@article {9998, title = {Taming artificial intelligence: A theory of control{\textendash}accountability alignment among AI developers and users}, journal = {Academy of Management Review}, year = {In Press}, abstract = {

The growing agency of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, more specifically systems based on machine learning, has raised concern about the security, safety, and ethical risks of AI use. We argue that core to mitigating AI risks is proper alignment of control and accountability for the stakeholders involved in AI development and use. Control enables and accountability motivates stakeholders to achieve desired and avoid undesired outcomes using AI. However, AI systems{\textquoteright} capabilities for autonomous adaptivity reduce control even for the experts who create them. Moreover, increasing interdependencies between AI development and use render it difficult to unambiguously locate control and accountability. In this paper, we address these challenges for mitigating AI risks by postulating decentralized forms of stakeholder governance and integrative negotiations among stakeholders during the AI life cycle as conducive to aligning control and accountability for AI development and use. Further, we specify that extensive information sharing aided by perspective taking and a shared norm of accountability facilitate integrative negotiation strategies. We conclude by discussing the implications of our theory for management scholarship on the impact of AI and identify promising avenues for future research at micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis.

}, keywords = {accountability, artificial intelligence, control, risk, stakeholder negotiation}, doi = {10.5465/amr.2023.0117}, author = {Gudela Grote and Sharon Parker and Kevin Crowston} } @article {9999, title = {Evaluating MIDST, a system to support stigmergic team coordination}, journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction}, volume = {5}, year = {2021}, month = {04/2021}, pages = {Article 36}, abstract = {

Data science teams working on a shared analysis face coordination problems such as dividing up the work to be done, monitoring performance and integrating the pieces. Research on distributed software development teams has raised the potential of stigmergic coordination, that is, coordination through a shared work product in place of explicit communication. The MIDST system was developed to support stigmergic coordination by making individual contributions to a shared work product visible, legible and combinable. In this paper, we present initial studies of a total of 40 student teams (24 using MIDST) that shows that teams that used MIDST did experience the intended system affordances to support their work, did seem to coordinate at least in part stigmergically and performed better on an assigned project.

}, keywords = {stigmergic coordination; translucency; awareness; data-science teams}, doi = {10.1145/3449110}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/CSCW_2020_MIDST_paper_final_0.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Jeffery Saltz and Niraj Sitaula and Yatish Hegde} } @article {9998, title = {Functional and Visionary Leadership in Self-Managing Virtual Teams}, journal = {Group \& Organization Management}, volume = {46}, year = {2021}, month = {04/2021}, pages = {424{\textendash}460}, abstract = {

In this conceptual article, we present a theory of leadership in self-managing virtual teams. We describe leadership in this setting as a process that results in the creation, reinforcement and evolution of shared mental models and shared norms that influence team member behaviour towards the successful accomplishment of shared goals. We distinguish two types of leadership. We identify leadership that works within and reinforces existing models and norms to influence team contributions as {\textquotedblleft}functional{\textquotedblright} leadership. We identify leadership that results in changes in models and norms as {\textquotedblleft}visionary{\textquotedblright} leadership. We propose that successful self-managing virtual teams require both types of leadership and that they will exhibit a paradoxical combination of shared, distributed functional leadership complemented by strong, concentrated and centralized visionary leadership and that visionary leadership is enabled by functional leadership in the form of substantive team member contributions.

}, keywords = {functional leadership, Leadership, Self-managing teams, structuration theory, virtual teams, visionary leadership}, doi = {10.1177/1059601120955034}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/1059601120955034_0.pdf}, author = {Eseryel, U. Yeliz and Kevin Crowston and Heckman, Robert} } @proceedings {9999, title = {Coordination in OSS 2.0: ANT Approach}, year = {2019}, abstract = {

Open source software projects are increasingly driven by a combination of independent and professional developers, the former volunteers and the later hired by a company to contribute to the project to support commercial product development. This mix of developers has been referred to as OSS 2.0. However, we do not fully understand the multi-layered coordination spanning individuals, teams, and organizations. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), we describe how coordination and power dynamics unfold among developers and how different tools and artifacts both display activities and mediate coordination efforts. Internal communication within an organization was reported to cause broken links in the community, duplication of work, and political tensions. ANT shows how tools and code can exercise agency and alter a software development process as an equivalently active actor of the scene. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the changing nature of open source software development.

}, keywords = {actor-network theory, free/libre open source, Stigmergy}, doi = {10.24251/HICSS.2019.120}, url = { http://hdl.handle.net/10125/59538}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/hicss52a-sub2136-cam-i8-2.pdf}, author = {Sangseok You and Kevin Crowston and Jeffery Saltz and Yatish Hegde} } @proceedings {9999, title = {Helping data science students develop task modularity}, year = {2019}, abstract = {

This paper explores the skills needed to be a data scientist. Specifically, we report on a mixed method study of a project-based data science class, where we evaluated student effectiveness with respect to dividing a project into appropriately sized modular tasks, which we termed task modularity. Our results suggest that while data science students can appreciate the value of task modularity, they struggle to achieve effective task modularity. As a first step, based our study, we identified six task decomposition best practices. However, these best practices do not fully address this gap of how to enable data science students to effectively use task modularity. We note that while computer science/information system programs typically teach modularity (e.g., the decomposition process and abstraction), and there remains a need identify a corresponding model to that used for computer science / information system students, to teach modularity to data science students.

