Towards a Pedagogy of Relational Space and Trust: Analyzing Distributed Collaboration Using...

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 53, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2010 233

Towards a Pedagogy of Relational Space and Trust:Analyzing Distributed Collaboration Using Discourse andSpeech Act Analysis—LISA D. MCNAIR, MARIE C. PARETTI, AND MARCIA DAVITT

Abstract—Distributed work is an increasingly common phenomenon in a number of technical and professionalsettings, and the complexity of this work requires high degrees of knowledge sharing and integration that movebeyond assembly-line approaches to collaboration. Since participants in distributed-work settings rely almostexclusively on written and spoken language to mediate their collaborative relationships, professional communicationfaculty need educational approaches that empower students with language practices designed specifically to supporteffective teaming in these complex environments. To address this need, we employ discourse analysis and SpeechAct Theory to identify these language practices in a case study of two cohorts of distributed, interdisciplinary,and cross-cultural student teams. The findings show correlations between language practices and successfulcollaboration. These correlations have significant implications for teaching and practice.

Index Terms—Collaboration, discourse analysis, distributed work, pedagogy, speech acts, trust.

In the global, digital economy, work is increasinglydistributed across an array of boundaries:spatial, chronological, cultural, disciplinary,economic, and organizational. Establishingproductive collaborations across these boundariesis challenging even in face-to-face collaboration.Virtual collaboration exacerbates the problemin large part because of the lack of socialconnection—described by Nardi and Whittaker asthe “communication zone” [1] and by Leinonen,Järvelä, and Häkkinen as “relational space” [2].Although these terms are nuanced differently, bothsuggest the need to establish a set of social bondsand a sense of trust, usually influenced by bodylanguage and physical environment, before effectivecollaboration can proceed. Much of the work donein this area focuses on the kinds of behaviorsand social interactions necessary to establishthis social framework of trust. In this paper, weconsider how professional communication cancontribute to our understanding of these complexcollaborative environments by focusing on languageuse among collaborators and by conceptualizing“talk” as action. Following Austin and Burke, wedraw on theory that posits that talk does notreflect fixed identities of individuals but ratherconstructs identities and, thus, social cultures,through interactions [3]–[5]. This conceptualizationof linguistically constructed cultures is particularly

Manuscript received September 01, 2008; revised January 26,2009; accepted April 16, 2009. Date of current version August25, 2010.The authors are with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and StateUniversity, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA (email: [email protected];[email protected]; [email protected]).

IEEE 10.1109/TPC.2010.2052857

relevant in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural teamsthat must establish trust and relational space invirtual environments that lack the contextual cuesand shared cultural domains present in face-to-facetalk.

In prior work we illustrated, via a paired case study,the ways in which teaching interventions targetedtowards building relational space can enhancethis virtual collaboration [6]–[8]. The cohorts inthe case study paired US engineering studentsworking on a capstone design project at a largestate university with digital media students at aEuropean technological institute. In an assignmentdesigned to simulate workplace collaborationsbetween technical communication specialists andengineers, the students developed white papers toexplain and promote the capstone design projectsto a public audience. The case study involved twocohorts:• In Cohort 1, the control case, students received

the assignments, including deadlines for initialmeetings, draft submissions, and draft reviews,but did not receive any explicit instruction invirtual collaboration. The engineers, however,had received a brief lecture on teamwork duringthe previous semester.

• In Cohort 2, the treatment group, studentsreceived a similar set of assignments anddeadlines. In addition, students in the treatmentgroup also completed a small, four-week unit oncross-cultural communication the semester priorto the collaboration. Also, at the beginning of thecollaboration, they received explicit instructionin virtual collaboration, including guidelinesfor establishing relational space in the initial

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234 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 53, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2010

meeting. (Details of these interventions appearlater in this paper, in Table III.)

To date, our analysis of these two cases hasdemonstrated differences in student attitudesand behaviors that correlate with the level ofinstructor-guided practices for virtual collaboration.In general, the working relationships in Cohort1 were characterized by disengagement anddisconnection on the part of the engineeringstudents and frustration on the part of thedigital media students [6]–[8]. Students inCohort 1 showed little attention to the socialinteractions that facilitate effective collaborationin virtual environments, focusing rather on“just getting the job done” [7]. Moreover, duringa focus-group discussion, the engineeringstudents in Cohort 1 attributed any problemsin communication to disciplinary differencesin which they were forced to “dumb down”their work for nonengineers. In Cohort 2, incontrast, the engineering students displayedan increased willingness to provide informationto their European counterparts, includingmaking themselves available electronically overschool break; increased patience in workingthrough issues of seemingly inappropriate, oreven insulting, tone over email; and increasedsensitivity to the differences in national culturethat made effective communication challenging[8]. The Cohort 2 students showed progress inrecognizing the complexity of collaboration acrossdisciplinary and cultural boundaries but, as aresult, they also reported less confidence in theircommunication and collaboration skills [8]. Ininterviews with engineering students, there wasa decreased tendency to ascribe problems todisciplinary differences or to bemoan the need todumb down their work. Finally, in both cohorts,national and institutional identities emerged asboundaries to be crossed in interdisciplinary,cross-cultural collaborations, with attendantanxiety concerning proficiency in English andreliability of communication technologies.

