Renate Fruchter

Interpersonal trust in cross-functional, geographically distributed work: A longitudinal study

With increasing globalization and the proliferation of communication technologies, more people are working in cross-functional, geographically distributed teams. Although trust is clearly an important ingredient in these collaborations, little is known about the challenges this new work and social environment creates for the development of trust. Different disciplinary perspectives, different regional or national cultures, and the lack of face-to-face interaction when working at a distance raise significant barriers to developing trust between distant co-workers. We, therefore, posit that traditional models of trust need to be adapted to describe the development of trust between cross-functional, geographically distributed partners. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a longitudinal study of architecture, engineering and construction management students engaged in designing and planning a

A Framework to Analyze Knowledge Work in Distributed Teams

5 million construction project in distributed teams. Our results suggest that cross-functional, geographically distributed workers may rely on early impressions of perceived trustworthiness when evaluating how their distant partners are delivering on commitments, because reliable information about actual follow-through is lacking or difficult to interpret. Consistent with this, we found that perceived trustworthiness, perceived follow-through and trust were relatively stable over time. We conclude that initial perceptions of trustworthiness are particularly important in cross-functional, geographically distributed work, although research is needed to draw comparisons with traditional work environments. # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Collaborative Mechatronic System Design

This article presents a framework to analyze knowledge work in the changing context of new ways of working. Knowledge work increasingly takes place as collaboration from different and changing workplaces due to mobility, multilocational, and geographical distribution of participants. We define the framework based on five key factors that pose challenges to the performance and productivity of knowledge work performed in distributed teams. The framework extends and integrates traditional performance models of task, team structure, and work process, with context factors like workplace, organization policy, and information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure. The framework is applied in a qualitative comparative cross-case analysis to eight globally distributed teams in two Fortune 100 high-tech companies. We conclude with a series of specific challenges for each factor when studying distributed knowledge work. It is shown that due to changing contexts knowledge workers, teams, and organizations need to constantly adapt, readjust, and realign according to the five factors.

Conceptual, collaborative building design through shared graphics

Integrated product and process development is accomplished by multidisciplinary teams To support the team approach we have de veloped ICM the Interdisciplinary Communication Medium It accommodates and integrates many perspectives within a design and manufactur ing enterprise The ICM prototype integrates a shared graphic modeling environment and network based services The graphics include 3D models of evolving designs and network based services include knowledge-based reasoning tools that critique the performance of the proposed device ICM implements an iterative communication cycle in which team members (1) propose form models in a shared graphic modeling en vironment, (2) interpret the shared graphic models as semantic discipline models (3) gather information by using the discipline models to cus tomize their search for additional discipline information (4) critique the discipline models to derive behavior and compare it to function (5) explain the results to other members of the team and (6) route change notifications for proposed changes

Degrees of engagement in interactive workspaces

The Interdisciplinary Communication Medium computer environment integrates a shared graphic modeling environment with network-based services to accommodate many perspectives in an architecture/engineering/construction team.

CoMem: Designing an interaction experience for reuse of rich contextual knowledge from a corporate memory

This paper presents a new perspective of the impact of collaboration technology on the degrees of engagement and specific interaction zones in interactive workspaces. The study is at the intersection of the design of physical work spaces, i.e., bricks, rich electronic content such as video, audio, sketching, CAD, i.e., bits, and new ways people behave in communicative events, i.e., interaction. The study presents: (1) an innovative multi-modal collaboration technology, called RECALL (patented by Stanford University), that supports the seamless, real-time capture of concept generation during project brainstorming and project review sessions, (2) the deployment of RECALL in an interactive workspace that supports real project review sessions, called FISHBOWL, and (3) the observations of the impact of RECALL and the interactive workspace on degrees of engagement and interaction zones as it is deployed in the specific FISHBOWL sessions.

