Search results

The purpose of this chapter is an exploration of the potential benefits derived from a country destination being geographically co-located to tourist destinations that have experienced considerable tourism growth. Those high-performing tourism destinations are often in close proximity to main tourist-generating markets adjacent to the Caribbean region.

An exploratory descriptive research study that utilised secondary data sources to explore the potential benefits of Haiti being co-located in the Greater Caribbean Antilles and The Bahamas.

Given Haiti's present socio-economic and political crises, tourism growth challenges are evident. Nonetheless, based on Haiti's interactions with countries in the Greater Antilles, which obtained visitor arrivals of over one (1) million, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico, and The Bahamas that is further north of the zone, opportunities and constraints for Haiti's tourism growth are identified. Opportunities exist for human resource sharing, transport integration, cultural exchanges, education and knowledge exchanges, investment and diplomatic relations to support tourism development in Haiti.

Given consideration to approaches utilised to develop tourism in the Caribbean basin, the argument is that tourism development can occur by being geographically co-located, and networking with other tourism destinations as this co-location may propel tourism growth in a country destination.

In this chapter, we examine and expand institutional theory. While acknowledging that actors and organizations interrelate in an institutional (legal, political and socio-economic) framework and that this interaction between them shapes economic activities (North, 1990; Scott, 1995), we argue that the boundaries of today's institutional environments have significantly evolved. They encompass not only the traditional domains of micro (individual/organization) and macro (nation-state) levels as well as of a co-located physical environment captured by received institutional theory but also an added dimension that transcends physical space. This new dimension includes a dispersed, borderless environment that invisibly cuts across nation-states. We discuss the implications of this extended view of institutional domains for theory and practice.

A growing body of literature exists on virtual (i.e., geographically dispersed) teams; however, few summaries of this knowledge are available. The purpose of this paper is to help fill this gap by reviewing empirical research that addresses the effectiveness of virtual versus traditional (i.e., co-located) teams. Based on the typical input-process-output model of team effectiveness, we classify almost 200 empirical studies on virtual teams according to key dimensions of the model, including tasks and group characteristics, contextual factors, and supervisory behaviors. We develop propositions to address neglected research areas regarding the differences between virtual and traditional teams. There is still much to learn about virtual teams and how the physical dispersion of team members affects team effectiveness. It is our hope that our review and propositions will guide future research efforts and will help human resource professionals realize the potential for distributed teams in their organizations.

Academic libraries have long been central to the campus ecosystem. From one-room collections housed in multi-functional buildings of the colonial college campus to the modern-day cathedrals where collections, patrons, and technologies collide, academic libraries have been a steadfast, yet flexible pillar of the higher education system. Employing a case study approach, this chapter reveals how one institution, the Ohio University Libraries (OUL), has reimagined the use of library space in response to twenty-first-century demands.

A visioning process undertaken by OUL culminated in a master plan intended to serve as a guide to space utilization and renovation strategies for nearly every floor of the seven-story facility. Beyond the master planning process, external demand for space within the library emerged organically. Given these two realities, OUL’s actions over the last decade have been guided by two main approaches to the use and redesign of space: (1) repurposing space for library-oriented initiatives and (2) co-locating complementary student support services within the library. Collectively, the examples highlighted in this chapter reveal how OUL has redesigned library space and continues to be an innovative environment in response to changing demands.

Technology has made it possible to have groups whose members are not co-located, but which may still capture the benefits of traditional co-located interaction. Identification helps determine whether groups gain the benefits of co-located interaction, and how technology is used to mediate group interaction can influence identification processes. Unfortunately, in heterogeneous groups, communication technology that facilitates group identification also makes competing “fault line” identities more salient. Fortunately, channel expansion theory suggests that with effective management, groups can avoid this dilemma of media selection by learning to use lean media to communicate rich messages.When the day arrived for the three of us were to send a draft of this chapter to Terri, Greg decided that it would be funny to e-mail her a terribly underdeveloped outline, instead of the completed draft that we had finished the day earlier. Terri, seeing the outline for the joke it was, called Greg and said that it might be fun to send a message that made Mike think she had sent the terribly underdeveloped outline to the other chapter authors. Mike received the message the next day and asked Greg why he had sent an outline instead of the chapter draft to Terri. Greg mentioned his and Terri's pranks and also mentioned that Terri had copied the message to Mark—the other author on the chapter, but someone Mike had never (and at the time of this writing, still has not) met. Mike, not wanting to be left out of a good joke (but also slightly uncomfortable to pull a prank on a “stranger”), sent a follow-up message to Terri and “cc'd” Mark. The message said that Mike was so embarrassed by the outline and so frustrated with Greg, that he was going to drop his name from the paper, and was not going to present the paper at the authors' conference in New York. Mark joked back that he would be glad to present, but the title of the paper would now be “Virtual Collaboration: The Butthead Factor.”

Distributed performance arrangements are increasingly used by organizations to structure dyadic and team interactions. Unfortunately, distributed teams are no panacea. This chapter reviews some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with the geographical and temporal distribution of team members. An extended discussion of the implications of distributed team performance for individual, team, and organizational decision making is provided, with particular attention paid to selected cultural factors. Best practices and key points are advanced for those stakeholders charged with offsetting the performance decrements in decision making that can result from distribution and culture.

Collaborative forms range from co-located teams engaged in short term local projects, to international joint ventures, to worldwide networks of organizations and citizens linked together to generate global social change. In order to discern patterns that transcend the breadth of forms (including virtual), a new term is introduced that encompasses the entire spectrum: collaborative entity (CE). The diverse and far-ranging CE literature is then integrated into the Collaborative Capacity (CC) Framework. That framework is comprised of ten broad constructs and their interrelationships that, when considered together, capture fundamental aspects of all CEs. The CC Framework provides a bridge-building language to help facilitate inter-disciplinary, multi-dimensional dialogue, research, and perspectives on fostering collaborative capacity.

Purpose – The integration of librarians and technologists to deliver information services represents a new and costly organizational challenge for many library administrators. To understand how to control the costs of integration, this study uses structural contingency theory to study the coordination of librarians and technologists within the information commons.

Design/methodology/approach – This study tests the structural contingency theory expectation that an organization will achieve higher levels of performance when there is a positive relationship between the degree of workflow interdependence and the complexity of coordinative structures necessary to integrate these workflows. This expectation was tested by (a) identifying and collecting a sample of information common; (b) developing and validating survey instruments to test the proposition; and (c) quantitatively analyzing the data to test the proposed contingency theory relationship.

Findings – The contingency theory expectations were confirmed by finding both a positive relationship between coordination and interdependence and a positive relationship between perceptions of performance and degree of congruency between interdependence and coordination.

Limitations – The findings of this study are limited to both the context of an information common and the structures tested. Future research should seek to both broaden the context in which these findings are applicable, and test additional structural relationships as proposed by contingency theory

Practical implications – This study contributes to the library profession in a number of ways. First, it suggests that managers can improve IC performance by matching coordination structures to the degree of interdependence. For instance, when librarians and technologists are strictly co-located, managers should coordinate workflows using less resource-intensive policies rather than meetings. Second, the instruments developed in this study will improve the library manager's ability to measure and report unit interdependence and coordination in a valid and reliable manner. Lastly, it also contributes to the study of structural contingency theory by presenting one of the first empirical confirmations of a positive relationship between interdependence and coordination.

Originality/value – This study represents one of the first empirical confirmations of the structural contingency theory expectations of both a positive relationship between workflow interdependence and coordination, and a positive relationship between performance and coordination's fit to workflow interdependence. These findings are of value to both organizational theorists and to administrators of information commons.