Lionel Robert

Effective human-robot collaboration requires the appropriate allocation of indivisible tasks between humans and robots. A task allocation method that appropriately makes use of the unique capabilities of each agent (either a human or a robot) can improve team performance. This paper presents a novel task allocation method for heterogeneous human-robot teams based on artificial trust from a robot that can learn agent capabilities over time and allocate both existing and novel tasks. Tasks are… Show more

Effective human-robot collaboration requires the appropriate allocation of indivisible tasks between humans and robots. A task allocation method that appropriately makes use of the unique capabilities of each agent (either a human or a robot) can improve team performance. This paper presents a novel task allocation method for heterogeneous human-robot teams based on artificial trust from a robot that can learn agent capabilities over time and allocate both existing and novel tasks. Tasks are allocated to the agent that maximizes the expected total reward. The expected total reward incorporates trust in the agent to successfully execute the task as well as the task reward and cost associated with using that agent for that task. Trust in an agent is computed from an artificial trust model, where trust is assessed along a capability dimension by comparing the belief in agent capabilities with the task requirements. An agent’s capabilities are represented by a belief distribution and learned using stochastic task outcomes. Our task allocation method was simulated for a human-robot dyad. The team total reward of our artificial trust-based task allocation method outperforms other methods both when the human’s capabilities are initially unknown and when the human’s capabilities belief distribution has converged to the human’s actual capabilities. Our task allocation method enables human-robot teams to maximize their joint performance. Show less

This study was conducted to determine whether monitoring moderated the impact of trust on the project performance of 57 virtual teams. Two sources of monitoring were examined: internal monitoring done by team members and external monitoring done by someone outside of the team. Two types of trust were also examined: affective-based trust, or trust based on emotion; and cognitive trust, or trust based on competency. Results indicate that when internal monitoring was high, affective trust was… Show more

This study was conducted to determine whether monitoring moderated the impact of trust on the project performance of 57 virtual teams. Two sources of monitoring were examined: internal monitoring done by team members and external monitoring done by someone outside of the team. Two types of trust were also examined: affective-based trust, or trust based on emotion; and cognitive trust, or trust based on competency. Results indicate that when internal monitoring was high, affective trust was associated with increases in performance. However, affective trust was associated with decreases in performance when external monitoring was high. Both types of monitoring reduced the strong positive relationship between cognitive trust and the performance of virtual teams. Results of this study provide new insights about monitoring and trust in virtual teams and inform both theory and design. Show less

One particular problem CSCW and HCI scholars have sought to address through the design of collaborative systems is the issues associated with diversity and creativity. Diversity can promote creativity by exposing individuals to different perspectives and at the same time make it difficult for teams to leverage their differences to be more creative. This paper asserts that through the promotion of cooperation, collectivism will help ideation team members overcome the challenges associated with… Show more

One particular problem CSCW and HCI scholars have sought to address through the design of collaborative systems is the issues associated with diversity and creativity. Diversity can promote creativity by exposing individuals to different perspectives and at the same time make it difficult for teams to leverage their differences to be more creative. This paper asserts that through the promotion of cooperation, collectivism will help ideation team members overcome the challenges associated with diversity and promote creativity. To examine this assertion, we conducted an experimental study involving 107 individuals in 33 idea-generation teams. Collectivism was promoted through priming. The results confirm our assertion: collectivism created conditions that facilitated creativity when teams were high in perceived diversity. Collectivism also facilitated more satisfaction among teammates by offsetting negative perceptions of diversity. These results offer new insights on collectivism, perceived diversity and creativity. Show less

We compared the data reliability on a subjective task from two platforms: Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and LabintheWild. MTurk incentivizes participants with financial compensation while LabintheWild provides participants with personalized feedback. LabintheWild was found to produce higher data reliability than MTurk. Our findings suggested that online experiment platforms providing feedback in exchange for study participation could produce more reliable data in subjective preference tasks… Show more

We compared the data reliability on a subjective task from two platforms: Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and LabintheWild. MTurk incentivizes participants with financial compensation while LabintheWild provides participants with personalized feedback. LabintheWild was found to produce higher data reliability than MTurk. Our findings suggested that online experiment platforms providing feedback in exchange for study participation could produce more reliable data in subjective preference tasks than those offering financial compensation. Show less

