Virtual Team Collaboration: A Review of Literature and Perspectives

Along with the widespread use of information technologies (IT) and the increasing geographical span of tasks held by various organizations, Virtual Teams (VTs) rose as an alternative organizational form which has the potential to deeply change the workplace. This article provides a review of previously published work on collaboration in VTs. The review is organized around two perspectives adopted by scholars, namely technological and managerial. This analysis underlines two major constructs that leads to an efficient VT collaboration, i.e. the context in which the collaboration is held and the collaboration style. While the former is illustrated by knowledge and team characteristics, the latter is identified by technological media and leadership. Building on this classification, we suggest a model and explore future research directions with a particular attention to the implications for collaboration in organizations.Collaboration, Virtual Team, Knowledge Sharing, Literature Review

Towards Simulating Humans in Augmented Multi-party Interaction

Human-computer interaction requires modeling of the user. A user profile typically contains preferences, interests, characteristics, and interaction behavior. However, in its multimodal interaction with a smart environment the user displays characteristics that show how the user, not necessarily consciously, verbally and nonverbally provides the smart environment with useful input and feedback. Especially in ambient intelligence environments we encounter situations where the environment supports interaction between the environment, smart objects (e.g., mobile robots, smart furniture) and human participants in the environment. Therefore it is useful for the profile to contain a physical representation of the user obtained by multi-modal capturing techniques. We discuss the modeling and simulation of interacting participants in the European AMI research project

DIGITAL MUSIC USE AS ECOLOGICAL THINKING: METADATA AND HISTORICISED LISTENING

In claiming that metadata possess the power to put historical awareness into the act of listening, this article examines digital music use as an aesthetic situation driven by potentialities of becoming. Working from a theoretical foundation amalgamating digital music archives and metadata as environments the article discusses Georgina Born’s notion of musical assemblages alongside the concept of virtuality, and by letting these meet the article argues for a musical assemblage built from sensibilities of becoming rather than layers of mediation. The inner workings of digital music use constitute an ecology in which recorded music history moves and reconnects, and this makes the historicity of recorded music be fluid, thus turning listening into a historicised action. In exemplifying this, the article discusses some of the strategic programming of metadata on the digital music platform Diskoteket, and through an analysis of sampled music, the prospects of recorded music’s historicity are shown as affective capacities

Understanding Virtuality: Contributions from Goffman’s Frame Analysis

Virtual interactions are normally assumed to be separate and distinct from the “real world,” yet they are also situated within material reality. In this paper I propose that a situated approach to understanding virtuality can be developed through drawing from Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974/1986). I explain how Goffman’s terminology and concepts afford a way of integrating the study of virtual interaction with the study of social interaction more generally. His frame analysis approach offers constructs useful for distinguishing virtual worlds from each other and from real worlds in a way that is consonant with perspectives on human-computer interaction. His language can help to account for the phenomenon of immersion in virtual worlds; and it is well suited for understanding co-present and mediated social interaction at the same time. I conclude by discussing some limitations of this approach and suggesting directions for further research

Interface and Interaction Design Patterns for Intercultural Collaboration

This paper reports about on-going research into interaction design patterns in intercultural remote collaboration. It proposes that interaction and interface design patterns help to communicate and generate new design knowledge in supporting intercultural teamwork. It describes methods used to observe and develop design patterns in collocated, remote and blended collaborative learning and design contexts, and reports preliminary findings of interface and interaction design patterns, which support intercultural remote collaboration

Relationship Quality in the Context of Computer-Mediated Communication - A social constructionist approach

This paper contributes to possible answers to the question: What are the effects of computermediated communication on relationship qualities in organizations? To answer this question without oversimplifying the phenomena an adequate research methodology has to be found. First, the interrelationship between computer-mediated communication (CMC) and relationship quality is reviewed. CMC-theory will be described from three main perspectives and the risks and chances for relationship quality will be shown. The review indicates that most studies in the field are founded on a positivistic basis. Relationships are treated as static dyads neglecting contextual factors. Thus, the insight into relational processes in computerized environments remains limited. As an alternative a research methodology based on the epistemological stance of social constructionism is proposed. It will be explained, how the researchers’ view can be broadened by applying the method of the ‘narrative interview’ in practice based studies in computer-mediated contexts. In the concluding part, the contribution of this approach to research and practice will be discussed.Computer-mediated communication, relationship quality, social constructionism