In this paper, to better understand theteams’ dynamics and enhance professionalcommunication pedagogy, we turn from an analysisof the outcomes to a detailed linguistic analysis ofthe communication patterns within teams. Thatis, given that our prior work demonstrates cleardifferences in the nature of the collaborations,suggesting an increase in relational space andtrust in Cohort 2, we focus here on identifyingspecific language practices associated with thecohort differences. We are not, then, attempting to

measure either relational space generally or trustin particular; rather, we apply discourse analysisand Speech Act Theory to each team’s writtencommunication to address the following researchquestion: What types of communicative behaviorsare associated with enhanced relational space?

Addressing this question enables us to morefully understand the potential effects oftargeted instruction on students’ professionalcommunication practices and, in turn, increase thetransferability of the teaching practices and providea basis for future investigations.

LITERATURE REVIEW: CHALLENGES AND

STRATEGIES IN VIRTUAL COLLABORATION

At the heart of collaborations, like those in thecase studies, is the process of knowledge sharing.The engineering students possessed technicalknowledge about their projects, and the digitalmedia students had the technical media skillsneeded to develop the required white paper. Atthe same time, though perhaps less obvious,the digital media students possessed knowledgeabout the public representation of technologythat could help the engineering students betterunderstand the impact of their work in whatthe Accreditation Board for Engineering andTechnology (ABET) criteria refer to as “a global,economic, environmental, and societal context” [9].

Importantly, in this project as in muchcontemporary collaborative work, the process ofthis knowledge sharing is not simply additive afterthe fashion of an assembly line. Shared knowledgedoes not retain its “pure” state but is insteadshaped in and by the very process of exchange:

Knowledge sharing involves a process ofcommunication whereby two or more partiesare involved in the transfer of knowledge. This isa process that involves provision of knowledgeby a source, followed by the interpretation ofthe communication by one or more recipients.The output of the process is the creation of newknowledge. [10, p. 201]

In collaborative endeavors, particularlyboundary-crossing situations such ascross-functional teams or technical communicatorsworking with subject matter experts, knowledge isnegotiated between differing sources of expertise.Experts in one group provide knowledge to anothergroup, who, in turn, localize, interpret, andsynthesize the new knowledge within their owncontexts of expertise and experience. They then

MCNAIR et al.: TOWARDS A PEDAGOGY OF RELATIONAL SPACE AND TRUST 235

share this synthesized knowledge with the originalgroup, who then engage in a similar localizing,interpretive, and synthesizing process [11]–[13]. Inthis case, for example, one instructional goal was toenable the engineers and the digital media studentstogether to construct a richer understanding of thebroader impacts of the design project.

This knowledge synthesis is crucial in the kind ofinterdisciplinary collaborations that increasinglycharacterize contemporary technical and scientificwork; in fact, a transformative integrationof knowledge, epistemologies, and values isconsidered part of the defining characteristics oftrue interdisciplinary work [14]–[16]. Increasingly,this work also crosses global boundaries andoccurs through virtual collaboration. Given thecentrality of language practices in these settings, aswill be described in detail, it is critical for technicalcommunication faculty to develop strategiesfor helping students use language effectivelynot only to exchange information but to buildknowledge-sharing communities in these complexboundary-crossing environments.

Communication Challenges in Virtual andDistributed Work Settings Virtual-work settingspose a number of barriers to knowledge sharing thatincrease the importance of language use. One of themost significant barriers is the absence of physicalcontext that is central in establishing relationships.The richness of context provided by spatialreferents and paralinguistic indicators in co-locatedsettings is missing in distributed settings. Virtualcollaborations, for example, typically elide the“spatiality of human interaction. People andobjects are located in space, and their role in anongoing discussion can be indexed by location”in a co-located environment [17]. This spatialitycan often impact the ability of a team to establishattention and motivation [18], and its absence canseverely limit the degree to which collaboratorstrust in one another’s level of commitment andreliability. Lack of spatial reference also limitsparalinguistic cues, which further inhibits trustby complicating collaborators’ ability to interpretmeaning. For example, simple gestures andglances indicating where listeners should directtheir attention are easy to recognize in co-locatedsettings, but require creative interventions invirtual settings. Many words and/or phrases (suchas us, them, here, there) carry extensive deicticweight and depend heavily on context for theirmeaning. In these cases, the referent is implied bythe context within co-located settings, whereas invirtual settings, referents must be explicitly and

repeatedly identified. Without these contextualcues, language alone must bear more of the weightfor facilitating successful knowledge sharing [19].

