280 Robert M Verburg et al. pen, the information of which was downloaded once a week at the main office. At the same time, employees would submit their time sheets, which were then the basis of payroll. The new practice has decreased office vis- its: now the office is visited once every two weeks to load the van and once every two months for a team meeting. Otherwise, the hours are spent in the service field. Both employer and employees are content with this working mode. Earlier, assignments and acute work tasks were sent to the device in the van, and in crisis situations the customer service centre had to phone the serviceman on duty in addition to sending the assignment to the device. Now any sudden assignments can be sent to the work location, and the servicemen do not need to return to the van to read the assignment. The new practice has clarified the method of contacting employees. Not using certain features is … positive? The palm computer could, ac- cording to the interviewees, be used also in the follow-up and control of working hours, since the time of the ”first opened job” is recorded into it, and also the out-booking each day is registered in the machine. It would also be possible to monitor the routes taken and locations where employees are. Employees feel that they are trusted, and, therefore, the monitoring of beginning time, out-bookings or routes has not been implemented. Trust is very important to them. On the other hand, servicemen conceive GPS monitoring as a safety factor and an opportunity: if something were to happen, the man on the move could easily be located. Accelerated customer service is the main value and object. Although the objective for mobile device development was to attain a portable reporting method, the main value has been in customer service. On-the-go reporting from the job location boosts customer service and invoicing. The reports on maintenance acts could be forwarded to clients quicker than before. Problems are linked with the reliability of the programme operations. The Feature programme operations are unreliable and the programme can, for instance, lose report information. The employee does not receive a con- firmation upon reception of the information he has reported. Often, the loss of report information is only discovered when the foreman asks for time sheets. Employees keep a manual double ledger on their work performance in order to remember the details, so that payroll and client invoicing can be taken care of. The development work on the added features, e.g. text messages and telephone calls, continues. The telephone feature has only been tested for a short period – the telephone development has not been the main issue. Be- cause of the problems in the working mode of the phone some of the tester employees have given up the use of the telephone. Answering incoming 12 Case Descriptions of Mobile Virtual Work in Practice 281 calls shuts off the other operations – the caller can hear this as a delay when the call is answered. Some interviewees were bothered by this delay. The most serious obstacle for work was losing unfinished reports when answering an incoming call. After ending the call, the work had to be re- sumed from the beginning. Employees would be keen to continue complet- ing the report, which they consider a routine, even during a phone call. And if there are many incoming calls, being able to continue writing the report during them would be a time-saver. The employees dream about the possibility to answer their incoming calls while carrying out a maintenance task without having to stop work- ing. However, when using for instance the (loud) speaker feature the re- ceiver of the phone call is disturbed by a strong echo that prohibits the message from coming or going through. Using text message services (SMS) requires reasonably good eyesight. Some interviewees find the service easy to use and say they ”even write poems”; some hardly ever use the service because of having trouble seeing the text. According to both employer and employees the device encompasses countless other possibilities for developing work and its processes. Both groups are well disposed for further development steps. The employees in- terviewed emphasized the process of continuous joint development. 12.4.5 Conclusions The design and implementation of a new device and software, and a plan of action succeeded well, although technical problems have also been in- herent such as losing information. Technical problems seem to be the main challenge for future developments. Employees are, however, satisfied with their new tool. The main reason for this is the involvement of servicemen in the development work. Training to use the system was also emphasized. The new practice has decreased office visits and time for the core opera- tions in the maintenance area has increased. There are fewer face-to-face meetings of employees and supervisors, and the employees have great autonomy. The relationship between the employer and employees is trust- ful based on the results of work, and not on monitoring the detailed time usage of employees. An employee starts his work from home and returns there after service visits to customers. Co-workers are contacted to get help and advice via phone. In addition, they meet sporadically on the road in services stations during lunch and coffee breaks and for chatting and ex- changing work-related information. In the future, technical deficiencies are improved, and the use of new tools and practices will be disseminated. 