The Support of E-Collaboration Technologies for a Blood Bank

E-collaboration technologies are broadly defined as electronic technologies that enable collaboration among individuals engaged in a common task (Kock, Davison, Ocker, & Wazlawick, 2001; Kock & Davison, 2003; Kock 2004, 2005). The reasons to enter inside the Internet are huge market value and effective data transactions (Perkins, 2000). The developments of electronic collaborations turn out the hard task into a soft one. This technology development allows the whole sectors to leverage the powers of the Internet and communication network to coordinate their efforts and the e-business models have provided the workable infrastructure for group communication and information processing (Jian Cai, 2004). Many published studies have also shown that, besides technologies the social aspects are essential for the success of collaboration (Briggs, 2003; Easley, 2003). The social aspects that lie behind this article are the speedy and effective services provided by the collaboration technologies for the patients. This article mainly speaks on how the deficiency of the blood can be solved by the blood banks. For this purpose a standard model has been created, in which the blood donors can be connected electronically with patients under the network assistance provided by the blood banks and the hospitals.

Small Business Collaboration Through Electronic Marketplaces

It is widely recognized that small businesses with less than 50 employees make significant contributions to the prosperity of local, regional, and national economies. They are a major source of job creation and a driving force of economic growth for developed countries like the USA (Headd, 2005; SBA, 2005), the UK (Dixon, Thompson, & McAllister, 2002; SBS, 2005), Europe (European Commission, 2003), and developing countries such as China (Bo, 2005). The economic potential is further strengthened when firms collaborate with each other; for example, formation of a supply chain, strategic alliances, or sharing of information and resources (Horvath, 2001; O’Donnell, Cilmore, Cummins, & Carson, 2001; MacGregor, 2004; Todeva & Knoke, 2005). Owing to heterogeneous aspects of small businesses, such as firm size and business sector, a single e-business solution is unlikely to be suitable for all firms (Dixon et al., 2002; Taylor & Murphy, 2004a); however, collaboration requires individual firms to adopt standardized, simplified solutions based on open architectures and data design (Horvath, 2001). The purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual e-business framework and a generic e-catalogue, which enables small businesses to collaborate through the creation of an e-marketplace. To assist with the task, analysis of data from 6,000 small businesses situated within a locality of Greater Manchester, England within the context of an e-business portal is incorporated within this study.

Scenarios for E-Collaboration are Only Part of the Story

This article explores the issue of how human factors can be addressed during the development of e-collaboration systems, in particular at the early stage of design since these systems may require new ways of working. It can be difficult to capture requirements for e-collaboration from existing users for two reasons. Firstly, engaging the potential users in requirements capture can be problematic as those users may not perceive themselves as potential users at the outset and hence not putting themselves forward in any consultation exercise. Even with the interested parties (or stakeholders) identified, they may not understand the full potential of how these new tools help people work more effectively with each other. Hence, requirements capture is a challenge for developing e-collaboration systems.

The Role of Leadership in Virtual Teams

As globalization and the prevalence of electronic communication technology has become more widespread, organizations are adapting and changing at a rapid pace. Many organizations are using “virtual teams” of people working across space and time as an organizational structure to enhance organizational flexibility and creativity in this changing environment (Duarte & Snyder, 1999; Townsend, DeMarie, & Hendrickson, 1998). As virtual teams become a more popular organizational tool, many researchers have begun to explore ways in which the performance of such teams may be enhanced (Cohen & Gibson, 2003). One aspect of teamwork that has traditionally had an important impact on team performance is team leadership. Leaders often facilitate effective task performance within a team. By assigning tasks to individuals with the skills, knowledge and abilities to perform best, as well as structuring the team to best accomplish its tasks, a leader can greatly increase the effectiveness and efficiency of a team (Hooijberg, Hunt, & Dodge, 1997; McGrath, 1984; O’Connell, Doverspike, & Cober, 2002). In addition to task-focused behaviors, leaders also motivate, coach and mentor team members toward higher levels of performance (Bass, 1985; Conger & Kanungo, 1998).

Psychological Contracts' Influence on E-Collaboration

Organizations pursing global opportunities find advantage in requiring the use of e-collaboration. While organizations employ e-groups strategically to accomplish tasks, empirical reports indicate a large number of group failures (Levi, 2001). E-collaboration groups may experience an increased chance of failure since establishing trust (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999) and instituting shared work practices (Chudoba, Wynn, Lu,& Watson-Manheim, 2005) is often difficult.

Prospects for E-Collaboration with Artificial Partners

Recent work shows that there is interest in how individual artificial agents can work in successful competitive and collaborative teams including people and other agents. Applications involving competing agents include online auctions. Applications for collaborative teams include remote space missions, disaster recovery (e.g., to coordinate a rescue mission) and helping organize appointments for a team of people (Pynadath & Tambe, 2003); as an aid to independent living developing teams of health carers, including artificial carers (Wagner, Guralnik, & Phelps, 2002); in command and control as coordination and communication assistants (Fan et al., 2005); and pedagogical agents in teaching systems (e.g., Shaw, Ganeshan, Johnson & Millar, 1999; Feng, Shaw, Kim & Hovy, 2006).

Prerequisites for the Implementation of E-Collaboration

E-collaboration refers to a task-oriented cooperation between individuals by using electronic technologies. In the company’s practice, e-collaboration mainly describes each form of collaboration between two or more locations and/or organizations via electronic channels in order to support electronic commerce and supply chain transactions.

Multilingual Collaboration in Electronic Meetings

Groups in which participants do not speak the same language frequently find communication difficult. Yet, multilingual meetings are common as a form of collaboration. To overcome this language barrier, banks, government agencies, hospitals, the courts, and many other institutions have relied upon human translators to enable meeting participants to exchange ideas and opinions. For example, the United Nations General Assembly’s discussions, conferences within the European Union, multinational corporations’ business negotiations, and many other meetings are conducted almost daily, requiring large amounts of interpreters’ scarce expertise and time.

Multilevel Modeling Methods for E-Collaboration Data

The present article aims to (1) conceptualize and present the two-level multilevel model for e-collaboration research, (2) conceptualize the Intra-Class Correlation Coefficient (ICC), (3) conceptualize R2 in e-collaboration multilevel modeling, (4) present centering methods that can be used in e-collaboration multilevel modeling, (5) present parameter estimation and hypothesis testing methods for e-collaboration multilevel modeling, and (6) list some of the existing commercial software packages that can be used for analyzing the e-collaboration multilevel data.

A Matrix for E-Collaboration in Rural Canadian Schools

This is a case study of interinstitutional e-collaboration in a rural part of Canada, based on e-teaching and elearningfor senior high school students. In the process of developing e-collaboration between institutions, new structures and processes were created that complemented traditional schools. Through this initiative, e-collaboration provided extended educational and, indirectly, vocational opportunities for senior students in small schools in Atlantic Canada.