Supporting initial trust in distributed idea generation and idea evaluation

  • Authors:

  • Jana Schumann;Patrick C. Shih;David F. Redmiles;Graham Horton

  • Affiliations:

  • Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany;Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA;University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA;Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 17th ACM international conference on Supporting group work
  • Year:
  • 2012

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Previous research has shown that diversity within distributed collaborative teams can lead to innovation, but trust must exist for the open expression of innovative ideas and establishment of idea credibility. Initial trust is pivotal for distributed teams where team members have never met face-to-face and have only a very limited time to accomplish a task. Our goal is to determine if knowing specific information about other team members could enhance initial trust and improve productivity and satisfaction in idea generation and idea evaluation sessions. In an experiment, we showed that cognitive and affective trust could be successfully enhanced by presenting relevant information elements, such as domain expertise and personal hobbies, and could have positive effects on the quality and quantity of ideas in idea generation sessions as well as the satisfaction of the participants with the rating result in idea evaluation sessions. However, participants receiving personal information often misconstrue this as professional competency. We also describe gender differences observed in the idea generation sessions and discuss how to better design future systems for supporting idea generation and idea evaluation activities.