Glossary of Terms

Activity Webs:

  • Interconnected activities within an organization where action in one place causes an action in another place. Feedback loops within varying time delays referred to as systemic behavior grow into complex webs of interrelated activities (Martin, 1997, Senge, 1994). Long-span activity webs are webs of activities that span long distances, span separate organizations, or have long time delays (Martin, 1997, p. 193).
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    Collaboration:

  • The act of shared creation and shared discovery. Collaborating is more than exchanging information, but the act of using words, symbols, images and models for creating and sharing meaning in an useful context (Schrage, 1990).
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    Concurrent Development:

  • A process of creating while utilizing a team to simultaneously perform several tasks that often occur one at a time and in isolation (Kiely, 1994).
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    Core Competencies:

  • Critical skills and enabling technologies that are used for producing products and/or services (Martin, 1997, Hamel and Prahalad, 1994).
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    Creative Tension:

  • The feeling of needing to change resulting from the difference between where we are and where we want to be (Senge, 1994).
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    Cross-functional team:

  • A team made up of people from different departments and/or factions of the organization (Parker, 1994).
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    Deurto Learning:

  • Deutero-learning occurs when organizations learn how to learn from single-loop and double-loop learning. Identifying the processes, structures and facilitating factors required to promote learning. Deutero learning is concerned with the why and how to change the organization while single-loop learning is concerned with change without questioning underlying assumptions (Argyris, 1991).
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    Dialogue:

  • A process in discussion that is open-ended where the goal is not necessarily resolution. Dialogue is a free and creative exploration, or a free flow of meaning between people that requires non-judgmental listening of participants (Senge, 1990, Katzenbach, 1995 and Ashkenas, 1995).
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    Double Loop Learning:

  • Beyond single loop learning of Awhat@ to Awhy@ we are doing what we are doing and asking the question Ashould we be doing something else?@ (Argyris, 1991).
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    Eddress:

    Electronic Mail (E-mail):

  • Generic term for computer applications that enable users to send messages to other users at different computers. More than any other technology since the invention of the telephone, electronic mail has changed the way business people communicate (Wang, 1994).
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    Emerging Technologies:

  • Emerging technologies are tools that include a wide realm of electronic mechanisms for processing and collecting information, communicating, collaborating and connecting people, teams and organizations (Lumley and Bailey, 1993).
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    Empowerment:

  • Power means control and authority. The prefix em means to put on to or to cover with. Empowering is passing on authority and responsibility. Empowerment occurs when power goes to employees who then experience a sense of ownership and control (Wellins, Byham, and Wilson, 1991). Ken Blanchard states that empowerment is not giving people power, but instead is allowing people to act with the power that they already have within themselves (1996).
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    Goals:

  • Goals represent what people commit themselves to do often within a short period of time. Goals often represent barriers and obstacles that must be passed to reach a vision (Senge, 1994).
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    Groupware:

  • A technology (software) designed to support organizational learning through communication, cooperation and sharing. Makes knowledge and information more available to others, and more effective than conventional methods. Groupware is any information system designed to enable groups to work together electronically. Groupware serves its purpose with increased collaboration and this is accomplished by creating new organizational structures that align people with the technology (Karash, 1995).
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    High-Performance Teams:

  • A small number of members with specific competencies and shared commitment, vision and purpose. An assortment of members with clarity in purpose and goals who produce a joint product (Katzenbach, 1993, Bailey, Ross, and Bailey, 1997). A high-performance team that utilizes technologies for communication and creation is considered a high-performance technology team (Bailey, Ross, and Bailey, 1997).
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    Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

  • Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) provides methods for marking text so that it can be published easily online with embedded hyperlinks, font changes, and other features (Bernard, 1996).
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    Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

  • Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a communication method that is used by clients and servers to exchange hypertext documents over a network (Bernard, 1996).
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    Information Age:

  • The information age is the current era whereas there is a proliferation of information and knowledge processing throughout the global society (Lumley and Bailey, 1993). Technologies have eliminated the separating of people from information on a global scale in this era (Ashkenas, et al, 1995). Information technology is a fundamental force reshaping organizations (Wang, 1994).
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    Information Technology:

  • Technology that enables individuals and teams to communicate and work with other individuals and teams. With respect to teams, linking and coordinating technologies are the most important. Refers to the networks and systems that enable people to work together and share information even if they are not located in the same site (Moran, 1996).
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    Infrastructure:

  • Term used to describe the information technology hardware, platforms, software environments, networks, and the like that serve the entire organization (Moran, 1996)
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    Iterative Prototyping:

  • Process of using prototypes for providing users with an opportunity to actually experience the work in progress. Important for enabling users to do new things. Prototypes provide users with opportunities to explore the system=s potential, five feedback based on actual use, and make recommendations for improvement (Moran, 1996).
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    Internet:

  • A vast information resource and a nervous system for the explosion of electronics around the planet (Martin, 1997). A collection of many computer networks, and more than millions of users who share a compatible means for interacting with one another to exchange digital data.
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    Intranet:

  • Like the Internet, but internal. An in-house version of the Internet using much of the same software so that it is easily connected to the Internet. Useful for high volume transactions and video-conferencing (Martin, 1997).
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    Learning Organization:

  • An organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future (Senge, 1990). Other definitions include adjustment and adaptation when there=s change in the environment and capabilities of an organization or a person to produce certain things that they want to produce, to achieve things they want to produce and then to enhance those capabilities over time. Organizational learning is to establish certain capabilities (Senge, 1995).
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    Mental Models:

  • A term used by cognitive scientists referring to both the beliefs about the world held long-term memory, and the short-term perceptions which people build up as part of their everyday reasoning. Changes in short-term everyday mental models gradually change long-term deep-seated beliefs (Senge, 1994).
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    Object Technology:

  • Objects within software that contain both data and methods for manipulating data. Paper objects only contain data whereas digital objects have programmed behavior. Digital objects apply certain methods to specific data as well as being composed of information (Martin, 1996).
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    Organizational Memory:

  • Team-support technologies, used as a primary communication mode contribute to what is called team memory. These technologies store a record of communication and provide a repository of shared information. Information is available on an as-needed, or a just-in-time basis. The team's work becomes more visible to the team members, and new members can be integrated more quickly by reviewing the team's interaction history (Martin, 1996).
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    Purpose (Mission):

  • Represents the fundamental reason for the organization=s existence. Mission is more popular in organizations today, but the term purpose suggests more of a reflective process (Senge, 1994).
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    Single Loop Learning:

  • Learning that is linear. For instance, trying to find a better way to do a process as in continuous quality improvement (Argyris, 1991).
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    Socio-Technical systems:

  • Emerging as an alternative to systems-efficiency models. Socio refers to the human part of technical systems. Recognizes that the advanced stages of technology education is the asset for new approaches to economic and social development. Holds that there is a fundamental flaw in the cost-efficiency model in that it seeks technical solutions to systems that are socio-technical (Wirth, 1980).
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    System:

  • A perceived whole containing elements that continually affect each other over time. Systems operate toward a common purpose which is the connecting thread and requires something to act in order to cause it to Astand together.@ Many systems are elements of many different systems such as biological organisms, disease, ecological niches, factories, chemical reactions, political entities, communities, families, teams and Aall@ organizations (Senge, 1994).
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    Systemic Structure:

  • In systems thinking the structure is the pattern of interrelationships among key components of the system. This includes the hierarchy and process, but it also includes attitudes and perceptions as well as the quality of products, and the ways in which decisions are made (Senge, 1994).
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    Systems Thinking:

  • Systems thinking encompasses a large and fairly indeterminate group of methods, tools, and principles that are concerned with the interrelatedness of forces that are part of a common process. The main idea is that the behavior of all systems follows certain common principles (Senge, 1994).
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    Team:

  • Meaning of pulling together. Any group of people who need each other to accomplish a result (Senge, 1994).
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    Team Demography:

  • Demography refers to certain characteristics of the team such as heterogeneity, tenure, and size. Heterogeneity is determined by job function variation and education level. Tenure can refer to both individual tenure with the organization and tenure in regard to time together as a team (Smith, 1994).
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    Team Learning:

  • Is the process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create results (Senge, 1994).
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    Triple Loop Learning:

  • Learning about learning. Understanding why we make the choices we do. What are the predispositions for people to act in certain ways (Larsen, 1996).
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    Values:

  • Values describe how we intend to operate as we pursue our vision. A set of values might govern how we behave with each other, how we expect to regard our community, and what our limitations are. When values are articulated as part of the organization, they Abecome like a figure head on a ship,@ a guiding symbol of the behavior that will help people move toward the vision (Senge, 1994, Covey, 1989).
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    Virtual Organizations:

  • The term virtual means that something appears to exist when it really doesn=t. Organizations that are increasingly intertwined in electronic interdependencies with other organizations. This term is used to describe a situation where people or facilities that are not part of an organization are linked to it as though they were. Resources become linked together to accomplish things (Martin, 1997).
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    Vision:

  • A picture of the future that you seek to create and describe in the present tense. The statement of a vision indicates where we want to go, and what we will be like when we get there. Vision gives shape and direction to the organization=s future while helping people to set goals (Senge, 1994).
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    Work Groups:

  • Work groups have a common leader and members may meet to share information and make common decisions, but each person is individually accountable for achieving results (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993).
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    Work Teams:

  • In contrast to work groups, teams that have shared goals and shared accountability. Work teams have an agreed-upon way of working and a modus operandi, that cuts across the boundaries (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993).
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