Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2000

Distributed Experiential Learning: the Hong Kong - Netherlands Project

Doug VogelDepartment of

Information SystemsCity University of Hong Kong

Kowloon, Hong Kongisdoug@is.cityu.edu.hk

Michiel van GenuchtenSimac Group Support

TechnologiesEindhoven

The NetherlandsMichielG@simac.nl

Dewi LouEindhoven University of

TechnologyEindhoven

The Netherlandsd.j.lou@stud.tue.nl

Stephan VerveenEindhoven University of

TechnologyEindhoven

The NetherlandsStephanV@simac.nl

Michel van EekhoutEindhoven University of

TechnologyEindhovem

The Netherlandsm.m.i.m.v.eekhout@tm.tue.nl

Tony AdamsGroupVision Switzerland

ZurichSwitzerland

adams@groupvision.ch

s

AbstractAs we prepare for the world of the future, it becomesimperative that we give students the experience ofworking in multi-cultural distributed teams. In order togain experience in this area, a project between tenteams of students from the City University of Hong Kongand the Eindhoven University of Technology wasinitiated. A variety of group support technologies,primarily GroupSystems, were used to provide supportfor the teams as they learned to work together. Thispaper documents experiences from the Hong Kong –Netherlands project. Data collected on the process arereported and discussed. Student response wasenthusiastic with high levels of perceived learning.Lessons learned underscored the importance of focus onteam building preceding project initiation.

Introduction

In classroom contexts, we seek to prepare students forpresent and future business demands. As such, itbecomes imperative that we give students the experienceof working in multi-cultural distributed teams. Multi-cultural teams especially when they cross disciplinaryboundaries bring a degree of realism to the classroomthat otherwise cannot be achieved to truly give studentshands-on learning experience. Within this context,

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tudents can also learn how to effectively and efficientlypply various technologies to support teams.

In order to gain experience in this area, a projectetween students from the City University of Hong Kongnd the Eindhoven University of Technology was

nitiated. Ten teams with a total of 72 students used e-ail, videoconferencing and GroupSystems for both

ynchronous and asynchronous interaction over theourse of a seven week project. The research objectiveas to assess the feasibility and the potentialducational value of supporting virtual teams inducation with off-the-shelf technology.

Another motivation to initiate this project was foundn business. In fact, most of the authors work with GSSn business. The demand for virtual meetings isncreasing but we do not have the experience required toffectively apply GSS in distributed business. Many ofs have done small explorations but we felt it necessaryo do a larger study. Seven weeks with 72 students isuch a study that will allow us to draw valuable lessonsor the students, the research community and theusiness world.

This paper documents experiences from the Hongong – Netherlands (HK-NET) project. Data collectedn the process are reported and discussed. Lesson

earned are presented and conclusions are drawn.

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Background

Virtual organizations and teams are increasinglyimportant elements of the world in which we live.Interestingly, these virtual organizations and teams (aswell as most other authors on the subject) tend to focustechnological attention on audioconferencing and e-mail(often with attached documents) and, to a lesser extent,videoconferencing. Seldom are groupware technologiesor Group Support Systems (GSS) such as Lotus Notes orGroupSystems mentioned even though most authors tendto advocate higher levels of integrated support and morecomprehensive technological options.

Supporting virtual teams with technology is a goal ofGSS yet little exists in the academic literature withrespect to the systematic investigation. The vastmajority of historical group support system research hasbeen oriented around same-time/same-place groups,primarily in laboratory settings. Studies of educationalgroup support system use and evaluation in field contextsare few and far between (e.g., Vogel, et al., 1989; Brandtand Briggs, 1995). Even rarer is systematic evaluationof groupware in distributed educational contexts. Anexception is Alavi, Yoo, and Vogel (1997) wheregroupware as well as videoconferencing was used to linkclasses in both synchronous and asychronous settingsand Hiltz and Turoff (1992) who reflect on extendedexperiences working with students in distributededucational contexts. Vogel, Wagner, and Ma (1999)also report on use of a variety of synchronous andasynchronous technologies in supporting classes andteams. In this study we drew on these prior experiencesto design a set of team exercises to further explore theapplication of group support technology in distributedcontexts.

