An information support service for moderators of SME company networks
Identifieur interne : 002800 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 002799; suivant : 002801An information support service for moderators of SME company networks
Auteurs : Heiko Thimm ; Karsten Boye RasmussenSource :
- Management Research News [ 0140-9174 ] ; 2009-08-07.
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to investigate the management process in company networks. A new information support service can assist network managers in the complex task of orchestrating members of the network to socalled network actor sets NAS that deliver the best fit for incoming inquiries. Designmethodologyapproach A corresponding conceptual framework and system approach is developed. The proposed system employs a pragmatic twophase multicriteria scoring scheme for orchestrating NAS under consideration of the specific needs of inquiries and, too, the company network as a whole. Findings The research indicates that the orchestration of NAS may be effectively performed by a corresponding information technology IT support service. Through the service orchestration decisions may become less influenced by human factors. The service will also lead to better transparency, traceability, and analytical possibilities regarding the inquiry management process. Networks with a high number of members and with many overlaps in company profiles and competences will find this service useful. Research limitationsimplications Further orchestration criteria will be explored in the future by a simulation study. Practical implications The paper presents recommendations for structuring the inquiry management process in company networks to improve effectiveness by the use of IT. Also, it contains a sound framework for the implementation of the proposed service as part of IT infrastructures for company networks. Originalityvalue The paper presents major insights, concepts, and a system approach for a novel information support service for network moderators.
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DOI: 10.1108/01409170910980353
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<record><TEI wicri:istexFullTextTei="biblStruct"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title xml:lang="en">An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</title><author><name sortKey="Thimm, Heiko" sort="Thimm, Heiko" uniqKey="Thimm H" first="Heiko" last="Thimm">Heiko Thimm</name><affiliation><mods:affiliation>School of Engineering, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany</mods:affiliation></affiliation></author><author><name sortKey="Boye Rasmussen, Karsten" sort="Boye Rasmussen, Karsten" uniqKey="Boye Rasmussen K" first="Karsten" last="Boye Rasmussen">Karsten Boye Rasmussen</name><affiliation><mods:affiliation>Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark</mods:affiliation></affiliation></author></titleStmt><publicationStmt><idno type="wicri:source">ISTEX</idno><idno type="RBID">ISTEX:75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC</idno><date when="2009" year="2009">2009</date><idno type="doi">10.1108/01409170910980353</idno><idno type="url">https://api.istex.fr/document/75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC/fulltext/pdf</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Istex/Corpus">002800</idno></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct><analytic><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</title><author><name sortKey="Thimm, Heiko" sort="Thimm, Heiko" uniqKey="Thimm H" first="Heiko" last="Thimm">Heiko Thimm</name><affiliation><mods:affiliation>School of Engineering, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany</mods:affiliation></affiliation></author><author><name sortKey="Boye Rasmussen, Karsten" sort="Boye Rasmussen, Karsten" uniqKey="Boye Rasmussen K" first="Karsten" last="Boye Rasmussen">Karsten Boye Rasmussen</name><affiliation><mods:affiliation>Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark</mods:affiliation></affiliation></author></analytic><monogr></monogr><series><title level="j">Management Research News</title><idno type="ISSN">0140-9174</idno><imprint><publisher>Emerald Group Publishing Limited</publisher><date type="published" when="2009-08-07">2009-08-07</date><biblScope unit="volume">32</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">9</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="846">846</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="857">857</biblScope></imprint><idno type="ISSN">0140-9174</idno></series><idno type="istex">75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1108/01409170910980353</idno><idno type="filenameID">0210320905</idno><idno type="original-pdf">0210320905.pdf</idno><idno type="href">01409170910980353.pdf</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc><seriesStmt><idno type="ISSN">0140-9174</idno></seriesStmt></fileDesc><profileDesc><textClass></textClass><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage></profileDesc></teiHeader><front><div type="abstract">Purpose This paper aims to investigate the management process in company networks. A new information support service can assist network managers in the complex task of orchestrating members of the network to socalled network actor sets NAS that deliver the best fit for incoming inquiries. Designmethodologyapproach A corresponding conceptual framework and system approach is developed. The proposed system employs a pragmatic twophase multicriteria scoring scheme for orchestrating NAS under consideration of the specific needs of inquiries and, too, the company network as a whole. Findings The research indicates that the orchestration of NAS may be effectively performed by a corresponding information technology IT support service. Through the service orchestration decisions may become less influenced by human factors. The service will also lead to better transparency, traceability, and analytical possibilities regarding the inquiry management process. Networks with a high number of members and with many overlaps in company profiles and competences will find this service useful. Research limitationsimplications Further orchestration criteria will be explored in the future by a simulation study. Practical implications The paper presents recommendations for structuring the inquiry management process in company networks to improve effectiveness by the use of IT. Also, it contains a sound framework for the implementation of the proposed service as part of IT infrastructures for company networks. Originalityvalue The paper presents major insights, concepts, and a system approach for a novel information support service for network moderators.</div></front></TEI><istex><corpusName>emerald</corpusName><author><json:item><name>Heiko Thimm</name><affiliations><json:string>School of Engineering, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany</json:string></affiliations></json:item><json:item><name>Karsten Boye Rasmussen</name><affiliations><json:string>Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark</json:string></affiliations></json:item></author><subject><json:item><lang><json:string>eng</json:string></lang><value>Virtual organizations</value></json:item><json:item><lang><json:string>eng</json:string></lang><value>Information networks</value></json:item><json:item><lang><json:string>eng</json:string></lang><value>Business environment</value></json:item></subject><language><json:string>eng</json:string></language><abstract>Purpose This paper aims to investigate the management process in company networks. A new information support service can assist network managers in the complex task of orchestrating members of the network to socalled network actor sets NAS that deliver the best fit for incoming inquiries. Designmethodologyapproach A corresponding conceptual framework and system approach is developed. The proposed system employs a pragmatic twophase multicriteria