Leadership and collaboration in shared virtual environments

Leadership behaviors in virtual team meetings taking place in a 3D virtual world

Virtual teams (VTs), collaborating through technology towards common goals, are a typical way of organizing work in global organizations. Collaborative technologies, such as 3D virtual worlds (VWs), make it possible for VTs to keep meetings in a shared virtual space. This study investigates VT leadership taking place in a VW. We analyzed VW meeting recordings and member interviews for tracking how leadership functions were shared in a VT. Our study shows that the designated leader played a prominent role in coordinating the team towards the group’s common goals. Although leadership functions were to some degree shared, the members wished that the leader had been more determined and their own roles more fluid. This indicates that a balance between leader’s control and members’ freedom is a challenge that has to be managed by the VT leader. The multiple channels supported by the VW were important for both leader’s and members’ participation.

2009

While the use of virtual worlds for business collaboration has increased, there has been no systematic research to date that examines the effects of virtual worlds on socio-emotional communication, which is considered to influence team performance variables, such as consensus and group cohesion. To increase our understanding of the effects of virtual worlds, this study seeks to explore: 1) the effects of communication medium (Second Life versus instant messaging) and leadership style (transformational versus transactional ...

2009

This chapter introduces a process reference model of leadership for integrated teams operating in virtual environments. Geographically dispersed integrated project teams collaborating in virtual environments face many challenges in successfully completing projects, particularly if the teams are non-homogenous. These challenges have driven the development of more powerful and efficient collaborative technologies, that enable participants to better communicate. The need to support and develop leadership in the online setting is one of these challenges, representing a socio-technical gap between how integrated virtual teams use leadership and how technology supports it. The leadership model proposed here will be useful both to individuals desiring to lead in such online settings and those wishing to develop online systems that support leadership.

Computers & Graphics, 2001

In this paper we present the results of a trial in which two participants collaborated on a puzzle-solving task in networked virtual environments. The task was a Rubik's cube type puzzle, and this meant that the two participants had to interact with the space and with each other very intensivelyFand they did this successfully despite the limitation of the networked situation. We compare collaboration in networked immersive projection technology (IPT's) systems with previous results concerning collaboration in an IPT system linked with a desktop computer, and also with collaboration on the same task in the real world. Our findings show that the task performance in networked IPT's and in the real scenario are very similar to each otherFwhereas IPT-to-desktop performance is much poorer. Results about participants' experience of 'presence', 'co-presence' and collaboration shed further light on these findings. r

Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Computer graphics, virtual reality and visualisation - AFRIGRAPH '01, 2001

Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow a number of users to share a common virtual space, where they may interact with one another and the environment. Immersive Telepresence involves the use of Video and Audio communication in projection-based CVEs, to support collaboration over distance as if face-to-face. Such approaches include the Office of the Future [29], the TELEPORT system and other tele-presence [9] and spatially oriented video conferencing . However, very little research has been carried out on what affects face-to-face communication when mediated via projection-based systems.

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2014

One of the key challenges of distributed teams is the lack of social presence resulting from multiple work locations. Virtual environments (VEs) have been viewed as a collaboration tool for distributed teams that can enhance social presence via shared collaboration space and avatars. We observed, recorded, and analyzed the VE meetings of a globally distributed team. Data were analyzed through quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Our findings show that in the meetings, social presence was a situational phenomenon that constantly varied in strength. Social presence occurred as either a subgroup or group phenomenon, which at times coexisted at both levels. In particular, 2 of the 3 subdimensions of social presence, psychological involvement and behavioral engagement, were observable in team interaction.

Computing Research Repository, 2011

Historically the training of teams has been implemented using a face-to-face approach. In the past decade, on-line multiuser virtual environments have offered a solution for training teams whose members are geographically dispersed. In order to develop on effective team training activity, a high sense of presence among the participant needs to be reached. Previous research studies reported being able to reach a high level of presence even when using inexpensive technology such as laptop and headset. This study evaluates the level of presence of ten subjects who have to perform a team-building activity in a multi-user virtual environment using a laptop computer and a headset. The authors are interested in determining which user characterizes, such as gender, age and knowledge of computers, have a strong correlation with the level of sense of presence. The results of this study showed that female participants were more likely to engage in the activity and perceived fewer negative effects. Participants who reported less negative effects such as feeling tired, dizzy, or experiencing eye strain during the team-building activity reached a higher level of sense of presence.