Social presence emergence in 3D virtual new product development teams: a microbehavioral interaction analysis

Collaborative new product development work by engineers that reside in different locations is increasingly conducted in 3D virtual environments. Collaborative work performance in 3D virtual environments can be increased by increasing social presence, the individuals’ feeling of “being there with others.” Recent research has argued that social presence is composed of the constructs of copresence, psychological involvement and behavioral engagement. However, little is known about how social presence emerges through these constructs in 3D virtual environments. As a result, our understanding of collaborative new product development in virtual teams is limited. We address this limitation by studying experimentally how social presence emerges in collaborative new product development in the Second Life 3D virtual environment. Using a novel method of embedding video recording devices in both virtual and physical environments, we observed a series of interactions among individuals collaborating on new product development tasks in Second Life. We conducted a microbehavioral interaction analysis of each observed interaction. We found that social presence emerged through the constructs of copresence, psychological involvement and behavioral engagement, but its emergence was more complex than implied by extant literature. The findings provide important novel understanding of how new product development teams collaborate in 3D virtual environments. The findings have important implications for firms that want to achieve innovation in global virtual teams.