<p> Organizational adoption and diffusion of electronic meeting systems: a case study Bjørn Erik Munkvold Robert Anson Agder University College/University of New South Wales Boise State University Serviceboks 422 1910 University Drive 4604 Kristiansand, Norway Boise, ID USA 837252 47 38 14 17 72 1 208 426 3029 [email protected] [email protected]</p><p>ABSTRACT here use the term EMS for GSS technologies specifically designed The obvious benefits for team collaboration achieved through the to provide structured process support for group meetings. These use of Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS), do not appear to be so systems include a combination of communication and process obvious on an organizational scale. After years of trying, there are support features, often referred to as "level 2" GSS [6]. relatively few published reports of rapid and broad adoption and While laboratory experiments have been the dominating approach diffusion of this technology. The broader class of Group Support in EMS research, a recent literature review documents how the System (GSS) technologies, that include highly successful number of case and field studies has increased over the last years products such as Lotus Notes and NetMeeting, has fared [9, 10]. Most of these studies focus on the effects of using this substantially better. This case study is of one large company that technology on organizational group processes and task outcome. has been relatively successful in diffusing Lotus Notes and That research shows that the overwhelming experience with EMS NetMeeting, while only slowly winning an uphill battle supported meetings is positive. implementing GroupSystems, a popular EMS. Despite this success, few researchers have studied adoption and diffusion of this technology within organizations. A likely reason Categories and Subject Descriptors is the relatively limited proliferation of these systems in H.4.1 [Information Systems Applications]: Office Automation – organizations. Compared to other collaboration technologies such Groupware, H.4.2 [Information Systems Applications]: Type of as Lotus Notes, with an extensive user base and a growing body Systems – Decision support, H.4.3 [Information Systems of accumulated field research [13], EMS have yet to experience Applications]: Communications Applications. the same uptake and focus by companies. However, the increasing number of new web-based EMS products entering the market can General Terms be expected to result in a more widespread diffusion of this technology. The prospect of increased use, in combination with Management, Design, Human Factors. the large potential for improving teamwork represented by EMS, leads us to argue for the importance of building knowledge related Keywords to the successful implementation of these technologies. Group support systems, electronic meeting systems, adoption and The research presented here takes on an exploratory, case study diffusion, case studies, success factors. approach to identify issues of importance for the adoption of electronic meeting support technologies. The empirical basis is an in-depth study of the organizational implementation of EMS in "Almost nothing is known about GSS adoption and diffusion" [19] Statoil, a large Norwegian oil company. Over a five-year period, Statoil has been implementing GroupSystems fairly 1. INTRODUCTION successfully, although the diffusion has been slow, and often The statement above is collected from an article summarizing the rocky. experiences from more than a decade of research into group One important factor in this technology adoption has been the support systems (GSS) conducted at the University of Arizona, larger collaborative technology infrastructure, in Statoil, involving facilitation of over 4000 projects [19]. The terms GSS comprising Microsoft NetMeeting, videoconferencing and and EMS (Electronic Meeting Systems) are often used 1 interchangeably. However, while the GSS term can be seen to Lotus Notes, in addition to GroupSystems . These complement incorporate a wide range of collaboration technologies, we will one another to support a wide range of collaboration, including truly "anytime/anyplace" meetings. This portfolio of collaboration technologies, however, has also introduced various competitive Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for effects. With the increasing integration of different technologies personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are towards so-called anytime/anyplace infrastructures it becomes not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that more warranted to study entire portfolios of collaborative copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, 1 Trademark is implied when referring to these technologies in requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. the rest of the paper. Lotus Notes is sometimes abbreviated Group ’01, September 30-October 3, 2001, Boulder, Colorado. "Notes", while Microsoft NetMeeting is referred to as just Copyright 2001 ACM 1-58113-000-0/00/0000…$5.00. "NetMeeting". technologies, and how their adoption processes interrelate. This decision making in the World Bank. The implementation process study will highlight important inter-relationships at Statoil. can be described as a stepwise process lasting over a period of The next section reviews the literature related to field studies of five years, and involving mutual learning between technologists organizational implementation of EMS, followed by a and organizational developers. Several features of the presentation of the research approach applied for this study. We implementation process are stated to have contributed to its then provide a case study description, including a presentation of success: the case company, and an account of the adoption trajectories for  a high level champion from the organizational behaviour the different collaboration technologies in Statoil. Findings from department (ORG), resulting in a focus on the technology as a the case study are analysed and discussed, focusing on issues of tool in organizational development importance for the EMS adoption and diffusion in this case. The  a close collaboration between