Virtual teams : projects, protocols and processes

David Pauleen has pulled together an excellent book here. It has a practitioner / user orientation, backed-up by scholarly research, but not an indigestible amount of the latter. There's real data here too - many chapters report empirical study of virtual teams from surveys, interviews etc. It's positioned exactly right for a reader who wants an authoritative account of major issues in virtual teaming and summaries of best practices, plus helpful reviews of the literature, but without overdosing on academic theorising. What particularly makes this book refreshing is that authors aren't shy of challenging assumptions and orthodoxies, especially about trust and leadership. Although every chapter makes its contribution, two particularly stand out. I really enjoyed the chapter by Walter Fernandez who reports trust (and mistrust) development in a large virtual team project. Great common sense here mixed with business insight (usually so missing), a healthy dose of cynicism, and empirical data. Also remarkable is the final chapter by Peter Murphy. He uses a metaphor of 'the organization as city' to put virtual teaming in the context of physical centres of trade and knowledge. This chapter is brimful of ideas which challenge those of the earlier chapters, and Pauleen has cleverly used it as a coda to this valuable book. Dr A J Gundry Director, Knowledge Ability Ltd Malmesbury UK

Forecasting is one of the most important activities that form the basis for strategic, tactical, and operational decisions in all business organizations. Recently, neural networks have emerged as an important tool for business forecasting. There are considerable interests and applications in forecasting using neural networks. Neural Networks in Business Forecasting provides for researchers and practitioners some recent advances in applying neural networks to business forecasting. A number of case studies demonstrating the innovative or successful applications of neural networks to many areas of business as well as methods to improve neural network forecasting performance are presented.

Annotation Virtual teams are a relatively new phenomenon and by definition work across time, distance, and organizations through the use of information and communications technology. Virtual Teams: Projects, Protocols and Processes gathers the best of academic research on real work-based virtual teams into one book. It offers a series of chapters featuring practical research, insight and recommendations on how virtual team projects can be better managed, as well as in depth discussion on issues critical to virtual team success, including the place of virtual teams in organizations, leadership, trust and relationship building, best use of technology, and knowledge sharing Forecasting is one of the most important activities that form the basis for strategic, tactical, and operational decisions in all business organizations. Recently, neural networks have emerged as an important tool for business forecasting. There is considerable interest and application in forecasting using neural networks. This book provides researchers and practitioners with some recent advances in applying neural networks to business forecasting. A number of case studies demonstrating the innovative or successful applications of neural networks to many areas of business as well as methods to improve neural network forecasting performance are presented. Book jacket Thirteen chapters by scholars and practitioners of management, information technology, and related fields offer advice concerning the management of virtual team projects. Case studies provide lessons on the place of virtual teams within organizations, leadership, trust- building, the best use of tec The recent upsurge in research activities into artificial neural networks (ANNs) has proven that neural networks have powerful pattern classification and prediction capabilities. "Despite their growing popularity in organizations, our understanding of virtual teams is still at an embryonic stage."