Sequential group decision-making processes, such as online event scheduling, can be subject to social influence if the decisions involve individuals? subjective preferences and values. Indeed, prior work has shown that scheduling polls that allow respondents to see others' answers are more likely to succeed than polls that hide other responses, suggesting the impact of social influence and coordination. In this paper, we investigate whether this difference is due to information cascade effects… Show more

Sequential group decision-making processes, such as online event scheduling, can be subject to social influence if the decisions involve individuals? subjective preferences and values. Indeed, prior work has shown that scheduling polls that allow respondents to see others' answers are more likely to succeed than polls that hide other responses, suggesting the impact of social influence and coordination. In this paper, we investigate whether this difference is due to information cascade effects in which later respondents adopt the decisions of earlier respondents. Analyzing more than 1.3 million Doodle polls, we found evidence that cascading effects take place during event scheduling, and in particular, that early respondents have a larger influence on the outcome of a poll than people who come late. Drawing on simulations of an event scheduling model, we compare possible interventions to mitigate this bias and show that we can optimize the success of polls by hiding the responses of a small percentage of low availability respondents. Show less

Abstract

Although control beliefs (CBs) can represent many different types of controls, information systems researchers have focused primarily on CBs related to technical compatibility, resource availability, and computer self-efficacy. More recent research has recognized that co-worker advice, which represents situated and improvised learning, can also be an important factor that can enable or impede system use. In addition, because advice from co-workers represents the social context… Show more

Abstract

Although control beliefs (CBs) can represent many different types of controls, information systems researchers have focused primarily on CBs related to technical compatibility, resource availability, and computer self-efficacy. More recent research has recognized that co-worker advice, which represents situated and improvised learning, can also be an important factor that can enable or impede system use. In addition, because advice from co-workers represents the social context by which the impacts of other traditional CBs are embedded, they may have the potential to alter the relationships between traditional CBs and system use. Against this backdrop, we examined the direct effects of CBs about advice from co-workers on system use as well as its ability to moderate the effects of other types of CBs on system use. To accomplish this, we conducted a three-month study of 112 employees in one business unit of an organization. Results supported our hypotheses that CBs about advice from co workers directly influence system use and moderate the effects of other CBs on system use.

Keywords: user acceptance of IT; IT diffusion and adoption; network analysis; technology acceptance Show less

ABSTRACT

Subgroup formation, the emergence of smaller groups within teams, has been found to be detrimental to teamwork in virtual teams. Recently, however, an alternative view of the effects of subgroup formation proposes that the formation of subgroups is not always bad. When subgroups are based on identity characteristics like race and gender, they are like6ly to have negative effects, but when they are not, subgroups can have positive effects on teamwork. This paper empirically… Show more

ABSTRACT

Subgroup formation, the emergence of smaller groups within teams, has been found to be detrimental to teamwork in virtual teams. Recently, however, an alternative view of the effects of subgroup formation proposes that the formation of subgroups is not always bad. When subgroups are based on identity characteristics like race and gender, they are like6ly to have negative effects, but when they are not, subgroups can have positive effects on teamwork. This paper empirically examines this proposition. Results of our study generally support the proposed assertion. When subgroups are not based on race or gender, they are positively associated with perceptions of social integration and open communication. However, when they are based on race and gender they are negatively associated with perceptions of social integration and open communication. The implications of this study demonstrate that subgroups may in many cases be beneficial rather than detrimental to virtual teams.