This lack of spatial and paralinguistic cuesalso limits tacit knowledge—the largely intuitiveknowledge and emotional intelligence that peoplegain from experience and observation [20],[21]. That is, individuals come to know theircollaborators by watching them work, visuallyidentifying the constraints and affordances of theirindividual workplace, and interacting in informalways apart from the collaborative experience itself.This kind of knowledge is necessary for forming ashared frame of reference, and must be embodiedand built differently in virtual settings [11], [20].That is, virtual collaborators cannot as easily orquickly build a working knowledge of one anotherand of the project that facilitates future interactionsand interpretations. Here, too, language useemerges as the dominant, if not sole mode ofbuilding such knowledge.

Finally, distributed collaboration is influencednot only by the absence of various physicaland contextual clues, but also by the mediatingpresence of various communication technologies[22], particularly in situations where team membershave not previously interacted. In lean channelsof communication, in particular, more cognitiveeffort may be necessary to explain concepts andto ensure that all team members share a commonunderstanding of goals and objectives. Althoughtechnologies such as email and voice-over-internetprotocol (VoIP) make it possible for distributedgroups to collaborate, these tools affect teammembers’ interactions and effectiveness [23, p.829]. As Kiesler and Cummings note, for example:

The style of communication in electronicallysustained work groups is likely to be somewhatless mutually attentive, less companionable,less frequent, and more effortful than when theteam is nearby and talking face-to-face. [24]

Also, politeness and clarity are issues incross-cultural communication [25] and media suchas email communication [26], [27]. Moreover, trustplays a more critical role in distributed settingsbecause “technology can change conditions interms of [a group’s] physical infrastructures, tasks,and social dimensions. Changes in context can leadto differing levels of trust” [19, p. 250].

In co-located work, the presence of contextualcues and the absence of mediating technology,along with the many informal encounters among


collaborators (i.e., “water-cooler conversations”)help establish what Nardi and Whittaker referto as “the communication zone”—that space inwhich social bonds form and enable complexknowledge sharing and integration of informationacross boundaries [1]. Leinonen et al. describe asimilar phenomenon when they posit the absenceof “relational space” as a critical limitation of globalvirtual teams [2]. That is, before individuals canengage in productive knowledge-sharing work, theyneed a social environment that establishes an“incentive to share information and knowledge withothers” [11, p. 206] and an interpersonal basis forengaging with one another.

Within this larger frame of a strong social network,current research on virtual teams continues topoint to trust as a primary factor for ensuringthat successful knowledge transfer takes place[11], [24], [28]–[31]. Both affective and cognitivetrust are important in these settings. AFFECTIVE

TRUST is manifested by confidence that otherswill follow through on their commitments, thatthey are basically honest, just, and fair people.Communicative practices that help develop suchconfidence can promote affective trust. Similarly,COGNITIVE TRUST—the confidence that others havethe expertise to assimilate new knowledge andthe competence to follow through on complextasks—can also be developed and supported asmembers communicate with one another. Teammembers are more inclined to expend effort insharing their expertise if they are confident that therecipients are sincere people and that they havethe expertise and competence to assimilate the newknowledge and apply it in creative ways. Whilein traditional work settings this trust developsover time (through the contextual, physical, andparalinguistic cues noted before), studies of virtualcollaboration have often pointed to the need forteam members to develop trust early in the projectto quickly and effectively engage one another [28],[29]. Coppola, Hiltz, and Rotter rely specificallyon the concept of “swift trust,” characterized byparticipants’ willingness in the early stages of thecollaboration to be vulnerable (believing in theircollaborators’ good will), uncertain (suspendingdoubts in order to accomplish the task), to takerisks, and to believe in or expect benefits from thecollaboration [28]. These qualities are critical toovercoming the sense of isolation and disconnectionthat can permeate virtual work, particularly intemporary teams formed around a single project.

In short, the absence of physical and social contextsand the presence of mediating technologies can

severely hamper knowledge sharing in distributedteams by disrupting the necessary social networksand interpersonal trust that underpin successfulcollaboration. These challenges make it critical forstudents participating in these teams to developtransferable communication behaviors that cansupport successful collaboration.

Linguistic Perspectives on Virtual CollaborationRelational space and trust are, by their verynature, social phenomena that are establishedand maintained almost exclusively throughwritten language in virtual environments.(Exceptions might be in cases where extensivevideoconferencing provides access to paralinguisticcues.) Drawing on Austin, Burke, and others,we maintain that in these environments, talkis action through which people “do things withwords” [3] and thereby construct relationshipsand identities through discourse interactions [4],[5]. In the case study cohorts, written talk, in theform of emails and memos exchanged via a coursewebsite, was the primary mode of communication.To analyze the action accomplished by this talk,we turn to discourse analysis, and particularly toSpeech Act Theory, as a framework for exploringthe communication patterns within each cohort.Discourse behaviors in interactions play a largerole in constructing events, meaning, and identities[4]. As Barton notes, discourse analysis, whichconsiders how language functions in context, canbe a particularly useful tool in understandingthe ways in which communicative practices canengender, maintain, and reflect culture [32].In this case, we are interested in the localizedcultures that emerged within the teams in thecase study—in the case of Cohort 1, a culture ofdisengagement and frustration, and in Cohort 2,one of negotiation, flexibility, and collegiality. Adiscourse-based analysis of the teams’ writtencommunication patterns thus can illuminate thelanguage behaviors associated with these twocultures. This analysis can, in turn, serve as thebasis for refining teaching practices in professionalcommunication and for developing future studies.

