Nathan Bos
N. Sadat Shami
Judith S. Olson
ABSTRACT
Modern workplaces often bring together virtual teams where some members are collocated, and some participate remotely. We are using a simulation game to study collaborations of 10-person groups, with five collocated members and five isolates (simulated 'telecommuters'). Individual players in this game buy and sell 'shapes' from each other in order to form strings of shapes, where strings represent joint projects, and each individual players' shapes represent their unique skills. We found that the collocated people formed an in-group, excluding the isolates. But, surprisingly, the isolates also formed an in-group, mainly because the collocated people ignored them and they responded to each other.
- Armstrong, D., and Cole, P. (2002) Managing distances and differences in geographically distributed work groups. In Distributed work: New ways of working across distance using technology (P. Hinds & S. Kiesler, Eds.), MIT Press.Google Scholar
- Bailey, D.E., and Kurland, N.B. (2002) A review of telework research: findings, new directions, and lessons for the study of modern work. Journal of Organizational Behavior 23, 383--400.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Baltes, B.B., Dickson, M.W., Sherman, M.P., Bauer, C.C., and LaGanke, J.S. (2002) Computer mediated communication and group decision making: A meta analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 87: 156--179.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Bordia, Prashant. (1997). Face-to-face versus computer-mediated communication: a synthesis of the experimental literature. The Journal of Business Communication 34 (1). 99--120.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Bos, N., Olson, J., Gergle, D., Olson, G., and Wright, Z (2002) "Effects of four computer-mediated communications channels on trust development." In Proceedings of CHI02. New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Brown, R. (2000) "Social Identity Theory: past achievements, current problems, and future challenges." European Journal of Social Psychology 30, 745--778.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Buchan, R.N, Croson R.A. and Dawes, R.M. (2002) "Swift neighbors and persistent strangers: A cross-cultural investigation of trust and reciprocity in social exchange" The American Journal of Sociology, 108(1),168--206.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Chapanis, A. (1975). Interactive Human Communication. Scientific American 232 (2), 36--42.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Cohen, M.D., Riolo, R.L. and Axelrod, R. (2001). "The role of social structure in the maintenance of cooperative regimes" Rationality and Society, 13(1), 5--32.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Cramton, C. (2001) The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration. Organization Science, 12, 346--371. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cramton, C. (2002). Attribution in distributed work groups. In Distributed work: New ways of working across distance using technology (P. Hinds & S. Kiesler, Eds.), MIT Press.Google Scholar
- Dobbs, M., and Crano, W. D. (2001) "Outgroup accountability in the minimal group paradigm: Implications for aversive discrimination and social identity theory." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 27(3) 355--364.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Finn, K. E., Sellen, A. J., and Wilbur, S.B. (1997) Video-Mediated Communication. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Herbsleb, J., and Grinter, R. (1999) Splitting the organization and integrating the code: Conway's Law revisited. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering ICSE '99 (85 - 95). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Herbsleb, J.D., Mockus, A., Finholt, T.A., & Grinter, R.E. (2000). Distance dependencies, and delay in global collaboration. In Proceedings of CSCW 2000 (pp. 319--328). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lea, M., and Spears, R. (1992) "Paralanguage and social perception in computer-mediated communication." Journal of Organizational Computing, 2, 321--341.Google ScholarCross Ref
- McAllister, D. J., "Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organizations," Academy of Management Journal 38 (1995), 24--59.Google Scholar
- McDonald, D.M. (1995). "Fixing blame in n-person attributions: a social identity model for attributional processes in newly-formed cross-functional groups." In M. Martinko, (Ed.) Attribution theory: an organizational perspective. Delray Beach, Florida: St Lucie Press.Google Scholar
- Olson, G.M., and Olson, J.S. (2001). "Distance matters." Human Computer Interaction, 15, 139--179. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Olson, G. M., Olson, J. S., Carter, M., and Storrø sten, M. (1992) Small group design meetings: An analysis of collaboration. Human Computer Interaction. 7, 347--374.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pool, J. (1976) "Coalition formation in small groups with incomplete communication networks." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 34(1) 82--91.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Riolo, R.L., Cohen, M.D. and Axelrod, R. (2001) "Evolution of cooperation without reciprocity" Nature, 4(22), 441--443.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Rocco, E., Finholt, T.A., Hofer, E.C., & Herbsleb, J.D. (2001, April). Out of sight, short of trust. Presentation at the Founding Conference of the European Academy of Management. Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
- Sole, D., and Edmondson, A. (2002) Situated Knowledge and learning in dispersed teams. British Journal of Management 13, S17--S34.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Tajfel, H. (1978) Differentiation in social groups: Studies in social psychology of intergroup relations. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
- Teasley, S.D., Covi, L., Krishnan, M.S., and Olson, J.S. (2000). "How does radical collocation help a team succeed?" Proceedings of Computer-supported cooperative work. New York: ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Veinott, E.S., Olson, J.S., Olson, G.M., & Fu, X. (1999). Video helps remote work: Speakers who need to negotiate common ground benefit from seeing each other. In Proceedings of CHI 1999 (pp. 302--309). New York: ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- In-group/out-group effects in distributed teams: an experimental simulation
Recommendations
Collocation blindness in partially distributed groups: is there a downside to being collocated?
CHI '06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsUnder what circumstances might a group member be better off as a long-distance participant rather than collocated? We ran a set of experiments to study how partially-distributed groups collaborate when skill sets are unequally distributed. Partially ...
Using virtual interactions to explore leadership and collaboration in globally distributed teams
ICIC '10: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Intercultural collaborationDespite advances in collaboration software, globally distributed teams face significant challenges, including variations in communication style, work behaviors, expectations and establishing common ground. Virtual worlds allow distributed team members ...
The effects of asynchronous computer-mediated group interaction on group processes
Special issue: Psychology and the internetThis article reports a study undertaken to investigate some of the social psychological processes underlying computer-supported group discussion in natural computer-mediated contexts. Based on the concept of deindividuation, it was hypothesized that ...
Comments