the ORG department and the IT final section presents our conclusions and implications for department, resulting in an “unusual degree of sociotechnical practice and further research. balance” 2. LITERATURE REVIEW  a real user design/implementation team comprising twelve Most of the existing EMS research is laboratory experiments, carefully chosen members that were to become facilitators and focusing on the impact of EMS use on group processes and technographers outcome [8]. Although there is a growing body of field studies,  a focus on learning and training throughout the the majority of these are also focusing more on group impacts of implementation the technology rather than the process related to organizational Grohowski et al. [11] describe one of the earliest major adoptions implementation of this technology [9, 10]. Table 1 lists some of a GSS by an organization, IBM. Over three years, examples of studies within this category. GroupSystems spread from one single site to 33 sites, used by The findings from these studies show how EMS to various over 15,000 participants through the company. By tracking the degrees improve the groups’ performance. Contrary to much of results of a sampling of meetings they substantiated very positive the experimental research, field studies of EMS use substantiated results. Based on these experiences they identified a set of success a generally high rate of success [9, 10]. However, the focus and factors for organizational implementation, examples of which are research context of these studies limits their ability to provide organizational commitment, the need for an executive sponsor, insight into the process related to organizational adoption and training, facilitation support, dedicated facilities, cost/benefit diffusion of this technology. analysis and meeting managerial expectations. The unit of analysis in these studies is at the team level, with most Finally, Post [21] reports the design and results of the evaluation studies focusing on the appropriation of the technology by study conducted by Boeing prior to their decision to purchase permanent teams. Further, the studies often include the use of an TeamFocus (the predecessor of GroupSystems). This involved the EMS facility supported by a third party [e.g. [24]), or the creation of a comprehensive `evaluation infrastructure`, including installation of the EMS is only of a temporary nature (e.g. [5]). a dedicated evaluation team of ten people serving various roles, Thus there is limited availability of field studies addressing the development of extensive metrics for measuring business case organizational adoption and diffusion of EMS technologies, and parameters, technical infrastructure development and facilitator we have only been able to identify a few studies with this explicit training. The results from the evaluation period documented focus. dramatic improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, and Bikson and Eveland [1] present a sociotechnical analysis of the illustrate the value of applying a business case approach to successful implementation of GroupSystems for supporting group technology evaluation for documenting the benefits from EMS technology.</p><p>Table 1. Examples of field studies of EMS impact on teams Author (year) [ref.] Focus of study /research context Research approach Caouette and O’Connor, Impact of EMS on the development of two teams in Quasi-experimental field study (1993) [3] a US insurance company Davison and Vogel (2000) Use of EMS for supporting a reengineering process Action research [5] in an accounting firm DeSanctis et al. (1993) [6] Adaptation of an EMS by three teams within the IT Interpretive analysis based on Adaptive department of Texaco Structuration Theory Tyran and Dennis (1992) Application of EMS to support strategic Multiple case studies [24] management, based on eight cases involving five organizations using the same EMS facility This study will extend the above research in two ways. First, it EMS adoption and diffusion is affected by concurring involves a set of conditions that represents a mix of successful organizational processes related to the implementation of other and unsuccessful approaches, as identified by the prior studies. collaborative technologies. Presumably, the growing diffusion of Thus, this case adds support or questions about the importance various collaborative systems in organizations suggests the of some of those approaches. Second, it adds a new factor, how importance of this factor. 3. RESEARCH METHOD interpretations, leading to further modification and refinement of A case study approach was chosen for being able to capture in- the analysis. depth, contextual data related to a longitudinal process. Statoil was chosen on the basis that it is the major user of 4. CASE DESCRIPTION GroupSystems in Norway, and that the company also has 4.2 Presentation of case company extensive experience with deploying this technology in Statoil is a Norwegian state-owned oil company with 17,000 combination with other collaborative technologies. The first employees and a 2000 operating revenue of over US $ 21,7 author has also conducted prior research in this company on billions. The organization comprises 40-50 different sites, their implementation and use of other collaboration technologies including offshore platforms and operations in more than 20 [16]. countries. Statoil IT is the organization's central IT unit, Table 1 illustrates the large variety in research approaches responsible for delivering IT services to internal customers in applied in previous EMS field studies. Overall, few exemplar the company. The unit has about 450 employees and is studies exist that may be applied as a basis for the design of this represented at all major Statoil sites. exploratory research regarding theoretical foundation. Thus, The geographic distribution makes Statoil’s operations rather than seeking a particular theoretical perspective within coordination-intensive. As shown in Table 3, the company is an which to frame this study, our inquiry has been more in line with advanced user of different IT applications for supporting a grounded theory approach [23] where categories emerging communication