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Preventing undesirable effects of mutual trust and the development of skepticism in virtual groups by applying the knowledge and information awareness approach

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Abstract

Empirical studies have proven the effectiveness of the knowledge and information awareness approach of Engelmann and colleagues for improving collaboration and collaborative problem-solving performance of spatially distributed group members. This approach informs group members about both their collaborators’ knowledge structures and their collaborators’ information. In the current study, we investigated whether this implicit approach reduces undesirable effects of mutual trust and mutual skepticism. Trust is an important influencing factor with regard to behavior and performance of groups. High mutual trust can have a negative impact on group effectiveness because it reduces mutual control and, as a result, the detection of the others’ mistakes. In an empirical study, 20 triads collaborating with the knowledge and information awareness approach were compared with 20 triads collaborating without this approach. The members of a triad were spatially distributed and participated in a computer-supported collaboration. The results demonstrated that the availability of the knowledge and information awareness approach overrides the negative impact of too much mutual trust and counteracts the development of mutual skepticism. This study contributes to further clarifying the impact of trust on effectiveness and efficiency of virtual groups depending upon different situational contexts.

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Notes

  1. A factor analysis with Varimax rotation with the 13 trust items included in the questionnaire on control measurements was applied and resulted in these two interpretable factors (cf. Bortz and Schuster 2010): initial skepticism, Cronbach’s α = 0.59; initial trust, Cronbach’s α = 0.78. Since the internal consistency is only acceptable if Cronbach’s α is higher than 0.70 (e.g., Nunnally and Bernstein 1994), the factor “initial scepticism” was not included in further analyses.

  2. The questionnaire after the collaboration phase contained 50 items (that were identical between the conditions), that is, three factor analyses were necessary to comply with the rules for conducting factor analyses (cf. Bortz and Schuster 2010). Factor Analysis 1, including 17 items on trust, resulted in two interpretable factors: Developed trust, Cronbach’s α = 0.73; developed skepticism, Cronbach’s α = 0.78. Factor Analysis 2, including 19 items on mutual control, coordination, communication, and subjective evaluation of the group outcomes, resulted in one interpretable factor: Developed suspiciousness, Cronbach’s α = 0.46. Factor Analysis 3, including 14 items on study evaluation, group map creation, and collaboration, resulted in one interpretable factor: Cognitive effort, Cronbach’s α = 0.50. Because of their low Cronbach’s α values, the factors “developed suspiciousness” and “cognitive effort” were not included in further analyses.

  3. A factor analysis with Varimax rotation with the 15 control measure items resulted in six factors with eigenvalues higher than 1. According to Bortz and Schuster (2010), in a Varimax-rotated factor structure, only those factors can be interpreted that have at least four items with a loading > 0.60 or at least ten items with a loading > 0.40. This criterion was met only by the factor “computer experience”. However, an univariate ANOVA did not result in a significant difference between the two conditions (F < 1).

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Acknowledgments

This research project was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), by the European Social Fund, and by the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts Baden-Württemberg (Germany).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Knowledge Media Research Center, Schleichstraße 6, 72076, Tuebingen, Germany

    Tanja Engelmann, Richard Kolodziej & Friedrich W. Hesse

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  1. Tanja Engelmann
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  2. Richard Kolodziej
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  3. Friedrich W. Hesse
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Correspondence to Tanja Engelmann.

Appendix: Analytical procedures

Appendix: Analytical procedures

Due to the fact that we were interested in interaction effects between condition and variables of trust, as well as between condition and variables of collaboration quality, regression analyses were conducted. More concretely, moderator analyses were conducted following Aiken and West (1991). The necessary requirements for conducting regression analyses were tested in each time, that is, for each analysis the global test statistic was calculated: The global test statistic as a function of the model residuals “is formed from four asymptotically independent statistics, each with the potential to detect a particular violation” (Peña and Slate 2006, p. 353). These independent statistics are linearity, homoscedasticity, uncorrelatedness, and normality. In this paper, only those analyses are reported that met the global test statistic.

For condition as a categorical moderator variable, unweighted effects coding was used (control condition = −1, experimental condition = +1) because then, the regression coefficients represent the difference between each condition’s mean and the unweighted mean of both conditions (Cohen et al. 2002). Z-standardization was applied on all other predictors because they were continuous variables. Like centering, z-standardization eliminates the problems of multicollinearity between the categorical moderator variable and the specific continuous predictor variable. In addition to this, it simplifies the comparison of significant moderator effects on different criterion variables and eases their plotting (Aiken and West 1991; Cohen et al. 2002; Frazier et al. 2004).

To calculate the moderator analyses according to Aiken and West (1991), a first series of regression analyses was calculated with only the moderator and another predictor as predictor variables and an outcome measure as the criterion variable. This first series of regression analyses was needed to obtain the change in adjusted R2 in a second series of regression analyses with the same variables and also – by multiplying the moderator with the other z-standardized predictor – the interaction term for the additional explained variance of the interaction. To test the significance of the simple slopes for each level of the categorical moderator variable, two additional regression analyses were conducted (Aiken and West 1991; Frazier et al. 2004): To test the significance of the simple slope for the control condition, a dummy coding of control condition = 0 and experimental condition = 1 was applied. For the significance of the simple slope for the experimental condition, a dummy coding of control condition = 1 and experimental condition = 0 was applied. Regression analyses were calculated with one of these newly coded moderators, another predictor, as well as their interaction term as predictor variables, and an outcome measure as the criterion variable.

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Engelmann, T., Kolodziej, R. & Hesse, F.W. Preventing undesirable effects of mutual trust and the development of skepticism in virtual groups by applying the knowledge and information awareness approach. Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn. 9, 211–235 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-013-9187-y

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