Ronald E. Rice

Technology adaption: the case of a computer-supported inter-organizational virtual team 1

The adaptation process for new technology is not yet well understood. This study analyzes how an inter-organizational virtual team, tasked with creating a highly innovative product over a 10 month period, adapted the use of a collaborative technology and successfully achieved its challenging objectives. The study of such a virtual team is especially useful for extending our understanding of the adaptation process as virtual teams have more malleable structures than typical organizational units and controlled group experiments. Data were obtained from observations of weekly virtual meetings, electronic log files, interviews, and weekly questionnaires administered to team members. We found that the team initially experienced significant misalignments among the pre-existing organizational environment, group, and technology structures. To resolve these misalignments, the team modified the organizational environment and group structures, leaving the technology structure intact. However, as the team proceeded, a series of events unfolded that caused the team to reevaluate and further modify its structures. This final set of modifications involved reverting back to the pre-existing organizational environment, while new technology and group structures emerged as different from both the pre-existing and the initial ones. A new model of the adaptation process-one that integrates these findings and those of several previous models-is proposed.

Electronic Emotion Socioemotional Content in a Computer-Mediated Communication Network

This article investigates a new communication medium—public computer conferencing—by separately and jointly analyzing two basic aspects of human communication: (1) content, the extent to which such systems can support socioemotional communication, and (2) connectivity, communication patterns among system users. Results indicate that (1) computer-mediated communication systems can facilitate a moderate exchange of socioemotional content and (2) basic network roles did not generally differ in percentage of socioemotional content. Some fundamental issues in analyzing content and networks in computer-mediated systems, such as structural equivalence versus cohesion network approaches, are discussed in light of these results.

Influences, usage, and outcomes of Internet health information searching: Multivariate results from the Pew surveys

This paper provides results from seven major nationally representative datasets (two in detail) from the Pew Internet and American Life Project to answer two primary questions: (1) what influences people to seek online health information and (2) what influences their perceived outcomes from having access to this information? Cross-tabulations, logistic regressions, and multidimensional scaling are applied to these survey datasets. The strongest and most consistent influences on ever, or more frequently, using the Internet to search for health information were sex (female), employment (not fulltime), engaging in more other Internet activities, more specific health reasons (diagnosed with new health problem, ongoing medical condition, prescribed new medication or treatment), and helping another deal with health issues. Internet health seeking is consistently similar to general Internet activities such as email, news, weather, and sometimes hobbies. A variety of outcomes from or positive assessments of searching for Internet health information are predicted most strongly by sex (female), engaging in other Internet activities, Internet health information seeking including more frequent health seeking, more specific health reasons, belonging to an online support group sharing health interests, and helping another deal with an illness or major health condition.

Comparing internet and mobile phone usage: digital divides of usage, adoption, and dropouts

Abstract Results from a national representative telephone survey of Americans in 2000 show that Internet and mobile phone usage was very similar, and that several digital divides exist with respect to both Internet and mobile phone usage. The study identifies and analyzes three kinds of digital divides for both the Internet and mobile phones—users/nonuser, veteran/recent, and continuing/dropout—and similarities and differences among those digital divides based on demographic variables. The gap between Internet users and nonusers is associated with income and age, but no longer with gender and race, once other variables are controlled. The gap between mobile phone users and nonusers is associated with income, work status, and marital status. The veteran/recent Internet gap is predicted by income, age, education, phone user, membership in community religious organizations, having children, and gender; for mobile phones, age, work status and marital status are predictors. The gap between continuing and dropout users is predicted by education for Internet usage and income for mobile phone usage. Finally, cross-categorization of Internet and mobile phone usage/nonusage is distinguished (significantly though weakly) primarily by income and education. Thus, there are several digital divides, each predicted by somewhat different variables; and while Internet and mobile phone usage levels in 2000 were about the same, their users overlap but do not constitute completely equivalent populations.

