Leveraging competence in the use of leveraging collaborative tools competence: facilitating an Open Architecture approach to acquiring integrated warfare systems

Abstract

A fundamental problem in reaping the benefits of using an Open Architecture (OA) approach to developing integrated warfare systems (IWS) is the requirement for the multiple parties involved to collaborate. This was less of a problem when single vendors managed the entire acquisition life cycle. To take advantage of the potential of OA to use common off the shelf software modules, multiple vendors, greater access and involvement of the acquisition professional and future users of the IWS, collaborative information technology is a necessary ingredient. And, to make collaborative tools useful in the IWS acquisition life cycle, users must leverage their competence with the collaborative tools. To shed light on this requirement, this paper introduces the construct of 'Collaborative IT Tools Leveraging Competence' as the ability of various OA work groups involved in the IWS acquisition life cycle to effectively leverage collaborative IT tools to enhance their group performance. Collaborative IT Tools Leveraging Competence is conceptualized as a second-order construct formed by the group's effective use of the following six key IT functionalities: workspace sharing, conferencing, file sharing, scheduling, chat, and email. Collaborative IT Tools Leveraging Competence is hypothesized to facilitate group performance (process efficiency, project effectiveness, and situational awareness), particularly in intense work environments such as OA acquisition contexts. To enhance an OA work group's ability to effectively leverage collaborative IT tools, the study proposes a set of enabling factors: customization of the collaborative IT tools, group habits in using collaborative IT tools, the group's perceived usefulness and ease of use of collaborative IT tools, the group member's mutual trust, and the degree of environmental intensity. Data from 365 group managers support the proposed structural model with the antecedents and consequences of Collaborative IT Tools Leveraging Competence at different levels of environmental intensity. The paper discusses the study's contributions of better understanding the nature, antecedents, and consequences of Collaborative IT Tools Leveraging Competence on OA work group performance. Implications for the acquisition of IWS are discussed.