Project creation.

The HK-NET project was a structured seven weekproject with teams consisting of part time accountancystudents from Hong Kong and full time businessengineering students from Eindhoven. In total 72students participated that were divided over 10 teams.The aim of the project was to make a valuablecontribution to the knowledge of its participants byletting each team do a joint project on a specific IT-related subject resulting in a joint report. Examples ofthe subjects were: a comparison of the status and actionstaken in Hong Kong versus the Netherlands with respectto Y2K issues; trends in embedded software, acomparison of Asia versus Europe; and the impact ofsoftware defects, a comparison of Asia versus Europe.

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By communicating with their team members overseasthrough group support technologies, the students wouldgain experience in using these technologies and the teamdynamics within these distributed multi-cultural teams.The educational objectives in this experiential learningcontext were:� Let the students gain insight into the current

situation of IT-developments in Europe and Asiafrom a certain perspective and increase theunderstanding of the global differences andsimilarities.

� Let the students experience the pro’s and cons ofcooperating in a distributed team, with membersfrom different cultures and backgrounds.

� Let the students experience the advantages anddisadvantages of using a remote Group SupportSystem.

� Let the students become familiar with severalapplications of GroupWare, which can be valuableto their study and (future) work.

Ventana’s GroupSystems served as a shared groupmemory and a common environment for bothsynchronous and asynchronous brainstorming,discussion, voting and report writing. Thin clienttechnology was used to supply all participants withinternet connectivity to enable GroupSystems accessfrom their homes and businesses as well as from theuniversities. All participants additionally had an e-mailaccount at their disposal. Microsoft NetMeeting wasalso used for synchronous face-to-face contact. TheNetMeeting sessions could be booked in the agenda inthe main project folder of GroupSystems.

Background of the participants.

The Hong Kong participants were part time studentsat the City University of Hong Kong who combined theircourses for a master degree in accounting with a fulltime job as middle level accounting managers. Theyattended classes two evenings a week. The Dutchparticipants on the other hand were all full time graduatestudents of the master’s program of BusinessEngineering and Management Science at EindhovenUniversity of Technology in the Netherlands.

A survey conducted at the beginning of the projectindicated that the majority of the participants had neverbeen involved in remote virtual collaboration. About onethird of the participants said to have experience inmulticultural teamwork. The Dutch claimed to be moreexperienced in this area than the Hong Kongstudents(respectively 40% and 22%). Dutch experiencesrange from international traineeships and exchangeprograms to having a foreign friend (“my girlfriend is

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from Bulgaria, does this count too?”). The Hong Kongrespondents referred to their working experiences inmultinational companies. The reported average age ofthe students was 32 years for the Hong Kong studentsand 22 years for the Dutch students. The differencebetween the average ages might have been higher if allHong Kong students had revealed their age.

A comparison of the usage of IT tools between thedifferent locations (illustrated in table 1) showed that theDutch respondents were more experienced in the use ofInternet and e-mail.

Table 1: usage of Internet and E-mail

Internet E-mailHK Dutch HK Dutch

Frequent user 15% 47% 33% 53%Regular user 48% 40% 37% 43%Novice user 37% 13% 30% 3%

Virtually none of the participants had any experiencewith tools for remote collaboration. Only 12% of therespondents mentioned to have used other remote ITtools such as Lotus Notes, multiple telephoneconferences and videoconferencing.

At both locations, students assembled their own localteam consisting of three or four team members. Bymatching these local teams, 10 global teams were formedwith six to eight team members each. In total 72 studentsparticipated consisting of 32 Hong Kong students and 39Dutch students. Each local team assigned a team leaderwho would be responsible for communication with theoverseas team and would be the main contact person forthe project management.

Project initiation/timeline/milestones.

Preceding the start of the project, the studentsattended lectures covering several subjects of the groupsassignments. Because of the different background of thestudents, the lectures on both locations were notidentical. While the Dutch lectures were given from asoftware-engineering point of view, the Hong Konglectures focused on the common elements betweenaccounting and information systems development.

