Trust Evolvement in Hybrid Team Collaboration: A Longitudinal Case Study

Trust is referred to as a key facilitator in team collaboration as it is an important condition for information sharing. In this paper, we investigate factors associated with the establishment of trust in hybrid teams that collaborate virtually as well as face-to-face. Furthermore, we deliver an instrument to understand trust development in teams. We describe exploratory results of the instrument by running experiments with teams of collaborating students in China and Netherlands. Quantitative and qualitative analysis has been used to analyze these data. Finally, in the analysis of the experiments we describe initial patterns of trust development in groups from both individual and group perspectives, in two different cultural contexts.     

Exploring Individual Trust Factors in Computer Mediated Group Collaboration: A Case Study Approach

Trust has become more and more important in the context of mixed use of longitudinal face-to-face and computer mediated group collaboration using Group Support System tools. Previous research has investigated trust factors in different dimensions. This paper takes the perspective of individual trust and aims to explore the new trust factors and also their detailed second level trust sub-factors in computer mediated collaboration over time. We have taken the interviews using the student groups during the two year-long collaboration project based case studies. We have validated the previous factors and found seven new trust factors and thirty one sub-factors which are associated with the main factors. Furthermore, based on the new factors, this paper has also designed an innovative trust traffic light model with suggested steps which could be easily used to help analyze the trust factors development over time for future longitudinal studies.     

Group Support Systems and Virtual Collaboration: The HKNET Project

Groupware, and particularly Group Support System (GSS) tools, support organisational co-ordination and interaction between various organisational structures working within a decentralised market that evolves in different times and places. In 1998, 1999 and 2000 an educational project (HKNet) between the City University of Hong Kong (China) and the Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands) has shown that remote collaboration can lead to successful problem solving in multicultural groups. This study focused on 178 participants, all of whom were involved in academic courses on software engineering, informatics and management using e-mail, videoconferencing, Internet phone connections and GroupSystems^T for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions. The task was to participate in a joint project on a chosen IT-related subject resulting in a joint report. The HKNet project created a win-win situation for both universities. Throughout the three-year project, GroupSystems^T supported efficient group problem solving, development of new-shared meaning and cultural attitude changes. The groups wrote creative reports that reflected their having worked successfully together. This paper presents selected results in an abbreviated form and the lessons learned from the last three years of the HKNet experience. Special emphasis is given to social and cultural phenomena. Limitations of our study will be discussed before to conclude with future research plans.     

A Framework for Adopting Collaboration 2.0 Tools for Virtual Group Decision Making

Decision making in virtual teams is gaining momentum due to globalization, mobility of employees, and the need for collective and rapid decision making by members who are in different locations. These factors resulted in a proliferation of virtual team software support tools for decision making, the latest of which is social software (also known as collaboration 2.0), which includes tools such as wikis, blogs, microblogs, discussion forums, and social networking platforms. This paper describes the potential use of collaboration 2.0 software for improving the process and the specific tasks in virtual group decision making. The paper proposes a framework for exploring the fitness between social software and the major activities in the group decision making process and how such tools can be successfully adopted. Specifically, we use a fit-viability model to help assessing whether social software fit a decision task and what organizational factors are important for such tools to be effective. Representative research issues related to the use of such tools are also presented.     

Technical Efficiency of Producer Cooperatives versus Private Firms: A Longitudinal Empirical Study

In this paper, we hypothesize that producer cooperatives are more efficient than private firms, even when the impact of the political and economic environment is controlled for, and irrespective of the orientation with which efficiency is assessed; that is, whether firms target the reduction of inputs or the expansion of outputs. The empirical application focuses on a longitudinal population of olive oil manufacturing firms operating in the south of Spain from 1944 to 1998. The analyses clearly show that producer cooperatives are more efficient than private firms.     

A Study Towards Improving Web-Based Collaboration Through Availability of Group Awareness Information

Group awareness can be broadly defined as consciousness and information of various aspects of the group and its members. It also refers to information received by members of a group about the other group members, about mutually employed objects, and about current group processes, in order to efficiently carry out certain tasks. The group awareness information presented in this paper is designed to capture group member activities and their behaviors in web-based collaborative work. It consists of activity, availability, and commitment/disposition information. The first two parameters appear as a visual display representing cumulative data and changes accordingly when the group begins working together. The last parameter is captured during group work and is summarized at the end of the group work task. This paper reports on the results of a study in a controlled experiment that examined group performance on a given task in a web-based group decision support system with and without group awareness information. In particular, the study examined how group awareness information impacts the quality of the work effort and a given task, group decision making by members in the same group and different groups, the communications among group members during the completion of an online collaborative authoring task, the cohesiveness among group members, and the commitment/disposition of engagement of each member of the work group.     

