Week 7: Cultures in Computer-Supported Collaborative Design

Dr. Xiangyu WANG

September 8th 2008

What is cross-cultural difference?

• Cross-cultural differences in collaboration supported through computer technology

• Studies in internationalization and localization of products and systems show the need to address such difference in the design of computational systems, products and services (Marcus, 2005).

• Same thing for computer-supported collaborative design tools?

Issues

• Although international design collaboration was found to inform creative processes in teams, misunderstanding and breakdowns in communication were also reported to be more frequent and severe than in homogeneous and collocated teams (Adler, 2002).

• We need knowledge about breakdowns in cross-cultural communication and how to overcome them.

• Systems developers can use these knowledge to support the development of CSCD tools.

• What can you think of cross-cultural differences in communication/collaboration?

Nine cultural dimensions

1. Activity Orientation: • Achievement Activity cultures are action oriented.

Doing something is preferred over doing nothing. Effectiveness can be measured by action.

• Ascription cultures value waiting for the right situation to do something. They value understanding the complexity of a situation and do not act in a hurry.

Nine cultural dimensions

2. Authority Conception: This dimension refers to the degree of equality or inequality among people accepted into a society or group. This also relates to leadership styles, roles and the degree of authority in an organization.

Nine cultural dimensions

3. Community Aspect: Communities and societies may differ in Collective or Individual Community values orientations. – Individual Community cultures act based on their

individual needs. – Collective Community cultures consider the needs of

others as much or more than personal needs. Collectivism also employs a “face” mechanism to defend oneself or others against losing face by means of saving or giving self-esteem and respect.

• Maintaining harmony in the global virtual team is also important to Collective Community oriented cultures.

Nine cultural dimensions

4. Contextual Communication: This dimension describes a culturally varying phenomenon of how much contextual information is given through verbal or nonverbal language. – In High Context Communication, most of the meaning

transmitted in the communication process is in the context, i.e. the immediate surroundings or cultural implicit knowledge, while very little is actually in the verbally transmitted message.

– In contrast, a culture in which most things are explicitly stated is a Low Context Communication culture.

Nine cultural dimensions

5. Communication and Relation Style: – Cultures with Neutral Relations tend to

hide their feelings in communication and interaction with others. Those cultures tend to appear “cold”.

– Expressive Relation cultures do not hesitate to show emotions and affectivity. Specific cultures maintain more neutral relationships than diffuse.

Nine cultural dimensions

6. Standards and Principles: Standards either build on particular relationships or on universal rules. – In Universal Principle cultures rules are the

same for everyone in every situation. • Universal Standard cultures prefer to gain a holistic view

before they engage in a discussion.

– In Particular Standard cultures, truth and principles are not absolute but dependent on the situation.

Nine cultural dimensions

7. Technology Orientation: – Cultures either tend to accept and favor technology as

a positive tool to dominate, structure and master nature,

– or cultures may see technology as something rather negative that controls a community, which is not desirable in such a culture because humans should be in harmony with nature.

Nine cultural dimensions

8. Time Orientation: – Monochronic Time societies tend to carry out tasks

sequentially without interruptions, – in Polychronic Time nations, people are comfortable

doing several tasks at once. This dimension is reflected in the rate and flow of information exchange, and in human discourse structures like turn taking, breaks and intervals.

• While Polychrome Time and Particular Standard oriented team members already looked into multiple possible design directions locally and came up with new ideas, Monochrome Time and Universal Standard orientated members approached the problem more structured and linearly. They started to develop the original concept theoretically.

Nine cultural dimensions

9. Uncertainty Avoidance: The level of tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty may vary in cultures. – Low Uncertainty cultures tolerate various

opinions and inconclusive or unsettled discussions. Change is accepted more easily.

– High Uncertainty cultures like to employ rules to control ambiguity and uncertainty. If uncertainty emerges it must be resolved.

• Team members who work on many particular ideas (Polychronic Time) at once can accept a certain degree of uncertainty concerning the process and results. This is not the case for High Uncertainty Avoidance team members, who want to know about all options in order to gain a universal understanding of the design space and problem.

Case Study 1

• Problem: How can one facilitate the continuous production and exchange of design ideas in distributed design learning teams?

• Solution: Provide an online space as central resource to manage all design project related contents. This group environment facilitates the storage, asynchronous creation and communication of design ideas and representations. Moreover, the local team can monitor parallel remote design processes of the remote team.

Case Study 1

• The exchange of asynchronous Low Contextual messages can clarify the understanding of the shared representations and local design processes displayed online.

• Polychrome Time cultures benefit from refraining from a specific order of design events (i.e. someone creates a document, another person edits it thereafter)

• Moreover asynchronous messages enable Monochrome Time oriented cultures to engage in SLOW THINKING.

Case Study 2: “GLOBAL RESOLUTION” ***

• Problem: How can one support the global virtual team to coordinate and resolve potentially conflicting local instructions?

Case Study 2

• Solution: Let local leaders’ advices not only local teams but also global virtual teams. Establish several synchronous computer-supported communication between peer leaders and team members over the project period.– Scheduling at least three sessions, one at the

beginning of the project, one interim and a final presentation, is a minimum requirement for establishing common ground.

– Design decisions can be made instantly.– Possible conflicts in advice can be discussed on the

spot.