All the students received the same handout thatwould serve as a guideline during the project. It providedthe following information:� General information in terms of objectives,

planning, deliverables and support� Background on the participating students and their

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Explanation of the different projects stages and thesupporting IT tools in each stage

Rules of play regarding the use of the IT Tools andsome general “netiquette”

User instructions for GroupSystems, NetMeetingand a special feature of MS-Word

esides the hard copy version, the students could alsoonsult the handout in a section of GroupSystems.

The teams had the opportunity to introducehemselves at the start of the project during a kick-offecture, for which a high bandwidth videoconferenceink between the two universities was established. Afterhe introduction, all participants gained access toroupSystems via the Internet, in which they could workn their project in a structured way. The students couldse e-mail and desktop videoconferencing viaetMeeting to communicate with their teammatesesides GroupSystems, which was the main collaborativeool.

Each activity functioned as a milestone and wasestricted by a deadline. This was supposed to keep alleam members working at the same pace and to makehe progression more tangible. Since the first stages ofhe teamwork process all were items on theroupSystems agenda, the teams could see therogression as new items on the agenda were started asime passed. However, if a team preferred to use otherools than those suggested, they were free to do so. Theequence of activities was as follows. Gathering and sharing of information

An activity was created to encourage theparticipants to share the information they foundwith their team members. This activity wasavailable during the entire project.

Brainstorm on research questionsThe team members were asked to name possibleresearch questions for their project. All ideas weretransferred to the voting activity after a check forduplicates. When the team did not come up withenough possible research questions, the instructorscontributed some suggestions. The activity started atthe same time as the gathering of informationactivity and was available for seven days.

Vote on research questionsThe voting activity was used to establish consensuson the report framework. After the vote, the topthree research questions were to form the reports’framework. The vote had a high response rate with68 of 72 participants casting their ballot before thedeadline. In case of a tie the instructors wouldjointly make the decision for the team. The resultsfrom the vote were transferred to the division of

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work activity. The activity started right after thebrainstorm and took three days.

• Division of responsibilitiesAfter the framework was established, each teammember selected a part of the report to write. Thenames of the people responsible for each part wereentered in the outline and the individual approachescould be clarified here. This activity was startedright after the vote and remained open for discussionfor the rest of the project. The deadline however wasfour days after the start of the activity.

• Plain text and comment on contributionsThis activity enabled the team to simultaneouslywrite different paragraphs for the report. Theadvantage of this tool is that the students coulddirectly see the contributions of the other teammembers on their part. This activity started after thedeadline for the division of work and remained openfor fourteen days.

• Editor prepares concept reportThe results from the work in GroupSystems wereexported into a text-file and sent to the team-editor.The editor had to transform the text-file into a draftversion of the report by removing date & timestamps, applying some layout, etc. The editor hadfour days to finish the draft and to send it to all teammembers for evaluation.

• Evaluation of the concept reportThe team had seven more days to suggest changes tothe report to the team editor.

• Final editing by editorThe editor had one week to process all the remarksfrom the other team members and to finalize thereport.

The HK-NET project concluded with a final high qualityvideoconference in which the results and implications ofthe project were presented.

Results

A survey was conducted at the conclusion of theproject to develop insight into aspects of tool support,educational value, problems encountered and teamdynamics.

Tool support.

When asked whether the tool-mix offered adequatemeans of communication, the majority (59%) of theparticipants agreed or strongly agreed. The students werefurther asked to rank the used tools in order of theirrelative effectiveness as illustrated in Table 2.

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Table 2: Comparison of the IT-tools used (3 high, 1 low)

Netherlands Hong KongAvg.Rank

Tool Avg.Rank

Tool

2.5 GroupSystems 2.1 GroupSystems2.1 E-mail 1.9 E-mail1.1 NetMeeting 1.7 NetMeeting

When asked whether the agenda in GroupSystemsprovided a proper environment for remote collaboration,nearly all participants (88%) agreed or strongly agreed.When asked whether the participants would considerusing GroupSystems again to support their work orstudies, 86% responded positively.

