Differences in Space: Diversity and Virtual Organization Evolution

空间差异：多样性与虚拟组织演化

• 批准号: 0838361
• 负责人: Susan Brown
• 金额: $ 24万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-15 至 2011-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0838361&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Differences; Space; Diversity; Virtual; Organization; Differences; Space; Diversity; Virtual; Organization

This project aims to understand how actual and perceived diversity interact with communication media to influence virtual organization processes and outcomes. A key reason for leveraging technology to support virtual teams and organizations is to enable inclusion of the appropriate people ? a diverse set of people. Research suggests that diversity can lead to poor performance when it creates an environment whereby individuals are classified into ingroups and outgroups. In contrast, diversity can contribute positively to performance when a variety of perspectives are openly shared. Some research has theorized that elements of diversity will be invisible when interacting in computer mediated environments. Other research has found that individuals use any available piece of information to categorize others. Thus, while some diversity elements may become less impactful, new ones may emerge. Further exacerbating the problem is that perceptions of others and of media evolve over time, suggesting that what is learned at one point in time may not be accurate consistently throughout the lifetime of a virtual organization. Through the use of survey, interview, and observational data, the proposed study seeks to understand the interactions among media characteristics, actual diversity, and diversity perceptions as they influence virtual organization processes and outcomes. By capturing this data over time, the proposed study will lay the foundation for future work examining virtual organization evolutionary processes. The proposed work is among the first to examine perceived diversity in conjunction with objective diversity, in a computer mediated setting. Additionally, the context for the study provides a unique opportunity to study virtual organizations as they are being formed. The results should contribute to theory in diversity and virtual organizations and should provide useful information for organizations, such as NSF, that wish to increase diversity and maximize outcomes in virtual settings.

该项目旨在了解实际和感知的多样性如何与通信媒体相互作用，以影响虚拟组织过程和结果。利用技术支持虚拟团队和组织的一个关键原因是使适当的人加入？一套多样的人。研究表明，当多样性创造一个环境中，将个人归类为群体和外部群体时，多样性会导致性能差。相反，当公开共享各种观点时，多样性可以对性能产生积极的贡献。一些研究的理论认为，在计算机介导的环境中进行交互时，多样性要素将是看不见的。其他研究发现，个人使用任何可用的信息来分类他人。因此，尽管某些多样性元素的影响力可能降低，但新的元素可能会出现。进一步加剧了这个问题的是，对他人和媒体的看法会随着时间的流逝而发展，这表明在虚拟组织的整个生命周期中，学到的东西在某个时间点可能并不准确。通过使用调查，访谈和观察数据，拟议的研究试图了解媒体特征，实际多样性和多样性感知之间的相互作用，因为它们会影响虚拟组织过程和成果。通过随着时间的推移捕获这些数据，拟议的研究将为未来研究虚拟组织进化过程奠定基础。拟议的工作是在计算机介导的环境中最早研究感知到的多样性与客观多样性的一项。此外，研究的背景为研究虚拟组织的形成提供了独特的机会。结果应促进多样性和虚拟组织中的理论，并应为NSF等组织提供有用的信息，这些组织希望增加多样性并在虚拟设置中最大化结果。