Differences in Space: Diversity and Virtual Organization Evolution

该项目旨在了解实际和感知的多样性如何与传播媒体相互作用，以影响虚拟组织的过程和结果。利用技术来支持虚拟团队和组织的一个关键原因是能够包含适当的人员？形形色色的人研究表明，当多样性造成一种将个人分为内群体和外群体的环境时，可能导致业绩不佳。相反，当公开分享各种观点时，多样性可以对业绩产生积极影响。一些研究从理论上认为，在以计算机为媒介的环境中进行交互时，多样性的元素将是不可见的。其他研究发现，个人使用任何可用的信息来分类他人。因此，虽然一些多样性要素的影响力可能会降低，但可能会出现新的多样性要素。使问题进一步恶化的是，对他人和媒体的看法随着时间的推移而变化，这表明在一个时间点上学到的东西在虚拟组织的整个生命周期中可能不一致。通过使用调查，访谈和观察数据，拟议的研究旨在了解媒体特性，实际的多样性和多样性的看法，因为它们影响虚拟组织的过程和结果之间的相互作用。通过捕获这些数据随着时间的推移，拟议的研究将奠定基础，为未来的工作，检查虚拟组织的演变过程。拟议中的工作是第一次检查感知的多样性与客观的多样性，在计算机为媒介的设置。此外，研究的背景下提供了一个独特的机会，研究虚拟组织，因为他们正在形成。结果应该有助于理论的多样性和虚拟组织，并应提供有用的信息为组织，如NSF，希望增加多样性和最大限度地提高成果，在虚拟环境中。

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.