and collaboration. With a full company license, from our data are being compared and contrasted with findings Statoil is one of the world's largest users of Lotus Notes. Statoil from previous research in order to extend existing knowledge is also currently expanding its collaborative solutions to include related to the phenomenon under investigation. web-based employee workspaces, virtual collaboration rooms Data was collected through five semi-structured interviews, with and data conferencing with external parties [17]. employees in different roles related to the adoption and use of Table 3. Statoil Portfolio of Collaboration Technologies GroupSystems. The informants, profiled in Table 2, were Tool Collaborative Features selected for their key decision making and/or implementation roles, in order to address the rationale behind the main decisions Lotus Notes E-mail, Document management, Workflow, and actions taken. Electronic archive, Group calendar, News and bulletin boards, Discussion databases Table 2. Informant profiles NetMeeting Application sharing, presentations Informant Role related to adoption of GroupSystems Group- Supporting structured electronic meeting Project Project champion in GroupSystems Systems interactions (co-located and distributed) leader/ implementation. Also project leader for facilitator implementation of Lotus Notes and Microsoft Meeting Audio and videoconferencing, electronic NetMeeting. Rooms meetings, presentations Facilitator Statoil IT employee with extensive facilitation experience, for IT and non-IT groups, since the The company started to use IT for supporting meetings when initial introduction of the tool. GroupSystems was first installed in 1996. Statoil IT has now Facilitator/ Statoil IT employee with extensive facilitation established three permanent electronic meeting rooms at the product experience. Product manager for the area termed major office locations in Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim. manager "Facilitation of IT-supported collaboration". Each room has a capacity of 12-15 participants, and is equipped with laptop PCs as workstations, audio- and video-conferencing User/ Employee outside of Statoil IT who has used the equipment, and public screen projection. Statoil has a pool of facilitator tool extensively, as well as facilitated groups. around 10 GroupSystems facilitators, largely comprising User/manager Member of the IT management team. employees in Statoil IT. The company runs internal courses in Responsible for approval of the GroupSystems facilitation with GroupSystems, based on the vendor's training acquisition. methodology. Statoil IT rents the electronic meeting rooms and facilitators to other units in the company on an hourly basis. The interviews focused on the informants` role in the implementation of GroupSystems and other collaboration In 1999, GroupSystems was made available over the company technologies in Statoil, their experiences from this network, enabling distributed meetings involving two or more implementation including factors inhibiting or supporting linked meeting rooms as well as participants using adoption, and their reflection about further diffusion of these GroupSystems from their office. These distributed meetings are technologies in Statoil. Interviews were conducted either face- usually also supported by audio, video and Microsoft to-face or by telephone lasting from forty-five minutes to two NetMeeting in different combinations, thus providing Statoil’s hours. All interviews were taped. The analysis of the interview employees with an 'anytime/anyplace' meeting infrastructure. transcriptions focused on developing a historiographic In the following, the implementation trajectories for these description of the organizational implementation of different different technologies are summarized, illustrating how these collaboration technologies in Statoil, and identifying key factors have been interrelated in several ways. influencing the adoption and diffusion of GroupSystems. The case analysis was distributed to the informants for validation of factual information and discussion of the researchers` 4.2.1 4.2.1 The implementation of Lotus Notes the four major units in Statoil. Statoil IT then developed a The basis for the adoption of GroupSystems can be traced back package of seven standard Notes tools (listed in table 3) and to Statoil’s experience from the adoption and use of Lotus marketed these to the different units in Statoil. Notes spread Notes. Notes was first introduced in Statoil in 1992, after an quickly throughout the organization, with the number of users initiative from a unit responsible for PC support. The initial increasing from approximately 1,000 in 1994 to more than diffusion of Notes can best be described as a bottom up process, 18,000 in 1997 [15], implying full coverage among Statoil’s without any clear overall strategy or coordination. First in 1994, employees. However, the actual adoption of the different tools a formalized implementation project was launched, involving</p><p>Installation Deployment Implementation of Implementation of web- and training support web-publishing tool production tool for external 1992-1997 1996-97 collaboration Lotus Notes/ Domino</p><p>Prestudy Trial lease Facilitation courses. Sarepta team Integrated team for of EMS 1st meeting 2nd meeting room established e-collaboration GroupSystems tools room establ. established established (GS)</p><p>Live demo at Purchase of Team for IT Full integration Integrated team for "I-days `96" company supp. meetings of audio & video e-collaboration license established conf. and GS. 3rd established NM integrated meeting room Microsoft in two meeting established rooms NetMeeting (NM)</p><p>NM made available NM campaign</p><p>1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001</p><p>Figure 1. Time line indicating major events in the implementation of collaboration technologies in Statoil</p><p>4.3 Implementation trajectories Sarepta, offering an "electronic project room". As part of this a Similar to other cases of organizational implementation of dedicated Sarepta team was also formed with responsibility for collaboration technology (e.g. [1, 20]), the