scoring scheme for orchestrating NAS under consideration of the specific needs of inquiries and, too, the company network as a whole. Findings The research indicates that the orchestration of NAS may be effectively performed by a corresponding information technology IT support service. Through the service orchestration decisions may become less influenced by human factors. The service will also lead to better transparency, traceability, and analytical possibilities regarding the inquiry management process. Networks with a high number of members and with many overlaps in company profiles and competences will find this service useful. Research limitationsimplications Further orchestration criteria will be explored in the future by a simulation study. Practical implications The paper presents recommendations for structuring the inquiry management process in company networks to improve effectiveness by the use of IT. Also, it contains a sound framework for the implementation of the proposed service as part of IT infrastructures for company networks. Originalityvalue The paper presents major insights, concepts, and a system approach for a novel information support service for network moderators.</abstract><qualityIndicators><score>7.808</score><pdfVersion>1.3</pdfVersion><pdfPageSize>521.575 x 680.315 pts</pdfPageSize><refBibsNative>true</refBibsNative><keywordCount>3</keywordCount><abstractCharCount>1659</abstractCharCount><pdfWordCount>5530</pdfWordCount><pdfCharCount>34657</pdfCharCount><pdfPageCount>12</pdfPageCount><abstractWordCount>234</abstractWordCount></qualityIndicators><title>An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</title><genre.original><json:string>research-article</json:string></genre.original><genre><json:string>research-article</json:string></genre><host><volume>32</volume><publisherId><json:string>mrn</json:string></publisherId><pages><last>857</last><first>846</first></pages><issn><json:string>0140-9174</json:string></issn><issue>9</issue><subject><json:item><value>HR & organizational behaviour</value></json:item><json:item><value>Management science & operations</value></json:item></subject><genre><json:string>Journal</json:string></genre><language><json:string>unknown</json:string></language><title>Management Research News</title><doi><json:string>10.1108/mrn</json:string></doi></host><publicationDate>2009</publicationDate><copyrightDate>2009</copyrightDate><doi><json:string>10.1108/01409170910980353</json:string></doi><id>75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC</id><fulltext><json:item><original>true</original><mimetype>application/pdf</mimetype><extension>pdf</extension><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC/fulltext/pdf</uri></json:item><json:item><original>false</original><mimetype>application/zip</mimetype><extension>zip</extension><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC/fulltext/zip</uri></json:item><istex:fulltextTEI uri="https://api.istex.fr/document/75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC/fulltext/tei"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</title></titleStmt><publicationStmt><authority>ISTEX</authority><publisher>Emerald Group Publishing Limited</publisher><availability><p>EMERALD</p></availability><date>2009</date></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct type="inbook"><analytic><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</title><author><persName><forename type="first">Heiko</forename><surname>Thimm</surname></persName><affiliation>School of Engineering, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany</affiliation></author><author><persName><forename type="first">Karsten</forename><surname>Boye Rasmussen</surname></persName><affiliation>Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark</affiliation></author></analytic><monogr><title level="j">Management Research News</title><idno type="pISSN">0140-9174</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1108/mrn</idno><imprint><publisher>Emerald Group Publishing Limited</publisher><date type="published" when="2009-08-07"></date><biblScope unit="volume">32</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">9</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="846">846</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="857">857</biblScope></imprint></monogr><idno type="istex">75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1108/01409170910980353</idno><idno type="filenameID">0210320905</idno><idno type="original-pdf">0210320905.pdf</idno><idno type="href">01409170910980353.pdf</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc></fileDesc><profileDesc><creation><date>2009</date></creation><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage><abstract><p>Purpose This paper aims to investigate the management process in company networks. A new information support service can assist network managers in the complex task of orchestrating members of the network to socalled network actor sets NAS that deliver the best fit for incoming inquiries. Designmethodologyapproach A corresponding conceptual framework and system approach is developed. The proposed system employs a pragmatic twophase multicriteria scoring scheme for orchestrating NAS under consideration of the specific needs of inquiries and, too, the company network as a whole. Findings The research indicates that the orchestration of NAS may be effectively performed by a corresponding information technology IT support service. Through the service orchestration decisions may become less influenced by human factors. The service will also lead to better transparency, traceability, and analytical possibilities regarding the inquiry management process. Networks with a high number of members and with many overlaps in company profiles and competences will find this service useful. Research limitationsimplications Further orchestration criteria will be explored in the future by a simulation study. Practical implications The paper presents recommendations for structuring the inquiry management process in company networks to improve effectiveness by the use of IT. Also, it contains a sound framework for the implementation of the proposed service as part of IT infrastructures for company networks. Originalityvalue The paper presents major insights, concepts, and a system approach for a novel information support service for network moderators.</p></abstract><textClass><keywords scheme="keyword"><list><head>Keywords</head><item><term>Virtual organizations</term></item><item><term>Information networks</term></item><item><term>Business environment</term></item></list></keywords></textClass><textClass><keywords scheme="Emerald Subject Group"><list><label>cat-HOB</label><item><term>HR & organizational behaviour</term></item></list></keywords></textClass><textClass><keywords scheme="Emerald Subject Group"><list><label>cat-MSOP</label><item><term>Management science & operations</term></item></list></keywords></textClass></profileDesc><revisionDesc><change when="2009-08-07">Published</change></revisionDesc></teiHeader></istex:fulltextTEI><json:item><original>false</original><mimetype>text/plain</mimetype><extension>txt</extension><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC/fulltext/txt</uri></json:item></fulltext><metadata><istex:metadataXml wicri:clean="corpus emerald not found" wicri:toSee="no header"><istex:xmlDeclaration>version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"</istex:xmlDeclaration><istex:document><!