Business Information Systems (Books)

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  • Publication
    Multidisciplinary perspectives on cybersecurity research, practice and education: Proceedings of the 1st Cyber Research Conference Ireland
    (University of Galway, 2022) Lang, Michael; Dowling, Séamus; Lennon, Ruth
    [No abstract available]
  • Publication
    Systems for team empowerment: Research on practice 2020
    (National University of Ireland Galway, 2020-07) Hughes, Martin
    Teams are incredible. Teamwork has raised humanity’s achievements to greatness. Not only have most of humanity’s greatest achievement resulted from teamwork but those teams were empowered by systems of work, systems of scientific discovery, systems of construction and systems of control, and more. Thus, systems for team empowerment have always been key to our success. In 2018, when the first volume of cases was compiled, we identified VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity), Digital Transformation, Diversity, Dispersed Location and Dynamic Capability as concerns in the team empowerment landscape. Over the subsequent two years, those concernsremained, with a somewhat normal intensification until March 2020 when, due to the Covid19 pandemic, VUCA went from a concern to a full-on mode of being. Work-From-Home (WFH) was suddenly propelled onto every management agenda. In Ireland, and elsewhere, as the country went into lockdown, teams across every industry suddenly found themselves having to figure out how to make WFH a success. Three simple truths became obvious immediately; 1) the workplace was no longer a communal single location. The new reality was dispersed. 2) the process of work became dependent on digital enablement and 3) teams would have to respond to this VUCA environment in new and dynamic ways. Overnight, Dispersed, Digital and Dynamic became a triple alliance of necessity. VUCA, in reality and as an acronym, is both scary and intimidating. However, working individually and more often as teams, we have a rich history of incredible resilience in dealing with VUCA environments. The elements, characteristics and interactions are different but humanity has faced VUCA many times in the past and emerged triumphant. The cases which follow were all written at peak VUCA 2020. Our timing, unfortunately, a little too early to study the emergent realities. However, all the cases provide value insights into systematic team empowerment which, is a critical leadership skill of our times.
  • Publication
    Systems for team empowerment: Research on practice 2018
    (National University of Ireland Galway, 2018-07) Hughes, Martin; Dennehy, Denis; Campion, Michael
    Welcome to this collection of research papers on Systems for Team Empowerment. Achieving empowerment in teams is complex. Not only do team leaders need to understand the complex and nebulous interplays between systems, teams and empowerment, they must do so in the context of contemporary issues and trends. Such trends include the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) characteristic of the modern workplace. Indeed the interplay of systems, teams and empowerment is itself both antecedent and consequent to VUCA. Many teams are increasingly incorporating geographically dispersed individuals as team members and all teams, it seems, are under increasing pressure to achieve an increasingly dynamic response. Additionally, the very fabric of business and industry is continuing its march towards digitisation and to what some have called the 4th Industrial Revolution. Finally, diversity of team membership is now generally embraced and regarded as a value enhancement. It’s interesting to compare photographs of business teams from the 1960’s and 70’s with today. Even with such a casual analysis, there is little doubt but that conformity has given way to diversity. In the MBA lecture series and industry seminar that preceded the conduct of these research efforts, the two trends of digitisation/the 4th industrial revolution and team diversity formed a significantly greater part of the conversation than VUCA, disperse location and dynamic responses. Accordingly, many of the research papers which follow directly address specific issues in these trends. However, as previously stated, the domain of systems for team empowerment is incredibly complex and the diversity of the research papers which follow reflects this reality. These research papers, are studies of the contemporary practice of systems enabled and systematic team empowerment and have been conducted by teams of MBA participants at NUI Galway. The contexts examined are the workplaces of contemporary practice. This alone makes the cases of interest. However, the investigating teams’rigour in emulating good academic research practice adds validity and confidence to the findings and conclusions. The papers that follow investigate issues around systems artefacts, multigenerational composition and human preferences and biases. Their findings and conclusions will be of interest to researchers, practitioners and especially to team leaders.