adoption and installation of the Sarepta tools and related support. With the diffusion of EMS in Statoil has been a lengthy, evolutionary functionality for web integration offered by the Lotus Domino process, comprising a number of incremental steps. Further, the server, there has also been increasing emphasis on using Notes assimilation of this technology can be seen as closely as the platform for developing web-applications for internal and interrelated to the implementation of other collaboration external collaboration. technologies in Statoil. Figure 1 illustrates this by presenting a Statoil IT soon found that Notes was not able to support the time line indicating the major events in the implementation of collaborative group processes taking place in meetings. As three major technologies in Statoil: Lotus Notes, GroupSystems expressed by the project leader for the Notes introduction: and Microsoft NetMeeting. "When working with Notes I realized the possibilities and limitations of this tool for collaboration. There were several showed different patterns. While the support tools enabling one- aspects and processes of coordination and collaboration that to-many communication (e-mail, group calendar and news were not supported by the standard tools in Notes. This databases) were used extensively, the applications requiring especially relates to meetings, which is the dominating form of input from each user in shared databases were slower in collaboration in Statoil. It occurred to us that meeting support adoption. tools would be the next step if we were to come further". A follow up project initiated in 1996 focused on development of 4.3.1 The implementation of GroupSystems routines for effective use of Notes, though with modest success. In 1995, the Notes introduction project leader got the IT In 1998, the tools for document management, workflow and department to approve a pre-study of potential meeting support electronic archive were merged into a common solution called technologies. This person is referred to here as the ’project champion’ [22], due to his major role in the implementation of opportunity to influence the further development of meeting GroupSystems in Statoil. In January 1996, a consulting company technologies in Statoil, and secure the integration of these: marketing GroupSystems introduced Statoil IT representatives "There was very much focus on this [NetMeeting], as this was to another Norwegian customer already using the technology. A cost reducing - I did not think this was very exciting, though. demo for the managers in Statoil IT was held at the location of And it isn't, it is a very trivial tool that does not influence this company, creating an "overwhelmingly positive attitude" collaboration at all, but enables us to share information, and towards the tool. This was followed up with a live demo at the share single user tools. Anyway, I was politically allocated to annual IT seminar in Statoil (the "I-days ’96"), with a large stand this, it was necessary, it could not be avoided, so it was better to and a demo room set up with 15 participant work stations and a take the initiative and get control over it. I could have just LiveBoard. This demo was also described as a success, exposing continued to work with GroupSystems, but then we would not the product to a lot of people and also enrolling new allies such have been able to do the merging of the technologies". as the person responsible for new product development in this area in Statoil IT. Despite this, however, the initial proposal to The role of product manager for NetMeeting temporarily shifted purchase GroupSystems was rejected by the Product Council in the project champion's focus away from GroupSystems, as most the IT department, allegedly due to the costs. of 1998 went with planning the implementation of NetMeeting. Early 1999 he was central in a big marketing campaign for The project champion continued working with the proposal and NetMeeting, aimed at reducing travel costs for the company. As later that year gained approval for entering a half-year lease a result of this campaign, the project champion received the "I arrangement with GroupSystems, as a trial period. Soon after prize ’99" for the best IT application in Statoil during the "I days this the first meeting room was established at the Statoil ’99", on behalf of the team responsible for the implementation headquarters in Stavanger, and the project champion started of NetMeeting. The project champion comments the following working full time as a facilitator. He also took on the about receiving this award: "I thought, now we have succeeded responsibility for conducting internal marketing of the services, in this, now we can return to work on what's more important". running demonstrations and making a presentation brochure and posters. However, the marketing was only local to this specific 4.3.3 Integration of meeting support technologies site, as this was more than enough demand for one facilitator GroupSystems, in its early implementation, was regarded as a working full time. The project champion designed an evaluation competing product by the groups responsible for other scheme in the form of a questionnaire to be completed by the collaboration technologies. This is illustrated by the fact that participants after each meeting. The results from this evaluation during the "I days ’96" the team responsible for audio and video were very good, and were used as the basis for a proposal to conferences had a separate stand next to the GroupSystems purchase the technology at the end of the test period. This was stand, without any collaboration between these two. approved, and in March 1997 Statoil purchased a full company licence of GroupSystems. During summer 1997 several In line with his integration strategy, the project champion took facilitation courses were run by an external consultant. At the the initiative to form a dedicated team for IT supported same time, the second meeting room in Trondheim was meetings. "It took a year to establish collaboration and break established, and a second facilitator was employed so that there down barriers between these environments. This finally was one at each