Hong Kong participants perceived the added value ofNetMeeting significantly (p=0.01) higher than did theDutch participants. An explanation for this might be thatthe Hong Kong participants had multiple, dedicated,state of the art workstations to work from as opposed tothe Dutch participants. When asked about the purposeof their NetMeeting sessions, students responded thamost of the meetings were used for:discussing/confirming approach of the project, analyzingsimilarities and differences in results, and discussingprogress. Towards the end of the project it was notablethat NetMeeting was also being used for social talk(jokes) and cultural exchange. This mostly happenedwhen most of the report writing was finished and theatmosphere became more relaxed.

Educational value.

The main objective of the HK-NET project was toenlarge the knowledge of the participating studentsthrough experiential learning. On average, 65% of thestudents indicated that the project has enhanced their ITskills. The Hong Kong students reported learning moreon this than the Dutch students (83% vs. 61%). Thisseems reasonable since most of the Hong Kong studentwere less experienced in the use of IT tools at the start othe project. The vast majority of students (84%) believedthat the project significantly enlarged their subjectknowledge. Almost all students (94%) agreed that theproject has contributed to their knowledge of virtualteamwork.

The students were highly enthusiastic about theirparticipation in the HK-NET project. 96% of therespondents of the final survey indicated that they wouldrecommend participation in the HK-NET project to otherpeople. The respondents assigned an overall averaggrade of 7.4 (on a 10-point scale) to the project. Therewas no significant difference in the overall grading of

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the project between the Dutch and the Hong Kongstudents. Last but not least, many students indicated thatthey not only learned a lot, but also enjoyed working onthe project. As one student remarked: “It was reallyFUN to work on, Thanx!”

The degree of enthusiasm encountered is unusual inthe experience of the instructors. In comparison totraditional classes, this distributed experience generatedlevels of involvement and effort seldom witnessed.Project quality was extremely high with well thought outissues and better integrated products than normally

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ncountered by the instructors in team projects inraditional team classroom settings. Further, onenstructor received the highest teaching rating in thechool, indicative of student receptiveness to the classnd its objectives and conduct.

roblems encountered.

Figure 1 gives an overview of the main problems thetudents experienced in working on their joint project.

Figure 1. Main Problems Encountered

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Technicalproblems

Different studybackground

Lack of face toface contact

Time pressure Poorinteraction

Dutch students

Hong Kongstudents

• Technical problems. While half of the Dutchstudents indicate this to be a problem, it was thenumber one problem for the Hong Kong studentswho initially had many problems with getting thethin client to run on their computers. The fact thatstudents were unable to copy and paste from theirworkstations to the server and vice versa and wererestricted to working online was overall consideredas a major disadvantage. We did not allow cut andpaste from the desktop to protect the system fromviruses. Though this limitation was described in thehandout of the project, most of the students justdiscovered it during their project work.

• Differences in study background. The difference instudy background created confusion and troubles forthe teams in achieving a shared agreement on theresearch questions. The Hong Kong accountingstudents especially perceived the approach of theDutch technology management student as being tootechnical. The Dutch on the other hand found theHong Kong contributions often too superficial.Figure 1 indicates that the Dutch students considerthe difference in study background of less

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importance than their Hong Kong counterparts. Thiscould be explained by the fact that the Dutchstudents had more affinity with the in general moretechnically oriented subjects of the jointassignments.

Lack of face to face contact. Comparing the mainproblems experienced during the project to the mainproblems that were initially expected by thestudents, it appears that the lack of face to facecontact caused more difficulties than was presumed.The Dutch students considered this lack as moreproblematic than did the Hong Kong students.

Time pressure. The 7-week project period withstrict deadlines for the several activities wasregarded as too limited by 51% of the students. Thetime pressure pushed harder on the Hong Kongstudents as they generally had less time to spend onthe project than their Dutch teammates due to theirfull time jobs. One of the Hong Kong studentsremarked: ”Time management is a very importantelement of our daily life”.

Poor interaction. A problem that caused muchconfusion, misunderstandings and frustrations

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within many of the global teams was the timing ofinteractions between both locations. The Dutchstudents assigned a higher importance to this issuethan the Hong Kong students did (64% vs. 35%).

