Management of Collaborative Networked Organizations faces various challenges in terms of decision-making. Particularly, in complex and multi-player environments, like healthcare, it is not easy to find the roots of low performance processes, and unmet goals. This research provides a framework, as well as associated techniques to analyze the value network, identify problematic actors, and consequently, find the best possible solution to change them. The proposed framework consists of two main components: Analyzing the value network, and Multi-Criteria Decision Making. To analyze the value network of a collaborative environment, in addition to the existing techniques, four complementary components are introduced: Actors’ value interchanges matrix, Value Gantt chart, Identifying problematic actors flowchart, and Actors’ ease of substitution table. Employing these hybrid analyses, decision makers gain a better understanding of the bottlenecks in the value network, current conditions and contributions of the involved actors, and the consequences of considering various alternatives. Then, by applying one of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making methods, and based on pre-defined criteria, possible alternatives are analyzed and outlined. As a proof of concept and validation of the proposed methods, we reviewed a scenario of patient flow and wait times in healthcare. We derive the value network for collaborative processes in a hospital, specify the roles’ of actors, identify the bottlenecks, then rank the solutions, and suggest possible changes to improve the performance of the collaborative environment.

This study examined how market segmentation strategy can assist nonprofit organizations to identify potential corporate partners, establish collaborative alliances, and secure new sources of capital. Recent economic concerns and increases in competition have seriously affected the nonprofit's business environment. Therefore, a proactive approach is essential, so nonprofits can successfully secure desperately needed capital and continue to provide for those less fortunate. The study seeks a better understanding of the construct of alliance formation. Existing literature on alliances mostly focused on the nature of alliances; much less has been written about characteristics of alliance partners. Based on limited empirical evidence, this study integrated partner and partnership characteristics to develop a comprehensive theory of alliances. The research was conducted with the assistance and cooperation of several nonprofit organizations located in the tri-county area of South Florida. Participating nonprofit organizations were surveyed using several scales adapted from extant literature. Multiple regression technique, specifically stepwise regression was utilized to examine the hypothesized relationships between the dependent and independent (4) variables. Results indicated that organizational memory, governance, and firmographics were correlated to alliance formation and significant. However, the correlation between organizational culture and alliance formation was weak and not significant, despite extant literature review to the contrary. Further research is recommended to explicate causes for this lack of strength between organizational culture and alliance formation.

Assa OEM is a manufacturer of locks and fittings for windows, doors and cabinets. To be more competitive, automating the production is an advantage. Assa assembles six different types of left and right reversible hinges. One product stands for 80 % of the assembly time on the line. For this product Assa wants to implement a robotized assembly solution in one of the three assembly stations. The remaining 20% still needs to be assembled manually. The aim of this study is to investigate three assembly stations, select one assembly station to automate, give three concepts at half-time of the project for the selected assembly station and simulate one final automated concept. The assembly line produces approximately 2000 reversible hinges each day. For the stations in the assembly line the cycle time is around 16 seconds. In the three assembly stations the assembly tasks are similar, it is the number of rivets or parts that differ. In assembly station three there is one additional task that is not included in the first two assembly stations. In this task the arm is lifted and turned 180 degrees, and then placed over three rivets. This is more complex for a robot to perform and will require more equipment. There are similarities between assembly station one and two and therefore concepts for both stations will be given. Three layout concepts are presented for the first assembly station and for the second assembly station one concept is presented. Also, two concepts of combining assembly station one and two are presented. On April 17th, 2018, a meeting at Assa was held to discuss the different concepts and layouts. The discussion led to the conclusion that a further investigation on implementing a robot will be carried out for the concept in assembly station two. The main result is that the cycle time of 16 seconds is difficult to accomplish. The path must be well planned to achieve this with a collaborative robot. To attain the cycle time the end-effector must be designed so that no tool change will be necessary. The rivet is small and therefore a gripper would have difficulty gripping the rivets. Therefore, other methods such as ferromagnetic or vacuum are recommended. The feeder system of the rivet is suggested to have a vibrating bowl feeder due to the orientation of the rivets. The frames’ feeder system needs to be designed for the purpose in assembly station two. The frame that is to be assembled on to the fixture exposes a risk for an operator if working beside the robot. To minimize the risk area from the frame, relocation of the frame feeder and planning the path differently is suggested. The layout will require safety equipment and the suitable safety equipment depends on the flexibility Assa requires.

In order to support Social Innovation, Social Designers advocate for the use of collaborative design methodologies, inclusive design processes, which produce innovative design outcomes and inclusive societies. While there is a large amount of literature on this topic from a European and US perspective, there is little understanding regarding the effect large social disparity between stakeholders has on these types of engagements. The researcher describes this as cross-boundary collaborative design for social innovation, where "boundary" refers to social and collective identity such as, gender, race, class, etc., which is a reality in most South African collaborative design engagements and a gap in the literature. Thus, this thesis explores this gap by asking the research question, what practices, mindsets and interpersonal interactions help to support effective cross-boundary collaborative design for Social Innovation? In order to answer this question, the researcher conducted 32 interviews followed by a single focus group with disparate stakeholders engaged in these types of initiatives. Using a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach and applying the lens of Appreciative Inquiry to her interview questions, she recorded narratives that focused on moments of effectiveness within these cross-boundary collaborative design engagements. What emerged from the data was a strong link between the quality of relationships between the disparate stakeholders and the effectiveness of the collaborative design process - what she described as "generative" relationships (connections built on trust, vulnerability, friendship and respect) that blurred the social boundaries between the participants and helped them move across the social divides with ease. This in turn increased the generative nature of the collaborative design process. Furthermore, these generative relationships were often established outside of the design process, in a preliminary phase (pre-project) before a design engagement began because this phase allowed the stakeholders to focus solely on building relationships, instead of generating design solutions. However, the importance of generative relationships does not feature strongly in the current collaborative design literature. Instead, it focuses mainly on developing communication methods as a way to support boundary crossing and views relationship building as a secondary by-product of a good communication method. This thesis, however, concludes that in order to support effective cross-boundary collaborative design engagements, this process should be flipped and attention be given to first building generative relationships that can then help to support the effectiveness of the cross-boundary communication methods and ultimately improve the over all crossboundary collaborative design process.

