Contemporary work increasingly involves interacting with strangers in technology-mediated environments. In this context, we come to rely on digital artifacts to infer characteristics of other people. This paper reports the results of a study conducted in a global company that used expertise search as a vehicle for exploring how people interpret a range of information available in online profiles in evaluating whom to interact with for expertise. Using signaling theory as a conceptual framework, we describe how certain 'signals' in various social software are hard to fake, and are thus more reliable indicators of expertise. Multi-level regression analysis revealed that participation in social software, social connection information, and selfdescribed expertise in the corporate directory were significantly helpful in the decision to contact someone for expertise. Qualitative analysis provided further insights regarding the interpretations people form of others' expertise from digital artifacts. We conclude with suggestions on differentiating various types of information available within online profiles and implications for the design of expertise locator/recommender systems.
Modern workplaces often bring together virtual teams where some members are collocated, and some participate remotely. We are using a simulation game to study collaborations of 10-person groups, with five collocated members and five isolates (simulated 'telecommuters'). Individual players in this game buy and sell 'shapes' from each other in order to form strings of shapes, where strings represent joint projects, and each individual players' shapes represent their unique skills. We found that the collocated people formed an in-group, excluding the isolates.But, surprisingly, the isolates also formed an in-group, mainly because the collocated people ignored them and they responded to each other.
There is an increasing need for business students to be taught the ability to think through ethical dilemmas faced by corporations conducting business on a global scale. This article describes a multiplayer online simulation game, ISLAND TELECOM, that exposes students to ethical dilemmas in international business. Through role playing and perspective taking, the authors wanted students to actively work through problems related to both ethics and corporate social responsibility. Qualitative analysis of simulation data demonstrated that students were successful in perspective taking, they considered trade-offs between profitability and social responsibility, and they were able to come up with creative solutions to difficult trade-offs.
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