-- Auto generated NISO JATS XML created by Atypon out of MCB DTD source files. Do Not Edit! --><article dtd-version="1.0" xml:lang="en" article-type="research-article"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">mrn</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="doi">10.1108/mrn</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Management Research News</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="ppub">0140-9174</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Emerald Group Publishing Limited</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1108/01409170910980353</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="original-pdf">0210320905.pdf</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="filename">0210320905</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="type-of-publication"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">research-article</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Research paper</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="subject"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-HOB</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">HR & organizational behaviour</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="subject"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-MSOP</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Management science & operations</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author"><string-name><given-names>Heiko</given-names> <surname>Thimm</surname></string-name><aff>School of Engineering, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany</aff></contrib><x></x><contrib contrib-type="author"><string-name><given-names>Karsten</given-names> <surname>Boye Rasmussen</surname></string-name><aff>Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark</aff></contrib></contrib-group><pub-date pub-type="ppub"><day>07</day><month>08</month><year>2009</year></pub-date><volume>32</volume><issue>9</issue><fpage>846</fpage><lpage>857</lpage><permissions><copyright-statement>© Emerald Group Publishing Limited</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2009</copyright-year><license license-type="publisher"><license-p></license-p></license></permissions><self-uri content-type="pdf" xlink:href="01409170910980353.pdf"></self-uri><abstract><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Purpose</title><x> – </x><p>This paper aims to investigate the management process in company networks. A new information support service can assist network managers in the complex task of orchestrating members of the network to so‐called network actor sets (NAS) that deliver the “best fit” for incoming inquiries.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Design/methodology/approach</title><x> – </x><p>A corresponding conceptual framework and system approach is developed. The proposed system employs a pragmatic two‐phase multi‐criteria scoring scheme for orchestrating NAS under consideration of the specific needs of inquiries and, too, the company network as a whole.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Findings</title><x> – </x><p>The research indicates that the orchestration of NAS may be effectively performed by a corresponding information technology (IT) support service. Through the service orchestration decisions may become less influenced by human factors. The service will also lead to better transparency, traceability, and analytical possibilities regarding the inquiry management process. Networks with a high number of members and with many overlaps in company profiles and competences will find this service useful.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Research limitations/implications</title><x> – </x><p>Further orchestration criteria will be explored in the future by a simulation study.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Practical implications</title><x> – </x><p>The paper presents recommendations for structuring the inquiry management process in company networks to improve effectiveness by the use of IT. Also, it contains a sound framework for the implementation of the proposed service as part of IT infrastructures for company networks.</p></sec><sec><title content-type="abstract-heading">Originality/value</title><x> – </x><p>The paper presents major insights, concepts, and a system approach for a novel information support service for network moderators.</p></sec></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Virtual organizations</kwd><x>, </x><kwd>Information networks</kwd><x>, </x><kwd>Business environment</kwd></kwd-group><custom-meta-group><custom-meta><meta-name>peer-reviewed</meta-name><meta-value>yes</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>academic-content</meta-name><meta-value>yes</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>rightslink</meta-name><meta-value>included</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-group></article-meta></front><body><sec><title>1. Introduction</title><p>It has become substantially harder for companies to survive marketing markets due to market globalization, strong competition among suppliers, and tight constraints imposed by the world economy (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b31">World Economic Forum, 2000</xref>). Research has proposed that companies should participate in new forms of alliances with other companies to deal with these conditions. These special forms of alliances include virtual organizations (VOs) (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b5">Davidow and Malone, 1992</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b19">Mowshowitz, 1997</xref>), company networks (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b9">Gulati, 1998</xref>), and collaborative networks (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b4">Camarinha‐Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2005</xref>) in which companies come together to act on the market collaboratively in a well‐coordinated form.</p><p>The rationale for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SME) to act within a network is mainly to gain in potential and thus being able to accomplish larger tasks while remaining small, flexible, and agile (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b18">Malecki and Tootle, 1996</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b26">Suarez‐Villa, 1998</xref>). There is also a geographical aspect involved as these networks typically consist of companies within a limited geographical area. Theories of such clusters also mention that most cluster participants do not compete directly, but serve different industry segments (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b21">Porter, 1998</xref>).</p><p>In the context of this presentation we are not addressing the question of the establishment and population of the network. Our focus is on operative‐level collaborative business processes within the network and external companies for which an authority has been proposed to coordinate the collaboration (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b11">Harbilas <italic>et al.</italic>, 2002</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b25">Sherer, 2003</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b20">Pereira‐Klen and Klen, 2005</xref>). We refer to this authority as moderator. Alternative names found in the literature are coordinator, network manager, and broker.</p><p>The company network must be supported by an appropriate information technology (IT) infrastructure solution that offers suitable operational services, in order to provide value for business partners. These services will include special information and decision support services for effective coordination of the collaboration within the network by a moderator. A brief overview of some proposed approaches that address these requirements is given in the following literature review section.</p><p>Our objectives are to develop and evaluate new, especially SME‐suitable, services of IT infrastructures for company networks that are specialized to the moderators' needs. Our initiative is part of the research program that is carried out in the EU‐funded international project eBusCo.net which stands for “Electronic Business in Company Networks” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b28">Thimm <italic>et al.