Matching cognitive characteristics of actors and tasks in information systems engineering

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIn daily practice, discrepancies may exist in the suitability match of actors and the tasks that have been allocated to them. A formal framework for cognitive matchmaking and a prototype implementation are introduced as a possible solution to improve the fit between actors and tasks. A case study has been conducted to clarify how the proposed cognitive matchmaking approach can be utilized in information systems engineering. The inductive-hypothetical research strategy has been applied as an overall research approach. A separate iteration of the strategy has been applied within the case study.

Coupling Elements of a Framework for Cognitive Matchmaking with Enterprise Models

“…The 'check delivery' sub process provides an opportunity to determine possibilities to couple the business process model description with elements of the cognitive matchmaking framework, as it includes a differentiation into tasks and includes a description of the actor that is responsible to fulfill this sub process. The cognitive matchmaking framework includes descriptions of cognitive actor settings [15], that indicate on an abstract level which cognitive characteristics are supplied by which type of actor. Five different abstract actor types have been provided based on a classification of knowledge worker types [4] and on cognitive literature [5,11], each characterized by a cognitive actor setting.…”

“…As a consequence, this indicates which basic cognitive characteristics are supplied by the logistics assistant. Two of the five abstract actor types as part of the cognitive matchmaking framework are the expert and collaborator types [15]. When a logistics assistant conducts the 'call shipper' task, he would fit the description of a collaborator type of actor.…”

“…Organizations that derive their raison d'être to a large extent from intellectual capital can be referred to as knowledge intensive organizations. Actors working in these organizations perform knowledge intensive tasks, which are tasks for which acquisition, application, or testing of knowledge is necessary in order to successfully fulfill the task [15]. However, the complexity of these knowledge intensive tasks increases, which is a result of, for example, organizational growth, increased globalization, growing product complexity, an increasing customer power, outsourcing, shorter product life cycles and return flows, and inter-organizational alliances [12,19].…”

“…A cognitive matchmaker system has been developed in earlier work [14,15], which matches cognitive characteristics supplied by types of actors and cognitive characteristics required to fulfill types of knowledge intensive tasks. The resulting matches can then be used to achieve a better fit between actors and tasks which is assumed to positively affect the quality of task fulfillment.…”

“…For example, the volition characteristic is concerned with an actor's willpower to fulfill some knowledge intensive task [11]. The aforementioned cognitive matchmaker system is based on a formal framework for cognitive matchmaking [15], which is briefly summarized as follows. An actor of a certain type is characterized by means of the cognitive characteristics that it supplies at a certain level and a task type is characterized by the characteristics it requires at a certain level.…”