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Figure 2 displays the participation dynamic in theaggregate over the project as a whole.

Figure 2. Participation Dynamic

Dutch studentsHong Kong students

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Dutch Students

Hong Kong students

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The Dutch tended, in general, to start outenthusiastically by coming up with many suggestionsand information about the joint assignment. However,many students were disappointed about the initial scarceinput from the Hong Kong side, which caused a dip intheir commitment to the project. Towards the end of theproject, the input rate of the Dutch students rose againbecause of the pressing deadlines and the growing inputrate from the Hong Kong side. The Hong Kong studentsgenerally started to work just before the deadlines. Mostof the time, the contributions from the Hong Kongstudents were behind the Dutch contributions. However,just before the deadlines of the project activities, theinput rate from the Hong Kong participants increasedconsiderably. Meeting the deadlines appeared to be veryimportant to the Hong Kong accounting students, whoalmost always managed to make their contributions ontime.

Team Dynamics.

Eight of the ten teams managed to produce asatisfactory joint report, while the remaining two teams

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eeded an additional assignment to receive their credits.ata collected during the project was used to shed lightn differences between successful and less successfueams.

A significant difference (p=0.001) existed for theerceived interaction between subgroups for high and

ow performing teams. As to be expected, the higherforming teams considered the interaction as beingdequate, while the low performing teams experienced aoor interaction between the subteams. Although the

nteraction between the subteams was often insufficient,he majority of the students indicated that they couldnderstand most or all of the comments that were madey their global teammates. In case they didn’tnderstand the comments, the students tried to resolvehis by sending an email or clarify it directly in aetMeeting or a synchronous GroupSystems discussion.he Hong Kong students had a greater tendency toesolve the issue by discussing it with their localeammates, while the Dutch were more inclined toirectly address their Hong Kong teammates.

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Two aspects that greatly impacted the quality andprogress of teamwork were teamfeeling and trust withina team as noted by Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1998).• Teamfeeling. To examine whether the team

members experienced a joint teamfeeling with theircounterparts, the students were asked if they felt apart of a global team during the project. Only 27%of the Dutch students agreed or strongly agreed,while the majority (85%) of the Hong Kong studentsindicated to have experienced a global teamfeeling.Not surprisingly, high performing teams reportedsignificantly (p=.024) higher levels of teamfeelingthan poor performing teams.

• Trust. There was a remarkable difference betweenthe development of trust perceived by the HongKong and Dutch students during the course of theproject. While 63% of the Hong Kong studentsexperienced an increasing confidence in their Dutchteammates, fully 69% of the Dutch students felt theopposite, indicating a decrease in confidence. HongKong students, who generally had an increasingtrust in their global teammates and considered theinteraction between the subteams as adequate,experienced a global teamfeeling. This dynamic isconsistent with the conclusions of Jarvenpaa andLeidner (1998).

This contrast could be due to the generally unbalancedrate of participation among the team members on bothsides. After the start of the project it appeared that theDutch students were generally more committed to theproject than their Hong Kong counterparts, because theyprovided the greater part of the contributions,suggestions and feedback. Some Dutch students weredisappointed about the lower input from the Hong Kongside, which could have affected their trust in a negativesense. At the same time, the commitment of the Dutchstudents could explain the increasing trust of the HongKong students in their global teammates.

Lessons learned

We have learned much from this experience. TheHK-NET project lead to various results. The mainlessons learned, suggestions and recommendations thacan be drawn from the research are summarized below.

Effectively supporting virtual teamwork with currentavailable off the shelf technology is possible but begsimprovement. No special software was developed forthis project. Technical support was focus on integratingsupport elements and assuring a stable baselineinfrastructure. Technology infrastructure is critical. Theinitial objective was to connect team members from their

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homes and offices. Unfortunately, remote connectivity isstill primitive. Although 52% of the project participantsindicated a preference for working from their homes,only 34% were able to do so even though 69% hadinternet access from home. A number of participants,especially in Hong Kong were unable to effectively usethe thin client outside of the university environment.This created a discontinuity in working on the projectthat rippled into team interaction problems.

