“Should I Introduce myself?”: Asynchronous semi-guided professional introductions for enhanced perceived team effectiveness in new virtual dyadic teams
George Catalin Muresan , Sebastian Mititelu , Josh Andres , m.c. schraefel
{"title":"“Should I Introduce myself?”: Asynchronous semi-guided professional introductions for enhanced perceived team effectiveness in new virtual dyadic teams","authors":"George Catalin Muresan , Sebastian Mititelu , Josh Andres , m.c. schraefel","doi":"10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103279","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Achieving effective collaboration and trust has been shown to be harder for virtual vs. in-person teams. Related work has confirmed that introductions are a key mechanism to form trust in newly-formed teams. The rise of remote work necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for accelerating the development of effective collaboration in virtual teams. In response to this need, based on the research around introductions and trust in team settings, we have developed a novel approach for virtual introductions. This is what we term as asynchronous, semi-guided, professional introductions. Participants pre-record an introduction that uses a set of professionally-focused questions and watch these introductions prior to the meeting. Our study examines the impact of these introductions on virtual teams in three conditions: video, text, and no introduction. In this study, we used the Team Diagnostic Survey post-task completion to assess team effectiveness and interpersonal processes of 28 dyads. Thematic coding was used to collect dyads’ experience and engagement. The introduction conditions demonstrated significantly improved collaboration, effectiveness, and engagement amongst participants. Notably, the video condition was particularly well-received by participants and resulted in higher levels of engagement and effectiveness compared to the text and no introduction conditions. Ultimately, the use of these introductions led to a marked increase in trust and collaboration amongst participants. We reflect on the effects of this finding in the mainstream and propose further research to support newly-formed virtual dyadic teams to increase team effectiveness. This study contributes to the existing literature by introducing a novel asynchronous, semi-guided approach to virtual dyadic team introductions, offering insights crucial for contemporary remote work dynamics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":54955,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Human-Computer Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581924000636/pdfft?md5=6285fc08b7e04132f0a68f3051857baa&pid=1-s2.0-S1071581924000636-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Human-Computer Studies","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581924000636","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, CYBERNETICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Achieving effective collaboration and trust has been shown to be harder for virtual vs. in-person teams. Related work has confirmed that introductions are a key mechanism to form trust in newly-formed teams. The rise of remote work necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for accelerating the development of effective collaboration in virtual teams. In response to this need, based on the research around introductions and trust in team settings, we have developed a novel approach for virtual introductions. This is what we term as asynchronous, semi-guided, professional introductions. Participants pre-record an introduction that uses a set of professionally-focused questions and watch these introductions prior to the meeting. Our study examines the impact of these introductions on virtual teams in three conditions: video, text, and no introduction. In this study, we used the Team Diagnostic Survey post-task completion to assess team effectiveness and interpersonal processes of 28 dyads. Thematic coding was used to collect dyads’ experience and engagement. The introduction conditions demonstrated significantly improved collaboration, effectiveness, and engagement amongst participants. Notably, the video condition was particularly well-received by participants and resulted in higher levels of engagement and effectiveness compared to the text and no introduction conditions. Ultimately, the use of these introductions led to a marked increase in trust and collaboration amongst participants. We reflect on the effects of this finding in the mainstream and propose further research to support newly-formed virtual dyadic teams to increase team effectiveness. This study contributes to the existing literature by introducing a novel asynchronous, semi-guided approach to virtual dyadic team introductions, offering insights crucial for contemporary remote work dynamics.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Human-Computer Studies publishes original research over the whole spectrum of work relevant to the theory and practice of innovative interactive systems. The journal is inherently interdisciplinary, covering research in computing, artificial intelligence, psychology, linguistics, communication, design, engineering, and social organization, which is relevant to the design, analysis, evaluation and application of innovative interactive systems. Papers at the boundaries of these disciplines are especially welcome, as it is our view that interdisciplinary approaches are needed for producing theoretical insights in this complex area and for effective deployment of innovative technologies in concrete user communities.
Research areas relevant to the journal include, but are not limited to:
• Innovative interaction techniques
• Multimodal interaction
• Speech interaction
• Graphic interaction
• Natural language interaction
• Interaction in mobile and embedded systems
• Interface design and evaluation methodologies
• Design and evaluation of innovative interactive systems
• User interface prototyping and management systems
• Ubiquitous computing
• Wearable computers
• Pervasive computing
• Affective computing
• Empirical studies of user behaviour
• Empirical studies of programming and software engineering
• Computer supported cooperative work
• Computer mediated communication
• Virtual reality
• Mixed and augmented Reality
• Intelligent user interfaces
• Presence
...