This chapter discusses models and frameworks for interpersonal relationships and collaboration within organizations. It covers trust as important for relationships, models for understanding work groups and organizations, and consumer models relevant to website interactions. Collaboration software aims to support shared workspaces and private spaces. Effective collaboration considers communication processes, tasks, cultural factors, and leadership. Enterprise systems like wikis facilitate knowledge sharing across organizations.

1. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Chapter 12
Interpersonal Relationships,
Collaboration and Organization
HCI: Developing Effective Organizational Information
Systems
Dov Te’eni
Jane Carey
Ping Zhang

2. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Road Map
6
Affective
Engineering
9
Organizational
Tasks
4
Physical
Engineering
7
Evaluation
8
Principles &
Guidelines
11
Methodology
12
Relationship, Collaboration
& Organization
10
Componential
Design
3
Interactive
Technologies
5
Cognitive
Engineering
Context Foundation Application
Additional Context
1
Introduction
2
Org &
Business
Context
13
Social &
Global Issues
14
Changing Needs of IT
Development & Use

3. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Learning Objectives
 Understand and apply the organizational models at
the group and organizational levels
 Understand and apply consumer models, models of
trust, and TAM (the Technology Acceptance Model),
and understand how they relate to e-commerce
 Understand how these various models form the
theoretical underpinnings for HCI theory, guidelines,
and principles in collaborative situations
 Be able to associate the various models with HCI
practice

4. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Interpersonal Relationships
 This chapter looks at the needs of two or
more individuals working with a system,
examining HCI beyond the single user.
 We study systems that support interpersonal
relationships, as they exist within
organizations and between organizations and
their customers.

5. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Collaboration
 Collaboration software: Allows people to
work together and includes groupware, e-
mail, instant messaging, data conferencing,
and videoconferencing, among others.
 The growth of the Internet has increased
access to collaboration software and made it
more affordable.
 An early framework for understanding
collaborative or computer-supported
collaborative work (CSCW)

6. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Collaborative Software
E-mail, bulletin boards,
blogs, collaborative
writing, collaborative
design
Chat, IM, remote video
conferencing
Logs, team
coordination, resource
allocation
Electronic meeting room,
local conferencing,
control rooms
E-mail, bulletin boards,
blogs, collaborative
writing, collaborative
design
Chat, IM, remote video
conferencing
Logs, team
coordination, resource
allocation
Electronic meeting room,
local conferencing,
control rooms
Time
Same Different
Same
Different
Place
Figure 12.1 Classification of Collaborative Software (CSCW)

7. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Collaborative Software – building
blocks
 All collaboration software designs have three
commonalities.
 The first is a shared interface..
 The second commonality is that the shared
user interface must be “WYSIWIS” or “What
you see is what I see.”
 The third commonality is that each participant
also has a “private” space.

8. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Public Space
Private Space
Figure 12.2 Skype® global telephony system illustrating public and private workspace

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Collaboration – Semantic and
Syntactical Level
 The objects and operations available in the private
workspace are similar to those we have already
examined.
 Their primary purpose is to allow the user to
compose in private and, when finished, upload the
information to the public or shared space.
 The shared workspace enables the operations that
directly support collaborative work. For example, in
the system shown in Figure 12.2, users operate on
objects such as “Contact,” “Message,” and “Call.”
Users can manage a contact by adding, editing, or
deleting the contact from their contact list.
 They can initiate or terminate a call and add a contact
to a call.

10. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Information Richness Theory
(Daft and MacIntosh; 1981)
Rich Lean
Synchronous Asynchronous
Time
Richness
Face-to-
Face
Video-
Conferencing
Telephone
Conversation
Instance
Messaging
Voice
Messaging
Threaded
Discussion
Email
Tele-
Conferencing
Figure 8.7 Information Richness Theory

11. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Collaboration – Task Level
 Collaboration includes many different tasks
such as sharing knowledge, coordinating
action, informing colleagues or subordinates
of events, and meeting. The task level for
collaboration is based on communication.
One such task is “chatting” or meeting to
communicate ideas.
 Another task is collaborative document
creation

12. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Figure 12.3 MS Word® tracking feature for shared writing of a manuscript (this book).
Shared Document Creation

13. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Trust
 Trust is the willingness to rely on an exchange partner due to
confidence that the partner will fulfil obligations.
 Trust is essential to the success of e-commerce transactions
 Online consumers must be confident that transactions are:
 Executed completely and accurately.
 Privacy is protected and
 Transaction details such as credit card numbers are
safe from potential theft
 One of the signals of secure transactions is a pop-up dialog box
that alerts the user when he or she is about to enter or leave a
secure transaction environment.

14. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Information Richness Theory
(Daft and MacIntosh; 1981)
 Information Richness Theory states that
ambiguity can be reduced through richer
media selection and face-to-face
communications provide the richest
information.

15. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Social Identity and De-individuation
(SIDE) Processes
 Social Identity and De-individuation Processes
such as email reduce the impact of social norms and
constraints.
 Systems diminish social identity and de-
individualize the user population and result in
deregulated behavior
 In turn, some variables, such as belongingness,
motivation, self-efficacy and ownership among
others, are reduced

16. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Work Group Level
 Group support systems (GSS) can be defined
as any technologies that support group or
collaborative work. The technology can be as
simple as regular electronic mail systems or
as complex as structured meeting support
software.

17. Group Tasks – Table 12.1
Classification of Group Tasks
Type of Task Group Losses
Planning tasks—generating plans Coordinating, projecting,
production blocking
Creativity tasks—generating ideas Withdrawing, asymmetry,
production blocking
Intellective tasks—solving problems with a correct answer Groupthink, problem solving
Decision-making tasks—dealing with tasks for which an answer
is judged to be correct
Groupthink, joint judgment
Cognitive conflict tasks—resolving conflicts due to different
understandings of the issues
Resolving conflict
Mixed-motive tasks—resolving conflicts due to different values Resolving value-laden conflict
Competitive tasks—resolving conflicts due to power Power games
Psychomotor tasks—performing according to objective
standards
Limited capacity

18. EMS – Electronic Meeting Systems
 An EMS is typically organized in a conference room
that has a network of individual computer stations but
also includes one or more large public displays.
 For logistics and control:
 For idea generation:
 For analysis:
 For choice:

19. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Virtual Teams
 Virtual teams (i.e., distributed teams that rely
to a large extent on information technology in
order to collaborate) have become an
important form of work.
 These teams can form for a one-time effort or
continue to work together on a long-term
project.
 Some teams meet face-to-face at the outset
of their teamwork and continue to meet
virtually; others never meet physically.

20. Virtual Meetings
Figure 12.5 System to support virtual meetings (by Interwise).

21. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Culture and GSS
 Hofstede’s Model of Cultural Differentiation
includes 4 dimensions including:
 power-distance,
 uncertainty avoidance,
 individualistic-collectivistic, and
 masculinity-femininity

22. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Design issues raised by Culture:
 Language
 Icons and symbols
 Color
 Sound
 User acceptance testing

23. Leadership and GSS
 Leadership Theory
 Leadership style impacts
the effectiveness of group
systems.
Context
Composition Group Interaction Outcomes
GSS Technology
Leadership
Figure 12.6 Group Model of Leadership

24. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Enterprise-level Systems
 Wiki
 Think of a dynamic Web site that anyone can not only
read but also edit and is used to create and share
knowledge among members of an organization or
community. This is a very crude description of Wiki as
a collaborative system.
 The name Wiki means “quick” in Hawaiian. It’s quick to
learn and quick to create and share knowledge. One of
the most popular Wiki-based systems is the Wikipedia,
known as the free online encyclopedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org).

25. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Wikipedia

26. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Wiki – JotSpot
 New versions of Wiki are improving and
adapting Wiki to business environments.
 A leading open-source supplier, JotSpot, is
supplying versions of Wiki to serve as
enterprise systems.
 They include more control mechanisms and
more structured representations of knowledge
and information.
 The idea is that the work processes use Wiki-
based systems so that the actual work
process becomes the knowledge managed.

27. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
JotSpot
Figure 12.8 JotSpot Web site.

28. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Enterprise or Organizational Level
 Anthony’s Triangle – Pyramid classifies the levels of information systems
and the levels of managerial users of these systems.
Transactional Information Systems (TIS)
Management Information Systems (MIS)
Office Automation Systems (OAS)
Executive
Support
Systems
(ESS, DSS, ES)
Managerial Levels
Supervisors
Knowledge Workers
Middle Management
Executives
System Types Perspectives
Strategic
Operational
}

29. ESS (top level of Anthony’s Triangle
Figure 12.10 ESS dashboard interface.

30. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Te’eni Cognitive-Affective Model of
Communication (2001)
 Te’eni Cognitive-Affective Model of
Communication suggests that
communications are very complex and that
communications strategies should reduce
the levels of complexity.
 Three main ideas:
 Communications have inputs
 Communication processes are both cognitive
and affective.
 Communication processes impact actions
and relationships

31. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
 Five area of focus for designers of
communications systems including:
 Mechanisms for structuring the context
information.
 Feedback that enhances sender control
 Augmentation of attention and focus.
 Conveying and monitoring affectivity.
 Presenting receiver’s perspective
Te’eni Cognitive-Affective Model of
Communication (2001)

32. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Communications Support Systems
 Cognitive-affective
model of
communication
(Te’eni): Explains how
effective communicators
adapt their behavior to
reduce complexity
Figure 12.11 Sample cognitive map presents user’s mental model.

33. Augmented E-mail
Figure 12.12 kMail-augmented e-mail showing context information.

34. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Innovation Diffusion Theory
 Innovation Diffusion Theory explains the
way in which organizations implement
innovations.
 Rogers (1983) lists five key characteristics
about successful innovations:
 Relative advantage
 Compatibility
 Complexity
 Trial ability
 Observability

35. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Innovation Diffusion Theory
Figure 8.6 Rogers’ Innovation Diffusion Model

36. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
 Beath and Ives (1989) suggest that organizations that
exhibit the following characteristics are most likely to
foster successful IT champions:
 Norms and policies that encourage and reward
innovation,
 Interdependence or interconnectedness between
members
 Slack resources for scanning and experimentation
 Network-forming devices
 Specialization of individuals rather than
generalization, and
 Placement of a high organizational value on
accumulation of knowledge or learning.
Innovation Diffusion Theory

37. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Technology Acceptance Model and
the Organizational Level
Organizational
Variables
(average age,
gender, etc)
Perceived
usefulness
Perceived
ease of use
Attitude toward
Using systems
Behavioral
intention to use
Actual use
Organizational
Variables
(average age,
gender, etc)
Perceived
usefulness
Perceived
ease of use
Attitude toward
Using systems
Behavioral
intention to use
Actual use
Figure 12.14 Extended Technology Acceptance Model.

38. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
 Trust seems to be essential to the success of
e-commerce transactions.
 Online consumers must be confident that
transactions are executed completely and
accurately.
 The importance of trust suggests that design
aspects of the e-commerce transaction
interface must be executed with trust issues
in mind.
E-commerce: Linking the customer to
the enterprize

39. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Figure 12.15 Security Alert dialog box promoting trust.

40. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Consumer Behavior Models
 Trust and TAM in online shopping
 Online trust is comprised of:
 a belief that the vendor has nothing to gain by
cheating,
 a belief that there are safety mechanisms built
into the Web site, and
 the existence of a standard interface.

41. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Consumer Models
 Beach’s Image Theory of Screening states
that decision-making is a two-stage process
and screening is the first stage followed by
choice.

42. Table 12.2 Steps in the Consumer Decision Process (EBM)
Step
Example Operations
Recognize need Identify needs by organizing display
consistent with the way products are
organized in private context or by reminding
consumer of needs on the basis of user’s
history.
Search
information
Easy navigation in e-store by consistent and
known structures. Providing personalized
information that eliminates irrelevant
information.
Evaluate
alternatives
Easy evaluation by attributes or aspects (such
as price) defined to be important to the
particular consumer. Easy access to objective
evaluations.
Purchase Make purchasing attractive by stimulating
positive affect (pleasant music and colors).
Make purchasing easyby providing a
shopping cart to easily manage the products
purchased or by adding a “product on sale”
before payment. Build trust in the system
(e.g., secure payment).
Evaluate after
purchase
Provide post-sale support such as tracking
orders and online help and repair service.

43. Summary
 This chapter presents the foundational models and frameworks
for interpersonal relationships within the organizational context.
 Trust is discussed as a construct that is important to
relationships between two entities. Various models that help us
to understand the work group level and the organizational level
are presented.
 The last section presents two consumer models from the
marketing literature, both of which have implications for human–
computer interactions in Web site interactions.
 It is clear that human–computer interaction (HCI) takes place
within an organizational context and that context impacts HCI in
many ways.