The Internet, 1995-2000 Access, Civic Involvement, and Social Interaction

This research, which began fielding surveys in 1995 (and thereafter with variation in 1996, 1997, and 2000), was apparently the first to use national random telephone survey methods to track social and community aspects of Internet use and compare users and nonusers. The program has explored the Internet in terms of trends in access, political and civic involvement, and social interaction. The authors uncovered serendipitously what they call the Internet dropout phenomenon. The findings have found a decline in some aspects of the digital divide, especially once awareness has been achieved and when the year of adoption is considered. Contrary to the pessimistic assertions of many, no loss was discerned in terms of the indicators of political or community involvement. The findings support a more positive interpretation of the Internets impact, at least in terms of interpersonal communication, where Internet use was associated with greater levels of telephone use (although not of correspondence by mail) and social interaction (although this was more widely dispersed). It also led to many face-to-face friendships that were judged by respondents as a positive experience. Thus, some of the earliest research on the social consequences of the Internet, confirmed during a half-decade of additional surveys, finds a decreasing but still significant digital divide, few negative effects on civic involvement and social interaction, and some positive consequences.

Individual and network influences on the adoption and perceived outcomes of electronic messaging

Abstract Theories of organizational information processing and social influence are applied, using network analytical methods, to longitudinal data from a small government office surveyed immediately before, and nine months after, the implementation of an electronic messaging system. The results provide strong support for the role of a critical mass in influencing adoption and for the role of pre-usage expectations in forming enduring evaluations of some outcomes of an EMS. They also show slight support for the roles of social information processing and certain organizational information processing variables. Implications for theories and research designs concerning the use and impacts of computer-mediated organizational media are discussed.

Reinvention in the Innovation Process

innovations (Rogers et al., 1977 and 1978), beginning with Ryan and Gross’s analysis (1943) of farmers who adopted the use of hybrid corn. This tremendous diffusion of diffusion studies has received attention by authors such as Downs and Mohr (1976) who attempt to explain the phenomenon. They suggest that reference to change as a product of diffusion allows generalizability of the discussion from a particular case to a common process. And, they argue, association with the wide body of diffusion studies and theory also adds a touch of class to a study of change. This generality, and status by association, may often be a strength, improving the diffusion of the research results; but it may also be a weakness, increasing the possibility of more contradictions in the diffusion literature. One model of the innovation process has been developed as a tool for the analysis of technology transfer decisions (Eveland et al., 1977). The process of adopting (and, at some stages, rejecting) an innovation is

Configurations of Relationships in Different Media: FtF, Email, Instant Messenger, Mobile Phone, and SMS

This study analyzes the configurations of communication relationships in Korea through face-to-face, email, instant messaging, mobile phone, and short message service media. Through a web survey, we asked respondents to identify (1) for each of the five media (2) up to five of their most frequent communication partners, (3) the partner’s social role (including colleagues, family, friends), and (4) their own employment category. Individual-level and network-level analyses were used to compare variations in communication relationships and configurations of relationships among social roles overall, within each medium, and for different employment categories, and to identify configurations of relationships across media. IM, SMS, and mobile phone are distinctive media for students, mobile phone for homeworkers, and email for organizational workers. Moreover, mobile phones tend to be used in reinforcing strong social ties, and text-based CMC media tend to be used in expanding relationships with weak ties. Finally, face-to-face (FtF) seems to be a universal medium without significant differences across respondents’ employment categories.

Emerging factors in user evaluation of the World Wide Web

This study develops an integrative model and conceptually-based scales for evaluating the extent to which Web services satisfy information needs that arise outside the traditional organizational/work domain. Three streams of literature are considered: usage of the Web, user satisfaction with the Web, and individual performance and the impact of information technology. Based on this literature, as well as focus groups and pilot surveys, questionnaire items were developed and analyzed across three surveys. Predictors of performance included greater weekly usage, finding information on hobbies and interests, ability to find information on the Web that is current, reduced shopping cost and travel, finding otherwise difficult-to-locate information, and fun/entertainment.

Computer-mediated inter-organizational knowledge-sharing: Insights from a virtual team innovating using a collaborative tool

How does a team use a computer-mediated technology to share and reuse knowledge when the team is inter-organizational and virtual, when the team must compete for the attention of team members with collocated teams, and when the task is the creation of a completely new innovation? From a review of the literature on knowledge sharing and reuse using collaborative tools, three propositions are generated about the likely behavior of the team in using the collaborative tool and reusing the knowledge put in the knowledge repository. A multi-method longitudinal research study of this design team was conducted over their ten-month design effort. Both qualitative and quantitative data were obtained. Results indicated that the propositions from the literature were insufficient to explain the behavior of the team. We found that ambiguity of the task does not determine use of a collaborative tool; that tool use does not increase with experience; and that knowledge that is perceived as transient whether it really is transient or not is unlikely to be referenced properly for later search and retrieval. Implications for practice and theory are discussed.