Paper Info
Title
Effects of simultaneous and sequential work structures on distributed collaborative interdependent tasks
Abstract
Distributed online groups have great potential for generating interdependent and complex products like encyclopedia articles or product design. However, coordinating multiple group members to work together effectively while minimizing process losses remains an open challenge. We conducted an experiment comparing the effectiveness of two coordination strategies (simultaneous vs. sequential work) on a complex creative task as the number of group members increased. Our results indicate that, contrary to prior work, a sequential work structure was more effective than a simultaneous work structure as the size of the group increased. A mediation analysis suggests that social processes such as territoriality partially accounts for these results. A follow up experiment giving workers specific roles mitigated the detrimental effects of the simultaneous work structure. These results have implications for small group theory and crowdsourcing research.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1145/2556288.2557158
CHI
Keywords
Field
DocType
small group theory,complex product,complex creative task,sequential work structure,simultaneous work structure,collaborative interdependent task,group member,prior work,multiple group member,online group,sequential work,interdependence,small groups,group size
Interdependence,Mediation (statistics),Computer science,Crowdsourcing,Territoriality,Human–computer interaction,Social processes,Encyclopedia,Product design
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
17
0.76
13
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Paul André135219.85
Robert Kraut269031324.48
Aniket Kittur33030195.25