meeting room. culminated with a team that included representatives from both camps". This team was established in 1998, with him as the Despite this progress in establishing an EMS infrastructure, the leader, and comprising both technical personnel responsible for activity dropped somewhat in the following period for three maintaining and running the solutions, and those delivering main reasons. First, the project champion explained that facilitation (12 people in all). According to the project exhaustion from the work with obtaining the approval was a champion, the composition of this team was just right: factor. Another was that internal competition and political struggle continually challenged the EMS implementation. As “ It was a very good team because we got good synergy from expressed by one of the facilitators: having both technological and method/tool competence in the same team. It was a combined management and delivery team, "We have had a 'competitor' in Statoil’s Research Centre that and that was fully needed in this stage.” worked with partly the same areas, but had more of an exploratory approach, exploring the technology areas. But they In 1999, a third electronic meeting room was established at also sold to customers in Statoil, so they were like a half Statoil’s offices in Bergen. All three meeting rooms were also competitor on some sub areas. And they did not see any benefit upgraded to include full integration of audio and from this [GroupSystems]." videoconferencing, NetMeeting and GroupSystems. However, in general this competitive relationship was also stated 4.3.4 Current level of adoption and diffusion to have a positive effect in driving further the establishment of In the time period since then, GroupSystems has been used new collaborative solutions within Statoil. regularly at the company headquarters in Stavanger. The other A third reason that GroupSystems activity slowed was that two meeting rooms are not used to the same extent, due to the Microsoft NetMeeting was launched as a potential new product limited access to facilitators. A fourth meeting room, in Oslo, for Statoil, and the project champion was asked to take on the was dismantled after only a short time for the same reason. role of project leader for the development of this product. Recruiting facilitators has been and still is a major bottleneck. Despite extensive internal training of facilitators, involving more 4.3.2 Implementation of NetMeeting than 100 participants, only a handful of these continue to Although not particularly excited by this technology, the project practice as facilitators. According to those responsible for the champion agreed to this assignment. He saw this as an courses, the recruitment difficulty has much to do with the selection of participants for these courses. Treating this course as the “manual” facilitation unit described above, thus possibly as ’any other’ internal course, the selection of attendees has leading to better integration of these services. often been quite random, without these having any special motivation for learning these skills. Besides motivation, 5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION becoming a facilitator may also be seen to require a special In this section we discuss the key issues having emerged from blend of personal characteristics. As expressed by one of the our data analysis, comparing and contrasting these with findings instructors: from previous studies on EMS implementation. "It requires a form of ’call’. You must have strong interests in 5.2 Management support this, and you need to have some specific personal Organizational commitment and the need for an executive characteristics. It is a big threshold. It is challenging in all sponsor were among the key success factors identified in the ways: you both need to understand the tool use, you need to study of EMS implementation in IBM [11]. In Statoil, the lack understand collaboration, you must be able to lead a group, it’s of a sufficiently high-level business sponsor is a major factor in a very challenge role to enter into, especially when you both the limited adoption. GroupSystems has not yet gained sufficient need to master the technology, a rather advanced, universal tool interest and backing from either top or lower level management with infinite possibilities that is quite hard to learn – you both to enable widespread diffusion. Being introduced by Statoil IT, need to know about methods for problem solving and this implementation has not been driven by perceived business collaboration. People have been scared off, I think." needs in the rest of the company. In contrast, the NetMeeting In general, GroupSystems is mostly used internally in the IT implementation was based on a very clear and identifiable need department, and the diffusion to other units in Statoil has been for reducing travel costs. Thus this technology has received slow. The marketing has also been limited, due to the limited much greater focus than GroupSystems. access to facilitators and meeting rooms. As the capacity for Explicit management backing and support for this technology is facilitation services has been fully deployed, there has not been a clearly crucial to its success. To gain and keep that support, need for selling the technology to new customers. However, one however, beneficial results from improved collaboration need to of the informants thinks the internal marketing of the technology be translated into tangible net benefits. could have been better: "I think we would have more requests for facilitation services if we had been better at selling and 5.3 Role of the project champion telling about the benefits from using it [GroupSystems]. We Similar to the role of top management support, the important have not been explicit enough about what we deliver". He role of the project champion is well acknowledged in the characterizes the marketing so far as "we`ve got this great tool, diffusion of innovation literature [22] and EMS adoption studies do you have any problems for us?" rather than focusing more on [1, 11]. Likewise in the Statoil case, the role enacted by the organizational needs and then introducing GroupSystems as a project