Groupware and National Culture: a qualitative inquiry

This research examines the impact of collaborative technologies on group work processes for groups from Malaysia, which is traditionally known as a society with high Collectivism and Power Distance. Triandis (1994) defines collectivism as greater emphasis on the views, needs, and goals of the in-group rather than oneself. Hofstede (1980) defines Power Distance as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations accept that power is distributed unequally. The present study included two parts. The first part compared the supported groupwork of the groups from Malaysia as a representative of the ‘East’ culture with the supported groupwork of groups from Australia as a representative of the ‘West’ culture. The second part compared the supported and unsupported groupwork for groups from Malaysia. The first part used three different tasks with different degrees of structure and examined the possibility of observation of the cultural differences based on the qualitative analysis of the groupwork discussions in a supported environment. The second part examined the impact of GSS on groupwork for groups from Malaysia. The study used a qualitative content analysis to reveal the cultural values involved in their group work processes. The findings suggest a clear difference between the groupwork conducted in two different group work environments (supported and unsupported)

Electronic Facilitation of Large Meetings

Many meetings involve large groups exchanging oral comments in a face-to-face environment, yet few studies have investigated how electronic facilitation can benefit these discussions. In this paper, we studied two large oral meetings (group sizes of 38 and 37) and two computer-based meetings (group sizes 33 and 35). Results show that, as in smaller groups, members of electronic meetings experience less production blocking and evaluation apprehension and generate more total comments, relevant comments, and words per comment. However, contradicting prior research, participants in the oral meetings were more satisfied with the process

Towards World of Warcraft as an Experiment Platform for Teams

We are interested in how virtual, synchronous teams organize to cope with tasks of different complexity. We follow an explorative approach to validate World of Warcraft as experiment platform for virtual teams. We explore which parts of the game are suitable for experiments, which phenomena can be studied in teams fighting in World of Warcraft and how data can be collected. We prototypically evaluate data from games to demonstrate the validity of our approach

A Comparative Study of the Effect of Blogs and Email on Virtual Team Performance

Virtual Teams (VTs) offer great advantages but have different challenges compared with co-located teams. This study explores using blogs and email to see if improvements can be made to virtual team effectiveness. This preliminary study is qualitative in nature and uses a quasi-experiment to compare 2 teams performing the same project; one uses email while the other uses a blog tool. Once the project was complete the participants filled out a Q-sort and a short survey. Additional analysis of the artefacts generated by the experiments also form part of the result set. The key benefits of using the blog were hoped to be; increase team trust, increase team performance and output, increase team satisfaction and realise a communication tool that could be used in a virtual team environment. The main findings were; the qualities of the output deliverable from both teams were nearly the same; those using the blog reported ‘having a sense of fun’ and ‘individual satisfaction’, while the email team reported ‘the current status of the project was easily viewed’

Personal Communication Networks and Their Positive Effects on Online Collaboration and Outcome Quality on Wikipedia

Online collaborative projects have been utilized in a variety of ways over the past decade, such as bringing people together to build open source software or developing the world\u27s largest free encyclopedia. Personal communication networks as a feature do not exist in all collaborative projects. It is currently unclear if a designer\u27s decision to include a personal communication network in a collaborative project\u27s structure affects outcome quality. In this study, I investigated Wikipedia\u27s personal communication network and analyzed which Wikipedia editors are utilizing it and how they are connected to outcome quality. Evidence suggests that people who utilize these networks are more experienced in editing high quality articles and are more integrated in the community. Additionally, these individuals utilize the personal communication network for coordinating and perhaps mentoring editors who edit lower quality articles. The value of these networks is demonstrated by the characteristics of the users who use them. These findings indicate that designers of online collaborative projects can help improve the quality of outcomes in these projects by deciding to implement a personal communication network in their communities

Longitudinal Effects of Computer-mediated Communication Anxiety on Interaction in Virtual Teams

Research has identified a unique individual characteristic that influences behavior in a computer-mediated communication (CMC) environment, CMC anxiety. While prior work demonstrates CMC anxiety’s impact on CMC use, it does not specifically address how CMC anxiety impacts use and interaction behaviors. Further, prior work has not explored the impact of CMC anxiety on use and performance over time. To address these issues, we surveyed and observed the interactions of 22 virtual project teams (consisting of 110 individuals) over a span of four months. The results indicate that individuals high in CMC anxiety have lower quantity and quality of participation, demonstrated by their sending fewer total messages and task-oriented messages in particular. In addition, they contribute to team performance less by providing fewer novel ideas. To compensate, we find that CMC anxious individuals do send relatively more socially oriented messages. Ultimately, CMC anxious individuals are rated by their team members as performing worse than their less anxious counterparts. Additionally, participation quality and quantity and perceptions of performance by CMC anxious team members do not significantly improve, even with repeated interactions over CMC

Enhanced Use of IT: A New Perspective on Post-Adoption

A major problem confronting organizations is that they make large investments in information technologies (IT) that, in many cases, underperform following adoption because their features are underutilized. In information systems (IS) research, there is a need to develop a better understanding of the process by which individuals make new use of IT features. Using a grounded theory approach, we develop such an understanding by closely examining how individuals change their IT use following initial adoption. Based on analyzing interview data and expanding on extant literature to refine our results, we propose a construct called “enhanced use”, which refers to novel ways of employing IT features. We conceptualize enhanced use as having distinct forms (using a formerly unused set of available features, using an IT for additional tasks, and/or using extensions of IT features and attributes). Our analysis reveals that these forms may differ in terms of their attributes (locus of innovation, extent of extensive use, and adaptation). Our study uncovers patterns of use that reveal the roles played by task characteristics, knowledge, and the IT type in shaping enhanced use. Thus, this study heeds repeated calls to theorize about use by proposing a novel and rich conceptualization of post-adoption use

Influence of Feedback and Comment Labels on Information Sharing in a Computer Mediated Collaborative Environment

A group support system (GSS) uses a combination of networked personal computers, software, and human facilitation to improve the group decision-making process. Group support Systems are being used in the Air Force today in a variety of capacities and in particular by the Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC) to assess acquisition risks. Prior GSS research has found that certain structural and social dimensions of GSS designs might influence whether optimal process improvements take place. However, the dimensions that positively influence group performance have continued to be a matter of debate. This thesis looked at several structural and social contingencies to explore possible explanations for the mixed results found in GSS research. The study examined the effect of: anonymity, identification, self-regulation, and facilitator provided feedback on user information sharing behavior, quality of the group decision, unequal participation among group members, and user attitudes with the GSS meeting. The results of the study indicated that the anonymity theory was partially supported since users in an anonymous condition provided more intellective comments than any other condition. In addition, the self-regulation theory was partially supported since users were found to have more satisfaction with the GSS meeting in this treatment