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The central purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that managers of several IT companies, during the dot‐com bubble, used the myths that were readily available in the wider American culture of the time to motivate and manipulate their employees. These managers motivated their employees to put in long hours at the worksite, to be continually on‐call, to intensify their work pace, and to self police their co‐programming teams. The methods used were qualitative social research including interviews, observations, self‐reported organizational charts and time diaries. This is a single case study conducted during a specific period of time. The implications discussed in this paper may provide insight to the managers of IT personnel who seek to motivate their employees to greater efficiency. This paper adds to a discussion on the role of myth in managing IT personnel.

The year 2000 (Y2K) computer software problem is framed as a technological boundary and cultural object. The author documents and analyzes three subcultures' constructions of Y2K. The three subcultures are millennial (Evangelical-Charismatic-Pentecostal) Christians, militia-patriot survivalists, and computer professionals. Each subculture interpreted, received, comprehended, and explained the cultural object of Y2K. Combining the data from content analysis and interviews, the author creates a detailed picture of each subculture's response to Y2K. She compares and contrasts the three subcultures. Each subculture created a subcultural filter based on previously held value and belief systems, attitudes toward technology and computers, and interpretations of social environments to create a unique picture of Y2K. She examines how each of the subcultures framed technology through the framing of it as a technological object. Each response was located within the technological determinism versus social determinism debate and juxtaposed with its place in the technology as utopian or dystopian.

AbstractIn this paper, we examine the socio-technical impact that social media has had on coordination between professional emergency responders and digital volunteers. Drawing from the research literature, we outline the problem space and explore ways to improve coordination and collaboration between these two groups. Possible improvements include mediators, revisiting trust, emergency policy and process changes, a bounded social environment, digital volunteer data as context, and computational solutions. As the space matures and collaboration improves, we predict that professional responders will begin to rely on the data and products produced by digital volunteers. Volunteer groups will be challenged to mature as well, to develop volunteer management systems, permanent staff, data management practices, and training for new volunteers to ensure consistent response to professional responders as needed.

Some public elites assert that the digital divide is a serious social problem and that governments must intervene by affording wireless solutions to improve this social ill. Few studies, however, examine the relationship between the claims-making activities around such interventions, specifically in reference to closing the digital divide, and the perceptions of the actual impact of those initiatives on this divide. We bring together two data sets. The first dataset is from a previous study examining the public rhetoric surrounding these initiatives vis-à-vis the digital divide. The latter is part of a much larger study on the network's impact on the divide. We conclude that these networks are necessary but insufficient in bridging the gap.

In a mass crisis event, Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) cannot meet the demand of thousands of individuals trying to alert or request emergency services. However, new technology, driven by the right policy and tested for strengths and weaknesses in a data rich, semi-predictable environment, can help to address current PSAP limitations. In this paper the authors present a system that aims to provide real-time data to emergency managers during a crisis event in such an environment – a college town during a football game or similarly attended event. The system is designed to accept, sort, triage and deliver hundreds of direct text messages from populations engaged in a crisis to emergency management staff who can respond. They posit that when a municipal or county-level EOC is cross-housed with a University EOC, multiple opportunities for development and funding occur. Universities can provide the technical expertise, funding, staffing, development and testing for systems that serve the EOC. Most importantly, Universities also provide disaster-like events that can be used as proxies for unpredictable mass crises during which more valid and reliable testing can occur. The authors present preliminary findings from a text-to-emergency service currently in use by Penn State University Athletics.

PurposeThis paper seeks to examine two humanitarian information coordination bodies. The goals of both coordination bodies are the same, to find mechanisms for multiple organizations, engaged in humanitarian relief, to coordinate efforts around information technology and management. Despite the similarity in goals, each coordination body has taken a different path, one toward defining the problem and solution in a more technical sense and the other as defining the problem and solution as more organizational in nature.Design/methodology/approachThe paper develops case studies of two coordinating bodies using qualitative methodologies.FindingsThe data suggest that coordination bodies which pursue problems requiring low levels of organizational change are more likely to have visible successes. Coordination bodies that pursue a more challenging agenda, one that aims for information management or management of information technology in ways that require organizational change, are likely to face greater challenges and experience more failures.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper only examines two coordination bodies at one point in time thus claims can not be made about all coordination bodies and all information coordination efforts.Originality/valueIn a time where coordination bodies are seen as an answer to the problem of information sharing during disasters, it is essential to gain understanding concerning the success of these efforts.