lessons learned from this case study:

Importance of Action Research in this project context
In my opinion, action research is appropriate to be used as the guiding methodology for this give case context since action research does not limit itself to the understanding of the project context and communicating it, but includes participating, using this understanding to suggest ways in which desirable change might take place, and even monitoring the effectiveness of these attempts to the project context.

Hence, those involved with this project-- the researchers and the company's personnel - should learn from each other (about each party strengths and weaknesses) and develop their competence.

In other words, action research requires cooperation between the researcher and the company's personnel, feedback to the parties involved, and continuous adjustment to new information and new events as performed along this project process in order to ensure that any found or hidden problem for this given project context would be reconsidered continuously throughout the whole project process. Furthermore, given action researcher's emphasis on reflection, the opportunity to glean lessons - both about the problem and its solution, and about how GSS can be applied in organizations - would be provided, thus made it easier for us to map on what we have taught in theory into real life practical cases or practices.

According to the author of this case study, the practice of action research is cyclical. A researcher starts with planning what action to take, continues to intervention with the action, observes the effects of that intervention and finally reflects upon the observations in order to attempt to learn how better to plan and execute the next cycle.

Meanwhile, the researcherˇ¦s flexibility along the action research study is an essential component. For example, if one instrument or technique proves inadequate, it should be revised or discarded to be replaced by a better one. For this project context, the researcher refined the data collection instrument mid-way through the project, redefined his own and the CIO's roles, and reallocated responsibilities accordingly in order to best match with the selected organization culture and norms.

As a conclusion, action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices, and knowledge of the environments within which they practice.

Importance of Group Support System (GSS) in this project context
Group Support System (GSS) are networked, computer based systems designed to facilitate structured, interactive discussion in a group of people communicating face-to-face or remotely, synchronously or asynchronously. A GSS has three components: computer hardware, computer software, and network technology combined in a variety of configurations. For example, some GSSs use networked personal computers for each meeting participant, others rely on a single computer used by a meeting facilitator, while still others use keypads for participant voting. Most use a large central display screen that everyone in a given group location can see. Some GSS-supported meetings still take place in a conference room, while other GSS-supported meetings take place with group members in different locations.

GSS may be used by a group working collaboratively over a long period of time or they may support groups meeting at a specific point in time. Group members type their contributions into the GSS which immediately makes each contribution available to all other participants. Thus, nobody forgets what they want to say while waiting for a turn to speak. It is also possible for a group to enter ideas anonymously if that is thought appropriate, e.g. if members feel unwilling to submit ideas that are considered abnormal, unusual or unpopular.

Lastly, according to the author of this case study, the combination of Action Research and GSS achieved a positive impact in excess of what that would have been exhibited by use of either individually.

After reading up this case study, in my opinion, the country culture does make a difference and affected both the Action Research approach and the use of GSS.



Managerial and IT issues
In my opinion, the researcher that involve with this case study should always consider the needs of the client /project team member. Feedback from the client or project team member were usefully incorporated into the way that this case study project was run, with the result that changes were made, and the project was continued to run on. Therefore, the flexibility and willingness to change shown by the researcher in this case study should not be seen as a weakness in the action research design. If one instrument or technique proves inadequate, it should be revised or discarded to be replaced by a better one, in order to give the project a higher chance of success. Therefore, in this project, the reseacher chose to refine the data collection instrument mid-way through the project, redefine the roles of the CIO and the researcher, and reallocate responsibilities accordingly.

From the illustration of this case study, it shows that the team members involved with this case study appreciated the use of Group support System (GSS) for the tasks that required substantial idea generation, but it was definitely not appreciated here for the tasks that requiring the development of consensus and fine points of detail. These findings encouraged the researcher to explore and differentiate among a list of GSS applications functions and characteristics available in market in order to fit the characteristics of the group more effectively. Previous research in GSS seldom mentions the importance of matching GSS tools with tasks, but evidence from this case study does indicate its importance.

Besides that, anonymity is often seen as a vital, even taken for granted aspect of GSS research and practice, the usual rationale being that it promotes free, unbiased and task focused discussions, while diminishing the negative effects caused by such status effects as domination and intimidation. But, in this project, it is certain that anonymity contributed to process losses - team members commented that discussions would have been more frank and sincere had they been identified. Hence, this shows that again it is rather important here to match the right GSS function with the right task as every task itself could sound unique from one another.

Next, another notable feature from this case study was it composed of a project team with multi-cultural composition. It is also observed that there is a considerable cultural dissonance in the group, with variations in preferred interaction style between the expatriate and local members, locally educated and overseas educated members, and so on. In this case study, one local but overseas educated team member commented that it tends to be those who are fluent in English (typically expatriate) who dominate the discussion and hence the decision making for this case study project. Furthermore, the CIO was from a culture distinctly different than that of the other team members which created further dissonance in the group from a leadership perspective. For example, The GSS interface was in English and participants were required to use English for their written comments. While it is true that the expatriate members, especially the CIO, did dominate in the project meetings, the local members were successfully encouraged to participate and voice their opinions as well through the researcher intervention. Hence, it shows that characteristics of the GSS and its historical application did not fit well especially with the culture of this Hong Kong team.

In my opinion, cultural difference is another issue that should be taking into account for this case study project. From this case study, it is noted that Hong Kong culture tends to exhibit large power distance and collectivist behaviour, US and British cultures tend towards small power distance and individualistic behaviour. This opposite tendency in cultural characteristics tends to suggest, again, that the situation was complex in terms of GSS application and use. Although the researcher tried to use the GSS in a form useful to the group, the lack of historical application with groups having similar characteristics was a deterrent to success and contributed to project process instability. Furthermore, the lack of trust within the group as a function of cultural differences was an additional inhibitor.