Here Be (No More) Dragons: Pushing the Frontier of Research on Virtual Organizations and Teams

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) offer new promising opportunities to research virtual organizations and teams. The characteristics of MMOGs allow researchers to obtain objective data from a large and multi-national population. Lasting over months or even years, MMOGs facilitate longitudinal studies and ensure a high involvement of participants. Moreover, collecting data from online surveys and game servers keeps the costs of MMOG studies low. In this paper, we show with two exemplary studies how research in MMOGs can utilize these opportunities to overcome some limitations of traditional research environments. Moreover, we discuss the role of MMOGs as the avant-garde of information and communication technology (ICT) usage and therefore argue that research in MMOGs can provide a glimpse into the future application of ICT in real life organizations.

[1]  L. Kendall Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online , 2002 .

[2]  Ulf-Dietrich Reips Chapter 4 – The Web Experiment Method: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Solutions , 2000 .

[3]  Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa,et al.  Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams , 1999 .

[4]  Suprateek Sarker,et al.  Understanding Virtual Team Development: An Interpretive Study , 2003, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[5]  D. Ferrin,et al.  Trust in leadership: meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[6]  Arnold Picot,et al.  Information, Organization and Management , 2008 .

[7]  Nick Yee,et al.  The Labor of Fun , 2006, Games Cult..

[8]  Blake Ives,et al.  Trust and the Unintended Effects of Behavior Control in Virtual Teams , 2003, MIS Q..

[9]  Gary Garrison,et al.  Research Note - A Model of Conflict, Leadership, and Performance in Virtual Teams , 2008, Inf. Syst. Res..

[10]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences , 1979 .

[11]  Tom Boellstorff Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human , 2008 .

[12]  D. Campbell,et al.  Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences , 1966 .

[13]  Jakob J. Assmann,et al.  A Multi-Level View of the Antecedents and Consequences of Trust in Virtual Leaders , 2009, AMCIS.

[14]  M. Audrey Korsgaard,et al.  Trust in Management: An Interpersonal Perspective , 2008 .

[15]  Alan R. Dennis,et al.  Research Note: Individual Cognition and Dual-Task Interference in Group Support Systems , 2006, Inf. Syst. Res..

[16]  Lucy Gilson,et al.  Virtual Teams: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From Here? , 2004 .

[17]  W. Bainbridge The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds , 2007, Science.

[18]  Lisa Nakamura Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet , 2007 .

[19]  Thomas W. Malone,et al.  LEADERSHIP'S Online Labs , 2008 .

[20]  Jacques Bughin,et al.  The rise of enterprise 2.0 , 2008 .

[21]  C. Grantham,et al.  The virtual incubator: managing human capital in the software industry , 2000 .

[22]  K. Dirks Trust in leadership and team performance: evidence from NCAA basketball. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[23]  John C. Beck,et al.  Got Game: How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever , 2004 .

[24]  Vipin Gupta,et al.  Factors contributing to virtual work adjustment , 2001 .

[25]  D. Sandy Staples,et al.  Toward Contextualized Theories of Trust: The Role of Trust in Global Virtual Teams , 2004, Inf. Syst. Res..

[26]  Anthony S. Bryk,et al.  Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods , 1992 .

[27]  Harry Matlay,et al.  Innovation and Collaboration in Virtual Teams of E-Entrepreneurs , 2007 .

[28]  France Bélanger,et al.  Communication Media Repertoires: Dealing with the Multiplicity of Media Choices , 2007, MIS Q..

[29]  S. Kozlowski,et al.  A Typology of Virtual Teams , 2002 .

[30]  A. Adam Whatever happened to information systems ethics? Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea , 2004 .

[31]  Scott E. Caplan,et al.  Can You Hear Me Now? The Impact of Voice in an Online Gaming Community , 2007 .

[32]  J. Webster,et al.  Comparing traditional and virtual group forms: identity, communication and trust in naturally occurring project teams , 2008 .

