RESEARCH PROPOSAL SAMPLE ON THE EFFECTS OF USING GROUPWARE AND COLLABORATIVE SYSTEMS ON MANAGER’S ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

As an emerged business trend, the vast applications of information technology (IT) on economic organizations are immense and immeasurable. Organizational systems and functions are now considered effortless and unproblematic because of IT. IT also expanded the opportunities concerning product development processes or innovations that provide organizations with cost and competitive advantages. In a much broader sense, information technology strengthens the business value of every organization. The parameters of using IT for internal affairs have profound impact specifically for core management responsibilities (Gunasekaran, et al, 2002). Conversational and transactional interactions, for example, are collaborative interactions that are slowly getting limited importance within the workplace since technology enables electronic collaboration. Though this process purports speedier business operation, reduced cost and maximum used of time, technological collaborations also served as the biggest hurdles for managers (Weikum and Vossen, 2002). In lieu, this paper aims at investigating the effects of using collaborative systems and groupware in the workplace with the role of the managers. RESEARCH QUESTIONS             The study will address the following questions: 1.      What are the indicators that show managers' roles and responsibilities are affected by the implementation of using groupware and collaborative systems? 2.      What are the benefits and drawbacks on using groupware and collaborative systems for the managers? 3.      How does the implementation of using groupware and collaborative systems affect the managers' roles and responsibilities? 4.      What are the implications of using groupware and collaborative systems in future roles and responsibilities of the managers'? 5.      What are the challenges and issues that the managers' experienced with respect to their roles and responsibilities upon implementation of using groupware and collaborative systems? RESEARCH OBJECTIVES             The objectives of the study are as follows: To investigate the manager's roles and responsibilities prior to using groupware and collaborative systems To identify advantages and disadvantages of using groupware and collaborative systems into the managers' roles and responsibilities To identify factors that demonstrate direct and indirect effect of using groupware and collaborative systems with managers' roles and responsibilities To distinguished challenges and issues regarding groupware and collaborative systems implementation with the managers' roles and responsibilities To relate the use of groupware and collaborative systems with future trends in managers' roles and responsibilities RESEARCH METHOD             This study will use realism as the main research philosophy. The research will use inductive approach and descriptive in nature. The study intends to build theories based on the data gathered. Required information concerns with the nature and status of the situation (Creswell, 1994) as it exists in a longitudinal pattern. Relationships and practices that are in existence can also be explored through this approach as well as the beliefs and processes that are continuing, enduring effects and trends that are predictable (Best, 1970). The research will incorporate a qualitative research in its first stage through surveys and interviews of 10 managers from different companies. The data colleted will be then summarized through relevant theme summarization. The instruments to be used are structured and open-ended questionnaires. Questionnaires will be 30 items. The first 10 questions require demographic answers and the rest are direct questions relating to the topic. Personal and formal interviews will be conducted for a more objective research. Quantitave research will be employed at the second stage of the research to generalize results. The data gathered will be analyzed statistically through percentage and mean results.     References   Best, J.W. (1970). Research in Education, 2nd Ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc.   Creswell, J.W. (1994). Research design. Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.   Gunasekaran, A., Khalil, O. & Rahman, S. M. (2002). Knowledge and Information Technology Management: Human and Social Perspectives. Idea Group Inc.   Weikum, G. & Vossen, G. (2002). Transactional information Systems: Theory, Algorithms and the Practice of Concurrency Control and Recovery. Morgan Kaufmann.