In light of the demonstrated need to establishand maintain a strong relational space in virtualcollaborations, a number of researchers haveidentified behaviors associated with building trust,particularly in virtual settings. To develop our initialdiscourse analysis, we have used the notion of talkas action to define these behaviors specifically interms of discourse practices, as summarized inTable I.


TABLE IDISCOURSE PRACTICES ASSOCIATED WITH SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATION

When early trust is established at the beginningof group projects, through social communication(Code 11; see Table I for Discourse PracticeCodes) for instance, it can positively influencethe remainder of the group’s interactions [19],[28], [29]. Jarvenpaa and Leidner find that socialcommunication and communication that indicatesenthusiasm (Codes 4 and 11) contribute to earlytrust, as well as members volunteering to dowork or serve in roles (Code 4). Later behaviorsthat contribute to trust include predictablecommunication and participation (Code 1) as wellas constructive feedback (Code 5) [29]. Coppolaet al., in a study of online college courses, findthat constructive feedback and asking for help,information, and opinions (Codes 6, 8, and 9)also contribute to trust [28]. Usoro et al.’s studyof knowledge sharing in virtual communitiesof practice finds that focus, or the measure

of an individual’s engagement in knowledgesharing, relates to trust more than quantity orquality of knowledge sharing [10]. Acknowledgingcontribution (Code 2), constructive feedback (Code5), information solicitation (Code 9), and recognitionof benefits (Code 10) all derive from this finding.

Greenberg, Greenberg, and Antonucci address theproblem of sustaining trust and suggest actionsfor managers or team leaders to use [22]. As inmany studies, social components (Code 11) areencouraged, especially in the beginning but alsothroughout the span of a group project. As thephases of a project develop, other behaviors arerecommended, including requiring responses thatare substantive and meet deadlines (Codes 1, 3, and7), and acknowledging and praising contributions(Code 2). In Wilson, Straus, and McEvily’s study,“Cooperation was measured as a manifestation


of trust” [33, p. 22]. Subjects in that study weredeemed to cooperate based on their willingnessto contribute stock exchange information to thegroup versus to an individual account. Informationsharing (Code 8) indicates cooperation of this typeas an indicator of trust. Other studies concurthat a lack of trust can lead to reluctance toshare information, especially in settings with loosestructure [19], [28]. Code 12, formal role definition,contributes to group structure, in Cohort 2 froma self-organizing perspective versus a top-downmandate.

Speech Act Theory The discourse patternssummarized in Table I provide one basis foranalyzing the written correspondence between thetwo cohorts in light of prior research. To furtherdevelop our understanding of communicationpractices in virtual teams, however, we layerdiscourse analysis with speech act analysis. SpeechAct Theory enables us to group these discursivemoves into broader categories and analyze

the effect of an utterance in relationship tothe speaker and listener’s behaviors; it can helpus examine utterances from the perspective oftheir function, rather than only their form. [34,p. 6]

This layered analysis contributes to understandinggroup behavior in terms of literal communicationand interactional discourse by describing the“rhetorical relations that link together the contentsof the discourse’s utterances” [35, p. 1]. This largercontextual frame makes Speech Act Theory anideal tool to help illuminate ways in which speakerscompensate for a lack of context in distributedcommunication and to emphasize the social actionsbeing accomplished by the discourse practices.Speech Act Theory has been applied successfully inother educational settings to characterize effectiveparticipation in university-level communities ofpractice [36], to analyze classroom discourse[37]–[41], collaborative tutoring [42] and ethicsinstruction [43], and to record how students choosevarious linguistic strategies to maintain personalidentity [44].

According to Speech Act Theory, “to say somethingis to do something” [3, p. 12], and the act ofspeaking (or writing) is more complex than theliteral utterance. In fact, the communication itselfis usually not “the sole thing necessary if theact is to be deemed to have been performed” [3,p. 8]. In essence, transferring meaning betweenpeople depends on the literal utterance, thecommunicative intent of the speaker, and the

hearer’s understanding of a communicative event,all levels of description of a speech act. These threelevels, which reflect the complexity and indirectnessof much of our communication, are delineated as:• LOCUTIONARY FORCE: The words as they are

actually uttered or written• ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE: The speaker’s intention• PERLOCUTIONARY FORCE: The understanding or

the effect that the speech act has on the contextparticipants’ world.