</italic>, 2008</xref>). The conceptual framework for the orchestration task that is described in this article represents the progress within eBusCo.net.</p><p>In the context of the inquiry management process a network moderator dynamically orchestrates a proper combination of actors from the set of network members. This so‐called network actor set (NAS) needs to be carefully orchestrated to meet the specific needs of the corresponding inquiry and, too, the status of the company network itself. We present a service to support this moderator task that goes beyond a simple matching of services requested with services offered by the network members. We have designed a solution that employs a pragmatic two‐phase multi‐criteria scoring scheme. The moderator may prioritize predefined so‐called Orchestration Criteria to adapt the scoring process to individual needs. For example it may be defined that the set of actors should be generated such that highest preference is given to product quality. This prioritization will adapt the orchestration process to give highest preference to companies which are known for high quality products or production steps, respectively. Also, our scheme can deal with special collaboration conditions. The collaboration orientation could concern the relationship between companies as exemplified in the need to include two companies within the same set of actors. We regard our service as “SME‐suitable” because it enables moderators to deal with the allocation problem pragmatically, efficiently, and rapidly. Through the use of our service, the network members are freed from complex coordination and decision processes that are otherwise necessary for collaborative inquiry and order management in company networks. Furthermore, our service will make orchestration decisions less dependent on human factors and, as preferences and outcomes are documented, the service will lead to a higher degree of transparency of moderator actions. This characteristic is expected to result in a higher level of trust in the company network. The service also especially helps inexperienced and not‐well trained moderators to manage inquiries efficiently.</p><p>The remainder of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a literature review on organizational networks and orchestration. Section 3 describes the context of moderation as we could observe in an existing company network. In Section 4, we present the conceptual framework of our service that is described in Section 5 in further detail. Concluding remarks are given in Section 6.</p></sec><sec><title>2. Literature review on organizational networks and orchestration</title><p><italic>Organizational networks</italic>. The early emergence of the concept of the VO is often accredited to the book on <italic>The Virtual Corporation</italic> (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b5">Davidow and Malone, 1992</xref>) with the subtitle of <italic>Structuring and Revitalizing the Corporation for the 21st Century</italic>. The concept of VO or “virtual corporation” has since been used in many different contexts and the flux of these concepts are in the book itself demonstrated in a paragraph initiated with “What will a virtual corporation look like? There is no single answer.” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b5">Davidow and Malone, 1992</xref>, p. 5). The authors describe the virtual corporation through internal and external to the virtual corporation viewpoints. Later work on the VO has muddled the definition further. In the same book in a chapter on “Shared dreams” the authors also give examples of “co‐destiny” between the business players in the VO (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b5">Davidow and Malone, 1992</xref>, p. 142). This is in great contrast to the “switching” that is later (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b19">Mowshowitz, 1997</xref>) introduced as the characteristic of the VO as this switching implies that the business partner can be swapped for another at computer speed. Mowshowitz uses an example in the form of a delivery service the possible switching between UPS, FedEx, USmail, etc. Here there is no co‐destiny just plain economics. Galbraith (1993) intensively investigates “clustering” as VO characteristics. Probably because of the focus on larger American companies this clustering concerns business units related within the portfolio of the same corporation (Galbraith, 1993, p. 31). For European purposes clustering seems an appropriate term for the SME partnering activities and also in compliance with the semantics of clustering put forth by <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b21">Porter (1998)</xref>.</p><p>Clustering, relatedness, and partnering frame the concept of “collaborative networks”. <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b4">Camarinha‐Matos and Afsarmanesh (2005)</xref> define the collaborative network as autonomous, geographically distributed, and heterogeneous based on operating environment, culture, social capital, and goals. The entities have a shared belief that they can achieve more together than individually.</p><p>This article looks into the support of the collaborative networks where a moderator may exist and who has the task to handle inquiries received by the network. This responsibility may require the moderator to select a set of partners from the network to form a VO to meet the inquiry. Several different partner selection schemes have been proposed. These schemes attempt to automatically generate proposals for a needed VO by applying various forms of composition and optimization methods. Instead of “composition” we use the notion of “orchestration” due to the imperative nature of the meaning of orchestration and it is a more accurate description of the moderator's role in a network.</p><p><italic>Orchestration in organizational networks</italic>. Information support services for the orchestration of VO in networks based on composition and optimization methods have been addressed by several research groups using a variety of techniques. These techniques include multi‐objective programming (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b10">Hammami <italic>et al.</italic>, 2002</xref>), genetic algorithms (Ip, 2003), ant colony optimization (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b7">Fischer <italic>et al.</italic>, 2004</xref>), AHP and ANP (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b1">Bittencourt and Rabelo, 2005</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b23">Saaty, 1980</xref>), data envelopment analysis (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b27">Talluri <italic>et al.</italic>, 2006</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b16">Land <italic>et al.</italic>, 1993</xref>), and mixed integer linear programming (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b14">Jarimo and Salo, 2007</xref>)</p><p>The orchestration problem is essentially a multi‐criteria decision‐making problem that involves not only matching competence and capabilities requested with those offered by network members. Further criteria are evenly important including the expected smoothness of collaboration within the VO, the business impact on the network as a whole, and the impact on social relations among the network members. A comprehensive list of evaluation attributes that are originally targeted on the selection of supply alliances can be found in <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b17">Lin and Chen (2004)</xref>. Further criteria for partner selection can be found in the study of <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b25">Sherer (2003)</xref> where eight success factors for manufacturing networks of SMEs are identified. Special attention to the orchestration aspect within SME‐company networks is also given in the EU‐sponsored LAURA project (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b22">Roberts <italic>et al.</italic>, 2005</xref>).