Keywords: Virtual teams, subgroups, diversity, social integration, computer-mediated communication Show less

One advantage of crowds over traditional teams is that crowds enable the assembling of a large number of individuals to address problems. The literature is unclear, however, about when crowd size leads to better outcomes. To better understand the effects of crowd size we conducted a study on the retention and performance of 4,317 articles in the WikiProject Film community. Results indicate that crowd composition, specifically diversity and experience, is vital to understanding when size leads… Show more

One advantage of crowds over traditional teams is that crowds enable the assembling of a large number of individuals to address problems. The literature is unclear, however, about when crowd size leads to better outcomes. To better understand the effects of crowd size we conducted a study on the retention and performance of 4,317 articles in the WikiProject Film community. Results indicate that crowd composition, specifically diversity and experience, is vital to understanding when size leads to better retention and performance. Crowd size was positively related to retention and performance when crowds were high in diversity and experience. Retention was important to determining when crowd size led to better performance. Crowd size was positively related to performance when retention was low. Our results suggest that crowds benefit from their size when they are diverse, experienced, and have low retention rates. Show less

Geographic dispersion has been proposed as one means to promote cooperation and coordination in teams high in perceived diversity. However, research has found mixed support for this assertion. This study proposes that the inclusion of perceived distance helps to explain these mixed
results. To test this assertion, we examined 121 teams—62 collocated and 59 geographically dispersed. Results demonstrate that perceived distance explains when geographic dispersion benefits teams high in… Show more

Geographic dispersion has been proposed as one means to promote cooperation and coordination in teams high in perceived diversity. However, research has found mixed support for this assertion. This study proposes that the inclusion of perceived distance helps to explain these mixed
results. To test this assertion, we examined 121 teams—62 collocated and 59 geographically dispersed. Results demonstrate that perceived distance explains when geographic dispersion benefits teams high in perceived diversity. Results also indicate that the type of perceived diversity matters (surface-level vs. deep-level diversity). This study contributes to our understanding of distance and
diversity in teams. Show less

Crowds are increasingly being adopted to solve complex problems. Size and diversity are two key characteristics of crowds; however their relationship to performance is often paradoxical. To better understand the effects of crowd size and diversity on crowd performance we conducted a study on the quality of 4,317 articles in the WikiProject Film community. The results of our study suggest that crowd size leads to better performance when crowds are more diverse. However, there is a break-even… Show more

Crowds are increasingly being adopted to solve complex problems. Size and diversity are two key characteristics of crowds; however their relationship to performance is often paradoxical. To better understand the effects of crowd size and diversity on crowd performance we conducted a study on the quality of 4,317 articles in the WikiProject Film community. The results of our study suggest that crowd size leads to better performance when crowds are more diverse. However, there is a break-even point -- smaller, less diverse crowds can outperform more diverse crowds of similar size. Our results offer new insights into the effects of size and diversity on the performance of crowds. Show less

Many managers and mentors for project teams desire more efficient and more effective ways of monitoring and predicting the quality of social relationships and the performance of teams under their purview. A previous study found that one form of linguistic mimicry, linguistic style matching, and some lexical features indicated team performance and mutual attraction in short-term, laboratory tasks. In this paper, we evaluate whether these measures also work as indicators for performance, shared… Show more

Many managers and mentors for project teams desire more efficient and more effective ways of monitoring and predicting the quality of social relationships and the performance of teams under their purview. A previous study found that one form of linguistic mimicry, linguistic style matching, and some lexical features indicated team performance and mutual attraction in short-term, laboratory tasks. In this paper, we evaluate whether these measures also work as indicators for performance, shared understanding, and team trust in longer-duration project teams, using only limited, unobtrusively obtained communication traces. In our four-month evaluation using student project team emails, we found no support for LSM or most of the previously identified measures as practical indicators in our field setting. We did find some support for using future-oriented words to indicate team performance over time. Show less

Although organizations are using more virtual teams to accomplish work, they are finding it difficult to use traditional forms of leadership to manage these teams. Many organizations are encouraging a shared leadership approach over the traditional individual leader. Yet, there have been only a few empirical studies directly examining the effectiveness of such an approach and none have taken into account the team diversity. To address this gap, this paper reports the results of an empirical… Show more

Although organizations are using more virtual teams to accomplish work, they are finding it difficult to use traditional forms of leadership to manage these teams. Many organizations are encouraging a shared leadership approach over the traditional individual leader. Yet, there have been only a few empirical studies directly examining the effectiveness of such an approach and none have taken into account the team diversity. To address this gap, this paper reports the results of an empirical examination of the impacts of shared leadership in virtual teams. Results confirm the proposed research model. The impacts of shared leadership are multilevel and vary by race and gender. In addition, while shared leadership promotes team satisfaction despite prior assumptions, it actually reduces rather than increases team performance. Show less

