Search results

This study investigates the role of collaborative spaces as organizational support for internal innovation through cross-functional teams and for open innovation with external stakeholders. In particular, the study focuses on collaborative spaces as tools for multiplex (i.e., simultaneous internal and external boundary management in innovation projects).

The authors conducted a qualitative study in a multi-divisional organization that set up in its headquarters a collaborative space for collaborative product development. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and participant observations.

Findings highlight that the relation between expectations and experiences about the collaborative space impact on employees' ability to perform boundary work inside and outside the organization. In addition to the collaborative space's affording role for expectations about hands-on collaborative innovation (space as laboratory), the study also highlights a set of collaboration constraints. These latter are generated by perceived boundary configurations (i.e. degree of boundary permeability and infrastructure in internal and external collaborations) and by discrepancies between expectations (space as laboratory) and actual collaboration experiences in the space (i.e. space as maze, cloister, showcase and silo). We show that space-generated constraints slow down internal and external boundary work for innovation and generate a trade-off between them.

Using the process-based perspective of boundary work, the paper connects studies on cross-functional teaming and open innovation through the concept of “multiplex boundary work.” It also contributes to the literature on boundary work by showing the challenges of using collaborative spaces as organizational support tools for multiplex boundary spanning.

The call for more women to start up and grow businesses as a vehicle for economic vibrancy is a prevailing discourse in the UK. There have been calls for greater co-ordination between research, policy and practice to create collaborative spaces whose focus is to influence and shape structures and processes beyond the individual or community level to a macro level of enterprise policy. However, calls have not specifically focussed on the issues of gender or other categories of social difference. This study aims to understand how such co-ordinations can be established to enable progress within the women’s entrepreneurship space through the development of collaborative spaces fusing research, policy and practice and how they should be structured to ensure inclusion through the process as well as enabling greater inclusion as part of the collaborative space outcome.

Taking a critical feminist perspective, the study draws from extant literature on women and minority networks research from the women in leadership, diversity and inclusion fields as a lens through which to frame the analysis of women’s enterprise policy in the UK, research and practice.

The study highlights the importance of collective feminist action drawing upon post-feminist sensibilities and an Engaged–Activist Scholarship approach. Such collective feminist action appreciates the importance of the micro as an enabler to progressive action at the macro level to enact structural and system change within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. A framework for inclusive and collaborative entrepreneuring space development is offered.

This paper offers policymakers, researchers and practitioners a framework as a practical way forward to ensure efforts are progressive and enable structural and systemic change.

The paper offers a framework for developing inclusive and collaborative entrepreneuring spaces to ensure progression by lifting the focus to a macro level of change to enable inclusion as part of the process and outcome of such collaborative spaces.

Collaborative capital, or the capacity to work effectively with others toward shared goals and outcomes, reflects an accumulation of both skills and resources by individuals or groups. Traditionally, these skills and resources represented products of experiences in face-to-face task or interest groups. More recently, reflective of organizational trends to collaborate more often across both geographical and organizational boundaries, these experiences have been mediated by technologies designed to facilitate collaborative work. Often, however, the people using the technologies already know one another and interact face-to-face periodically. In contrast, in this chapter, we focus on a new technology-enabled social form, the multi-day online conference enabled by iCohere, an emerging groupware technology supporting the conference, to examine how collaborative capital might be built in and among previously unacquainted, globally distributed individuals. Using Erickson and Kellogg's notion of “social translucence” we explore the case of one online conference attended by over 600 participants in 50 countries to identify technologic and social infrastructures conducive to the generation of new collaborative capital through participation in virtual spaces. By design, the technology and conference plan replicated common conference experiences conducive to collaborative capital development, but conference attendees also interacted and participated in ways that transcended the possibilities of a face-to-face conference. We anticipate these findings to be interesting for both managers and project team leaders seeking to foster collaborative capital development with the aid of modern communication and collaboration technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to define standard guidelines for the development of a wiki collaboration space for e-Learning, in order to provide collaborative activities among students, and between instructors and students.

The general requirements and extended features of wiki collaboration space were determined by conducting a requirement study and discussion with major stakeholders, i.e. students and tutors. Then, the wiki collaboration space was developed based on an open source wiki system. Finally, a wiki collaboration space was evaluated in terms of usability and collaboration effectiveness.

A comparison was performed between the wiki collaboration space and the original wiki in students’ works in an online course. The results showed that the effectiveness of collaboration and usefulness of wiki collaboration space were higher than original wiki in collaborative assignment.

As for practical implications, e-Learning developers/managers can use the outcome of this study as a guideline to integrate wiki and/or other social software to supplement e-Learning systems for better collaboration.

There is a need to define standard guidelines that provide the necessary features for wiki in e-Learning. In this study, extended features of wiki as collaborative learning tool were identified and evaluated to meet the needs of students in e-Learning environment.

The focus on designing spaces for users in the last decade or so signifies the gradual change in the mission of libraries from provision of resources to that of a pro-active partner in learning. Planning for user space in support of learning is far more complex as it needs to take into account the variety of users’ needs and behaviour. Before specifying the actual layout and design of users’ spaces it is important to consider all the major factors that affect the use of the intended library space. The purpose of this paper is to provide a guide to library planning base on the experience of the authors at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Libraries.

The framework for planning library spaces developed at NTU Libraries consists of four components – collaborative space, sanctuary space, interaction space and community space. Discussion on the rationale of these spaces and suggestions for their implementation will assist others in asking appropriate questions on their own library space planning exercise.

The paper reinforced the view that a good library building has to provide a wide variety of spaces, some of which are contradictory as the needs of a student is different from another. A student also has different needs at different times. Providing and balancing these needs is essential.

