This dissertation examines the emergent understanding of the dynamics of Remote Employment in an organisation. It reflects on the workings of value adding employment where individual employees operate from home and away from the "office environment". In so doing, it hopes to raise within organisations new levels of awareness that will make this employment form meaningful and fruitful. Within the body of the dissertation, relevant theoretical constructs are outlined. These form the basis on which emergent understanding using Systems Thinking is discussed. These theoretical constructs are placed upon an underlying foundation that focuses upon Systems of Meaning and the influencing factors that both encourage relationships and best accommodate participant stakeholders. Meaningful relationships are explored from a cognitive perspective. Such an approach also serves as a proposition for sustaining all forms of employment relationships irrespective of the participants particular work locality. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Interest in the area of virtual work continues to increase with articles being written from different disciplinary perspectives - e.g. information systems (IS), management, psychology and transportation. In this paper, we map research on virtual work to (a) understand the intellectual base from which this field has emerged, (b) explore how this field has evolved over time, and (c) identify clusters of research themes that have emerged over time and the relationships between them. Specifically, we use co-citation analysis of research published in all social science disciplines to map the field at three points in time - 1995, 2000 and 2006. Our results show that the field has grown from nine research clusters in 1995 to sixteen in 2006. A comparison across these maps suggests that research in the cluster of "virtual teams" has gained significance even as research within some earlier clusters such as "urban planning and transportation" has lost ground. Our longitudinal analysis identifies relevant concepts, theories and methodologies that have emerged in the field of virtual work. This analysis can help interested researchers identify how they may want to contribute to the field of virtual work - by adding to popular clusters, enriching emerging smaller clusters or by acting as bridges across clusters. (author's abstract)

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Pepperdine University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-71).

Univ., Diss.--Göteborg, 2004.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborg University, 2004. / "November 2004." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Drexel University, 2008. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-122).

D.Phil. / This exploratory study looks at the barriers to virtual working as experienced by members of global virtual teams in a major Information Technology company. The data were collected by means of an online survey, and were subjected to detailed analysis. The initial survey measured respondents' levels of agreement with statements in the areas of Trust, Communications, Conflict and Virtual Work Self-Efficacy, which had all been identified by earlier research and literature review. Data reduction of the responses revealed the emergence of several factors, including ones related to virtual work facility, conflict, communications and vicarious learning. The research uncovered interesting facts about the barriers that virtual workers perceive to working virtually, as well as their views on the effectiveness of virtual working and the need for physical contact with fellow workers. The study ends with interpretation of the emergent factors and their interrelationships, and with the significance of this for organisations wishing to implement virtual team working

A research report submitted to the School of Construction Economics and Management Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Witwatersrand 15 February 2018 / This thesis aims to explore the impact of virtual communication among professionals within the South African construction industry by analysis of responses to a distributed questionnaire and interviews which will highlight trends and hindrances to effective communication. It hopes to answer the key question of key factors affecting virtual communication from a global perspective to that of the current South African state in order to improve future forms of ICT to maintain and enhance global competitiveness. To date, many construction organisations are autocratic and have a hierarchical organisational structure, which is often static and unable to change to current market needs. However, there is a growing trend for organisations to form specialised decentralised teams. These units are dynamic and are more flexible with knowledge transfer allowing their organisation to adapt to the ever changing global market. One particular adaptation in the construction industry is in information communication technology (ICT) which has resulted in organisations becoming more globally competitive. ICT is becoming more widely used in the construction project life cycle. While the development of virtual collaborations has allowed for companies to be globally competitive, there are areas in need of improvement such as communication and information processing. The use of current communication methods and processes are technologically driven and do not consider the individual’s psychological aspects. Social interaction within a workplace is important with a move away from autocratic information dissemination. These aspects have a direct effect on project delivery efficiency; productivity of labour force; as well as quality of the final product. There is a distinct shift in the use of different media for communication and effective those medium has proved to be. The reluctance to change and how quickly individuals adapt to technological advancements also impact on the efficiency of communication. / MT 2018

No description available.

A tool for analyzing and understanding the behavior of structural systems based on the principle of virtual work was developed by Dr. Finley Charney in the early 1990s. The program was called DISPAR, which stands for DISplacement PARticipation factors, and was written to work in accordance with SAP90 and ETABS. This program became outdated once newer versions of SAP90 and ETABS were released. Starting with version 11 of SAP2000, Computers and Structures released an Open Application Programming Interface (OAPI) which allowed programmers efficient access to the information in SAP2000. With this release came the motivation to update the program DISPAR to work with SAP2000 version 11 and other versions to follow. This thesis provides an overview of how the new version of DISPAR was programmed using VB.Net and OpenGL. This thesis starts off with an in depth discussion and literature review on the development of the principle of virtual work. The literature review covers how virtual work can be used as a tool to understand structural behavior as well as optimize structural performance. The updated version of DISPAR (DISPAR for SAP2000) was then used to analyze the behavior of metal building frames under various loadings. The focus of this study was to determine the effect modeling the column base connection as partially rigid has on wind drift in metal building frames. Before beginning the study, a literature review was conducted on the rotation stiffness provided by typical column base connections. The information obtain in the literature review was then used to create a finite element model of a typical column base connection in a metal building. Once the finite element model was completed, DISPAR for SAP2000 was used to conduct a study on the sensitivity of the rotational stiffness of the column base connection. / Master of Science