282 Robert M Verburg et al. 12.5 MVW in practice: IT-support for home care in Sweden A mobile information system for work support in home care organisations, Permitto Care, was originally developed by Telia, a large Swedish telecom company. The initial development was carried out in close cooperation with the home care staff in Nordanstig, a municipality in northern Sweden. Much effort was needed to make the system support the actual needs of the personnel. Nordanstig’s community covers an area of 1380 km P 2 P and has 10.000 inhabitants, i.e. approximately 7.2 inhabitants/km P 2 P . The home care work is characterized by large distances between the clients, resulting in much traveling for the personnel. This gives them limited opportunities to visit the common premises and few possibilities to consult and share knowledge with other colleagues. It also makes it difficult to perform vari- ous administrative tasks in the office. Figure 12.2 shows a group of proud Swedish home care nurses with their mobile devices. The mobile technical support system was very much appreciated by its users and received much external attention; it was e.g. nominated for the “Users price” by UsersAward, Sweden (www.usersaward.se). Other mu- nicipalities were also very interested in the system and it was implemented in several other home care services in different communities in Sweden. Fig. 12.2. A group of home care nurses with their mobile equipment, implemented in a Nokia Communicator 9210i 12 Case Descriptions of Mobile Virtual Work in Practice 283 This case especially focuses on why a system, that is very efficient and appreciated in one setting, is not equally well functioning in another set- ting. We are here interested in analyzing the effects of introducing the Permitto Care system in a new setting. 12.5.1 Intended use The mobile IT-system Permitto Care gave its users, the home care nurses, a tool to improve their internal communication. Through the system they could easily get in contact with colleagues, ask questions and share their knowledge. A main objective with the system was to facilitate for the users to start their working day from home, in order to quicker reach the clients and carry out the morning visits. The time needed for administration and planning could be significantly reduced. The mobile system could further make it possible to access and enter information about the care taker before and after each home visit. The events and care activities performed could be instantaneously documented. 12.5.2 The system implemented in another environment The Permitto Care system is today also used in Hökarängen, a densely populated suburb in the Stockholm area. At the time of this study, the IT- system had been used for one and a half years. Results and conclusions of an interview with representatives from the personnel about their experi- ences with Permitto Care are here presented. Group characteristics In Hökarängen the area to be serviced is relatively small and the home health care personnel can reach their clients on foot. They visit the homes of the care taker often three times per day. The home care district is di- vided into two areas, where each area is daily served by a team of 10-13 active home care nurses. Each day, the nurses visit about 10-15 clients each. In total, the district serves about 150 clients. The number of person- nel is slightly reduced on evenings and weekends. Aspects of mobility A normal working day starts with a short briefing in the home care organi- sation’s office, then follows the morning round to the clients, lunch brake, the afternoon round and finally an informal meeting in the office and a rounding up of the day. The personnel mostly perform their rounds alone, but more demanding clients require a coordination allowing help from an assisting colleague or from the separate home health care team. 284 Robert M Verburg et al. Communication and collaboration tools During the home visits, a Nokia Communicator (9210i) running the Per- mitto Care system is carried along by the personnel. The Permitto Care system provides its users with possibilities for communication and infor- mation support needed in the work activities, i.e.: • Mobile communication with other care givers by text messages and phone • Access to individual care plans and detailed information about the cli- ents • Reading and writing care notes about individual clients • Contact information about the clients and their relatives • Planning and work schedules for the personnel The interaction with the Permitto Care system is web-based and has two web interfaces that differ in the layout. The first is for a web browser on a stationary computer and the other one is for the web browser in the Nokia Communicator. To reach data in the system the nurses have to log in with a user name and a password. The interface on the stationary computer con- tains quite some functionality and is meant for administrative work, while the mobile interface is designed for the operative work and is less detailed. System data are up- and downloaded from a server and never stored lo- cally on the client device for security reasons. Data in the system are sent over an encrypted data connection. 