Table Of ContentDistributed Work
Distributed Work
edited by Pamela Hinds and Sara Kiesler
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic
or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and
retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Sabon by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Distributed work / edited by Pamela Hinds and Sara Kiesler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-08305-1 (hc. : alk. paper)
1. Division of labor. 2. International division of labor. 3. Teams in the workplace.
4. Communication in management—Technological innovations. 5. Computer networks.
6. Globalization. I. Hinds, Pamela. II. Kiesler, Sara, 1940–
HD51 .D57 2002
658.4¢036—dc21 2001056237
To Herbert A. Simon, 1916–2001
Contents
Foreword by C. Suzanne Iacono xi
Preface xiii
I History of Distributed Work 1
1 Managing Distance over Time: The Evolution of Technologies of
Dis/Ambiguation 3
John Leslie King and Robert L. Frost
2 Distributed Work over the Centuries: Trust and Control in the Hudson’s Bay
Company, 1670–1826 27
Michael O’Leary, Wanda Orlikowski, and JoAnne Yates
II Lessons from Collocated Work 55
3 What Do We Know about Proximity and Distance in Work Groups? A Legacy
of Research 57
Sara Kiesler and Jonathon N. Cummings
4 The Place of Face-to-Face Communication in Distributed Work 83
Bonnie A. Nardi and Steve Whittaker
5 The (Currently) Unique Advantages of Collocated Work 113
Judith S. Olson, Stephanie Teasley, Lisa Covi, and Gary Olson
6 Understanding Effects of Proximity on Collaboration: Implications for
Technologies to Support Remote Collaborative Work 137
Robert E. Kraut, Susan R. Fussell, Susan E. Brennan, and Jane Siegel
III Group Process in Distributed Work 165
7 Managing Distances and Differences in Geographically Distributed Work
Groups 167
David J. Armstrong and Paul Cole
viii Contents
Addendum: Virtual Proximity, Real Teams 187
David J. Armstrong and Erika Bill Peter
8 Attribution in Distributed Work Groups 191
Catherine Durnell Cramton
9 The Phenomenology of Conflict in Distributed Work Teams 213
Elizabeth A. Mannix, Terri Griffith, and Margaret A. Neale
10 Time Effects in Computer-Mediated Groups: Past, Present, and Future 235
Joseph B. Walther
11 Conventions for Coordinating Electronic Distributed Work: A Longitudinal
Study of Groupware Use 259
Gloria Mark
12 Fuzzy Teams: Boundary Disagreement in Distributed and Collocated Teams
283
Mark Mortensen and Pamela Hinds
IV Enabling Distributed Work 309
13 Maintaining Awareness in Distributed Team Collaboration: Implications for
Leadership and Performance 311
Suzanne Weisband
14 Fostering Intranet Knowledge Sharing: An Integration of Transactive Memory
and Public Goods Approaches 335
Andrea B. Hollingshead, Janet Fulk, and Peter Monge
15 Outsiders on the Inside: Sharing Know-How Across Space and Time 357
Thomas A. Finholt, Lee Sproull, and Sara Kiesler
Box 1: Sense of Presence 379
Box 2: Distributed Work Groups and External Task Communication 380
16 Essence of Distributed Work: The Case of the Linux Kernel 381
Jae Yun Moon and Lee Sproull
V Distributed Scientific Collaborations 405
17 What Makes Collaborations Across a Distance Succeed? The Case of the
Cognitive Science Community 407
Christian Schunn, Kevin Crowley, and Takeshi Okada
Contents ix
18 Computer Network Use, Collaboration Structures, and Productivity 433
John P. Walsh and Nancy G. Maloney
Contributors 459
Index 465
Foreword
The chapters in this book breathe fresh air into a critical area of research: the
increasing geographical distribution of work enabled by shifts in the world economy,
increasing investments in new information technologies and changing expecta-
tions about how people will use these technologies to carry out their work and
engage with their colleagues. Such research is critical if we care about high-quality
worklife, organizational productivity, innovation, collaboration, learning, and
knowledge generation. Can work be effectively carried out at a distance? If so, how
should that work be managed, supported, and carried out? What technologies are
useful, and at what point? And what is lost or gained when we embrace these
changes in our workplaces? While research on transformations in the workplace
related to information technologies has been carried out for several decades, this
book represents a significant leap in the development of an overarching multidisci-
plinary framework for carrying out this work. With this book, the field has a new
starting place for understanding how information technologies interact with the
various dimensions of work relationships at a distance, for example, with ambigu-
ity, proximity, awareness, know-how, trust, control, knowledge sharing, and
leadership.
Over the past fifteen years, the Computation and Social Systems (CSS) Program
(formerly called Information Technology and Organizations) at the National Science
Foundation has been interested in developing new knowledge about collective phe-
nomenon and social action. This book and the workshop that helped produce it
were funded by CSS to bring together researchers from various disciplines—
computer science, information systems, communications, industrial relations, social
sciences, human-computer interaction, and others—who work on these important
topics. Multidisciplinary research is critical to further our understanding of distrib-
uted, collective action and how it can be supported by information technologies.
xii Foreword
The editors, Pamela Hinds and Sara Kiesler, have produced a book that makes a
serious intellectual contribution to this field of inquiry. Their guidance and persis-
tence made this book possible.
C. Suzanne Iacono
Information and Intelligent Systems Division
Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering
National Science Foundation
Preface
Technological advances and changes in the global economy are motivating and
enabling an increasing geographic distribution of work. Today, the geographic dis-
tance between an average pair of workers is increasing in industries ranging from
banking, to wine production, to clothing design. According to Bureau of Labor
surveys of workers, more people worked for an employer with more than one loca-
tion in 1998 (61.8 percent) than in 1979 (52.3 percent). Many workers today com-
municate regularly with coworkers at a distance; some monitor and manipulate
tools and objects at a distance. Work teams are spread across different cities or
countries. For example, research and development laboratories are increasingly
deploying labs in countries other than the home of their headquarters (Brockhoff
1998), and software development teams increasingly are composed of programmers
from around the globe (Carmel 1999). Joint ventures and multiorganizational pro-
jects are pervasive and entail work in many places. Complex work arrangements
involving long-distance commuting and multiple employers are becoming com-
monplace. Some spectacular examples—ranging from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
fur trading empire in the seventeenth century to the recent development of the Linux
computer operating system—suggest that distributed work arrangements can be
innovative, flexible, and highly successful.
Nonetheless, geographically distributed work has always presented challenges to
the conduct of work and personal life. Distributed work can change the way people
communicate, how they organize themselves and their work, and the manner in
which they live. Research from over thirty years ago to the present suggests that
physical proximity can have powerful and positive effects in everyday life as well
as in science, government, and business (Sykes, Larntz, and Fox 1976). Moreover,
proximity has proven to be hard to simulate through modern technologies such as
videoconferencing.