Internet-based web-mediated collaborative design and learning environment

Managing and reusing knowledge in architecture, engineering, and construction firms can lead to greater competitive advantage, improved designs, and more effective management of constructed facilities. However, reuse often fails because knowledge is not captured; it is captured out of context, rendering it not reusable; or there are no formal mechanisms for finding and retrieving reusable knowledge. This paper presents ongoing research on design knowledge reuse that introduces the notion of knowledge in context from a corporate perspective. We argue that in order for knowledge to be reusable, the user should be able to see the rich context in which this knowledge was originally created and interact with it. We call a repository of such knowledge in context the corporate memory. We describe empirical observations of designers reusing knowledge from their personal design experiences. Based on these observations, we formalize two key activities in the process of knowledge reuse from a corporate repository: finding reusable items and understanding these items in context. We formalize six degrees of exploration that lead to understanding. We describe a prototype system, CoMem, that supports these activities. CoMem is distinguished from the document-centric state of practice solutions by its approach of “overview first, zoom and filter, and then details on demand.” In order to accomplish this approach we propose three metaphors: corporate map, fisheye lens, and storyteller. These metaphors and their implementation in CoMem are illustrated using an industry scenario.

Interpretation Objects for Multi-Disciplinary Design

This paper presents an overview of an on-going effort that focuses on combined research and curriculum development. It presents a tool kit of collaboration technologies developed by our group, and an education testbed for multidisciplinary and geographically distributed teams that exercise the Internet-based Web-mediated collaborative technologies tool kit. The tool kit of collaboration technologies is aimed to assist team members, project managers and owners to: (1) capture, share, publish, and link knowledge and information related to a specific project, (2) navigate through the archived knowledge and information, (3) evaluate and explain the products performance, and (4) interact in a timely fashion. The Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) course offered at Stanford University acts as a testbed for cutting edge information technologies and a forum that trains a new generation of professionals to team up with practitioners from other disciplines and take advantage of information technology to produce a better, faster, cheaper product. The paper concludes with a number of questions regarding the impact of information technologies on team performance and behavior.

Bricks & Bits & Interaction

The computer-based representation of semantic meaning for multi-disciplinary design remains a difficult problem. Commercial computer-aided design (CAD) systems which emulate the drafting metaphor are inadequate for representing complex semantics and accommodating dynamic changes during the design stage. Research computer systems which impose a formal symbolic approach for representing designs typically are unable to support fast, multi-faceted visualization and feedback that designers can obtain with pencil and paper. By building upon design theory literature and observation of a case study of an actual building design project, we have identified and devised computational strategies for addressing these needs. We describe a conceptual approach and a prototype implementation, Semantic Modeling Extension (SME), for representing multi-disciplinary semantic meaning of a shared 3D graphic building model. SME is part of an on-going research project which explores the development of an Interdisciplinary Communication Medium (ICM) for collaborative design. Our approach distinguishes sharply between the interactive graphic model necessary for creative design and the symbolic models necessary for automated reasoning, yet provides a dynamic link between the graphic model and the symbolic models. The fundamental concepts discussed in this paper include: (1) Context, a domain of relatively independent reasoning about the design performance; (2) Feature Object, a pointer to a graphic entity and an associated symbolic object, representing the meaning of that graphic entity within a particular Context; (3) Interpretation Object, a Context and an associated list of Features; and (4) Interpretation Manager Object, a list of Interpretation Objects associated with a shared 3D building model to support multiple points of view. The prototype provides an open system integration architecture which enables designers to share a graphic 3D model, yet dynamically support multiple interpretations of the design. We describe the operation of SME with an illustrative example.

Co-ordinating Distributed Knowledge: A Study into the Use of an Organisational Memory

In today’s information technology (IT) and communication intensive environment people, technology and build environment designers, and organizations are challenged to understand the impacts on the workspace, content that is created and shared, and social, behavioral and cognitive aspects of work, play, learning, and community. The study is at the intersection of the design of physical spaces, i.e., bricks, rich electronic content such as video, audio, sketching, CAD, i.e., bits, and new ways people behave in communicative events using affordances of IT augmented spaces and content, i.e., interaction. The study proposes two hypotheses.