12.5.3 Performance and outcomes The system is well received by its users at the home health care service in Hökarängen, and is considered relatively easy to learn and to operate. The employees feel appreciated when they are offered a modern IT-system. Appreciated features in the system are the main documentation function, “the care taker record”. It makes it easy for the nurses to read and write notes about the care taker they visit. The record keeping is carried out much better with the new system compared to before. The paper work has also been reduced to a great extent. Now everyone can access information available in the system. By using the system, it is possible for the home care nurses to reach information about the clients. While on the move information about medicines, contact information of their relatives or entry codes to the doors can be easily obtained. Savings in time have also been achieved since the briefing meetings in the morning can now be reduced from half an hour to five minutes. 12 Case Descriptions of Mobile Virtual Work in Practice 285 12.5.4 Unanticipated use of the system The time it takes the system to create the network connection is quite long. It entails the start of the web browser, to perform the user authorization and to load the Permitto Care web pages is. To start-up and log into the system, in order to write a record note for a certain care taker, takes an av- erage user 2 minutes and 50 seconds. If one home care nurse visits 15 clients a day, the time waiting for the system would be 2 5/6 min × 15 = 42,5 minutes per day. If this is true for the whole home care team of 10 care givers, working 5 days a week (which is not really true when home health care personnel also works in evenings and during the week ends), that makes 42,5 × 10 × 5 = 2125 / 60 ≈ 35,5 hours per week – almost equal to a full time position! Just a few days after the personnel at the home health care centre in Hökarängen had started to use the Permitto Care system, it became clear that to log into the system after each visit at a care taker took too much time. The nurses created therefore new routines to use the system. They now carry out just a few logins into the system during a day; in the begin- ning of the day, at lunch and at the end of the day, i.e. all occasions when the users are meeting in the office. Once in the office it is more quiet and easier to concentrate than when one is on the move. Help and support from colleges is also within easy reach. The mobile device, the Nokia Communicator, is still carried along on the round to the clients but it is seldom used as a computer. As a mobile phone, however, it is much appreciated and frequently used. Many em- ployees prefer to use a desktop computer at the premises rather than their mobile communicator. The system’s long start up time has the following consequences: • Users do not write their documentation for each visit at a care taker. Thereby, the intended effects are lost, e.g. the benefits of a frequently updated system, of information written into the system while it is still fresh in the mind, of secure storage of information, and of backup ad- vantages • Information that is supposed to be documented during the visit to the clients is instead remembered or briefly written on paper notes. The in- formation is entered into the IT-system first when they reach the office. Some users prefer using the stationary computer for entering the infor- mation into the system. A stationary computer has much more advan- tages than a small, mobile one; it is faster, easier to work with (with its mouse and proper keyboard) and has a bigger screen that provides a bet- 286 Robert M Verburg et al. ter overview of the system. In this way, the mobile qualities of the Per- mitto Care system are seldom utilized • When writing down things to remember, some users prefer to use paper notes or the note-application in the Nokia Communicator, an application that is not a part of the Permitto Care system. Both ways are much faster • In the same way, entry codes to the client’s home are sometimes stored by the nurses in the phones local note application. In this way the codes are much faster available when needed • While on the move nurses prefer to make phone calls back to the man- ager at the office in order to report important occurrences and get them entered into the system 12.5.5 Conclusions and lessons learned The Permitto Care system has, and has been rewarded for, a number of good qualities, e.g. it is easy to learn, it provides the user with the correct information and it is well adapted to the needs of the organisation. How- ever, the system’s long connection time results in unintended use, and a more or less total loss of intended efficiency. This becomes even clearer when the system is studied in an environment where long travel distances and solitary work is less apparent. The slow network connection gives the users a general experience of the system as slow and difficult to handle. As shown in this case, this results in an unexpected