The lecturers were, however, able to interact with tengroups of students several times a week. It wouldtypically take an hour to go through all the intermediateresults of the ten groups. Suggestions were given andquestions answered. The number of interactions wasmuch higher than with traditional groups, based on theauthors’ experience, despite the fact that half of themembers of the groups were on the other side of theworld. It became clear, though, that current groupsupport technology is immature and rarely lives up toexpectations. The technology used in the HK-NETproject requires enhancements. Although all toolseffectively supported the teams during the project, theparticipants had to cope with a number of limitations.The most important limitations were:� Obligatory online working i.e., no ability to work

off-line and update online� No features for tracking online presence of other

team members� No advanced tool for simultaneous group writing� No integration between the available tools� No ability to track the progress of under-performing

teamsThe tools do allow one to find all the new contributionsof all the groups easily. It is often the case, however,that one would want to be pointed to the weak groupsthat do not supply a certain number of comments in acertain timeframe. Achieving this is however more ameeting process issue that a meeting tool issue. Foexample: as long as we do not know how muchinteractions to expect in a seven member team in thefirst week of divergent working, it does not make senseto perfect meeting measurement tools.

The focus in virtual teamwork must be less ontechnology and more on the human aspects. Astechnology becomes more reliable and customizable tothe needs of its users, the main issue becomes masterinthe dynamics of the collaborative processes in virtualteams. The observed factors that determined theperformance of the teams in the HK-NET project were:Technology Infrastructure, Interaction, Professionalbackground and Cultural background. Each factor is a

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potential hurdle that must be dealt with before a teamcan effectively perform its task. All the factors interactheavily with each other. The more a factor is abouthuman identity, the harder it is to influence the impactof that variable on the performance of a virtual team.The characteristics of virtual teamwork and especiallythe fragile interaction process call for a certain set ofqualities the team members should posses. The qualitiesthat were observed to positively affect the teamworkduring the HK-NET project were: discipline,assertiveness and the ability to express oneself clearlyand concisely.

Personal support is essential for guiding virtual teamsto successful results. In the HK-NET project it becameclear that the following issues are important formanaging virtual teams:� Provide quick support� Frequently monitor the progress of the teams� Apply a supportive rather than directive

management style� Find the right balance between proactive and

reactive supportWith sufficient personal and personnel support, groupsrise to the occasion in spite of technologicalshortcomings. When designing virtual teamworkprocesses it is important to do this in such a way that thenegative aspects of the factors that determine theperformance of virtual teams are minimized. To achievethis in an educational environment, the following rulesof thumb are suggested:• Create common ground for the students– Design unambiguously defined deliverables that are

equally challenging to all students.– Make sure students are able to spend an equal

amount of time on the project.– Create a common frame of reference by supplying

the same preceding lectures (preferably by linkingclassrooms with a videoconference call)

• Make sure that technology forms no barrier– Choose the right mix of technologies by making a

trade off between maximizing functionality andminimizing the need for training.

– Train the users to ensure that they know how to usethe technology.

– Provide quick support in case of any kind oftechnical problem.

• Stimulate interaction from the start– Supply training in the required qualities for working

in virtual teams.– Start a project with (synchronous) teambuilding

exercises to establish trust.

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– Plan frequent synchronous interactive activities tomaintain trust and facilitate decision-making.

• Apply a "sandwich structure"For the overall design of virtual teamwork processes, it isrecommended to apply a “sandwich” structure. Thismeans starting with a same time/same place meetingthen continue with asynchronous distributed work andfinalize with again a same time/same place meeting. If itis not feasible to meet in the same place, a high qualityvideoconference meeting could be organized instead.

Working together in distributed collaborative teamswith students from another study background andcountry offers much educational value and is highlyappreciated. Fully 96% of the participants wouldrecommend participation in a project similar to HK-NETto their fellow students. The participants indicated thattheir HK-NET experiences enhanced their knowledge oftheir research subject, the way virtual teams work andvarious IT-tools. Cultural learning occurred throughoutthe project. Initially 37% of the Hong Kong studentsand 30% of the Dutch students expected culturaldifferences to be a main cause of problems. At theconclusion of the project, only 17% of the Hong Kongstudents felt cultural differences were a main cause ofproblems, although little changed from the Dutchperspective i.e. 29%.