Individual Priming in Virtual Team Decision-Making

Virtual teams have different interactions than face-to-face teams because they rely on information and communication technologies, which can impede or assist certain human cognitive processes. Past research has shown that although virtual teams exchange more information than face-to-face teams, poor decisions often result, because team members do not consider the unique information they receive from others. Drawing from cognitive psychology, our research explored a unique way to improve team decision-making through the use of cognitive priming. We proposed that priming group members to pay attention to others or to engage in counterfactual thinking would improve team members’ cognition and, therefore, team performance. Prior research with individuals and brainstorming teams has shown these forms of priming to improve performance; however, no research has attempted to use priming to improve the outcomes of virtual team decision-making, which requires deeper interaction and cognitive involvement than brainstorming. We performed two lab experiments using primes that have been found to improve the individual decision-making process. We found that priming had some impact, but it did not significantly improve decision quality. Various reasons are discussed to explain why priming techniques may not be as powerful in teams as in individuals, and future research ideas are suggested to build on our initial work on priming in virtual team decision-making.     

Macrocognition in Collaboration: Analyzing Processes of Team Knowledge Building with CoPrA

Sophisticated collaboration software allows teams that are dispersed in space and time to work together. Nevertheless, to reach their common goals, distributed teams—and the professional facilitators who support them by intervention techniques—are faced with the communication challenges arising from dispersed settings, including task coordination and effective information exchange. When distributed teams use collaboration software, however, traces of their collaboration are left behind. These traces provide an underused source of data which can be analyzed and be used to inform the design of interventions aimed at improving collaboration in distributed teams. This paper investigates the untapped potential for understanding collaboration, and in particular, the macro-cognitive processes of team knowledge building. These processes rely on information shared and knowledge structures developed by team members which are also referred to as team cognition. We performed a qualitative content analysis applying the COllaboration PRocess Analysis technique, CoPrA, and a framework for measuring team knowledge building. Communication data was collected from 18 participants assigned to six distributed teams. While working collaboratively on a problem-solving task teams were supported with synchronous collaboration software. The results show that by using a cognitive perspective on teams, all the hypothesized processes of team knowledge building could be identified in collaboration traces. Moreover, our analysis shows that CoPrA enables us to identify key characteristics of (1) team behavior, e.g., whether teams are rather solution-oriented or problem minded, show consensus-oriented behavior, withhold evaluative arguments, discuss ideas in breadth and/or depth, or spend much effort on coordination as well as (2) behavior of team members, e.g., who show non-participation, are willing to share or predominantly guide coordination. Future research could adopt this approach to improve our understanding of the dynamics of collaboration patterns and its effects on team performance to inform collaboration facilitation in distributed settings.     

国外虚拟团队的信任问题研究动态

随着全球化、信息化和电子商务的发展,出现了虚拟团队这一新兴的组织形式。本文回顾了国际上对虚拟团队信任问题的提出、作用、影响因素及实证的研究并进行了综述。     

Team Decision Making in Virtual and Face-to-Face Environments

We conducted a laboratory study on 65 teams performing a decision-making task. The two experimental manipulations involved the use of different communication media and decision frames. The decision frame manipulation involved informing the team to choose the demonstrably correct solution versus the solution that seemed most likely. These factors interacted to reveal novel insights about their multiplicative effects on decision processes and team psychological states. Further, main effects of the communication medium were found for team psychological states and decision behavior. Results suggest that virtual teams were at a disadvantage when the task was framed as having a demonstrably correct solution. Conversely, face-to-face teams were more effective, particularly when told that the task had a demonstrably correct solution. Face-to-face teams were more effective on all decision behaviors. Media synchronicity theory serves as a unifying framework to contextualize this research in the literature.     

信任与战略决策绩效:对中国家族企业高层管理团队的一个实证研究

大量文献讨论了我国私营企业中的“信任”问题;许多轶闻式的证据也表明,私营企业高层管理团队成员的彼此信任程度极大地影响了其绩效和成长。本文试图从高层管理团队的角度,探讨信任与企业战略决策绩效的关系,并揭示高层管理团队内信任的影响因素。通过实证研究发现,我国私营企业高层管理团队内的信任度与团队成员间的社会交往程度有非常密切的联系,同时,信任度直接影响了高管层的战略决策绩效。     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Satisfaction with Group Work

Satisfaction with group work is an important and frequently studied phenomenon that often determines whether a new tool, technology, or method is successfully implemented in an organization. We report on a longitudinal study of small groups which used regression to model how satisfaction with the process, outcome, and group evolves over multiple sessions as a function of performance measures and prior satisfaction levels. The results indicated that current performance contributed less to satisfaction as the study proceeded and by the end of the study period satisfaction with the process and outcomes were determined almost exclusively by prior satisfaction levels. In general, the conclusions were dependent on the point in time at which the analysis was conducted and on the object of satisfaction under consideration. The results highlight the importance of longitudinal studies, rather than one-shot approaches, for understanding individual satisfaction with group work.     

