Niamh O Riordan

Time is an inherent quality of human life, yet it remains a hidden dimension in Information Systems (IS) research. In our 'real time' world, time has become a fundamentally important business performance indicator but the hidden costs associated with increased speed in firms are frequently overlooked. In research, there has been a lack of synthesis and coherence on the topic of time, largely because a reliance on myopic measures of time has resulted in a shortage of research on temporal construct associations. To address the conceptual weaknesses in studies of time, the aim of this research is to provide a rich definition and conceptualisation of time in an organisational context. Our framework of organisational temporal performance is based on a multidisciplinary literature review, where variants and sub-components of the concept have originated, matured, and have been applied and tested thoroughly over time. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study and possible avenues for future research.

The significance of the earliest phase of decision making stems from the fact that decision makers “frame” problems during this phase. These frames shape all subsequent decision making phases, fundamentally conditioning decision making outcomes. Avenues not considered at this stage are unlikely to be considered in the future. Further, decision making is most creative at these stages: there is a great deal of uncertainty at play but there are fewer constraints and there is less at stake. This paper argues that virtual worlds offer a potent combination of social, sensory and simulational capabilities that can stimulate creativity in decision making; and it also reports the findings of an investigation of the behavioural and cognitive aspects of creative decision making in Second Life®. The findings illustrate that Second Life users are faced with a kind of “tyranny of freedom”: if anything is possible, where does one start? The answer appears to lie in a kind of “retrospective foresight” whereby decision makers draw upon prior experiences and use analogical reasoning to articulate metaphorical systems of thought.Dans la prise de décision, les phases initiales sont importantes ; c’est à ce moment que les décideurs formulent l’intitulé des problèmes. Ces intitulés déterminent toutes les phases suivantes et conditionnent les résultats du processus de décision. Les directions qui ne sont pas envisagées à cette étape ne le seront pas dans les étapes suivantes. De plus, c’est à ce stade que la prise de décision est la plus créative : il y a plus d’incertitudes, les contraintes et les risques sont moindres. Notre article montre que les environnements virtuels présentent une combinaison intéressante de fonctionnalités sociales, sensorielles et de simulation pour stimuler la créativité des décideurs. De plus, il présente les résultats d’une étude portant sur la créativité dans la prise de décision dans des projets conduits dans le monde virtuel Second Life. Cette étude montre que les participants dans cet environnement doivent faire face à la tyrannie des possibilités illimitées offerte par le monde de Second Life. Il semble que les décideurs doivent utiliser leurs expériences précédentes et le raisonnement analogique avec Second Life.

The importance of knowledge creation and innovation for organizational success is well
established. At the same time, emerging technologies are ‘generative’ platforms with the
capacity to produce unprompted change. At its core, innovation is a process of creating and using new ideas and concepts. As such, innovation may be conceptualized as a special class of knowledge creation. Further, the knowledge creation process is a driver of innovation. The paper develops a model of organizational knowledge creation and innovation to pinpoint the moments in the knowledge creation process where innovation occurs. The utility of the framework is illustrated with data from case studies on knowledge creation in innovative virtual world projects, which in turn reveals a set of strategies for driving knowledge creation and innovation in firms. The research has important implications for IS research on emerging technologies and user-generated and crowd-sourced innovation.

The open, flexible affordances of pervasive digital technologies have fundamentally altered the nature of organisational innovation. In the extreme, these technologies become platforms for digitally enacted organisational innovation. At its core, innovation is a process of creating and using new ideas and concepts. In the digital realm innovation becomes a process of enacted knowledge creation. This research contributes to a growing discourse on the relationship between innovation and knowledge creation by building and testing a hybrid model of organisational knowledge creation and innovation. Its findings illustrate the utility of using knowledge-based perspectives to investigate organisational innovation and have significant implications for fostering digital innovation in the firm.