</p><p><italic>IT infrastructures for organizational networks</italic>. In a large number of research and development projects a technological foundation for the support of organizational networks is established. The technologies being employed in these initiatives include traditional workflow and groupware technology but also the more recent internet/e‐commerce technologies such as peer‐to‐peer computing frameworks, XML/ebXML, web services, as well as semantic web ontologies. Also research prototypes have been proposed that are based on the application of multi‐agent systems and negotiation mechanisms for the creation of VOs (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b3">Camarinha‐Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2001</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b24">Shen <italic>et al.</italic>, 2003</xref>). <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b2">Camarinha‐Matos (2005)</xref> gives a comprehensive overview of multiple of these projects. He broadly classifies these infrastructures into “Basic Horizontal Infrastructures”, “Collaborative Environments”, and “Advanced Collaborative Environments”. According to the classification scheme described in the article our targeted information support service fits into the latter two infrastructure classes. A service for partner selection can be found in prototypes of all the three classes.</p><p>The limitations of these existing approaches include deficiencies with respect to agility, flexibility, and trust building. These characteristics are often called “virtual organization breeding environments” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b4">Camarinha‐Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2005</xref>) where participating companies are described with their offerings and interests in a central directory. The potential contributions of ontologies to such environments has been studied in <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b30">Weiß and Maedche (2003)</xref> and <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b6">De Nicola <italic>et al.</italic> (2007)</xref>. Forthcoming IT infrastructures for virtual organization breeding environments will include functionality to manage the environment and to dynamically form effective VOs that will exploit business opportunities. For this dynamic formation a service for partner selection will be of major importance.</p></sec><sec><title>3. The context of moderation in an existing company network</title><p>In the eBusCo.net project through interviewees we have obtained observations from existing company networks. In the German region we have focused on the Produktionsnetzwerk Neumünster (Production network) where around 30 SME production companies have participated for more than six years. The rather long time period is an indication of the success of the network. It is believed that part of this success is caused by the fact that the network is moderated. Having a moderating person can be regarded as a structural fact as structure in network analysis is defined as the “presence of regular patterns in relationship” (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b29">Wasserman and Faust, 1994</xref>). Personal competences also contribute to the success of the business network. In the case of the Produktionsnetzwerk Neumünster the moderator function is filled by a well integrated and accepted person with a strong background in production processes and technologies but also in business management.</p><p>We focus on the moderators for handling inquiries collaboratively within the network. Our information from interviews with members of the Produktionsnetzwerk Neumünster and also other companies concerning the inquiry handling process are summarized in the graphical illustration of the process steps given in <xref ref-type="fig" rid="F_0210320905001">Figure 1</xref>.</p><p>An external inquiry is received (1) by the moderator in the network. The inquiry has the form of a potential customer order. If the inquiry refers to a product of the company network's standard product offering, then a description is already available for the moderator of the required collaborative production process in the form of a historically stored and retrievable process description. If the request has more innovative elements, the moderator must create a corresponding new process description. The process description then acts as the object for the moderator's decomposition of the request into corresponding order components.</p><p>As an illustrative example we assume a fictitious company network that specializes in passenger seat production for planes, ships, trains, and busses. A true example from the Produktionsnetzwerk Neumünster would be of greater magnitude and complexity and therefore not helpful for illustrative purposes. In our simple and non‐complex example the company network has received a request for quotation from a shipyard asking for an offer for 400 passenger seats with an integrated infotainment system. Assume that a corresponding process description for the production of the requested seats within the network will be used to specify the following six order components:</p><list list-type="order"><list-item><label>(1) </label><p>provision of metal seat frames;</p></list-item><list-item><label>(2) </label><p>provision of seat upholsteries;</p></list-item><list-item><label>(3) </label><p>provision of circuit systems;</p></list-item><list-item><label>(4) </label><p>provision of monitors;</p></list-item><list-item><label>(5) </label><p>provision of harnesses; and</p></list-item><list-item><label>(6) </label><p>final assembly of seats</p></list-item></list><p>These order components constitute a specification of the requirements (2). As the example shows, these requirements refer to needed product parts and production steps. Further requirements can specify constraints concerning the network companies in the form of preferences from the inquiring company as to participating companies. In our example, the inquiring shipyard might have explicitly asked that the seat frames should be produced by a specific company of the network. There can also be constrains in the form of collaboration preferences among the network companies.</p><p>Given the requirements and constraints for the needed set of companies, the moderator orchestrates a corresponding set of network members called network actor set (3). This orchestration activity consists of the selection of a set of network members based on their company products, and services and their company profile in general. Steps two and three may be repeated several times until the moderator is satisfied with the set being orchestrated. Next, the selected members are contacted by the moderator in order to coordinate (4) their particular assignment and further details of the collaborative fulfilment process and also the response of the company network to the inquiring company. This step may require the moderator to repeat steps two to four until all open issues are solved and a consensus exists regarding the response to the inquiring company. The moderator then generates a corresponding response (e.g. offer to a request for quotation) which is next delivered (5) to the inquiring company.</p><p>IT‐based support services specialized for orchestration may be useful for the inquiry management process in many networks. We see a strong need to support the orchestration task for a number of reasons. First of all, finding the most‐suited set may easily over‐challenge a human moderator. A main reason for that is the large number of different set alternatives based on the participating companies in the network (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b22">Roberts <italic>et al.</italic>, 2005</xref>). Secondly, instead of completely disjoint offerings of the network members the offered products and services of the companies are likely to overlap to a certain degree (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b15">Johnston <italic>et al.