While the definitions of locutionary andillocutionary forces are reasonably clear, theconcept of perlocution is often described in terms ofpoliteness—people communicate in ways that affectsocial face, which is “the public self-image thatevery member of society wants to claim for himself”[45, p. 66]. Positive face is the desire of individualsto be liked, admired, and respected; threats topositive face include expressions of disapproval,disagreements, accusations, and interruptions.Negative face is the desire of individuals to beindependent and avoid having others tell themwhat to do; threats to negative face include orders,requests, suggestions, and advice. Threats topositive face can include apologies or confessions[34], [45]. These factors play a significant role ingroup interactions, and these groups, in particular,were found to have very different attitudes interms of how they expressed their valuationof disciplines outside their own fields [8]. Inface-to-face communication, communicators usemany cues that derive from localized informationin order to interpret speech and, thus, shape theperlocutionary force. In virtual communication,and additionally in cross-cultural communication,contextual cues are weaker and more susceptibleto misinterpretation, making the social actionsaccomplished by language all the more critical.

Table II presents definitions of the speech acts usedin this analysis and identifies the relationshipsbetween these speech acts and discourse practices.These relationships were established through aninitial coding verified by three independent coders.

CASE STUDY DESCRIPTIONS

As noted, we applied this two-level linguisticanalysis to a two-cohort case study of global virtualteams.

Research Setting and Participants Theteams were distributed across two universitiesand two general disciplines, with engineeringstudents in America and digital media studentsin Europe. Students in these multidisciplinary


TABLE IICOMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES CATEGORIZED AS SPEECH ACTS

and multicultural teams collaborated on asemester-long assignment that focused onpresenting engineering senior design projects toa nontechnical audience via the internet. Theoutcome or product of the collaboration consistedof a digital white paper describing and promotingthe engineering students’ senior projects.

Importantly, the learning outcomes for the twogroups differed. The digital media students wererequired to produce hypertext versions of the finalwhite paper using knowledge and informationshared with them by the engineering students.Since one of the objectives of the white paper wasto make it comprehensible to a nonengineeringaudience, the digital media students wereconfronted with the challenge of first having tolearn aspects of the engineering lexicon and thentranslate this lexicon into language for a layaudience. On the other hand, the engineeringstudents were required to develop and definesolutions to the open-ended problem statement ofhow to communicate their work to nontechnicalteam members. In doing so, they were required toframe their projects in terms of the broader social,economic, and cultural implications of engineeringwork. Thus, the white paper assignment wasdesigned to provide both groups of students withan interdisciplinary, cross-cultural collaborationin which the members must play different roles inorder to reach a common goal.

Cohort 1, consisting of four teams, receivedinstructions about the white paper assignmentitself, along with technical instructions forusing communication tools such as Skype andthe university’s course-management system toexchange information. In contrast, instructional

intervention with Cohort 2 (six teams) includedboth the instructions provided to Cohort 1 andassignments designed to help students developrelational space across spatial and culturalboundaries; these interventions are described inmore detail in Table III, which lists four learninggoals and the assignments designed to helpstudents achieve learning gains. These learninggoals were developed specifically to address thechallenges and deficiencies found in Cohort 1, thatis, the lack of social cohesion, the frustration overdisciplinary differences, the absence of a sharedcommitment to the goal, and the elision of culturaldifferences.

However, while the instruction did link thisinstruction and the corresponding assignmentsto establishing relationships, it did not clearlydelineate the individual discourse practicesidentified in Table I. Instead, the classroominstruction described productive behaviors at ageneral, rather than a linguistic, level.

In both cohorts, participation in the collaborationwas considered a component of engineeringstudents’ participation and documentation grades,although the percentage was slightly higher forCohort 2. The digital media students were gradedon the quality of the hypertext white paper. Bothsets of teams worked together in a geographicallydistributed setting for a semester, and both cohortswere provided with a series of intermediate duedates for various stages of the process, includingdeadlines for project descriptions, multiple drafts,and required feedback on each draft. The onlyphysical meetings took place when two studentsfrom each cohort travelled on exchange to the othercountry near the end of the collaborations.


TABLE IIITREATMENT FOR COHORT 2: LEARNING GOALS AND CORRESPONDING ASSIGNMENTS

Data Collection The data for this analysisare the written exchanges between eachengineering-digital media team, which occurred viaemail and via memos shared through the onlinecourse-management system. It is framed by theanalyses of student attitudes and perceptionsgathered through surveys and focus groupsdescribed earlier and reported elsewhere [6]–[8]. Thestudy was approved by the authors’ InstitutionalReview Board.

Data Analysis First, the transcribed conversations,emails, and online discussions were coded by threeseparate researchers using the communicativepractices identified in Table I. Table IV providessample comments for each code.

A single utterance could be coded with morethan one collaboration indicator. For example, arelational motivator such as Good job—we lookforward to your feedback! could also be coded asfeedback solicitation. This type of example would becounted twice as an example of two collaborationindicators. Since one utterance could be countedas more than one communicative practice, oneutterance could also function as more than onespeech act. For example, many utterances werecoded as relational motivators and feedback orinformation solicitations, and were thereforeexpressive and directive speech acts.

The communicative practices were then categorizedas certain kinds of speech acts, as shown inTable II. Again, since utterances could be coded asmore than one communicative practice, they couldalso be coded as more than one speech act. For

example, the utterance Good job—we look forwardto your feedback! is coded as an expressive and adirective.

