Anne-Françoise Rutkowski

“Is It Already 4 a.m. in Your Time Zone?”: Focus Immersion and Temporal Dissociation in Virtual Teams

Using a sample of students (N = 118) engaged in an 8-week project to build an e-book chapter, this study finds that cognitive absorption impacts interpersonal conflict and team performance. In particular, virtual teams with aggregated higher levels of focus immersion and temporal dissociation (dimensions of cognitive absorption) demonstrate higher levels of performance and interpersonal conflict. Furthermore, there is an interaction effect between focus immersion and temporal dissociation that moderates the impact on performance and interpersonal conflict. The teams with aggregated high levels of focus immersion and aggregated low levels of temporal dissociation demonstrated the best performance and lowest levels of interpersonal conflict. The authors also found that individuals with high levels of focus immersion preferred asynchronous communication media, whereas individuals with low levels of temporal dissociation preferred synchronous communication media. The implications are discussed.

Virtual space and place: theory and test

Little is known about how individuals come to relate to settings in virtual worlds (VWs), which are defined as digital environments in which individuals, groups, and even organizations interact in virtual (that is to say, nonphysical) spaces. This research develops a theory of virtual space and place (VSP), specifically relating this to the setting of Second Life (SL), a prominent social virtual world. We explore how three-dimensional space, as perceived by users, is able to provide them with an interactive experience with virtual objects, as well as with other VW denizens. To test our theory, we build interactive work tools in SL that are designed to reflect various degrees of motion range and to influence presence. The three information technology tools are evaluated by 150 business professionals who are either familiar or unfamiliar with SL. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.

Communication in Virtual Teams: Ten Years of Experience in Education

Engineering teams are often globally distributed and comprise participants from multiple disciplines and cultures who rely on professional communication support. Companies, organizations, and institutions increasingly embrace these virtual teams and use a variety of information and communication technologies to support synchronous and asynchronous team interaction (e.g., chat, videoconferencing, email, group support systems, instant messaging, and forums). More and more, communication takes place without being face-to-face. Students should be prepared for such a workplace. However, it is difficult to emulate the specifics of real-world projects in a 100-hour university course. One way to bring the real world into the classroom is by combining the efforts of 100 students into a 10,000-hour project. This paper describes the Hong Kong-Netherlands project (HKNet) as an example of an integrated learning activity among multiple international institutions that brings the reality of engineering management with professional communication into educational contexts. Virtual teams comprising students from different parts of the world build websites on specific software topics that are then integrated into a single product. HKNet has entered its tenth year, and over 1000 students have participated.

Growing Pains with Information Overload

Emotional and cognitive overload with information technology can be caused by more than just too many digital devices.

Dealing with Risk in Incident Management: An Application of High Reliability Theory

In this paper we investigate the application of High Reliability Theory (HRT) to the field of operational risk management. In particular, we illustrate how HRT can contribute to the analysis of the risks associated with the Incident Management process at the IT department of a large European financial institution. We examine the characteristics of an organizational context that favor high reliability of IT processes. Through a detailed analysis of interactive complexity and tight-coupling as determinants of reliability, and based on empirical qualitative data, we are able to propose solutions and techniques to deal with risk. Based on these findings, we argue that HRT may indeed serve as a suitable theoretical framework for conducting comprehensive risk analysis and management.

Constructionist theory to explain effects of GDSS

This paper analyses communication between actors as a major theoretical element in understanding the link between GDSS (Group Decision Support System) and the construction of shared meaning. The concept of shared meaning is discussed by using two schools of thought: Constructionism versus Constructivism. The schools differ in their approach to processes of communication and conversational techniques. Constructionist theory focuses on the necessity to activate process of intersubjectivity between individuals to reach shared meaning while constructivist theory focuses on process of negotiation. Arguments are given in this paper in favor of the Constructionist approach for dealing with the high complexity of the organizational issues involved in GDSS. The two theoretical approaches were operationalized under two different paradigms of communication: Intersubjective (Constructionist) versus Negotiative (Constructivist) and were compared in an experimental set-up. Better results were found for a GDSS based on the Constructionist paradigm.

INNOVATION IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS EDUCATION-VI HKNET: INSTILLING REALISM INTO THE STUDY OF EMERGING TRENDS

In this paper we describe • explicit materials that were generated in an ongoing effort to help undergraduate and Masters-level students learn about off-shore outsourcing and radical technical changes in Information Technology development, and • the environment in which these materials were developed and continue to be distributed. The environment provides a realistic, effective way for students to learn about emerging trends. Over the last seven years, we tried to bring realism into Information Systems education through a joint project between universities in Hong Kong, Orlando, Tilburg, Eindhoven, Grenoble, and more recently, Beijing. The HKNET project offers an integrated learning activity across multiple international institutions and brings Information Systems reality into educational contexts. It allows students to focus on organizational trends.

Fostering Group Collaboration in Virtual Worlds

In this paper, we investigate the potential of Virtual Worlds (VWs) in fostering group collaboration in Virtual Teams. A team building activity, the Get Together Activity (GTA), was built in Second Life. It consisted of a set of eight activities. The first six intend to offer the participants experiences of transformed social interaction and embodiment, facilitating a certain familiarity with the VW. The last two activities encourage collaborative experience with team members through coordination in time and space. The article reports the design of these activities and places them in the context literature on VWs. Eighty-one participants were invited to fill in a survey evaluating the GTA. The results are presented and analyzed. The results of fourteen structured interviews with a focus group of participants provided more insights.

The Effect of Group Support Systems on the Emergence of Unique Information in a Risk Management Process: A Field Study

The management of operational risks, i.e., risks of loss resulting from inadequate or failed processes, people and systems or from external events, is crucial for the stability of financial institutions. The international Basel II Capital Accord therefore has imposed a strict timing on the banks’ compliance with sound risk management practice. In this paper, we present results from a field study at a large bank on the use of Group Support Systems (GSS) as a novel approach for senior managers to identify operational risks in the bank’s Incident Management Process. Our research leads to two important findings. First, we find that the use of GSS enables unique risks to reach a short-list of crucial risks to be managed by the bank. Second, the use of GSS allows an isolated minority of senior managers to implicitly influence the decision of the group on the risk management decision process.

Implementation and acceptance of e-learning in a hospital environment

The paper describes the implementation and acceptance of e-learning in a hospital environment using off-the-shelf technology. Twenty-eight nurses participated in a pilot study that was designed to support an electronic course on advanced electrocardiogram interpretation. The paper presents the procedure and the technologies used to support the e-learning activities. As a follow up of the pilot study, a survey was built and distributed amongst the caregivers of the hospital (N=203). The paper concludes first that the content of the course, a socially structured e-learning environment, as well as the available technologies are important factors to a successful implementation of an e-learning project. Secondly, the paper concludes that the acceptance of such a system to learn is widely supported amongst nurses but seems less convincing to paramedics and physicians. E-learning cannot be perceived as a substitute of a traditional face-to-face education, but when the e-learning environment is socially well structured, it becomes an efficient support to education in the hospital context.