[33]  Jakob J. Assmann,et al.  TRUST IN VIRTUAL ENTREPRENEURS (INTERACTIVE PAPER) , 2009 .

[34]  Joop J. Hox,et al.  Applied Multilevel Analysis. , 1995 .

[35]  Eric Overby PROCESS VIRTUALIZATION THEORY AND THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. , 2005 .

[36]  Ann Majchrzak,et al.  Perceived Individual Collaboration Know-How Development Through Information Technology-Enabled Contextualization: Evidence from Distributed Teams , 2005, Inf. Syst. Res..

[37]  T. Lawrence,et al.  The Impact of Virtual Embeddedness on New Venture Survival: Overcoming the Liabilities of Newness 1 , 2007 .

[38]  Ronald E. Rice,et al.  Technology Adaptation: The Case of a Computer-Supported Inter-Organizational Virtual Team , 2000, MIS Q..

[39]  Chris Gilligan,et al.  Digitizing race: Visual cultures of the internet , 2009 .

[40]  Edward Castronova,et al.  Virtual Worlds as Petri Dishes for the Social and Behavioral Sciences , 2008 .

[41]  R. Daft,et al.  Information Richness. A New Approach to Managerial Behavior and Organization Design , 1983 .

[42]  France Bélanger,et al.  Virtual Teams and Multiple Media: Structuring Media Use to Attain Strategic Goals , 2006 .

[43]  Dmitri Williams,et al.  Dude Looks like a Lady: Gender Swapping in an Online Game , 2010, Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual.

[44]  Hui Liao,et al.  Getting Everyone on Board: The Role of Inspirational Leadership in Geographically Dispersed Teams , 2009, Organ. Sci..

[45]  Youngjin Yoo,et al.  The Impact of Knowledge Coordination on Virtual Team Performance Over Time , 2007, MIS Q..

[46]  John Short,et al.  The social psychology of telecommunications , 1976 .

[47]  Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa,et al.  Is Anybody Out There? Antecedents of Trust in Global Virtual Teams , 1998, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[48]  John R. Carlson,et al.  Channel Expansion Theory and the Experiential Nature of Media Richness Perceptions , 1999 .

[49]  Alan R. Dennis,et al.  Rethinking media richness: towards a theory of media synchronicity , 1999, Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences. 1999. HICSS-32. Abstracts and CD-ROM of Full Papers.

[50]  R. Peterson On the Use of College Students in Social Science Research: Insights from a Second‐Order Meta‐analysis , 2001 .

[51]  Noah Wardrip-Fruin,et al.  Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media , 2007 .

[52]  Scott E. Caplan,et al.  Who plays, how much, and why? Debunking the stereotypical gamer profile , 2008, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[53]  Franz T. Lohrke,et al.  Entrepreneurial network development: Trusting in the process , 2008 .

[54]  Dennis F. Galletta,et al.  How Endogenous Motivations Influence User Intentions: Beyond the Dichotomy of Extrinsic and Intrinsic User Motivations , 2008, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[55]  Ned Kock,et al.  Information Systems Theorizing Based on Evolutionary Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Review and Theory Integration Framework , 2009, MIS Q..

[56]  David L. Paul,et al.  A Field of Study of the Effect of Interpersonal Trust on Virtual Collaborative Relationship Performance , 2004, MIS Q..

[57]  Ronald E. Rice,et al.  Technology adaption: the case of a computer-supported inter-organizational virtual team 1 , 2000 .

[58]  Xiaolan Fu,et al.  The Impact of Individualism—Collectivism, Social Presence, and Group Diversity on Group Decision Making Under Majority Influence , 2007, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[59]  Guido Hertel,et al.  Managing distance by interdependence: Goal setting, task interdependence, and team-based rewards in virtual teams , 2004 .

[60]  T. L. Taylor,et al.  Book Review: T.L. Taylor, Play Between WorldS: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. vii+197 pp. ISBN 0262201631, $29.95 hbk , 2007, New Media Soc..

[61]  Bradley L. Kirkman,et al.  The Dimensions and Antecedents of Team Virtuality , 2005 .