A growing number of global companies have adopted distributed work processes. Collaborating with distributed team members across the globe has become common practice in larger companies. Modern conferencing systems allow for cost- and work-efficient distributed meetings. Communication systems for distributed collaboration increasingly take the importance of social factors such as awareness and social ergonomics into account. Tools and systems available today support document sharing and ad-hoc communication with multiple team members at the same time.
The research field of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) has contributed much to the modern workplace and enabled global organizations to connect and manage their workforces effectively. The next logical step for networked organizations is to provide teams, and even complete organizations, with tools, methods and processes to completely operate in virtually connected spaces. Our research interest lies in virtual teams and organizations that generally do not rely on physical office space but conduct all their team or organizational activity based on a distributed communication infrastructure only.
The purpose of this research is to explore the nature of virtual teams and organizations. We are interested in how team members conduct their daily work in situations when they can only communicate across distances using information and communication technology (ICT). Distributed work has been studied in isolated, ad-hoc situations. However, continuous distributed settings present new challenges for teams and organizations. We are interviewing virtual workers in order to understand how technology could help alleviate the issues.
(photo credit: http://bit.ly/v5sSnu)
-
Bos, N., Shami, N. S., Olson, J. S., Cheshin, A., & Nan, N. (2004) In-group/out-group effects in distributed teams: An experimental simulation. Proceedings of Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. 429-436.
-
Bos, N., Buyktur, A., Olson, J. S., Olson, G. M., & Voida, A. (2010) Shared identity helps partially distributed teams, but distance still matters. GROUP.
-
Voida, A., Bos, N. D., Olson, J. S., Olson, G. M., & Dunning, L. (2012) Cross-cutting faultlines of location and shared identity in the intergroup cooperation of partially distributed groups. Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI 2012. 3101 – 3110.
-
Voida, A., Olson, J. S., & Olson G. M. (2013) Turbulence in the Clouds: Challenges of cloud-based information work. Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI 2013.
-
Haines, J. K., Olson, J. S., & Olson, G. M. (2013) Here or there? How configuration of transnational teams impacts social capital. Proceedings of Interact 2013.
-
Olson, G. M. & Olson, J. S. (2010) Collaboration technologies. In J.J. Jacko & A.Sears (Eds.), Handbook of human-computer interaction (3rd Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
-
Olson, G. M. & Olson, J. S. (2015) Converging on theory from four sides. In D. Sonnenwald. (Ed.) Theory Development in Information Science: Reflecting on the Process. University of Texas Press.
-
National Research Council on the Science of Team Science (J. S. Olson included) (2015) Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. National Academies Press.
-
Kraut, R., Maher, M.L., Olson, J., Malone, T. W., Pirolli, P., & Thomas, J. C. (2010) Scientific foundations: A case for Technology Mediated Social Participation theory, IEEE Computer.
-
Olson, G.M., & Olson, J.S. (2015) Converging on theory from four sides. In D. Sonnenwald (Ed.), Theory Development in Information Science: Reflecting on the Process. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
-
Olson, Judith S., and Olson, Gary M. (2014) How to make distance work work. Interactions. 28-35.
-
Olson, Judith S., and Olson, Gary. M. (2014) Working Together Apart: Collaboration over the Internet Morgan Claypool Publishers.
-
Koehne, B., Shih, P. C., Olson, J. S. (2012) Remote and alone: Coping with being the remote member on the team. Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. CSCW 2012.
judithsolson.com 