Distant Collaborations Research Articles

Rhythm of Work: Mixed-methods Characterization of Information Workers Scheduling Preferences and Practices

As processes around hybrid work, spatially distant collaborations, and work-life boundaries grow increasingly complex, managing workers' schedules for synchronous meetings has become a critical aspect of building successful global teams. However, gaps remain in our understanding of workers' scheduling preferences and practices, which we aim to fill in this large-scale, mixed-methods study of individuals' calendars in a multinational organization. Using interviews with eight participants, survey data from 165 respondents, and telemetry data from millions of meetings scheduled by 211 thousand workers, we characterize scheduling preferences, practices, and their relationship with each other and organizational factors. We find that temporal preferences can be broadly classified as either cyclical, such as suitability of certain days, or relational, such as dispersed meetings, at various time scales. Furthermore, our results suggest that these preferences are disconnected from actual practice--albeit with several notable exceptions--and that individual differences are associated with factors like meeting load, time-zones, importance of meetings to job function, and job titles. We discuss key themes for our findings, along with the implications for calendar and scheduling systems and socio-technical systems more broadly.

Specialization, field distance, and quality in economists’ collaborations

• Co-authors have become geographically more distant but much closer in terms of field distance (overlap between co-authors’ research fields) over the last couple of decades. • A smaller field distance is significantly related to the quality of co-authors’ joint work. • Geographically distant collaborations and same location collaborations have significantly different field distances on average and since field distance is negatively related to research quality, same location collaborations are of less quality. • Highly specialized authors are more likely to team up with co-authors that have a very close field distance to them and such closeness is related to a high quality of collaboration output. • Highly specialized co-authors, however, find it harder to get into best ranked journals and get high citations so that the total effect of specialization is negative on collaboration impact. • High quality interdisciplinary research that is created by the collaboration of authors in separate fields with completely separate expertise might only exist in dreams of grant committees and in the strong imagination of faculty administrators, but not in the real world, at least not in our data. We analyze economics PhDs’ collaborations in peer-reviewed journals from 1990 to 2014 and investigate such collaborations’ quality in relation to each co-author’s research quality, field and specialization. We find that a greater overlap between co-authors’ previous research fields is significantly related to a greater publication success of co-authors’ joint work and this is robust to alternative specifications. Co-authors that engage in a distant collaboration are significantly more likely to have a large research overlap, but this significance is lost when co-authors’ social networks are accounted for. High quality collaboration is more likely to emerge as a result of an interaction between specialists and generalists with overlapping fields of expertise. Regarding interactions across subfields of economics (interdisciplinarity), it is more likely conducted by co-authors who already have interdisciplinary portfolios, than by co-authors who are specialized or starred in different subfields.

