Who collaborates successfully?: prior experience reduces collaboration barriers in distributed interdisciplinary research

Authors:
Jonathon N. Cummings;Sara Kiesler
Affiliations:
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Carnegie Mellon University, PIttsburgh, PA, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Year:
2008

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Abstract

Two recent studies of over 500 interdisciplinary research projects have documented comparatively poor outcomes of more distributed projects and the failed coordination mechanisms that partly account for these problems. In this paper we report results of an analysis of dyadic data from the most recent of these studies. The question we asked is, "Does prior experience with a collaborator reduce the barriers of distance or interdisciplinarity?" Analyses of 3911 pairs of collaborators found an answer: "In part, yes!" A prior project with a collaborator predicts greater strength of a current collaborative work tie. Prior experience also reduces the negative impact of distance and disciplinary differences. We discuss the implications of these results for CSCW, given the lack of evidence that today's technology eliminates collaboration barriers in distributed research.