Virtual Collaboration

Andrea Wiggins

IST 800

2/18/2008

Agenda

• Definition of virtual collaboration & motivation for theory

• Visualizations of the literature data - ways to see the gaps based on multiple variables

• The questions asked by researchers• Two examples: FLOSS & eScience• Preliminary theoretical model

Definition & Motivation

Virtual collaboration can be defined as cooperative work undertaken by distributed participants through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). As fast, reliable ICTs become ubiquitous in organizational environments, virtual collaboration is increasingly commonplace and ensuring the success of these ventures is progressively more important to a wide variety of practical contexts.

Organization Level & Themes

• Level of analysis is key distinguishing feature of research in organizational behavior

• Emergent themes from coding the article abstracts

Subtopics of Articles

Methods

Table Representation

Treemap Hierarchical View

Matrix Chart: 4 Variable View

Network Concept Map

Questions Researchers Ask

• Social structure: How do interpersonal relationships affect virtual collaboration?

• Technology & organizational change: How are technology’s effects on organizational change realized in virtual collaboration?

• Success: What factors affect success in virtual collaboration?

• Knowledge management & support systems: What are the tools and strategies needed to support virtual collaboration?

Examples: FLOSS & eScience

• Both are cyberinfrastructure-enabled distributed knowledge production activities, types of virtual collaborations

• eScience is big money research, but FLOSS is volunteer-driven, little cost

• eScience is a top-down movement due to high costs, but FLOSS is bottom-up due to self-organizing teams

Concepts + Questions

• Social structure is based on interpersonal relationships, and is affected by motivation and trust (among other factors!)

• Success is affected by social structural characteristics, as well as the ICTs available and the knowledge management tools & strategies used

Preliminary Theoretical Model

Thank you!

Questions?