A Note from the Editor

A Note from the Editor Noe Montez As you read this essay, COVID-19 has impacted theatre and higher education across the globe for over a year. For many of us working in the arts and in higher education, we remember and long for the experiences we miss—interacting with our students in the live classroom, making and seeing theatre, gathering at conferences in fellowship with our colleagues in order to imagine better worlds. For many faculty of color, the pandemic became one more calamity that demanded attention from ourselves and our BIPOC students who were already injured by racism and white supremacy made legible through the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Manuel Ellis, and so many others killed and harmed by police violence. Many of our faculty have begun to examine their responsibility to their communities as academics, artists, and activists. But amid crisis and a longing for personal connection, I also see how many of us are collaborating in ways that augur hope for the field's future. I have learned greatly from the social media groups pooling resources and strategies about teaching live performance and embodiment through online learning and the collective efforts to connect scholars to one another through digital lectures and open access to academic journals, as well as through virtual conferences that allow us all the opportunity to take in more sessions and see more work than we might have otherwise been able to access in live spaces. This is not to ignore the fact that the labor of teaching and staging work has grown more time-intensive as we navigate our hybrid classrooms and Zoom performances. We must also make greater efforts to ensure that students feel our care as they navigate precarious situations in their homes. This happens at a time when universities are eliminating theatre and performing arts programs across the country in the name of COVID-19–related austerity. There is still so much to do to ensure our collective survival as a discipline, but I hope that reading this issue of Theatre Topics can remind us why we do the work that we do and offer sustenance in the difficult times ahead. As usual, our first issue of the year highlights moments from the previous year's ATHE conference, raising awareness of some of the themes and ideas that took place during our gathering. Although we could not congregate together in Detroit, several hundred of us convened in virtual space to share research and new practices. The conference theme, "Drive," invited theatre academics to "consider how various technologies—theatrical, automotive, political—work to keep our work going, keep our field driving (somewhere)." Vice President for Conferences CarlosAlexis Cruz and his conference committee scrambled to innovate the conference by creating space for sessions that featured techniques for moving classes and productions online. Additionally, BIPOC faculty insisted on sessions where ATHE could grapple with the racism and white supremacy that continues to make itself legible across the United States, theatre and performance studies, and the organization itself. The first three essays in this issue draw from the conference proceedings, beginning with President Josh Abrams comments on the state of the organization. This address speaks to the uncertainty surrounding higher education throughout the year, while inviting us to expand "our pedagogy to incorporate new forms, modes, and globally distant collaborations" (2). At the same time, he commits the organization to expanding diverse leadership and to change the organizational bylaws in order to redress the organization's previous harms to Black and Brown peoples. In a similar spirit of introspection and organizational reflection, CarlosAlexis Cruz reflects on the myriad changes to the conference that occurred over the spring and summer of 2020. He discusses his feelings about transitioning the conference from an in-person event to an online convening, [End Page ix] while maintaining the presence of our original site of Detroit. Additionally, Cruz speaks candidly about collaborations with the Black Theatre Association (BTA) and the formation of an ad hoc subcommittee, giving recognition to their work planning plenaries and concurrent sessions addressing systemic racism. The online component of the journal will feature videos featuring highlights from several...

The implementation of a digital service approach to fostering team autonomy, distant collaboration, and knowledge scaling in large enterprises

BACKGROUND: Autonomous acting of individuals and as teams are key elements of agile, distributed, and partly or entirely distant working environments. The availability of relevant processes, methods, tools, and guidelines is key to leveraging team autonomy. OBJECTIVE: This article presents the design and implementation of a digital self-service kit (SSK) approach featuring high scalability, as well as a quality assurance and continuous improvement mechanism. As consumers, the teams within an organization can use these SSK’s anytime and on-demand without any constraints in location, time, or quota. As producers (of knowledge and experience), they can also assume active roles in the extension and continuous improvement of the SSK’s. METHODS: This has been achieved in open community networks where feedback is actively leveraged and constantly integrated in the SSK’s design. Such open Communities of Practices (CoP) ensure that all interested parties can contribute to the adequateness of both the content and the provision of the SSK’s in both local and distant corporate settings. Both the design and implementation have been done and evaluated in a large-scale international corporate environment where high cultural diversity, as well as distant collaboration are of key importance. RESULTS: The results presented in this article include a generic digital self-service approach to distance learning and coaching of teams in the particular context of the agile transformation of large corporate organizations. Key elements include a strong and systematic expert team involvement in the process of the setup and design of such digital SSK’s, as well as a well-explained and understood kit structure for efficient and effective utilization and re-contextualization of the contained knowledge into team-specific project contexts. This contributes to team autonomy as a major prerequisite for the agile transformation, as well as knowledge scaling across the organisation. CONCLUSIONS: The key insights gained from this experiment confirm the high relevance and effectivity of the approach especially during periods where distant collaborations are essential (e.g. during a pandemic crisis).

Odd couple collaborations and making them tick!

