An Evolutionary Game Theoretic Perspective on E-Collaboration: The Collaboration Effort and Media Relativeness

Studies of e-collaboration from a game-theoretical perspective are practically nonexistent. This article contributes to filling this gap by focusing on the strategic interaction between players as they decide whether and how much to collaborate with each other. We use evolutionary game theory to make predictions about a two-person e-collaboration game. More specifically, we extend the traditional Prisoners' Dilemma and Snowdrift game theory notions to discrete-strategy e-collaboration games, by explicitly including social punishments into the players' payoff functions. We also introduce continuous-strategy e-collaboration games with both complete and incomplete information. Finally, we provide two generic dynamic programming models for e-collaboration games with media selection.

[1]  C. Hauert,et al.  The Evolutionary Origin of Cooperators and Defectors , 2004, Science.

[2]  M. Doebeli,et al.  The Continuous Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Evolution of Cooperation through Reciprocal Altruism with Variable Investment , 2002, The American Naturalist.

[3]  C. Hauert,et al.  Punishment and reputation in spatial public goods games , 2003, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[4]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  The nature of human altruism , 2003, Nature.

[5]  L M Wahl,et al.  The Continuous Prisoner:s Dilemma: I. Linear Reactive Strategies , 1999 .

[6]  M. Markus Electronic Mail as the Medium of Managerial Choice , 1994 .

[7]  N. Kock,et al.  Media richness or media naturalness? The evolution of our biological communication apparatus and its influence on our behavior toward E-communication tools , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

[8]  Blake Ives,et al.  Virtual teams: a review of current literature and directions for future research , 2004, DATB.

[9]  Kent Marett,et al.  Deception: The Dark Side of E-Collaboration , 2005, Int. J. e Collab..

[10]  Richard L. Daft,et al.  Message Equivocality, Media Selection, and Manager Performance: Implications for Information Systems , 1987, MIS Q..

[11]  M. Lynne Markus,et al.  Technology-Shaping Effects of E-Collaboration Technologies: Bugs and Features , 2005, Int. J. e Collab..

[12]  J. M. Smith,et al.  The Logic of Animal Conflict , 1973, Nature.

[13]  John E. Sawyer,et al.  Virtualness and Knowledge in Teams: Managing the Love Triangle of Organizations, Individuals, and Information Technology , 2003, MIS Q..

[14]  A. Edmondson,et al.  Situated Knowledge and Learning in Dispersed Teams , 2002 .

[15]  Richard L. Daft,et al.  Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design , 1986 .

[16]  Randolph B. Cooper,et al.  Exploring the Core Concepts of Media Richness Theory: The Impact of Cue Multiplicity and Feedback Immediacy on Decision Quality , 2003, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[17]  Ned Kock,et al.  Asynchronous and distributed process improvement: the role of collaborative technologies , 2001, Inf. Syst. J..

[18]  Kregg Aytes,et al.  Do media really affect perceptions and procedural structuring among partially‐distributed groups? , 2001 .

[19]  M. Doebeli,et al.  The evolution of interspecific mutualisms. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[20]  J. L. Garloch,et al.  Information Sharing in Face-to-Face, Teleconferencing, and Electronic Chat Groups , 1998 .

[21]  Roger B. Myerson,et al.  Game theory - Analysis of Conflict , 1991 .

[22]  C. Hauert,et al.  Models of cooperation based on the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Snowdrift game , 2005 .

[23]  Allen S. Lee Electronic Mail as a Medium for Rich Communication: An Empirical Investigation Using Hermeneutic Interpretation , 1994, MIS Q..

[24]  Richard McElreath,et al.  Reputation and the evolution of conflict. , 2003, Journal of theoretical biology.

[25]  R. Axelrod,et al.  The Further Evolution of Cooperation , 1988, Science.

[26]  Joey F. George,et al.  Media Selection for Deceptive Communication , 2005, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[27]  Alan R. Dennis,et al.  Testing Media Richness Theory in the New Media: The Effects of Cues, Feedback, and Task Equivocality , 1998, Inf. Syst. Res..

[28]  E. Fehr,et al.  Altruistic punishment in humans , 2002, Nature.

[29]  M. Lynne Markus,et al.  Asynchronous Technologies in Small Face‐to‐Face Groups , 1992 .

[30]  Ned Kock,et al.  The Psychobiological Model: Towards a New Theory of Computer-Mediated Communication Based on Darwinian Evolution , 2004, Organ. Sci..

[31]  Ned Kock,et al.  Can communication medium limitations foster better group outcomes? An action research study , 1998, Inf. Manag..

[32]  Maha El-Shinnawy,et al.  Acceptance of communication media in organizations: richness or features? , 1998 .

[33]  R. Daft,et al.  The Selection of Communication Media as an Executive Skill , 1988 .

[34]  W. Hamilton,et al.  The evolution of cooperation. , 1984, Science.

[35]  Klaus Jaffe,et al.  Altruism, Altruistic Punishment and Social Investment , 2004, Acta biotheoretica.

[36]  Michael Doebeli,et al.  Spatial structure often inhibits the evolution of cooperation in the snowdrift game , 2004, Nature.

[37]  Ned Kock,et al.  What is E-Collaboration ? , 2005 .

[38]  Reza Barkhi,et al.  Information Exchange and Induced Cooperation in Group Decision Support Systems , 2005, Commun. Res..

[39]  Anthony R. Hendrickson,et al.  Virtual teams: Technology and the workplace of the future , 1998 .

[40]  Ned Kock,et al.  Trust and leadership in virtual teamwork: A media naturalness perspective , 2004 .

[41]  Dimitri P. Bertsekas,et al.  Dynamic Programming and Optimal Control, Two Volume Set , 1995 .

[42]  M. Nowak,et al.  The continuous Prisoner's dilemma: II. Linear reactive strategies with noise. , 1999, Journal of theoretical biology.

[43]  M. Milinski,et al.  Reputation helps solve the ‘tragedy of the commons’ , 2002, Nature.

[44]  Starr Roxanne Hiltz,et al.  The Effects of Distributed Group Support and Process Structuring on Software Requirements Development Teams: Results on Creativity and Quality , 1995, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..