Technology-Supported Small Group Interaction

Abstract

Technology-supported small group interaction continues to be a growing area of interdisciplinary research in fields such as information systems (IS), human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-mediated communication (CMC), social psychology, communication, management, organizational behavior, and so on. Group Research is one of the largest areas of study found in conference proceedings and top journals in these areas. In fact, Small Group Research (SGR) has published many papers on the topic during the past two decades, including a special issue on Group Support Systems(GSS) in 1993 (Jessup & Valacich, 1993).Fjermestad and Hiltz's (1998-1999) detailed analysis of GSS experimental research found that SGR published at least 28 articles on the topic between 1992 and 2000, which comprise greater than 10% of the total 222 articles in their study. We found an additional 8 articles not covered in their study, revealing a total of 36 SGR articles on the topic during this time period. Figure 1 graphically depicts the dispersion of articles published by SGR during this period (see Appendix A for a complete list).Currently, a follow-up study is being conducted that examines GSS experimental articles published between 2001 and 2006; this study has already found more than 150 articles on our topic, of which approximately 23% were published in SGR (Fjermestad & Romano, 2006). Figure 2 graphically depicts the dispersion of articles published by SGR from 2001 up to and including this special issue (see Appendix B).