This paper provides a tried and tested conceptual framework for use by library space designers.

The idea of active learning classrooms (ALCs) in post-secondary institutions across North America is not a new one and it continues to gain prominence (Davis, 2018; Ellern & Buchanan, 2018; Park & Choi, 2014). Research shows that these dynamic classrooms increased student comprehension of key concepts, problem-solving ability, improved attitude toward learning, and overall learning gains (Cotner, Loper, Walker, & Brooks, 2013; Park & Choi, 2014). Not surprisingly then, there has been a growing number of academic libraries which see the potential benefits and have incorporated ALCs, or elements of such, into their spaces (Ellern & Buchanan, 2018; Karasic, 2016; Soderdahl, 2011).

This chapter presents a case study on the 2017 redesign of a Canadian academic library, the Albert D. Cohen Management Library at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Once considered a “study hall,” the renovated business library has been transformed into a modern student learning space. The library is outfitted with a modular ALC equipped to accommodate the varied learning needs of the twenty-first-century students at the Asper School of Business. The author provides a detailed first-hand account of the ALC planning process, key partnerships, challenges, and post-launch reaction.

Corporations are now collaborating to meet complex global sustainability challenges, which, until recently, were considered beyond the mandate of business leaders. Multi-organizational consortia have formed, not as philanthropic efforts, but to find competitive advantage. To examine the dynamics of an early collaboration of this sort, with a view to suggesting how future inter-organizational projects might be fostered, we pursued an in-depth multi-method case study of “The Sustainability Consortium.” The Consortium has convened Fortune 50 senior managers since 1998. Our analysis uncovers the primacy of “Relational Space” – a rich context for aspirational trust and reflective learning across organizational boundaries, which is enabled by, and in turn gives rise to, collaborative projects. Within this space, an ecology of organizational leaders committed to sustainability can accomplish together what would be impossible in their individual organizations. We explain the viability of this collaboration.

Cooperative storage is essentially the sharing of a space within a facility, while collaborative storage implies a shared approach to the collection in terms of growth, shape, management and access. Collaborative storage provides a more efficient use of resources. This study is an investigation of the physical options, rather than of digital storage. However, the study does reflect on the prospective relationship between these two responses. The tension is an emerging issue and one which is not yet placed in the policy context of a local, regional or national perspective.

Libraries can be seen as the collective identity of its employees engaged in providing a myriad of services to a community of patrons. Libraries can also exist in virtual settings, defined with descriptive parameters, described by a wider user group external to the library environment. The diverse nature of what constitutes libraries is illustrated by researchers, such as Marino and Lapintie (2015), who use the term “meta-meeting place” when describing its environs. Whatever model is used to describe contemporary libraries, the library environment usually has numerous needs and demands coming from a variety of stakeholders, from administrators to patrons. This chapter examines how we, as librarians, with users, co-construct library as both space and place.

We used a theoretical framework (social constructionism) to show how library identity is established by its users in the space planning process to address their needs and expectations and provided a case study of the main library at the University of South Florida.

We found that libraries are reflective of the vision and values of a diverse community and the social-political milieu in which they are housed. Librarians used a number of innovative methods and frames to create best/evidence-based practice approaches in space planning, re-envisioning library functions, and conducting outcomes/programmatic assessment. For librarians to create that sense of place and space for our users requires effective and open conversations and examination of our own inherent (and often unacknowledged) contradictions as to what libraries are or should be as enduring structures with evolving uses and changing users. For example, only a few of the studies focused on the spatial use and feel of libraries using new technologies or methodologies, such as social network analysis, discourse analysis, or GPS, to map the use of physical and virtual space.

First, new ways of working and engaging require reexamination of assessment and evaluation procedures and processes. To accomplish this, we must develop a more effective culture of assessment and to use innovative evaluation measures to determine use, user paths, and formal and informal groupings. Changes that affect patron and staff perceptions of library as place/third space may be difficult to assess using quantitative surveys, such as LibQual, that may not provide an opportunity for respondents to provide specifics of what “place” means to them. Second, it is important to have effective communication among all members of the library (patrons, library staff, and university administration) so that we design spaces/places that enhance the relationships among users, technology, pedagogy, and learning spaces, not just the latest “thing” in the literature.

This value of this review is to provide a social constructionist perspective (frame) on how we plan library space. This approach provides opportunities to truly engage our patrons and administration in the co-construction of what “our library” should be since it provides insight to group, place, and social dynamics.

Information commons were introduced into libraries in the early 1990s. Now universities are building library learning commons and campus learning spaces. This paper sets out to present a participatory library (re)design approach for collaborative planning “for and with” faculty teachers, student learners, and campus stakeholders.

Collaborative design (co‐design) employs user‐centric investigations to produce products, applications, and environments aimed at advancing learning, sustaining communication, and building relationships. Examples from California Polytechnic State University and San José State University in California, USA, suggest the efficacy of this inclusive, learner‐centered (re)design approach for library facilities, services, and systems.

Inviting and enabling user input from the start offers a fruitful planning approach in which campus librarians, stakeholders, and beneficiaries “learn their way” to appropriate library (re)design decisions. Also, user involvement in information gathering and interpretation activities initiates the interactive relationships necessary for continuous improvement.

Collaborative design (co‐design) yields sustained interaction with user beneficiaries and campus stakeholders. It changes how library staff members think and what they think about, concurrent with enhancing libraries' appeal and value.

In development since 2002, the highly participatory design approach reflects theoretical and applied insights from researchers in Europe, Australia, and North America who have worked with US library practitioners to develop user‐centric processes for advancing organizational learning and enhancing user efficacy. Its practical application to planning for library learning commons and learning spaces contributes to the small but important literature on user‐centered library (re)design.