Some Dutch students claimed that their Hong Kongcolleagues were doing everything strictly by the rules.This could work out both negative (“They don't showmuch initiative. Tell them what to do and they will. Theywon't do "anything" if they were not told what to do”)and positive (“..they feel very responsible about theirtasks. You can really count on them that they will dotheir job").

The following quote of a Hong Kong student reflectsclearly the general opinion of the Hong Kong studentsabout their Dutch teammates: ”They are open-minded,outspoken and really concerned about their individualperformance”. Some Hong Kong students were annoyedwith the Dutch individualistic behavior (“..they stick totheir own interest, do not try to reach consensus withtheir counterparts”) and the fact that “they did notfollow the rules of the game”. One student described thedifference between both cultures as “Netherlands: morecreative and innovative, Hong Kong: prudent buteffective”.

All students were also asked to indicate what theyhave learned about their own culture during the project.Many of the Dutch students felt that they didn’t learnmuch new about themselves. Some mentioned the direcand open minded way of communication which could betypically Dutch (“Dutch people have an attitude

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characterized by “well, let me tell you how to do it” andare pretty persistent and active.”)

Several Hong Kong students indicated the generallypassive attitude and their inclination of workingcollectively and avoiding conflict. These findings areillustrated by the following quotes:“We are relatively less active and would tend tocompromise when dispute arises”.“More group sense, not to stand out too much from theteam. Help other members who are considered lesscapable. Able to fulfill the deadlines”.“ The Hong Kong team members are relatively passive,but they are also very cooperative and easy going”.Other remarks on the Hong Kong culture were related tothe high discipline and respect of rules (“ I have learnedthat we follow the rules of the game at all times”.)

Overall it can be concluded that Hofstede’s (1980)dimensions of the collectivistic culture in Asia and theindividual cultures in western countries appeared clearlyin this project. Another example which illustrates Asiancollectivism, was the following observation by theproject management:

After having giving a presentation in a classroom, theHong Kong student was asked a question by the lecturer.Instead of responding to the question directly, thestudent walked away from the center of the classroom tohis teammates on the side. After a short group discussionthe student walked back and answered the question.

It can be concluded that most of the students learneda lot about working in a multicultural distributed team.Some examples of these learning experiences are:

“ It’s very, very difficult to because all things that makeworking in a group difficult, are exponentially difficulthere. Arguments can be very healthy in a (local) group.Having arguments via Internet, isn’t nearly aseffective”.“Always be friendly and act in a neutral way to foreignpeople”.“To do things very clearly”.“Be patient and considerate. Blame on the teammembers is not the positive solution to sort out theproblems encountered.”

Many students indicated that experiencing thisinnovative way of working made them appreciate theproject despite of all difficulties. One of the studentsremarked: “As a whole, I am still happy to do thisproject. This doesn’t only provide me with knowledge ofnew information system technologies but also gave me

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he chance to have an experience I have never gainedefore”.

onclusion

We learned a lot. Our teams were a “worst case” testn many ways. There was an initial lack of experience inorking in globally distributed contexts and widelyifferentiated backgrounds, both personally andisciplinary. However, we were able to explore the usef information technology by global teams and feel thateams can help fulfill the promise of new informationechnology. We will be doing a second year of the HK-ET project with a new group of students and expect to

earn even more. We suggest that, together, teams andew information technology can catalyze dramatic

mprovements in organizations. The lessons learned inhis study have already been put to use in business

eetings. We now regularly host virtual meetings. Theechnology as it is available off the shelf today works ateast in primitive form and indeed, the issues are humannd organizational. We have benefited from the lessons

earned i.e., the importance of synchronous work at thetart of the project and the importance of a strict agenda.he HK-NET project created a win-win situation as bothniversities (and their students) could gain experience inirtual teamwork in education and test the relatively newechnology and observe the behavior of the users on theirystem.

eferences

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