Purpose Be it about blending intangibles to deliver to market needs or directed at fulfilling aspirations pushing at technological frontiers, inter-firm collaborations across industry boundaries are much in vogue. This paper aims to classify some collaborations as “odd couple collaborations”. These are fuelled more by aspirations of the partner firms, and not as much by market pull. The study provides key distinguishing characteristics for these and an understanding of what makes them tick. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on secondary sources in the public domain to understand the motives and performance of several inter-firm collaborations. Odd couple collaborations are examined and some essential performance enablers are highlighted. Findings A typology that distinguishes odd couple collaborations from other inter-firm collaborations is drawn out. Analysing the performance of such collaborations, and a need for partners to work on the visibility and appeal of such collaborations, is discussed. Stringent market evaluation of the offering and careful creative blending of intangibles are also highlighted as key enablers. Originality/value The paper contributes to a vast body of research on inter-sector or distant collaborations by isolating and examining a niche that is fast becoming pronounced. The analysis of odd couple collaborations provides cues for effective strategies for superior value from such collaborations. As organisations constantly seek to extend their innovative potential, these insights may prove useful for both practice and research.

Managing technological distance in internal and external collaborations: absorptive capacity routines and social integration for innovation

While high technological distance to project partners outside of the established value chain can positively influence innovation performance, project goals can only be achieved if the social integration of project members is improved in terms of coordination and communication. This paper draws on embeddedness and absorptive capacity literature to explore how social integration mechanisms translate into different learning outcomes in distant collaborations within and across organizational boundaries. Drawing upon expert interviews with project members as our primary source of data, we conducted an in-depth multiple case study analysis of a number of inter-organizational projects. Our findings indicate that the effect of different types of social integration mechanisms on learning outcomes also affect the ability to bridge distances in process and product technology. Moreover, they suggest that it is not just the extent, but also the interplay of social integration mechanisms surrounding internal and external absorptive capacity routines that enable project members to engage in the exploration, transformation and exploitation of distant knowledge. In examining how social integration mechanisms foster learning outcome in distant collaborations, our study contributes to the literature on absorptive capacity.

Do more distant collaborations have more citation impact?

Internationally co-authored papers are known to have more citation impact than nationally co-authored paper, on average. However, the question of whether there are systematic differences between pairs of collaborating countries in terms of the citation impact of their joint output, has remained unanswered. On the basis of all scientific papers published in 2000 and co-authored by two or more European countries, we show that citation impact increases with the geographical distance between the collaborating counties.

University‐industry linkages: What are the determinants of distance in collaborations?

AbstractIn the last twenty years, universities' efforts to collaborate with industry and foster knowledge transfer have increased progressively. Many of these efforts have been directed at firms located at a distance from the university, and sometimes in a different country. Based on an original database of interviews with 197 Italian university departments, this paper determines the effects of geographical location, research performance and researcher mobility on the frequency of university‐industry collaborations and on the probability of departments engaging in distant collaborations.

Distributed Collaborative Research Model

Researchers in technology and teacher education have been charged with designing inquiry methods that speak broadly about the impact of technology in the preparation of teachers, beyond what is possible through the use of localized case studies and small-scale investigations alone. The Distributed Collaborative Research Model (DCRM) is proposed as a way to develop a collaborative inquiry process for conducting research across multiple teacher education institutions, allowing researchers to access larger populations by capitalizing on known contacts in our professional technology in teacher education community. This paper explores lessons learned from past distant collaborations, details the present development of DCRM, and invites colleagues in technology and teacher education to collaborate to demonstrate sound educational research in our field.

Rules of Engagement: Testing the Attributes of Distant Outsourcing Marriages

In the space of a few years, the provision of architectural services that rely on the digital outsourcing of documentation responsibilities to other firms—often located offshore in areas of the world with lower labour costs—has come to the forefront of the restructuring debate of the architectural sector. Today, the discussion about digital outsourcing cannot be reduced to the simple exploitation of rent differentials between distinct socio-economic and professional worlds. It must also reflect and examine the objective extension of the transactional market of architectural practices, where firms can reorganize their production strategically across a vast territory to remain sustainable or competitive. Even though the distant collaborations that underlie this arrangement are drawing more public attention than in the past, it is still difficult for nonanecdotal evaluations to take place, since the parameters currently employed in the analysis of this phenomenon have not yet been sufficiently developed theoretically. As a result, it is arduous for industrial scholars, or for those firms that have not directly taken part in such ventures, to assess the perils and possibilities of this emerging mode of service delivery in a balanced way. Building on work carried out for a research programme sponsored by the Australian Research Council, this article establishes a set of criteria and protocols to gauge, more systematically, the potential and viability of distant alliances. By adopting such criteria, it becomes clear that the evaluation of digital collaborations cannot be done in the abstract or solely through the use of office spreadsheets. It requires a thorough consideration of the socio-technical characteristics of the firms involved, and an in-depth analysis of their cultural routines.

