MMOGs as Emerging Opportunities for Research on Virtual Organizations and Teams

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) offer new promising opportunities to research virtual organizations and teams. The characteristics of MMOGs allow researchers to obtain objective data from a large and multi-national population. Lasting over months or even years, MMOGs facilitate longitudinal studies and ensure a high involvement of participants. Moreover, collecting data from online surveys and game servers keeps the costs of MMOG studies low. In this paper, we illustrate how research in MMOGs can utilize these opportunities to overcome some limitations of traditional research environments. Further we discuss the diverse information and communication technology (ICT) usage in MMOGs and therefore argue that research in MMOGs can provide a glimpse into the future application of ICT in real life organizations

Issues in the study of virtual world social movements

Virtual worlds are online three-dimensional worlds that are often constructed to look much like the real world. As more people begin to use these virtual worlds, virtual communities are emerging enabling various social activities and social interactions to be conducted online. Based on a literature review of social movements, virtual communities and virtual worlds, this paper suggests a framework to guide IS research into this new and exciting area

Leadership in Action: The Effects of Leader-Member Exchange on Outcomes within Virtual Organizations

Player-founded organizations, or guilds, within massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) are complex social entities with organizational forms that mirror real-world companies. These guilds require leaders who possess a diverse array of skills. Examples of the skills required read like the introductory course of a business management degree – mediating conflict, planning, controlling, motivating. These skills are important - just as with real-world companies, failures on the part of leaders may explain the high degree of guild failures witnessed. The purpose of this purpose of this dissertation is to explore how relationships between leaders and members within this completely computer-mediated and synchronous environment affect member outcomes within guilds. I discuss how an exploratory study informs the choice of leader-member exchange theory to underpin this dissertation, develop a testable model which seeks to explain how relationship quality between leaders and members affects member outcomes as mediated by relational capital and the allocation of resources, and explain how this model will be operationalized and tested

The Effects of Leader-Member Exchange on Member Performance in Virtual World Teams

Understanding the role of leadership in virtual world teams may help shed light on how to manage synchronous and highly interdependent work activities. Based upon leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, we propose that the relationship between a leader and a team member (LMX) influences 1) the degree to which a team member is allocated resources by the leader (empowerment and group assignments), 2) the degree to which a team member develops relational resources with the team (trust, obligation, norms, and identification), and 3) the extent to which a team member receives or develops resources results in higher levels of individual performance. Our findings from a longitudinal field study of one large virtual world team in the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) EverQuest suggest that the leader member relationship does impact members’ allocation and development of resources, and that it’s not just the quantity of members’ resources, but also the type of member resources, that has a direct influence on performance. Our findings also indicate that the influence of the leader-member relationship on member performance is fully mediated by the allocation and development of resources. Surprisingly, there was no relationship between LMX, trust, and performance, which suggests that trust may not be as vital in virtual teams where everyone’s actions are visible. Lastly, the findings suggest that building relational capital to facilitate the transformation from self to collective interest may be an effective leadership tactic when managing large virtual teams or social collectives

The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Game Time: Not Too Much, Nor Too Little

The amount of time young adults spend on online gaming has drawn attention from governments and academics. While these concerns posit a spatial separation between the game world and reality, they fail to understand the gaming activity in relation to individuals’ overall life. An alternative framing of gaming as leisure activities can yield greater insight. This research examines the temporal experience and the meaning of playing online games within a community of Chinese full-time college students. Observing their gaming routine, I try to answer: how do college students interpret the time they devote to gaming? In addition, how does the calculation of time for gaming differ from time in the game? Based on the research, I find that although the participants devote a significant amount of time on gaming, they are capable of prioritizing school obligations, making efforts to achieve a balance between work and leisure. Essentially, they regard gaming as a serious leisure and desire better performance through practicing. The findings suggest that the moral panic against online gaming, particularly in the Chinese society, is shaped by the interaction between the central regulation on internet use, the fear-delivering media representation, and the transformative work-leisure relation

Spontaneous Communities of Learning: Cooperative Learning Ecosystems Surrounding Virtual Worlds

This thesis is the culmination of a five year research project exploring online gamers and the cultures they engage with, both virtually in the many massively multiplayer games and virtual worlds online, and in the physical spaces they inhabit in various play spaces around the world. The primary research questions concerned social learning in such spaces, i.e. how do players learn from one another what they need to be successful, and what are the associated norms and practices for doing so? What sorts of peripheral skills are gained, and are they applicable to physical world contexts? Finally, what does participation in such spaces mean for individuals who may have lacked other mechanisms for social learning, and what impacts might such findings have on existing educational structures? I anticipate that this thesis will generate as many questions as it will answer, and I hope, that as a snapshot of a gaming culture in time, will be looked upon as a monograph in the classic ethnographic tradition

Social movements in world of warcraft

Virtual worlds provide new forms of social interaction. They offer alternative spaces where social functions can be carried out in online three-dimensional virtual environments. In this paper we explore how collective action on a global scale is enabled by these virtual worlds. We used qualitative research to examine the organization of one social movement in World of Warcraft (WoW), the most widely used massively multiplayer online role playing game in the world. Using New Social Movement Theory, our paper suggests that there are a number of differences between real world and virtual world social movements, namely in their (a) locality, (b) issues, (c) periods of activity, (d) hierarchies, and (e) membership

The Panhellenic Project: assessing learning engagement using Web 2.0 technologies

High attrition rates have been a consistent occurrence among online learners, creating the challenge of how to design online instruction for the type of learning that encourages student engagement. With new technologies constantly evolving, the question becomes how educators can use these new web-based applications to engage students and possibly resolve the problem of high attrition among online learners? The purpose of this study was to assess the level of learning engagement through student participation in The Panhellenic Project, an instructional design model that integrated constructivist learning principles with Web 2.0 technologies. Additionally, the usefulness of structured orientations to the Web 2.0 technologies and the effectiveness of these technologies was also investigated. Using a mixed-methods case study design, The Panhellenic Project was framed around a collaborative group activity where undergraduate students worked in teams with the task of creating a three-dimensional virtual ancient Greek Parthenon and one ancient Olympic game event within the Second Life virtual world. A project wiki was established for student-participants to research sports history as well as share knowledge, information and resources. An informational blog with project resource information was developed as a Second Life learning reference. Multiple sources were used to capture data including the Survey of Student Engagement, pre- and post-project questionnaires, and electronic discourse analysis of wiki posts and Second Life chat transcripts. Research finding showed that the majority of the student-participants were engaged in The Panhellenic Project and that learning had occurred over the length of project implementation. The structured orientation and training sessions were perceived as effective in connecting theoretical and practical knowledge, though not effective for teaching students to use the Second Life virtual world. Overall, the level of difficulty experienced in learning the application influenced student-participant perceptions about the effectiveness of the Web 2.0 technologies used in this study. Further, analysis of the data revealed that the participants consistently demonstrated constructivist learning activities through interaction with other learners, collaborative teamwork and the sharing of multiple perspectives as they completed The Panhellenic Project