The Situated Nature of Virtual Teamwork: Understanding the Constitutive Role of “Place†In the Enactment of Virtual Work Configurations

The time-space configurations of place and space are used to ground an analysis and discussion of the constitutive role of place, or virtual team members’ respective local contexts, in the conduct of virtual teamwork. In contrast to the majority of current virtual teams research, which emphasizes the “spatial,†or virtual aspect of virtual teamwork, this study uses an extended example, the establishment of a computer-conferencing infrastructure, to show the constitutive role played by local institutionalized rhythms, relationships, rules, politics, and resources in the enactment of virtual team tasks. Implications for studying, designing, and managing virtual teams are discussed

Local Motives and Virtual Team Success: Inverting the Normative Views of Team Goal Commitment and Hidden Agendas

This paper challenges the normative conception of the relationships of team goals and hidden agendas to team performance. In a 23-month participant observation study of a successful multi-organizational virtual team, I found that the members’ actions were consistently motivated by local considerations. Based on these findings, I argue that team goal commitment may be an inappropriate goal for many virtual teams and offer an alternative model for the relationship between a virtual team goal and team performance

Theorizing the Unintended Consequences of Instant Messaging for Worker Productivity

Instant messaging (IM) is one of the newest and fastest-growing communication technologies in the workplace today, yet little is known about its real implications for worker productivity. We have taken the particular affordances of instant messaging as the basis for extrapolating from and linking prior studies of email use, polychronic communication, and task interruptions to develop propositions regarding the unanticipated individual-level productivity implications of widespread IM use in the workplace. We argue that while instant message communication may accelerate particular tasks and decision processes, unstructured IM use will likely contribute to erosion in individuals’ overall productivity due to an increase in users’ communicative workloads, engagement in polychronic communication, and an increase in the frequency of interruptions. We intend our proposed model and propositions as an impetus for further study of both the benefits and challenges of workplace instant messaging

Collective Hermeneutics in a Systems Development Process

The inherent complexity of information systems development presents significant impediments to the achievement of shared meaning among the members of a development team. In addition to the technical requirements of systems development, its intensely social nature challenges project teams to unite around a collective understanding of the processes and objectives that they pursue. How then do software development teams resolve questions of shared meaning in the development process? In this study, we build upon observations of a large platform development team to identify the ways in which team members converge around shared meanings through a repertoire of interpretive techniques. Specifically, we develop a model of interpretive team interaction that is based on the concept of a collective hermeneutic process. The collective hermeneutic model extends the hermeneutic tradition in IS research by addressing the ways in which an interpretation takes shape not simply within the mind of an individual but also through collaboration with others. Finally, we discuss implications of this theoretical perspective for the design of systems development environments and the prospect for additional research on the interpretive processes of development teams

\u27Invisible Whispering\u27: Instant Messaging in Meetings

We use Goffman’s characterization of front and backstage interaction practices to analyze how the use of instant messaging in both face-to-face and technology-mediated meetings alters the spatial, temporal, and social configurations of meetings. In an interview study of workers in two organizations, we found that workers used instant messaging during face-to-face meetings and telephone conference calls (1) to participate concurrently in front and backstage interactions, (2) to participate in multiple, concurrent, backstage conversations, and (3) to manage and influence front stage activities through concurrent backstage conversations. These interactions would be either physically impossible or socially constrained without the use of instant messaging. We draw on psychology, GSS, and communication studies to consider the implications for group work

Using Synthetic Worlds for Work and Learning

Synthetic worlds [Castronova 2005] are graphically-rich, three-dimensional (3D), electronic environments where members assume an embodied persona (i.e., avatars) and engage in socializing, competitive quests, and economic transactions with globally distributed others. Frequently categorized as technologies of play, synthetic worlds range from massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) such as World of Warcraft, to virtual reality environments such as Second Life. Increasingly, educators, researchers and corporations are recognizing these 3D online spaces as legitimate communication media, thereby blurring the lines between work and play, and between reality and virtuality. In this panel, presented at the 2007 International Conference on Information Systems, we explore how the fluid work-play and reality-virtuality boundaries are negotiated and managed in practice. The panelists will rely on their research, conducted in educational, corporate and game environments, to address questions about learning, working and playing in these new media spaces

The blurring boundaries between synchronicity and asynchronicity:new communicative situations in work-related Instant Messaging

Instant messaging is one of the most popular communication technologies in virtual teams, enabling interactions to intertwine whole working days, thus creating the sense of copresence for team members who are geographically dispersed. Through close linguistic analyses of naturally occurring data from a virtual team, this article discusses the implications of two novel communicative situations enabled by instant messaging: presence information and the persistence of transcript. The preliminary findings of this study indicate that these new communicative situations require the flouting or rethinking of previously existing interactional norms and that communicative practices employed by the team members are not yet conventionalized/normalized, the expectations and interpretations of interactional rituals and timing vary highly, even within the same virtual team

Modeling Cryptosporidium spp. Oocyst inactivation in bubble-diffuser ozone contactors

CIVINS (Civilian Institutions) Thesis documentThe CT concept (product of disinfectant concentration and characteristic contact time) is currently used to demonstrate compliance with disinfection requirements for Giarda lamblia (G. lamblia) and viruses under the Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR). Minimum CT requirements include large safety factors to account for possible deviations from actual disinfection efficiencies achieved in full-scale contactors. The application of this conservative regulatory approach for Cryptosporidium parvum (C. parvum) might result in unrealistic disinfection requirements under the Enhanced SWTR due to the much stronger resistance of this protozoan parasite to inactivation by all chemical disinfectants used in drinking water applications. There is a need for the development of approaches that could provide a more accurate assessmant of actual inactivation efficiency achieved in disinfection contactors. The main objective of this study is to develop and apply a mathematical model predicting the inactivation of Cryptosporidium app. (C. parvum and C. muris) oocysts in ozone bubble-diffusers contactors. The model is calibrated with semi-batch kinetic data, verified with pilot-scale inactivation experiments, and used for predicting and optimizing full-scale disinfection efficiency.http://archive.org/details/modelingcryptosp1094537776US Navy (USN) autho