Team Roles and Hierarchic System in Group Discussion

Conventional systems for classifying team roles refer only to the function criterion and two categories, task and social; in addition, roles and behaviors are unspecialized, a one-to-one correspondence being assumed between them. These theoretical problems have resulted in overly fragmented roles as well as oversimplified categories. Therefore, this article aims to reveal essential roles and a unified system to classify them. In order to elucidate the team roles essential for discussion, a questionnaire survey was administered for Study 1, with the result that just ten discussant-roles were identified. For Study 2, in order to verify a classification system for the discussant-roles, participant groups were asked to discuss itineraries for an overnight group trip during the winter holiday. The results showed that a three-criterion model based on the deep roles is superior to the traditional model. In this hierarchical system, characteristic behaviors are expressed according to ten discussant-roles, which are divided into six categories, using a combination of three criteria. This system not only solves the theoretical issues but also contributes to improving members’ discussion behaviors.     

Strengthening Identification with the Team in Virtual Teams: The Leaders' Perspective

The number of virtual teams is increasing in today's workplaces. In virtual teams, the members can have different cultural backgrounds, they often work in different countries and are professionals in their own fields. In addition, as such diverse and dispersed teams communicate mainly through communication technology this raises the challenge for the team leader of how to unify the team and get the members to identify themselves with the team. This qualitative study focuses on four virtual team leaders and their attempts to strengthen the team members' identification with the team through computer-mediated communication. The results show four different tactics employed in enhancing identification with the team: catering for the individual, giving positive feedback, bringing out common goals and workings and talking up the team activities and face-to-face meetings. The roles of organizational change and technology in identification with virtual teams are also discussed.     

Team Virtues and Performance: An Examination of Transparency, Behavioral Integrity, and Trust

Virtue-based research in business ethics has increased over the last two decades, but most of the research has focused on the actions of an individual person. In this article, we examine the associations among team-level virtues using data from two studies. Specifically, we investigate whether transparency (usually thought to be an organizational- or collective-level construct), behavioral integrity (usually thought to be an individual-level construct), and trust (usually thought to be an individual-level construct) can be conceptualized and operate at the team level of analysis and, if so, what their relationships are to team performance. Using Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis, we found in both studies that team transparency was positively related to team behavioral integrity, which in turn was positively related to team trust. We also found evidence of a positive relationship between team trust and team performance. Implications of these findings for future teams and ethics research are discussed.     

Organizational Change in Difficult Times: A Case Study on the Top Management Team of Founder Group from 1999 to 2008

This paper examines organizational changes in Founder Group during 1999–2008, one of the leading computer manufacturers in China. It aims to reveal the basic logic behind the top management team’s behaviors for organizational change in firms facing difficulties. Results show that building a strong management team is a prerequisite for successful organizational changes. Furthermore, there is evidence indicating that top managers should make strategic adjustment, and seek solution to cash-flow-related problems to achieve successful organizational transition.     

Trust in Companies and in CEOs: A Comparative Study of the Main Influences

Trust is a crucial factor for the long-term economic success of a company. However, not only does the company establish trust, but the CEO representing the company builds up trust as well and, therefore, also influences the company’s success. Our study examines how different dimensions of trust (i.e., ability, integrity, benevolence, and information quality) influence the degree of overall trust in a company and in CEOs. Nevertheless, dimensions that influence trust in a CEO can be completely different to those influencing trust in companies. Companies and CEOs that act on an international level can hardly be experienced individually, and thus people get information about the company via media use. Therefore, additionally we examine which kind of media is used for getting information about a company or CEO and whether a relationship exists between media use and trust. Findings from a survey in Switzerland (n = 245) show that companies are more trusted than CEOs and that the items which influence overall trust differ between CEOs and companies. Social responsibility as a benevolence item is important for both groups. Regarding information on different media channels, users of traditional media like newspapers, TV, and radio are most critical regarding trust in companies and CEOs.     

The Moderating Role of Trust in SME Owner/Managers' Decision-Making about Collaboration

This paper analyzes the impact of trust and trust agents on small to medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) ability to derive benefits from it. The findings suggest that trust is a significant factor moderating the way SME owners/managers perceive the potential benefits of networks. These findings support earlier research that posited that networking provides an avenue for SME owners/managers to learn about potential business opportunities. However, Australian owner/managers that belong to networks do not demonstrate behavior and practices typical of either explorative or exploitative networks. Instead, the findings suggest that in addition to the typical networks, a third type of network should be added to the literature—embryo-explorative networks. Such networks describe SMEs owners/managers who attend network meetings and report on what they learn about new opportunities from the networks; however, they do not tend to engage in typical collaborative activities (such as joint marketing venture) as described in the networking literature. Embryo-explorative networks are defined as those that have yet to develop into the explorative networks—probably because there has been insufficient time to build trusting relationships required to foster collaborative ventures that involve some risks.