Finally, a raw count of speech acts was talliedand statistically analyzed to determine whetherdifferences between the cohorts were significant.

RESULTS

Volume of Communication Each of the fourdesign teams in Cohort 1 generated an averageof 11 messages, with the highest volume of 15messages generated by Team 1 and the lowestvolume of 6 messages generated by Team 3. Onaverage, the European students tended to initiatemore communications (7 messages average) thandid the American students (4 messages average).

Each of the six design teams in Cohort 2 generatedan average of 11 messages, with the highest volume(15 messages) generated by Team 5 and the lowestvolume (7 messages) generated by Team 4. Onaverage, the European students tended to initiatemore communications (6 messages average) thandid the American students (4 messages average).

Coding Patterns The results of email coding bythree independent researchers are listed in Table V.The coded text of each cohort is presented withthe total . The raw counts of each speech actcategory are presented in bold, followed bythe percentage of the total codes counted for thatcohort. The raw counts of each communicativepractice associated with trust are presented in


TABLE IVSAMPLE CODING FOR COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES ASSOCIATED WITH TRUST

nonbold text, followed by the percentage categorizedwithin a speech act.

Fig. 1 provides a comparison of discourse practicesbetween the two cohorts, while Fig. 2 provides acomparison of speech acts.

The counts show notable differences betweenCohort 2, the group that followed assignmentsdesigned to increase relational space, and Cohort1, which was not given any explicit assignments toimprove teamwork, especially in differences betweenassertives, expressives, and directives. As Fig. 1shows, Cohort 2 exceeded Cohort 1 in the areasof role definition, information sharing, feedback,relational motivators, acknowledgments, desire tocontribute, and recognition of benefits—all areasassociated with swift trust. Cohort 1, in contrast,included a higher percentage of accountability,feedback and information solicitation, availability,and flexibility. As noted below, however, most of

these comments were associated with the digitalmedia students asking the engineers for feedbackand the engineers apologizing for not providinginformation and shifting deadlines repeatedly.

When we turn to the speech act analysis inFig. 2, the differences become even starker:

• Performatives: The only performative in thissample was formal role definition, which waspart of an assignment that was required for theCohort 2 groups and optional for the Cohort 1groups.

• Assertives: Cohort 2 had more than twice asmany assertives as Cohort 1. Furthermore, 12 ofthe assertives from Cohort 2 involved feedbackand information sharing, while almost all of theassertives from Cohort 1 involved “accountability”that consisted mainly of engineering studentsapologizing for not providing information.


TABLE VRESULTS OF EMAIL CODING BY COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES CATEGORIZED WITHIN SPEECH ACTS

• Directives: Cohort 1 discourse contained 18directives (31%) contrasted to 2 directives (2%) inthe Cohort 2 discourse. Most of the 18 directiveswere requests from the digital media students toget information from the engineering students,which is notable in relation to the number ofaccountability assertives found in that cohort’sdiscourse.

• Expressives: Cohort 2 had more than twice asmany expressives (65%) as Cohort 1 (32%).

• Commissives: The difference in commissiveswas small and centered almost entirely onnegotiating schedules.

Statistically, the differences in usage of expressivesand directives between Cohort 1 and Cohort 2are very significant ( 0.000 and 0.001traditionally at the end of -value), in that Cohort1 used significantly more directives and Cohort 2used significantly more expressives (see Tables VIand VII).

Also, Cohort 2 groups used significantly moreassertives than directives, and Cohort 1 groupsused significantly more directives than assertives(Tables VIII and IX).

However, Cohort 2 did not use significantly moreassertives than expressives or vice versa; these

speech acts were more evenly distributed in aparallel rate of high usage.

DISCUSSION

Examining the discourse practices of the twogroups (Fig. 1) demonstrates several key differencesin the observed patterns. Although the teams inCohort 1 had many more requests for informationand feedback and more statements attemptingto hold one another accountable, their writtencorrespondence shows far fewer instances of actualfeedback and information sharing. Moreover, theengineering teams in Cohort 1 were much less likelyto meet the deadlines for providing feedback andinformation to the digital media teams; requestsfor deadline extensions and more time to respondaccount for the higher number of commentsassociated with availability and flexibility.

In Cohort 2, in contrast, the requests forinformation were relatively minimal; both setsof teams provided one another with drafts andfeedback per the course schedule, and the digitalmedia students did not have to repeatedly askthe engineering students for the required work.This increase in the smooth flow of knowledgecorresponds to marked increases in relationalmotivators, acknowledgments of contributions,desires to contribute, and recognition of


Fig. 1. Discourse patterns as a percentage of coded communication.

Fig. 2. Speech acts as a percentage of coded communication.

TABLE VICOHORTS 1 AND 2 BY EXPRESSIVE OR

DIRECTIVE CROSS-TABULATION

benefits—all absent or only minimally presentamong the Cohort 1 teams. As noted earlier,these discourse patterns also correlate with theimprovements in students’ attitudes towards andperceptions of the collaboration.

