Collaborative Research: Communication, Trust and Leadership in Virtual Organizations and Teams

协作和合作对于创新和知识创造至关重要，而虚拟团队是这种协作的宝贵工具。虚拟团队的特点，如团队成员的分散性和多样性，以及依赖信息和通信技术而不是直接互动，是有利的，但也带来了挑战。本项目的目的是检查是什么使团队能够最好地应对这些挑战。我们使用信任的概念作为组织原则，以了解技术结构和社会心理因素如何影响虚拟团队的行为。本研究的背景是一个大型多人在线游戏(MMOG)。由于这类游戏所需的技能类似于工作组织所需的技能，MMOG不仅对学习虚拟团队很有用，而且本身就是一种有价值的教育和专业发展工具。Trayan Games是MMOGs的设计者，它提供了进行实验、收集行为数据和管理调查的独特途径。研究小组将进行两项实证研究：一系列实验和一项涉及多层次纵向数据的大规模相关性研究。这些研究应该能洞察虚拟团队中社会纽带的发展和作用，以及社会动力和技术结构因素之间的相互作用。研究结果将为有关领导力和群体动力、虚拟组织管理和信息技术的文献提供参考。调查结果还将为如何设计虚拟团队和组织以更好地促进协作和创新提供实用的见解。涉及MMOG的方法本身就是对科学和实践的创新贡献，因为它展示了进行社会科学研究的新平台，并为使用虚拟游戏进行领导力和团队发展提供了见解。

Collaboration and cooperation are essential to innovation and knowledge creation, and virtual teams are a valuable tool for such collaborations. Characteristic features of virtual teams, such as the dispersion and diversity of team members and the reliance on information and communication technology rather than direct interaction, are advantageous but also pose challenges. The purpose of this project is to examine what enables teams to best meet these challenges. We use the concept of trust as an organizing principle for understanding how technostructural and social-psychological factors affect the behavior in virtual teams. The setting for this research is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). Since skills required in such games are similar to those required in work organizations, MMOGs are not only useful for the study of virtual teams but is in itself a valuable education and professional development tool. Travian Games, a designer of MMOGs, has provided unique access to conduct experiments, collect behavioral data, and administer surveys. The research team will pursue two empirical investigations: a series of experiments and a large-scale correlational study involving multi-level, longitudinal data. These studies should yield insight into the development and role of social bonds in virtual teams and the interplay between social dynamics and technostructural factors. Findings will inform literatures on leadership and group dynamics, the management of virtual organizations and information technology. Findings will also provide practical insights into how to design virtual teams and organizations to better enable collaboration and innovation. The methodology involving MMOGs is itself an innovative contribution to both science and practice, as it demonstrates a new platform for conducting social science research and provides insight into using virtual games for leadership and team development.