champion has been crucial. Without his continued belief potential tool for solving these. in this technology, the implementation process would have never In their attempt to diffuse the technology outside Statoil IT, survived the many pitfalls of organizational restructuring and Statoil IT has made several initiatives to build alliances with internal competition for resources occurring in this process. other units that stand out as natural users of this technology. For When the GroupSystems champion was pulled away to example, there is a unit in Statoil called "Change support" that champion the NetMeeting project, the rapid initial diffusion was facilitates processes for management, e.g. related to strategy placed on hold and lost ground. development. However, this influential unit has not been very On the other hand, the level of the project champion was also a receptive to the technology, holding on to their traditional, constraining factor. Although having a senior position in the IT manual facilitation techniques and thus partly acting as a unit, the project champion lacked the managerial mandate to competitor to the services provided by the IT department. allocate resources to the implementation himself. Thus the In general, several of the managers have also been reluctant to champion in this case played more of an 'operating sponsor' role use GroupSystems. One of the facilitators reflects about this in [11]. Having a member of the leadership team in Statoil IT, or the following way: "I have used the term `holy cow` about from Statoil overall, as a continuous executive sponsor would meetings, in the sense that some regard this as an arena that probably have resulted in more focus on this implementation should not be `infected` with technology. Because this is a `free project. zone`, where you can come to a meeting and drink coffee with the expectations from meeting participants often being very 5.4 Formal vs. ad hoc implementation diffuse. This is my claim. And when you start to mess with projects technology and start talking about making the meetings more Compared to implementing Notes and NetMeeting in Statoil, the effective, then you get someone against you." GroupSystems implementation has been far more ad hoc. A Despite these problems, the work in Statoil for integrating their formal GroupSystems implementation project has never been collaboration technologies into a portfolio continues at full defined. Without the formal allocations through a project, the strength. In 2000, the team for IT supported meetings was implementation was left far more vulnerable, at times being merged with the Sarepta team responsible for the standard Notes solely dependent on the capacity and energy of the project applications, forming a new team for "e-collaboration". This champion. The relative success of the diffusion of Notes and team now maintains the full responsibility for consultation, NetMeeting compared to GroupSystems, illustrates the implementation, utilization and facilitation related to the importance of a formalised and planned implementation project, collaboration technologies in Statoil. A recent organizational with related resources allocations and schedules. More directly, restructuring also brought this team under the same management many of the same resources—including the project champion— were reallocated to the NetMeeting project without such formal Although it may be possible to design future EMS with protection. functionality that supports the facilitator role to a larger extent, The studies of EMS implementation in IBM and Boeing there is no way that all of the skills referred to above can be document how these organizations established extensive, "built into" the system. We thus agree with Nunamaker [18] in dedicated operations for handling the complex tasks related to his argument for maintaining a centre of competence in EMS, the creation of a meeting infrastructure, training of facilitators, involving a system of apprentice facilitators in training. This customer acquisition and evaluation of business benefits [11, strategy was also implemented in Boeing [21]. 21]. If Statoil IT had been able to mobilize a similar operation 5.6 Integration of services vs. internal for the GroupSystems implementation, it is likely that this would have resulted in a faster diffusion of the technology. competition The initial implementation of GroupSystems was characterized 5.5 Establishing an electronic meeting by internal competition and positioning among various groups infrastructure promoting "their" technology. This clearly was not an effective The Statoil case also illustrates the challenging demands of utilization of the competence and resources within Statoil IT. establishing an infrastructure for electronic meetings. In addition Only after the team for IT supported meetings formed, was there to the necessary software and hardware for running this, it also an integrated and coordinated effort to deploy the various requires dedicated meeting rooms and facilitator services. collaboration technologies for supporting effective meetings in Additional tools are needed if this infrastructure is also to enable Statoil. distributed meetings. However, the project champion also sees the internal The costs related to software were relatively insignificant competition as having had a positive effect on the further relative to the investments in new meeting room facilities and development of services and methods in the Statoil IT. Without hardware, including audio and video conferencing equipment. this competition, Statoil IT would have continued to exist in a Even finding a room was a challenge, as the different meeting protected, "monopoly" situation. rooms in Statoil were partly owned by co-located work units. With the new team for "e-collaboration" a common organization The informants emphasized, however, that the principle is established for all collaboration services within Statoil. bottleneck was finding and keeping facilitators. As is common However, being formed through the merger of the two existing in groupware implementations, the challenges are more related teams for IT supported meetings and Notes solutions (the to people, than technology [4]. In the extreme, the lack of Sarepta team), the composition of this new team internalises available facilitators resulted in dismantling the fourth meeting some of the competing focus of the former teams. So far, the room in Oslo. Also, currently two facilities are operating at less team activities and focus have been somewhat biased towards than full capacity due to facilitator availability. Diffusion was the asynchronous, Sarepta tools, thus resulting in less emphasis also affected significantly by the composition of the facilitation and development of the services related to synchronous pool. Most of the facilitators come from Statoil IT, which is also collaboration (including meeting support). the largest user of the electronic meeting system. The IT 5.7 Building alliances with influence groups affiliation may create an obstacle for other areas of Statoil to The implementation of meeting technologies in Statoil has develop trust in the ability of facilitators to understand their clearly been a political process, involving a lot of lobbying and business operations and issues. positioning by the various interest groups. According to actor Fjermestad and Hiltz [9] also discuss the availability of network theory, the enrolment of influential alliance partners is facilitators as a barrier to the institutionalization of EMS in of key importance for gaining momentum in a technological organizations. To aid in this problem they argue that future EMS implementation [14]. Despite several attempts, Statoil IT has not software needs to be constructed so that "an internal group yet succeeded in building alliances with other units in the leader or leaders can very quickly (eg. in less than half and hour) company. In comparison, other "opponents" in this process have learn how to use the software to carry out support functions for been found to operate more effectively on the political arena in the group" (p. 6). Based on our findings from the Statoil case, Statoil. we will argue that this suggestion represents a too simplistic view on the role of the facilitator. Being an effective group 5.8 Customer acquisition facilitator requires far more than mastering the technology. As The former studies in IBM and Boeing illustrate the importance expressed by one Statoil facilitator: of (internal) customer acquisition for building organizational "to facilitate meetings is heavy, it is mentally tiresome, you often commitment to the EMS implementation [11, 21]. In Statoil, the sit in a six or seven hour meeting a whole day and are mentally Notes and NetMeeting technologies gained relatively rapid burnt out afterwards. And then the post session work starts. And diffusion and user acceptance. The Notes implementation was then it requires that you are good at handling relations and characterized as “the system selling itself”. The support tools processes, and are able to take things ad hoc in the meetings as offered (e-mail, document management and archiving, etc.) had they occur, you need to be interested in getting a meeting to a direct impact on the administrative production processes in function. It definitely is not left hand work". Statoil, with easily identified benefits. Still, as reflected by the project champion and also observed in other studies [13, 25], This is also illustrated by the small percentage of Statoil this usage of Notes does not necessarily result in an increased employees that actually continue with facilitation after having level of collaboration among the employees, Similarly, gone through the training. NetMeeting was introduced with the single aim of reducing travel costs, by supporting data conferencing and application sharing, and not for changing any of the existing collaborative coordinated focus on effective utilization and further procedures. In both cases, the intended benefits were easily development of the technologies, and thus eliminating the basis identified and clearly connected to bottom line production for competition and resource rivalry. This illustrates the processes. The clear and simple messages attracted focus and importance of establishing a coordinating body with the momentum in the diffusion of the technologies. responsibility for maintaining an overall view on the potential Statoil IT experienced the process of customer acquisition as application of various collaboration technologies within an more challenging for GroupSystems than any other collaboration organization, and the interrelatedness among these. The new technology. EMS like GroupSystems may have a significantly team for e-collaboration in Statoil was formed with this purpose. greater impact on the dynamics and nature of the collaboration However, the composition of this team still has inherent some of among group members. Yet, these benefits are more difficult to the old "rivalry" regarding technology focus, and a further identify or link directly to productivity measures. Also, to fully balancing and reconciliation of this will be needed to fully take realize these benefits one has to experience the technology 'in advantage of this new organizational unit. action'. Furthermore, since few people outside of Statoil IT Further research needs to continue to explore the conditions developed facilitation expertise, there was not a communications under which successful adoption and diffusion of collaboration means to spell out the benefits in the terminology of non-IT user technologies may unfold. In this it is vital to take on an groups. In comparison, the customer acquisition in Boeing was integrated perspective on how organizations may deploy a conducted by the established operation of process facilitators, portfolio of collaboration technologies rather than focusing on based on their existing network of customer relations [21]. single technologies in isolation. 5.9 Success or failure? 