</italic>, 2006</xref>). Thirdly, there is an aspect of fairness as it is expected that business is to be somewhat evenly distributed over all network members (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b13">Jähn <italic>et al.</italic>, 2005</xref>). Furthermore, proper IT support may reduce the influence of human factors on the orchestration outcome and is expected to bring better consistency of orchestration decisions over time, better traceability of these decisions, and also provide analytical possibilities for the general management of the company network.</p></sec><sec><title>4. Conceptual framework for the orchestration task</title><p>In this section we introduce central concepts that constitute the theoretical basis for a service to support moderator orchestration tasks.</p><p>A company network is specified as <italic>C</italic>={ <italic>C</italic><sub>1</sub>, <italic>C</italic><sub>2</sub>, …, <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>m</italic></sub> } where <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>i</italic></sub> ∈ <italic>C</italic> are the member companies. It is the objective of the orchestration task to select from these members a set of companies that constitute a VO denoted <italic>V</italic><italic>O</italic>={ <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>j</italic></sub> } with ∀ <italic>j</italic>:<italic>C</italic><sub><italic>j</italic></sub> ∈ <italic>C</italic>. Information required for the orchestration task is available in an information base which is a collection of subsets of information similar to the central directory considered for VO breeding environments (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b4">Camarinha‐Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2005</xref>). In our framework the information base is defined as follows: <xref ref-type="fig" rid="F_0210320905004">(Equation 1)</xref></p><p>The subsets <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>o</italic><italic>f</italic><italic>f</italic></sub>, <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>c</italic><italic>a</italic><italic>p</italic></sub>, <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>c</italic><italic>o</italic><italic>m</italic><italic>p</italic></sub> contain the product and service offerings, the capabilities, and competence of the companies, respectively. Information about the collaboration preferences of each company of the network (e.g. with which other members a company prefers to work together) are given in the subset <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>c</italic><italic>o</italic><italic>l</italic><italic>l</italic> − <italic>p</italic><italic>r</italic><italic>e</italic><italic>f</italic></sub>.</p><p>The contents maintained in the information subsets <italic>I</italic><italic>B</italic><sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic> − <italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic></sub> and <italic>I</italic><italic>B</italic><sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic> − <italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic></sub> address so‐called orchestration criteria. The general idea behind these criteria is that collaboration decisions in a company network should not be made in an ad hoc manner. We argue that such decisions should closely reflect conditions related to the given inquiry, the collaboration history, and the economic status of the network as a whole from a more long‐term oriented perspective (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b13">Jähn <italic>et al.</italic>, 2005</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b14">Jarimo and Salo, 2007</xref>). In this approach, it is up to the moderator to make a concrete selection of orchestration criteria from a predefined set of criteria under consideration of the given request and the current status of the network.</p><p>By using the content of the information base denoted by <italic>I</italic><italic>B</italic><sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic> − <italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic></sub>, a VO may be evaluated with respect to given request oriented orchestration criteria. Likewise, through the content denoted by <italic>I</italic><italic>B</italic><sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic> − <italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic></sub> an evaluation with respect to network oriented orchestration criteria can be performed. <xref ref-type="fig" rid="F_0210320905003">Table I</xref> contains examples for such orchestration criteria that are partially related to criteria addressed in the study of <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b25">Sherer (2003)</xref>.</p><p>An inquiry that has been screened by the moderator and assessed as a business opportunity for which a network VO has to be found is regarded as a request. The request is compiled by the moderator into a corresponding search profile for the needed VO which we regard in the following as collaboration request profile (CRP). A CRP is defined as the collection of several subsets of requirements for the needed VO as follows:</p><p>The subset <italic>R</italic><italic>E</italic>={<italic>R</italic><italic>E</italic><sub>1</sub>, <italic>R</italic><italic>E</italic><sub>2</sub>, …, <italic>R</italic><italic>E</italic><sub><italic>n</italic></sub> } contains the request elements which are the needed products and services resulting from a corresponding decomposition of the inquiry.</p><p><sub><italic>I</italic><italic>N</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic>,<sub><italic>E</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic>,<sub><italic>M</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic> represent collaboration constraints. These constraints express participation conditions for the VO with respect to members of the company network. Three different types of constraints are considered. The subset <sub><italic>I</italic><italic>N</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic>={ <sub><italic>I</italic><italic>N</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>1</sub>, <sub><italic>I</italic><italic>N</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>2</sub>, …, <sub><italic>I</italic><italic>N</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>o</italic></sub> } contains include collaboration constraints. A single constraint of this type, i.e.<sub><italic>I</italic><italic>N</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>j</italic></sub>, is a value that points to a single company of the network. The semantics of these constraints is that all companies that <sub><italic>I</italic><italic>N</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic> is referring to must participate in the VO. Conversely, the subset <sub><italic>E</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic>={ <sub><italic>E</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>1</sub>, <sub><italic>E</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>2</sub>, …, <sub><italic>E</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>p</italic></sub> } contains exclude collaboration constraints where each element of the set points to a single network member that must not participate in the VO.</p><p>The subset <sub><italic>M</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic>={ <sub><italic>M</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>1</sub>, <sub><italic>M</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>2</sub>, … ,<sub><italic>M</italic><italic>X</italic></sub><italic>C</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>q</italic></sub> }contains the mutual exclude collaboration constraints. Each element of the set refers to a pair of network members that must not together participate in the same VO.