Thus, the discourse patterns identified in thestudents’ written correspondence clearly reflectthe larger behavioral patterns identified by priorresearchers. In particular, higher incidences ofrelational motivators, desire to contribute, andrecognition of the benefits of collaboration correlatewith information sharing and feedback. Theincrease in feedback is particularly important giventhat the kind of integrative knowledge sharingdescribed in the literature review requires ahigh degree of dialogic exchange. While our datacollection did not directly address the developmentof new knowledge or the ability of the student teamsto reinterpret their own work and/or integrateknowledge from their collaborators’ domain, thepresence of these interactive language patterns at


TABLE VIICHI-SQUARE TESTS FOR EXPRESSIVES AND DIRECTIVES

TABLE VIIICOHORTS 1 AND 2 BY ASSERTIVE OR

DIRECTIVE CROSS-TABULATION

least suggests the possibility of such integrationand paves the way for future studies.

The quantitative analysis of the speech acts of bothcohorts indicates that Cohort 2, after receivingexplicit instructions in behaviors designed to buildrelationships, demonstrated more expressives andmore assertives in their language patterns. Thatis, these students engaged in specific linguisticpractices that contribute to relational space andknowledge sharing. In Cohort 1, in contrast,the number of directives—direct requests forinformation and/or feedback, largely on the partof the digital media students—were approximatelyequal to the number of expressives, but thenumber of assertives—associated with informationexchange that paves the way for knowledgesharing—were a far-lower percentage of studentcommunications. In other words, even thoughthere were many requests for information, lessinformation sharing actually occurred.

The students in Cohort 2, in contrast, used farfewer directives in their written conversations,perhaps because the direct requests were takencare of through carefully planned documents and atacit commitment to adhere to the schedule versusless-formal emails and continually negotiateddeadlines. Thus, the teams in Cohort 2 also workedwithin a stronger structure, which may decreasethe need for high levels of trust [19]. By combininga loosely formalized system of requests through

documents with a social system of “meeting” byemail, the Cohort 2 teams provided informationand feedback to one another much more easilythan Cohort 1 teams, following due dates specifiedby the course calendar on each of the intermediateassignments.

While a slight increase in the percentage of theengineering course grades associated with thecollaboration might account for some of thisincreased attention to deadlines, it seems unlikelyas the primary explanation. Instead, we note theparallel high rates of expressives and assertivesin Cohort 2. Although this relationship does notnecessarily imply causality, the literature ontrust and collaboration would indicate that anincrease in relational space established throughthe dominant use of expressives should enhancethe atmosphere of trust and, in turn, increaseknowledge sharing. In addition, the documentedimprovements in students’ attitudes toward andperceptions of the collaborations reinforce the linkbetween the speech act patterns and the teams’socially constructed cultures.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR

FUTURE WORK

Although there are indications that highlystructured collaborations can be effective withoutrelational space and trust [19], research hasconsistently shown that the impoverished relationalspace in virtual teams often diminishes effectivecollaborations. The presence of relational spaceor a communication zone is established throughsocially contextualized interactions between peopleand requires incentive and trust. Discourse notonly reflects the nature of these interactions,but also plays a critical role in constructingrelationships [4], a role heightened in virtualteams where “talk” (written or spoken) is thedominant, if not the only, available tool. To


TABLE IXCHI-SQUARE TESTS FOR ASSERTIVES AND DIRECTIVES

expand our understanding of this role, in thisstudy we sought to identify examples of discoursepractices associated with behaviors known tocontribute to building trust and relational spacein virtual, interdisciplinary collaborations. Thisanalysis is particularly valuable for professionalcommunication faculty because it explicitlyconnects behavior to language and suggests waysin which professional communication theory andpractice can complement work in fields such asorganizational behavior and management.

We then categorized these discourse practices intobroader categories of speech acts to provide a higherlevel of generalization. Speech Act Theory describesall communication as performative behavior inwhich people use language to “do things withwords,” as Austin’s title pronounces [3]. Speech actanalysis takes into account the medium (language),speaker intent, and effects of utterances on othersin the discourse. An approach informed by SpeechAct Theory could, we argue, help instructors andstudent collaborators think more intentionallyabout the effects of their communication beyondliteral meanings, especially in virtual contextswhere participants must compensate for theabsence of the cues that are present in face-to-faceinteractions. By conceptualizing communication asaction or behavior, instructors have a higher degreeof flexibility when teaching communication andcollaboration. For example, we are often encouragedto communicate more, even though some researchreveals that a higher volume of communicationcan even be detrimental to collaboration [19],[46]. Also, an emphasis on grammatical accuracycan distract collaborators from more importantcollaboration goals, such as using communicationto establish dependable relationships. IntegratingSpeech Act Theory into instruction, or simplyraising awareness of speech as behavior, couldprovide students with ways to more effectivelyunderstand and, thus, make decisions about, the

social as well as the instrumental purposes of eachcommunicative exchange.

