Posted by moderator on behalf of
> Jacqueline R. Meszaros, Ph.D.
> ----------------------------------------------
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> NSF has recently issued its latest solicitation on Virtual Organizations
> as Sociotechnical Systems. Proposals are due 25 January, 2010.
>
> A brief synopsis is provided below.
>
> A link for further information and the link to the solicitation itself
> are provided here:
>
>
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503256&org=NSF&sel_org=N
> SF&from=fund
>
>
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10504/nsf10504.pdf
>
> This is a wonderful opportunity for US-based social scientists working
> on topics pertinent to virtual organizations, broadly construed. A
> synopsis and list of some potential topics is provided below. These
> should not be construed as complete lists. Additional pertinent research
> topics are welcome, so long as the work would yield sound, generalizable
> advances in knowledge.
>
> We look forward to receiving your strong proposals.
>
> Feel free to distribute this notice widely.
>
> Best regards On Behalf of The VOSS Program Management Team,
>
> Jacqueline Meszaros, Ph.D.
> Program Director, Social and Economic Sciences, National Science
> Foundation
>
>
>
> VOSS Synopsis
>
> The Virtual Organizations as Sociotechnical Systems (VOSS) program
> supports fundamental scientific research, particularly advances in
> social, organizational and design science, directed at advancing the
> understanding of how to develop effective virtual organizations and
> under what conditions virtual organizations can enable and enhance
> scientific, engineering, and education production and innovation.
>
>
>
> The intellectual challenges and institutional conditions of 21st century
> science and engineering necessitate collaboration. There has been a
> growing shift away from traditions of individual based science toward
> more collaborative models. In many fields, scholars are confronted with
> challenges of a scale and complexity that defy the boundaries of
> traditional fields as well as the limits of individual capacity, thus
> requiring more diversified and at the same time unified participation
> from researchers. Many scientists and engineers find themselves today
> working in collaborations, many of which cross disciplinary,
> institutional, and geographic borders via the support of
> cyberinfrastructure. The complex social and technical processes
> underlying successful virtual organizations as applied to science and
> engineering have yet to be fully elucidated.
>
>
>
> The VOSS solicitation directly supports projects aimed at effectively
> promoting and leveraging the extension and integration of past research
> to improve our understanding of the sociotechnical conditions under
> which new forms of virtual organizations are effective in science,
> engineering, and learning. VOSS funded research must be grounded in
> theory and rooted in empirical methods. It must produce broadly
> applicable and transferable results that augment knowledge and practice
> of virtual organizations as a modality. VOSS supported projects that use
> functioning organizations as data sources are encouraged, but should be
> designed such that the findings extend beyond that unit and sample.
> Projects that develop or build on research perspectives that cross
> disciplinary lines are strongly encouraged. Research methods may span a
> broad variety of qualitative and quantitative methods.
>
>
>
> Critical challenges and prominent themes that scientific inquiries might
> address under VOSS may include (but are not limited to):
>
> * Individual and collective motivation: What are the social and
> technological barriers to and/or enablers of participation in a virtual
> organization? What are the social and technological forces of
> coordination, competition, and/or collaboration? How do these forces
> vary across task, domain, population, and/or stage of organization
> lifecycle?
>
> * Organizational structure, scope, and scaling: Are there levels
> of connectivity, diversity, and interactivity at which scientific
> production and innovation can be optimized in virtual organizations? How
> does optimization on these dimensions vary across task, domain,
> population, and/or stage of organization lifecycle?
>
> * Organizational life cycles: What are the stages and causes of
> virtual organization evolution, including, for example, formation of new
> organizations, organizational change or transformation, and
> organizational crisis or decline? How do they vary across task, domain,
> population, and/or stage of organization lifecycle?
>
> * Production and innovation: What technological, social, and
> legal arrangements support intellectual production and innovation in
> virtual organizations? How do these arrangements interact? How do they
> vary across task, domain, population, and/or stage of organization
> lifecycle?
>
> * Management, Governance, and Leadership: What are models of
> governance agreement, and what should they address? How do they interact
> with the cultures, structures and arrangements governing the
> participating individuals and institutions? How do virtual organizations
> and participants understand, negotiate, and prioritize multiple and what
> might be conflicting memberships?
>
> * Measurement and assessment: What are the tests of efficiency,
> equity, and effectiveness that can be applied to different types of
> virtual organizations? How do these conditions vary across task, domain,
> population, and/or stage of organization lifecycle?
>
> * Units and frameworks of analysis-both social and technical:
> Social units of analysis may be individuals, teams, scientific
> disciplines, individual or multiple organizations. Technical units of
> analysis may include specific tools or objects, virtual or immersive
> environments or "worlds," specialized niches, or collections of such
> virtual environments. What are the conceptual and comparative frameworks
> of analyzing virtual organizations? What theoretical, methodological,
> and empirical approaches can be applied, what need to be adapted, what
> need to be developed?
>
> * Comparative performance: Under what conditions do virtual
> organizations outperform co-located organizations? What tasks or
> processes can be done or done better by virtual organizations that
> cannot be done or done as well in co-located organizations, and vice
> versa? What are the advantages and disadvantages of
> technological-mediation? Under what conditions (and how) might virtual
> organizations be instrumented to advance our understanding of certain
> phenomena better than co-located organizations?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>