way of using the system, caused by their intention to per- form well. If the users find better, feasible, ways to achieve their goal without using the system as intended, these ways will be used. In this case the better way to work was e.g. not to use the system frequently as in- tended. A professional user tries to perform a task in a quick and effective way, without spending energy in preparing the tool for the task. Our conclusions from this case confirm the notion that professionals will perform their task even if this is hampered by an IT-system that does not fit the nature of their work. In this case, a mobile solution was provided to support the work of home care nurses but the specific nature of the work led to non- mobile use of the system. The case underlines again the great benefits of early user involvement for the design and implementation of IT support tools in organisational context. In order to benefit from mobile solutions a careful analysis of the context of use proofs to be vital. 12 Case Descriptions of Mobile Virtual Work in Practice 287 12.6 Overall conclusion On basis of our detailed case analysis we have illustrated the use of mobile technology for work in different settings across four different countries. Mobile work is often associated with the nomadic business traveller who can have access to fancy back offices anywhere on the globe through an array of lightweight and preferably integrated gadgets. The cases in this chapter do not focus on this kind of mobile work but highlight the chang- ing nature of the day-to-day activities of service engineers, home care nurses, and customs controllers. The work of these employees was already mobile even before the introduction of tablet PCs, PDAs, and communica- tors. However, the introduction of mobile solutions has changed the work of mobile employees tremendously. For instance, in case of the service en- gineers in both Finland and Italy, employees do not start their working day by going to the office but start their work when they enter their car and log on to the central dispatch unit. In case of the custom controllers in The Netherlands the mobile solution has changed their work day as the mobile solution enables the execution of more unscheduled work than before. The introduction of mobile solutions changes the organisation and the in- volvement of users is therefore of vital importance. The case of the home care nurses in Sweden is an example of what happens when users are not properly involved. On basis of the cases the following benefits of mobile work come for- ward: • Employees experience more efficiency due to less travelling from and to the office • Employees have much better access to information when outside of the office and do not depend on phone calls to colleagues in the back office • Employees experience that they have more possibilities to ask for the help and advice of other colleagues on the job The organisation benefits also in terms of more efficiency of the work processes: • Data can be stored in the local database directly from the field rather than through additional data entry in the office • Clients may be updated better, more easily, and more up to date infor- mation can be conveyed • On the move employees can be tracked much easier and unscheduled work can be allocated much better 288 Robert M Verburg et al. Overall the cases show a positive picture on the application of mobile solutions in practice. Employees stress the benefits of their mobile work. Possible barriers are of course a lack of user involvement as seen in the case of Sweden, but as long as users are involved mobile virtual work is perceived as a positive change. Potential barriers or possible downsides, such as limitations of decision capabilities, a lack of employee autonomy and stronger propensity for employee control did not feature so much in the cases above. As these factors proof to have negative impacts on em- ployee motivation, those remain a point of concern for the deployment of mobile virtual work in practice. The four cases described in this chapter show a mere refinement of an already virtual work process through the use of more able tools. So far, there are not many examples of companies that have started new activities on basis of the possibilities that are offered by today’s mobile technolo- gies. Further research in the area of MVW would enable such companies to adapt their mobile work practices more carefully. Also, designers of mobile solutions may benefit from the detailed lists of requirements which come forward from the growing research into mobile work in practice. In other words, it is necessary to identify the different enactments of the vari- ous mobile practices within different cultures and industries in order to clarify the do’s and don’ts of MVW. Acknowledgement The authors thank Andrea Giacobbe and Silvia Massa for their work on the Siram case and thank the EC-funded MOSAIC-project (FP6-2003-IST-2 004341) and the SALTSA Mobility Group for their ongoing support in this project. References Kumar S, Zahn C (2003) Mobile communications: evolution and impact on busi- ness operations. Technovation 23(6):515–520 Perrow, C (1967) A framework for the comparative analysis of organizations. American Sociological Review 32(2):194–208 Lilischkis S (2003) More yo-yos, pendulums and nomads: trends of mobile and multi-location work in the information society. STAR issue report no. 36, Da- tabank, Milano Yin, R (1994) Case study research: design and methods. Sage Publications, Lon- don Zilliox D (2002) Get-started guide to m-commerce and mobile technology. American Management Association, New York Part 3 Organisational Strategies [...]