</p><p>The subsets <sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic>={ <sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>1</sub>, <sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>2</sub>, … ,<sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>r</italic></sub> } and <sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic>={ <sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>1</sub>,<sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub>2</sub>, … ,<sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>s</italic></sub> } refer to the request oriented and network oriented orchestration criteria. The elements of these sets, i.e. <sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>i</italic></sub>, with <italic>i</italic>=1, …, <italic>r</italic> and <sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic></sub> <italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>j</italic></sub>, with <italic>j</italic>=1, …, <italic>s</italic> capture weights, with <sub><italic>R</italic><italic>Q</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>i</italic></sub>, <sub><italic>N</italic><italic>W</italic></sub><italic>O</italic><italic>C</italic><sub><italic>j</italic></sub> ∈ [0;1], that express the degree of importance of the corresponding criteria for a current orchestration task.</p><p>In our framework, a CRP is a structured description of a given orchestration task. By evaluating corresponding information available in the information base a ranked list of possible setups for the VO may be obtained.</p><p>We refer to such possibilities by the notion of NAS. The latter are composed of so‐called orchestration items (OI). An OI corresponds to an assignment of a request element <italic>R</italic><italic>E</italic><sub><italic>x</italic></sub> ∈ <italic>R</italic><italic>E</italic> to a member of the company network (i.e. <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>y</italic></sub> ∈ <italic>C</italic>) based on the product offering, capabilities, and competence of the company as given by the information subsets <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>o</italic><italic>f</italic><italic>f</italic></sub> ,<italic>C</italic><sub><italic>c</italic><italic>a</italic><italic>p</italic></sub>, <italic>C</italic><sub><italic>c</italic><italic>o</italic><italic>m</italic><italic>p</italic></sub> of the information base. This concept is specified as a two tuple as follows: <xref ref-type="fig" rid="F_0210320905005">(Equation 2)</xref></p><p>Given this concept, an NAS may be described as a set of <italic>n</italic> <italic>OI</italic> where <italic>n</italic> corresponds to the number of request elements in the CRP as follows: <xref ref-type="fig" rid="F_0210320905006">(Equation 3)</xref></p></sec><sec><title>5. A proposed service</title><p>A high‐level illustration of our proposed information support service is given in <xref ref-type="fig" rid="F_0210320905002">Figure 2</xref>. A prototypical implementation of this service as a standalone system has been finished using the JAVA programming language and further JAVA technologies. The prototype includes the full scheme to compute NAS (as described below) but has some limitations in terms of orchestration criteria and comprehensiveness of the information base. The data repository that underlies the service corresponds to the information base introduced in Section 4. Company‐specific information such as the product and service offerings of the companies, the company profiles, competences, and collaboration preferences are stored in this information base. Furthermore, information specific to the company network is included such as information about the collaboration history and the economic status. The collaboration history consists of records about VOs that have been set up previously.</p><p>Our information support service is targeted on a three‐step approach to compute NAS. In order to satisfy the conditions specified in the search profile (CRP) the contents of the information base is accordingly evaluated.</p><p>Step one is concerned with the screening and decomposition of the given request into corresponding request elements. This step is supported by allowing the moderator to interactively browse through standardized online descriptions of the companies' products and services as given in the information base. This will provide the moderator with insights that are important for making decomposition decisions such that the request elements fit best to the company network. This concerns especially the proper level of granularity of request elements.</p><p>Step two is concerned with the specification of a search profile for a VO in the form of a CRP. Recall from the previous section that a CRP specifies the needed request elements, collaboration constraints, and orchestration criteria. Our service presents a correspondingly structured specification template to the moderator. Through this template an individual CRP may be declared very easily by the use of popular GUI elements such as pull down menus and drag down lists. Note that options presented to the user as selection items are dynamically queried from the information base.</p><p>The moderator may choose from a predefined set of orchestration criteria by selecting values from the interval [0; 1.0]. Orchestration criteria that are to be ignored within the succeeding computations have a value “0” assigned by the moderator. If an orchestration criteria should be considered, then a true positive value within this interval has to be assigned. Thus, the predefined orchestration criteria are prioritized and the succeeding computations will be dynamically configured in correspondence to these priorities.</p><p>In step three, a ranked list of “best fitting” NAS is computed and then presented to the moderator. By “best fitting” we mean potential setups for the targeted VO (i.e. NAS) such that not only all the given constraints of the CRP are satisfied. The NAS options that satisfy the constraints are quantitatively assessed with respect to the orchestration criteria under consideration of the criteria's priorities. Note that, if the companies of the network largely overlap with respect to their profiles and competences a high number of alternative setup options for the targeted VO may result. Moderators are especially in need of a corresponding support service if there exists a high number of different alternatives.</p><p>We use a pragmatic two‐phase multi‐criteria scoring approach to compute the “best fitting” alternatives for a given CRP. In the first step, for each request element a generated scoring produces a ranked list of possible handlers belonging to the network. This scoring is performed with respect to the prioritized request oriented orchestration criteria. Then, based on these lists of companies corresponding alternatives for the needed VO are orchestrated. Following that, the alternatives are evaluated and again scored in terms of the prioritized network oriented orchestration criteria. Note that these criteria refer to the combination of individual companies in the needed VO. This scoring step will lead to a ranked list of alternative setup options for the VO with the top ranked alternative being the “best fitting” NAS for the given CRP.</p><p>The above‐described two‐phase scoring scheme is static. However, through the possibility of prioritizing the set of orchestration criteria, one may flexibly adapt the computational steps and henceforth the data, to be considered to individual needs. For the moderator this possibility may serve as an effective means to explore decision options for requests to the network from many different perspectives. This informed decision making may lead to VOs that with a high accuracy meet the real needs of the company network. The resulting benefits are useful for both, networks of large enterprises and SME company networks. However, one may assume that SME company networks may benefit from the proposed service. Due to their financial limitations they are more under pressure to fulfil requests only by members of the network as compared to networks of large enterprises. Further arguments for the importance of decision support services for network moderators especially in the SME business context can be found in <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b22">Roberts <italic>et al.