Students often struggle with collaboration. Successful collaboration requires planning which is often neglected by individuals and groups. Research about whether technological interventions impact online collaborative processes and how these interventions take effect is limited. During the COVID-19 pandemic research about how to support effective online collaborative learning has never been as important for guiding best practices in post-secondary learning contexts. The aim of this qualitative case study was to explore how the quality of planning discussions contribute to group performance and planning challenge perceptions, under the three different planning support conditions. Specifically, the study compared the planning interactions among groups who (a) reported different planning challenge experiences, (b) received different kinds of planning support, and (c) achieved different learning outcomes (group performance). Participants were drawn from 180 undergraduate students enrolled in a first-year course in a university in Canada. Students used an online chat tool to complete a collaborative task and reflect on the process. Extreme case sampling was used to identify groups who perceived planning as problematic (6 groups) and groups who did not (6 groups). Chat transcripts were analyzed for quality and characteristics of groups’ planning discussions. Findings indicate (a) planning was largely neglected by groups, (b) the overall quality of groups’ planning discussions were not calibrated with groups’ perceptions of planning challenges encountered by the group, (c) groups who received the planning support in the form of nominal visualizations engaged in more powerful planning processes during collaboration, and (d) group performance on the task differed between groups who perceived planning problematic and groups who did not. This study contributes to the field by recognizing the deficiency of groups’ planning process in collaboration and providing evidence of the effectiveness of a planning support tool. Recommendations for incorporating collaboration into online learning and instruction during COVID-19 are presented in the conclusion. / Graduate

abstract: Collaborative piano education tends to discuss techniques of collaboration as primarily a musical skill. However, common understanding within the field regarding a collaborative pianist’s ability to work with others offers another aspect to this assumption. It goes without saying that pianists’ interpersonal skills largely affect with whom they will work, and how efficaciously pianists and their partners will work together. Correspondingly, how pianists work with others can directly affect the success or failure of the musical collaboration. The first intention of this paper is to explain why interpersonal skills are integral to the creation of quality musical outcomes and so-called musical togetherness; it specifies interpersonal aspects innate and unique to a pianist’s experience. Next, this paper defines two crucial components of collaboration – empathy and active listening – and discusses how pianists can build these skills into their personal practice and rehearsal. It continues with an examination of the interpersonal implications of studio arrangement, body language, and verbal language from a pianist’s perspective. This paper concludes with ideas for how to test for these skills during the collaborative piano audition process, a class syllabus showing how these skills can be incorporated into the collaborative piano curriculum, and suggestions for further research about interpersonal aspects of collaboration. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music 2019

In this study we explore the problem of purchase cart recommendationin the field of retail. How can we push the right customize purchase cart that would consider both habits and serendipity constraints? Recommender Systems application is widely restricted to Internet services providers: movie recommendation, e-commerce, search engine. We brought algorithmic and technological breakthroughs to outdated retail systems while keeping in mind its own specificities: purchase cart rather than single products, restricted interactions between customers and products. After collecting ingenious recommendations methods, we defined two major directions - the correctness and the serendipity - that would serve as discriminant aspects to compare multiple solutions we implemented. We expect our solutions to have beneficial impacts on customers, gaining time and open-mindedness, and gradually obliterate the separation between supermarkets and e-commerce platforms as far as customized experience is concerned.

No description available.

archives@tulane.edu / 1 / Yuntong Bai

Le secteur langagier vit actuellement un changement de paradigme. De nouvelles pratiques collaboratives facilitent les échanges entre des gens de partout dans le monde. Bien que certaines de ces pratiques, par exemple la traduction collaborative, ont suscité l'intérêt de nombreux chercheurs, d'autres, comme la terminographie collaborative, sont peu connues. Quel est le spectre de la terminographie collaborative? En quoi la terminographie collaborative se distingue-t-elle de la terminographie classique? Quelles sont leurs forces et leurs faiblesses respectives? La présente thèse définit la terminographie collaborative, identifie ses caractéristiques et ses divers modes et formes et présente ses outils afin de permettre une compréhension approfondie du phénomène. Nous comparons la terminographie classique et la terminographie collaborative au moyen d'une étude de cas d'un modèle classique (TERMIUM Plus) et d’un modèle collaboratif (TermWiki) afin de relever les ressemblances et les différences entre elles. Puis nous illustrons leurs forces et leurs faiblesses respectives. Nous concluons que la terminographie classique et la terminographie collaborative diffèrent principalement au niveau des participants, du style d'interaction et de l'infrastructure. The language industry is experiencing a paradigm shift. New collaborative practices facilitate exchanges between people from all around the world. Although some of these practices, such as collaborative translation, have attracted the interest of many researchers, others, such as collaborative terminography, are little known. What is the spectrum of collaborative terminography? How do collaborative terminography and traditional terminography differ? What are their respective strengths and weaknesses? This thesis defines collaborative terminography, identifies its characteristics and its various modes and forms, and presents collaborative tools to enable a thorough understanding of the phenomenon. We compare traditional and collaborative terminography through a case study of a traditional model (TERMIUM Plus) and a collaborative model (TermWiki) to identify similarities and differences between them. We then list their respective strengths and weaknesses. We conclude that traditional terminography and collaborative terminography differ mainly in terms of participants, interaction styles and infrastructure.