The data analysis of team talk in this paired casestudy shows that speech acts are social: Theycommunicate engagement in a group processand convey receptiveness to other speakers, andthey are correlated with interactive contexts thatengender trust, which will go a long way towardbolstering positive relational space. In particular,our analysis demonstrates:(1) classroom instruction and assignments

directed toward building relationships quicklyin virtual settings coincide with and, thus,have the potential to increase students’ useof these practices and, in turn, increase thedegree of knowledge sharing;

(2) discourse practices that support trust includerelational motivators, acknowledgment ofothers’ contributions, expressions of one’s owndesire to contribute, and recognition of thebenefits and value of the collaboration; thesepractices correlate strongly with an increase ininformation exchange that bears the potentialfor integrative knowledge sharing, at least in aclassroom environment;

(3) at the level of speech acts, expressives,designed to convey attitudes and emotions,correlate strongly with assertives, which reflectpatterns of successful information exchangeand dialogue.

These conclusions suggest important avenues forinstructors to address when establishing any typeof distributed collaboration in the classroom. Thecase study suggests that instructional intervention,even at the behavioral level, may influencelinguistic patterns in ways that support trustand relational space. More explicitly, however,because discourse practices and speech acts, andthe role language plays in constructing culture,can be explicitly taught, our findings raise thepossibility that explicit attention to these language


patterns may help teams—particularly in virtual,boundary-crossing environments—more easilyestablish interactional spaces that support positiveand productive team dynamics.

At the same time, this case study, limited to twouniversities with a relatively small population ofstudents, raises additional research questionsabout the ways in which communication practicescan help establish and maintain trust in distributedenvironments:(1) Does explicit instruction in discourse practices

and speech acts enhance team culture andincrease performance?

(2) To what extent do these language patternscorrelate to true integrative knowledgebuilding, rather than simple informationexchange?

(3) How do trust-building practices vary acrosscultures? This study examined multiculturalteams located in the US and Europe andcomprised students from various countriesfor whom expressives are likely to be acomfortable cultural practice. What happenswhen one or more of the collaborators worksin a culture in which expressions of emotion,enthusiasm, and personal engagement areless socially accepted and/or less common?

(4) How can faculty effectively evaluate students’communication practices in a reasonable timeframe? The detailed coding used to analyzethe communication patterns of students inthese two cohorts is highly labor-intensive andnot suitable as an evaluation or assessmenttool in a traditional classroom. What otherapproaches can faculty take to determinewhether students are learning these practices

and successfully establishing trust indistributed teams?

(5) In what ways do virtual collaborations improveproductivity? Are there instances in which adeficit in relational space actually contributesto productivity? Further examinations of therelationship between structure and limitedcommunication, for instance, may revealdifferent strategies for various types andphases of distributed collaborations.

While the case study presented here offersimportant insights into the ways in whichspecific communication patterns relate to trust indistributed settings, these and other questionssuggest that technical communications researchersstill have much work to do in better supporting thetypes of collaborations that increasingly dominatethe global economy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank the NationalScience Foundation for supporting the researchon interdisciplinary collaboration under GrantsDUE-0633537 and EEC-0648439; and Dr. H. Griffinfor supporting graduate assistant M. Davitt throughthe Department of Engineering Education and theVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityEngineering Communications Center. The viewsexpressed in this paper are those of the authorsand do not necessarily represent those of theNational Science Foundation or the Department.The authors would also like to thank M. Borrego forhelp in the statistical analysis, W. Schaefer and K.Beddoes for coding the data, and the students whoagreed to participate in this study.

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Lisa D. McNair is Assistant Professor of Engineering Educationat Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,Blacksburg, and Co-Director of the Virginia Tech EngineeringCommunication Center (VTECC). She is Co-PI on severalNational Science Foundation-funded projects that exploreissues of learning, practicing, and teaching interdisciplinarity inuniversity and industry settings. Her primary research interestsare communication and collaboration in interdisciplinary anddistributed settings, institutional structures that encouragetransformational learning, and the possibilities of liberaleducation in engineering programs.

Marie C. Paretti is Assistant Professor of Engineering Educationat Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, whereshe codirects the Virginia Tech Engineering CommunicationsCenter (VTECC). Her research focuses on communicationin engineering design, interdisciplinary communicationand collaboration, and design education. She received theCAREER Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)to study expert teaching practices in capstone design coursesnationwide, and she is Co-PI on several NSF grants to exploreinterdisciplinary collaboration in engineering design.

Marcia Davitt received the M.Sc. degree in EnvironmentalScience and Policy at Clark University, Worcester, MA, and iscurrently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in the Science, Technologyand Society program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and StateUniversity, Blacksburg. Her dissertation work focuses on theUS biofuels-for-transport policy discourse. She has 20 years ofexperience as a health-care information systems professional.Her research interests include the political ecology of largetechnological systems and the ways technology shapes theconditions of knowledge production. Ms. Davitt received theUSDA fellowship to research biofuels.

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