</italic> (2005)</xref>.</p></sec><sec><title>6. Conclusions and future work</title><p>The responsibilities of moderators of company networks may include the inquiry management process and, therefore, also the determination of the best possible alliance of network members to handle a given inquiry. The members are to be carefully selected from the network. This task may impose a complex orchestration problem for which we seek to develop a flexible and powerful IT‐based support service. We address this objective by an adaptable pragmatic multi‐criteria scoring approach. The scoring criteria reflect prioritized orchestration criteria chosen by the moderator. The orchestration criteria given in this article only present an initial proposal. We expect that further criteria can be found and integrated in our solution which will be part of our future work. Before we strive on this extension, we will verify our service by simulation experiments and through further tests with real moderators of company networks.</p><fig position="float" id="F_0210320905001"><label><bold>Figure 1<x> </x></bold></label><caption><p> Moderator‐based inquiry handling in a company network</p></caption><graphic xlink:href="0210320905001.tif"></graphic></fig><fig position="float" id="F_0210320905002"><label><bold>Figure 2<x> </x></bold></label><caption><p> Proposed information support service</p></caption><graphic xlink:href="0210320905002.tif"></graphic></fig><fig position="float" id="F_0210320905003"><label><bold>Table I<x> </x></bold></label><caption><p> Sample orchestration criteria</p></caption><graphic xlink:href="0210320905003.tif"></graphic></fig><fig position="float" id="F_0210320905004"><caption><p>Equation 1</p></caption><graphic xlink:href="0210320905004.tif"></graphic></fig><fig position="float" id="F_0210320905005"><caption><p>Equation 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He received a Master and PhD in Computer Science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, respectively. In the years 1992‐98 at the German National Research Centre for Information Technology (GMD‐IPSI) he was involved in several pioneering internet application projects such as Multimedia Archiving and Workflow Management as Teleservice. After gaining valuable practical experience at SAP AG and Sun Microsystems he returned to academia. His current research focuses on next‐generation business information systems, inter‐organizational business computing, and ICT support for organizational networks. Heiko Thimm is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: heiko.thimm@fh‐kiel.de</p><p>Karsten Boye Rasmussen is an Associate Professor in IT and Organization at the Department of Marketing and Management at the University of Southern Denmark. His special interests are in data warehousing and data mining for using the streams and traces of data in order to obtain knowledge about the relations. He is among other subjects teaching business intelligence and is the coordinator for the graduate course in IT, Communication and Organization. He has a lifelong interest in the retrieval, documentation, description of data, and the use of data access facilities and formalized and standardized metadata.</p></app></app-group></back></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>An information support service for moderators of SME company networks</title></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Heiko</namePart><namePart type="family">Thimm</namePart><affiliation>School of Engineering, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany</affiliation><role><roleTerm type="text">author</roleTerm></role></name><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Karsten</namePart><namePart type="family">Boye Rasmussen</namePart><affiliation>Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark</affiliation><role><roleTerm type="text">author</roleTerm></role></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="research-article" displayLabel="research-article"></genre><originInfo><publisher>Emerald Group Publishing Limited</publisher><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">2009-08-07</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">2009</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><physicalDescription><internetMediaType>text/html</internetMediaType></physicalDescription><abstract>Purpose This paper aims to investigate the management process in company networks. A new information support service can assist network managers in the complex task of orchestrating members of the network to socalled network actor sets NAS that deliver the best fit for incoming inquiries. Designmethodologyapproach A corresponding conceptual framework and system approach is developed. The proposed system employs a pragmatic twophase multicriteria scoring scheme for orchestrating NAS under consideration of the specific needs of inquiries and, too, the company network as a whole. Findings The research indicates that the orchestration of NAS may be effectively performed by a corresponding information technology IT support service. Through the service orchestration decisions may become less influenced by human factors. The service will also lead to better transparency, traceability, and analytical possibilities regarding the inquiry management process. Networks with a high number of members and with many overlaps in company profiles and competences will find this service useful. Research limitationsimplications Further orchestration criteria will be explored in the future by a simulation study. Practical implications The paper presents recommendations for structuring the inquiry management process in company networks to improve effectiveness by the use of IT. Also, it contains a sound framework for the implementation of the proposed service as part of IT infrastructures for company networks. Originalityvalue The paper presents major insights, concepts, and a system approach for a novel information support service for network moderators.</abstract><subject><genre>Keywords</genre><topic>Virtual organizations</topic><topic>Information networks</topic><topic>Business environment</topic></subject><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>Management Research News</title></titleInfo><genre type="Journal">journal</genre><subject><genre>Emerald Subject Group</genre><topic authority="SubjectCodesPrimary" authorityURI="cat-HOB">HR & organizational behaviour</topic></subject><subject><genre>Emerald Subject Group</genre><topic authority="SubjectCodesPrimary" authorityURI="cat-MSOP">Management science & operations</topic></subject><identifier type="ISSN">0140-9174</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">mrn</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1108/mrn</identifier><part><date>2009</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>32</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>9</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>846</start><end>857</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">75292856AAE2821231F4EF9134ACE864055B6EBC</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1108/01409170910980353</identifier><identifier type="filenameID">0210320905</identifier><identifier type="original-pdf">0210320905.pdf</identifier><identifier type="href">01409170910980353.pdf</identifier><accessCondition type="use and reproduction" contentType="copyright">© Emerald Group Publishing Limited</accessCondition><recordInfo><recordContentSource>EMERALD</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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