7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several have pointed to the complexity involved in evaluating We are grateful to the Statoil employees interviewed for sharing groupware systems in an organizational context [2, 11]. The their time and experience with us. Bjørn Tvedte and the many problems outlined in this paper may give the impression anonymous reviewers provided useful comments for improving that the implementation of GroupSystems in Statoil has been a the manuscript. failure. However, there are several indicators of successful adoption and diffusion of GroupSystems in this case as well. They have achieved good results with the tool, getting good 8. REFERENCES evaluations from the meeting participants. Further, having [1]. Bikson, T.K. and Eveland, J.D. Groupware experienced the benefits from the technology, the majority of Implementation: Reinvention in the Sociotechnical Frame. meeting owners return to the meeting rooms for new projects. In Proceedings of CSCW ’96 (Cambridge MA, November Other success indicators are: 1996), ACM Press, 428-437.  Three permanent meeting rooms established, with one [2]. Blythin, S., Hughes, J.A., Kristoffersen, S., Rodden, T. and being used regularly Rouncefield, M. Recognising 'success' and 'failure': evaluating groupware in a commercial context. In  The establishment of a permanent team for delivering Proceedings of Group '97 (Phoenix AZ, September 1997), services related to IT supported meetings ACM Press, 39-46.  An increased number of facilitators (although still limited) [3]. Caouette, M.J., and O’Connor, B.N. The Impact of Group  A broadened spectrum of customers Support Systems on Corporate Teams’ Stages of Development. Journal of Organizational Computing and Thus, it is only when measured against the more Electronic Commerce 8, 1, 1998, 57-81. widespread adoption and diffusion of other collaboration technologies in Statoil that the implementation of [4]. Coleman, D. Groupware Technology and Applications: An GroupSystems so far can be characterized as less Overview of Groupware, in D. Coleman and R. Khanna successful. (eds.), Groupware Technology and Applications. Prentice- Hall, 1995. 6. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS [5]. Davison, R., and Vogel, D. Group support systems in Hong This case study illustrates how different collaboration Kong: an action research project. Information Systems technologies may follow different implementation trajectories Journal 10, 2000, 3-20. within the same organization. Compared to the implementation of Lotus Notes and NetMeeting, adoption and diffusion of [6]. DeSanctis, G., and Gallupe, R.B. A foundation for the GroupSystems in Statoil has been an uphill battle. The findings study of group decision support systems. Management from our study also indicate how the process of establishing a Science 33, 5, 1987, 589-609. portfolio of collaboration technologies may comprise political [7]. DeSanctis, G., Poole, M.S., Dickson, G.W. and Jackson, struggle and internal competition for resources. The relatively B.M. Interpretive analysis of team use of group intangible nature of the EMS benefits resulted in less technologies. Journal of Organizational Computing 3, 1, organizational commitment and allocation of resources to the 1993, 1-29. GroupSystems implementation compared to other technologies. [8]. Fjermestad, J., and Hiltz, S.R. An Assessment of Group This made the role of the project champion even more crucial in Support Systems Experimental Research: Methodology and the GroupSystems implementation. Results. Journal of Management Information Systems 15, 3 The recent integration of the services related to collaboration 1999, 7-149. technologies in Statoil is an important step towards achieving a [9]. Fjermestad, J., and Hiltz, S.R. Case and Field Studies of Implementing collaboration technologies in industry: case Group Support Systems: An Empirical Assessment. In examples and lessons learned. Springer Verlag, London, Proceedings of HICSS 2000 (Hawaii, January 2000), IEEE, Forthcoming. 1-10. [18].Nunamaker, J.F. Future research in group support systems: [10].Fjermestad, J. and Hiltz, S.R. Group Support Systems: A needs, some questions and possible directions. Descriptive Evaluation of Case and Field Studies. Journal International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 47, of Management Information Systems 17, 3, 2001, 115-159. 1997, 357-385. [11].Grohowski, R., McGoff, C., Vogel, D., Martz, B. and [19].Nunamaker, J.F., and Briggs, R.O. Lessons From a Dozen Nunamaker, J. Implementing Electronic Meeting Systems Years of Group Support Systems Research: A Discussion at IBM: Lessons Learned and Success Factors. MIS of Lab and Field Findings. Journal of Management Quarterly 14, 4, 1990, 369-82. Information Systems 13, 3, 1997, 163-205. [12].Grudin, J. Why CSCW applications fail: problems in the [20].Orlikowski, W.J. Improvising Organizational design and evaluation of organizational interfaces. In Transformation over Time: A Situated Change Perspective. Proceedings of CSCW '88 (Portland OR, September 1988), Information Systems Research 7, 1, 1996, 63-92. ACM Press, 85-93. [21].Post, B.Q. Building the Business Case for Group Support [13].Karsten, H. Collaboration and Collaborative Information Technology. In Proceedings of HICSS 1992 (Hawaii, Technologies: A Review of the Evidence Database for January 1992), 34-45. Advances in Information Systems 30, 2, 1999, 44-65. [22].Rogers, E.M. Diffusion of Innovations. Fourth Edition. The [14].Latour, B. Science in Action. Harvard University Press, Free Press, New York, 1995. Cambridge, MA, 1987. [23].Strauss, A., and Corbin, J. Basics of Qualitative Research. [15].Monteiro, E., and Hepsø, V. Infrastructure strategy Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Sage, formation: seize the day at Statoil. In: C. Ciborra (ed.), Newbury Park, CA. From control to drift. The dynamics of corporate [24].Tyran, C.K., and Dennis, A.R. The Application of information infrastructure. Oxford University Press, 2000, Electronic Meeting Technology to Support Strategic 148 - 171. Management. MIS Quarterly 16, 3, 1992, 313-353. [16].Munkvold, B.E. Challenges of IT implementation for [25].Vandenbosch, B., and Gintzberg, M. Lotus Notes and supporting collaboration in distributed organizations. collaboration: Plus ca change…Journal of Management European Journal of Information Systems 8, 1999, 260- Information Systems 13, 3, 1997, 65-81. 272. [17].Munkvold, B.E. and Tvedte, B. Implementing a portfolio of collaboration technologies in Statoil. In B.E. Munkvold, </p>