}, keywords = {data science, modularity, Stigmergy}, doi = {10.24251/HICSS.2019.134}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10125/59549}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/modularity-HICSS-final-afterReview.pdf}, author = {Jeffery Saltz and Heckman, Robert and Kevin Crowston and Sangseok You and Yatish Hegde} } @article {2019, title = {Socio-technical affordances for stigmergic coordination implemented in MIDST, a tool for data-science teams}, journal = {Proceedings of the ACM }, volume = {3}, year = {2019}, pages = {Article 117}, abstract = {

We present a conceptual framework for socio-technical affordances for stigmergic coordination, that is, coordination supported by a shared work product. Based on research on free/libre open source software development, we theorize that stigmergic coordination depends on three sets of socio-technical affordances: the visibility and combinability of the work, along with defined genres of work contributions. As a demonstration of the utility of the developed framework, we use it as the basis for the design and implementation of a system, MIDST, that supports these affordances and that we thus expect to support stigmergic coordination. We describe an initial assessment of the impact of the tool on the work of project teams of three to six data-science students that suggests that the tool was useful but also in need of further development. We conclude with plans for future research and an assessment of theory-driven system design.

}, keywords = {stigmergic coordination; translucency; awareness; data-science teams}, doi = {10.1145/3359219}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/cscw117-crowstonA.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Jeffery Saltz and Amira Rezgui and Yatish Hegde and Sangseok You} } @proceedings {9999, title = {Stigmergic coordination in Wikipedia}, year = {2018}, abstract = {

We examine a novel approach to coordination, namely stigmergic coordination, that is, coordination mediated by changes to a shared work product. Stigmergy stands in contrast to the two coordination approaches identified in the existing literature on coordination, explicit coordination, based on direct communication through discussion page or user talk pages, and implicit coordination, based on unspoken expectations and shared mental models of the task to be accomplished. We look for evidence of stigmergic coordination in the context of Wikipedia, as one of the most successful experiments in online collaborative knowledge building. Using a novel approach to identifying edits to the same part of a Wikipedia article, we show that a majority of edits to two example articles are not associated with discussion on the article Talk page, suggesting the possibility of stigmergic coordination. However, some amount of discussion does seem to be related to article quality, suggesting the limits to this approach to coordination.

}, keywords = {Coordination, distributed groups, on-line epistemic community, Stigmergy, Wikipedia}, url = {http://www.opensym.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/OpenSym2018_paper_34.pdf}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/stigmergic-coordination-wikipedia\%20final.pdf}, author = {Amira Rezgui and Kevin Crowston} } @article {2017, title = {Work~features to support stigmergic coordination in distributed teams}, year = {2017}, type = {Interactive paper}, abstract = {

When work products are shared via a computer system, members of distributed teams can see the work products produced by remote colleagues as easily as those from local colleagues. Drawing on coordination theory and work in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), we theorize that these work products can provide information to support team coordination, that is, that work can be coordinated through the outcome of the work itself, a mode of coordination analogous to the biological process of stigmergy. Based on studies of documents and work, we postulate three features of work products that enable them to support team coordination, namely having a clear genre, being visible and mobile, and being combinable. These claims are illustrated with examples drawn from free/libre open source software development teams. We conclude by discussing how the proposed theory might be empirically tested.

}, keywords = {Coordination, Stigmergy}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/Stigmergy\%20theory\%20paper\%20to\%20share.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and James Howison and Bolici, Francesco and Carsten {\O}sterlund} } @article {9998, title = {Stigmergic coordination in FLOSS development teams: Integrating explicit and implicit mechanisms}, journal = {Cognitive Systems Research}, volume = {38}, year = {2016}, pages = {14{\textendash}22}, keywords = {Coordination, Stigmergy}, doi = {10.1016/j.cogsys.2015.12.003}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/COGSYS-RS-\%28HHS\%29-\%282015\%29-\%283\%29.pdf}, author = {Bolici, Francesco and James Howison and Kevin Crowston} } @conference {2011, title = {Gaming for (citizen) science: Exploring motivation and data quality in the context of crowdsourced science through the design and evaluation of a social-computational system}, booktitle = {{\textquotedblleft}Computing for Citizen Science{\textquotedblright} workshop at the IEEE eScience Conference}, year = {2011}, month = {12/2011}, address = {Stockholm, Sweden}, abstract = {In this paper, an ongoing design research project is described. Citizen Sort, currently under development, is a web-based social-computational system designed to support a citizen science task, the taxonomic classification of various insect, animal, and plant species. In addition to supporting this natural science objective, the Citizen Sort platform will also support information science research goals on the nature of motivation for social-computation and citizen science. In particular, this research program addresses the use of games to motivate participation in social-computational citizen science, and explores the effects of system design on motivation and data quality. A design science approach, where IT artifacts are developed to solve problems and answer research questions is described. Research questions, progress on Citizen Sort planning and implementation, and key challenges are discussed.}, keywords = {Citizen Science, data quality, Design, Design Science, Games, Gaming, Motivation, Participation, Social Computational Systems}, url = {http://itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch/workshops/compcitsci2011/index.html}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/gamingforcitizenscience_ver6.pdf}, author = {Nathan Prestopnik and Kevin Crowston} } @conference {2010, title = {Designing scholarly communications}, booktitle = {IFIP Working Group 8.2/8.6 Joint Working Conference}, year = {2010}, month = {30 Mar{\textendash}2 Apr}, address = {Perth, Australia}, abstract = {This paper presents suggestions for the design of a scholarly communications system for the IFIP Working Group 8.2 (WG8.2) community. Learned societies such as IFIP have long been important in the system of scholarly communications. With the affordances of the Internet, WG8.2 can play a larger role in promoting scholarly communications to achieve multiple goals: dissemination and archiving of quality research, but also supporting the development of scholars and the research community. A particular goal of this paper is to take a design perspective to suggest new systems to fit the emerging system and to assess the role that WG8.2 might play in deploying them.}, keywords = {eScience, Scholarly Communications}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/ifipwg82\%202010\%20100202\%20revision.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston} } @article {2010, title = {The under-appreciated role of stigmergic coordination in software development}, year = {2010}, abstract = {

