In-group/out-group effects in distributed teams: an experimental simulation

  • Authors:
  • Nathan Bos;N. Sadat Shami;Judith S. Olson;Arik Cheshin;Ning Nan

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Michigan;University of Michigan;University of Michigan;University of Michigan;University of Michigan

  • Venue:
  • CSCW '04 Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
  • Year:
  • 2004

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

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.