... (Tsoukas 1996) Communication can be enabled by creating information channels, which are parts of the social capital and can have a technological or an organizational nature (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 19 98; Gupta and Govindarajan 2000) The introduction of job rotation is an example of an organizational solution, while intranet and corporate portals are technological tools facilitating the interaction among... consulting We adopted the definition of KM and KMS by Corso et al (2004): Knowledge Management is about creating an environment that encourages people to learn and share knowledge by aligning goals, integrating bits and pieces of information within and across organizational boundaries, and producing new knowledge that is usable and useful to the organisation 2 98 Mariano Corso, Antonella Martini and Luisa Pellegrini... phenomenon KMS ORGANIZATIONAL MECHANISMS INTRA & INTER FIRM Transfer MVW PROFILES Activities Sharing Capitalisation Generation PERFORMANCES - Profitability - Customer satisfaction - Worker satisfaction Assimilation Reuse ICT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Fig 13.2 The investigation framework T Following a contingent approach, the investigation framework assumes that performances are influenced by KMS, and that KMS effectiveness... achieve their common goals Being a mobile virtual (MV) worker is in many cases a necessity rather than a choice that requires personal qualities such as independence and entrepreneurship that were far less fundamental in traditional organizations As far as professional growth and access to knowledge is concerned, MV workers cannot simply trust their company HR development policies, but have to care,... first person, about creating growth opportunities and building a network of relations that, in many cases, transcend the boundaries of the company Nowadays, MV workers represent an increasingly more relevant share of the total workforce (Drucker 2002; Laubacher and Malone 2003) Traditional management systems are not adequate, simply because they were not designed to answer their needs Many management systems... technological and social infrastructure that allows knowledge and information transfer Different authors have pointed out that there are many relevant organizational and managerial effects resulting from the level of knowledge dispersion Becker (2001) indicates three factors as the cause of organizational problems: large numbers, asymmetries and uncertainty He also identifies some strategies allowing a better... mobile device, accounting for materials, operations, time 314 Mariano Corso, Antonella Martini and Luisa Pellegrini • Synchronization: reports are sent to the headquarters through Internet Reports are stored automatically and data are immediately stored in the database MOB-I introduction drove toward the intervention management in push modality: if a plant is out of order, the nearest technicians are... companies to adopt new organisational models that seriously challenge traditional approaches to managing knowledge Hence, this chapter answers the need of empirically grounded research to draw implications of the systems supporting Knowledge Management (KM) within such new organizational models When analyzed in terms of how people are integrated and relate to the rest of the organisation, many companies... Many authors have focused their attention on the impact of KMS on performances (Haanes and Lowendhal 1997; Petrash 1996; Roos et al 1997; Schiuma and Marr 2001; Sveiby 1997) The impact on performances is strongly related to the approach adopted in the KMS (Davenport and Prusak 19 98; Wiig 1997) and to the direct impacts on organizational behaviours in terms of knowledge creation, transfer and capitalization... in individuals Knowledge is shared spontaneously through informal networks of experts Reports allow the identification of experts Activity planning As activities are only partly repetitive, MVW tasks are only partly planned by the company in a hierarchical way Activities are repetitive so tasks are planned by the company As activities are not repetitive, companies cannot plan tasks of MV workers who, . Communication can be enabled by creating information channels, which are parts of the social capital and can have a technological or an organiza- tional nature (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 19 98; Gupta and. firms, which declared to have Mobile workers (RQ2). The phone survey was based on a database of 1504 large and medium sized companies. Sampling was based on 2002 AIDA database (Bureau van Dijk): we. KMS Sharing Generation Reuse Assimilation MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ICT ORGANIZATIONAL MECHANISMS INTRA & INTER FIRM PERFORMANCES - Profitability - Customer satisfaction - Worker satisfaction Capitalisation Transfer MVW