Coordination in software development teams has been a topic of perennial interest in empirical software engineering research. The vast majority of this literature has drawn on a conceptual separation between work and coordination mechanisms, separate from the work itself, which enable groups to achieve coordination. Traditional recommendations and software methods focused on planning: using analysis to predict and manage dependencies. Empirical research has demonstrated the limits of this approach, showing that many important dependencies are emergent and pointing to the persistent importance of explicit discussion to managing these dependencies as they arise. Drawing on work in Computer-Supported Collaborative Work and building from an analogy to collaboration amongst insects (stigmergy), we argue that the work product itself plays an under-appreciated role in helping software developers manage dependencies as they arise. This short paper presents the conceptual argument with empirical illustrations and explains why this mechanism would have significant implications for Software Engineering coordination research. We discuss issues in marshaling clear positive evidence, arguing that these issues are responsible, in part, for the under-consideration of this mechanism in software engineering and outlining research strategies which may overcome these issues.

}, keywords = {Coordination, FLOSS, Stigmergy}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/stigmergy-short.pdf}, author = {Bolici, Francesco and James Howison and Kevin Crowston} } @article {Crowston:2006, title = {Information systems success in Free and Open Source Software development: Theory and measures}, journal = {Software Process{\textendash}Improvement and Practice}, volume = {11}, number = {2}, year = {2006}, pages = {123{\textendash}148}, abstract = {Information systems success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems (IS) research, but research on Free/Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) often fails to appropriately conceptualize this important concept. In this paper, we reconsider what success means within a FLOSS context. We first review existing models of IS success and success variables used in FLOSS research and assess them for their usefulness, practicality and fit to the FLOSS context. Then, drawing on a theoretical model of group effectiveness in the FLOSS development process, as well as an online discussion group with developers, we present additional concepts that are central to an appropriate understanding of success for FLOSS. In order to examine the practicality and validity of this conceptual scheme, the second half of our paper presents an empirical study that demonstrates its operationalization of the chosen measures and assesses their internal validity. We use data from SourceForge to measure the project{\textquoteright}s effectiveness in team building, the speed of the project at responding to bug reports and the project{\textquoteright}s popularity. We conclude by discussing the implications of this study for our proposed extension of IS success in the context of FLOSS development and highlight future directions for research.}, keywords = {FLOSS, Success}, doi = {10.1002/spip.259}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/InformationSystemsSuccessInFree.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and James Howison and Annabi, Hala} } @article {Crowston:1998a, title = {Coordination and collective mind in software requirements development}, journal = {IBM Systems Journal}, volume = {37}, number = {2}, year = {1998}, pages = {227{\textendash}245}, abstract = {The purpose of this study was to understand how the group processes of teams of software requirements analysts led to problems and to suggest possible solutions. Requirements definition is important to establish the framework for a development project. Researchers have proposed numerous requirements development techniques, but less has been done on managing teams of requirements analysts. To learn more about group processes within such teams, we studied two teams of analysts developing requirements for large, complex real-time systems. These teams had problems ensuring that requirements documents were complete, consistent, and correct; fixing those problems required additional time and effort. To identify sources of problems, we applied two theories of collective action, coordination theory and collective mind theory. Coordination theory suggests that a key problem in requirement analysis is identifying and managing dependencies between requirements and among tasks. Most requirements methods and tools reflect this perspective, focusing on better representation and communication of requirements. The collective mind perspective complements these suggestions by explaining how individuals come to understand how their work contributes to the work of the group. This perspective suggests that deficiencies in actors{\textquoteright} representations of the process and subordination to collective goals limit the value of their contributions. }, keywords = {Software Development}, issn = { 0018-8670}, doi = {10.1147/sj.372.0227}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/ibmsj98.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Kammerer, Ericka} }