Research in face-to-face teams shows conflicting results about the impact of behavioral controls on trust; some research shows that controls increase the salience of good behavior, which increases trust while other research shows that controls increase the salience of poor behavior that decreases trust. The only study in virtual teams, which examined poorly functioning teams, found that controls increased the salience of poor behavior, which decreased trust. We argue that in virtual teams… Show more

Research in face-to-face teams shows conflicting results about the impact of behavioral controls on trust; some research shows that controls increase the salience of good behavior, which increases trust while other research shows that controls increase the salience of poor behavior that decreases trust. The only study in virtual teams, which examined poorly functioning teams, found that controls increased the salience of poor behavior, which decreased trust. We argue that in virtual teams behavioral controls amplify the salience of all behaviors (positive and negative) and that an individual's selective perception bias influences how these behaviors are interpreted. Thus the link from behavioral controls to trust is more complex than first thought. We conducted a 2 × 2 experiment, varying the use of behavioral controls (controls, no controls) and individual team member behaviors (reneging behaviors designed to reduce trust beliefs and fulfilling behaviors designed to increase trust beliefs). We found that behavioral controls did amplify the salience of all behaviors; however, contrary to what we expected, this actually weakened the impact of reneging and fulfilling behaviors on trust. We believe that completing a formal evaluation increased empathy and the awareness of context in which the behaviors occurred and thus mitigated extreme perceptions. We also found that behavioral controls increased the selective perception bias which induced participants to see the behaviors their disposition to trust expected rather than the behaviors that actually occurred. Show less

Traditionally, trust has been seen as a result of personal knowledge of an individual's past behavior. In this view, trust develops gradually over time based on an individual's cognitive assessment of the other person's behavior. However, high levels of trust have been observed among members of virtual teams, who often have little prior history of working together and may never meet each other in person. To integrate these two seemingly contradictory views of trust, this study manipulated team… Show more

Traditionally, trust has been seen as a result of personal knowledge of an individual's past behavior. In this view, trust develops gradually over time based on an individual's cognitive assessment of the other person's behavior. However, high levels of trust have been observed among members of virtual teams, who often have little prior history of working together and may never meet each other in person. To integrate these two seemingly contradictory views of trust, this study manipulated team member characteristics and team member behavior to empirically test a two-stage theoretical model of trust formation and the influence of information and communication technologies (ICT) on trust formation. The results indicate that category-based processing of team member characteristics and an individual's own disposition to trust dominated the initial formation of swift trust. Once individuals accumulated sufficient information to assess a team member's trustworthiness, the effects of swift trust declined and knowledge-based trust formed using team members' behaviors (perceived ability, integrity, and benevolence) became dominant. The use of ICT increased perceived risk of team failure, which reduced the likelihood that team members would engage in future trusting behaviors. Show less

To understand the impact of social capital on knowledge integration and performance within digitally enabled teams, we studied 46 teams who had a history and a future working together. All three dimensions of their social capital (structural, relational, and cognitive) were measured prior to the team performing two tasks in a controlled setting, one face-to-face and the other through a lean digital network. Structural and cognitive capital were more important to knowledge integration when teams… Show more

To understand the impact of social capital on knowledge integration and performance within digitally enabled teams, we studied 46 teams who had a history and a future working together. All three dimensions of their social capital (structural, relational, and cognitive) were measured prior to the team performing two tasks in a controlled setting, one face-to-face and the other through a lean digital network. Structural and cognitive capital were more important to knowledge integration when teams communicated through lean digital networks than when they communicated face-to-face; relational capital directly impacted knowledge integration equally, regardless of the communication media used by the team. Knowledge integration, in turn, impacted team decision quality, suggesting that social capital influences team performance in part by increasing a team's ability to integrate knowledge. These results suggest that team history may be necessary but not sufficient for teams to overcome the problems with the use of lean digital networks as a communication environment. However, team history may present a window of opportunity for social capital to develop, which in turn allows teams to perform just as well as in either communication environment. Show less