Use of XML and Java for collaborative petroleum reservoir modeling on the Internet

The GEMINI (Geo-Engineering Modeling through INternet Informatics) is a public-domain, web-based freeware that is made up of an integrated suite of 14 Java-based software tools to accomplish on-line, real-time geologic and engineering reservoir modeling. GEMINI facilitates distant collaborations for small company and academic clients, negotiating analyses of both single and multiple wells. The system operates on a single server and an enterprise database. External data sets must be uploaded into this database. Feedback from GEMINI users provided the impetus to develop Stand Alone Web Start Applications of GEMINI modules that reside in and operate from the user's PC. In this version, the GEMINI modules run as applets, which may reside in local user PCs, on the server, or Java Web Start. In this enhanced version, XML-based data handling procedures are used to access data from remote and local databases and save results for later access and analyses. The XML data handling process also integrates different stand-alone GEMINI modules enabling the user(s) to access multiple databases. It provides flexibility to the user to customize analytical approach, database location, and level of collaboration. An example integrated field-study using GEMINI modules and Stand Alone Web Start Applications is provided to demonstrate the versatile applicability of this freeware for cost-effective reservoir modeling.

Immersive Integration of Physical and Virtual Environments

Abstract We envision future work and play environments in which the user's computing interface is more closely integrated with the physical surroundings than today's conventional computer display screens and keyboards.We are working toward realizable versions of such environments, in which multiple video projectors and digital cameras enable every visible surface to be both measured in 3D and used for display. If the 3D surface positions were transmitted to a distant location, they may also enable distant collaborations to become more like working in adjacent offices connected by large windows. With collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Advanced Network and Services, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, we at Chapel Hill have been working to bring these ideas to reality. In one system, depth maps are calculated from streams of video images and the resulting 3D surface points are displayed to the user in head‐tracked stereo. Among the applications we are pursuing for this tele‐presence technology, is advanced training for trauma surgeons by immersive replay of recorded procedures. Other applications display onto physical objects, to allow more natural interaction with them ``painting'' a dollhouse, for example. More generally, we hope to demonstrate that the principal interface of a future computing environment need not be limited to a screen the size of one or two sheets of paper. Just as a useful physical environment is all around us, so too can the increasingly ubiquitous computing environment be all around us ‐integrated seamlessly with our physical surroundings.

Routine production or symbolic analysis? India and the globalisation of architectural services

Developments in information technology have reduced the need for spatial proximity in the geography of architectural employment: computer-based drafting allows for better standardisation and more efficient production of project information, whilst electronic communication links make the immediate transfer of this information possible across long distances. The ability to compress time and space may be paving the way to the relocation of architectural production facilities from higher-wage to lower-wage regions: numerous examples already exist of firms that have adopted this strategy to reduce their overheads. Thus far, discussion of the viability and desirability of this emerging trend has been hampered by its close focus on the type of work carried out, and a consequently narrow view of its costs and benefits. Remote drafting is seen as a cheap form of professional north-south exploitation in architecture’s intellectual circles that should be ignored if not deplored. By stressing the connection between the task and the culture in which it is developed, this paper seeks to produce a broader, alternative perspective, which identifies the several limitations of current off-shore collaborations but also points out possible future strengths, development strategies, and necessary environmental conditions. The Indian context provides an opportunity to highlight analogies and differences between the recent growth of the export-oriented IT industry and the construction of a colonial professional practice at the turn of the twentieth century. If properly acknowledged by the domestic profession and considered by policy-makers, the development of a framework for distant architectural collaborations could be used not only to support the local design sector and bring the contested components of its post-colonial tradition in sharper focus and possibly closer together, but also to respond to the many challenges posed by the country’s economic policies, growth, and infrastructural conditions.