Overview

1. The mind’s eye on personal identity profiles: Design and development of a personal identity profile to inform initial trustworthiness assessments in virtual project teams Ellen Rusman, Jan van Bruggen, Peter Sloep, Rob Koper, CELSTEC, Open University of the Netherlands, The NetherlandsMartin Valcke, Department of Educational studies, Ghent University, Belgium

2. Overview • Context and aim of research • Research questions • Studies and (temporary) results

3. Context of study (1)- what do we try to do? We try to • Support interpersonal trustworthiness assessments in temporary virtual project teams in the initial phase of a project • Between team members in a symmetric work relationship • By providing a personal identity profile with a concise set of information elements Trustworthiness (Hardin,2002)- an individual’s assessment of how much and for what type of performance a trustee can be trusted Virtual project team (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1998; Hung et al., 2004; Powell et al., 2004): form of group organization staffed by members across spatial, temporal, cultural and/or organizational boundaries; assembled on an as needed basis for the duration of a project; use ICT to facilitate communication; members are mutually dependent on each other. In most cases team members: • rarely see each other in person • do not have a prior history of working together

4. Context of study (2) – why do we try to do that? • the Institute for Corporate Productivity (I4CP) found that 62% of 278 interviewed companies consider a virtual team as an increasingly important format for collaboration and in companies with more than 10,000 employees this percentage rises to 80% (Perry, 2008). Source: centre for effective organisations http://www.marshall.usc.edu/web/CEO.cfm?doc_id=5181

5. Context (3) - Interpersonal trust as a favourable condition for collaboration • Walther (2005): “trust [in virtual groups] has been found to be positively related to performance, problem solving and uncertainty resolution as well as social information exchange” (p.2) • Raes (2005) found that a perceived high level of interpersonal trust within a team related to a low level of experienced personal and task conflicts • Corbitt (2004): “We confirm that trust is important to team performance for both virtual and face-to-face teams. Higher trust teams do tend to perform better.” (p.1) => General agreement that interpersonal trust within a group positively influences collaboration and performance

6. Context (4) - What is influencing interpersonal trust? • The level of interpersonal trust experienced by the trustor depends on (Arnold, 1998a; Castelfranchi, 1999; Gambetta, 1988; Riegelsberger, 2004): • General trust predisposition (e.g. general attitude towards trust, mood and perception) of the trustor • Characteristics of the context (risk, complexity, nature of…, locus of control) • Perceived trustworthiness of trustee (assessment of person, internal and external outcome attribution) • So one of the factors influencing interpersonal trust is perceived trustworthiness: the belief that someone is worthy to trust ((in short)

7. Context (5)- How do people get a sense of trustworthiness ? • By creating a mental model (belief) of a person based (Castelfranchi 2006, Riegelsberger, 2005) on info acquired through different routes: • first impression/assessment of personal characteristics (identity/status) (prominence-interpretation theory) • by direct interaction with a person (identity/status & reputation) • by interaction of others with a person (reputation = multi-facet concept) • by ‘surrounding’ organisational systems characteristics

8. Context (5) - How do people get a sense of trustworthiness online? • Normal signals (e.g. facial expressions) and routes (reputational information) for trustbuilding are different and/or lacking in a mediated environment of a virtual team • Especially first impression and direct interaction are available

9. How to inform trustworthiness assessments in the initial phase of a virtual project team? • What are the components of a mental model of trustworthiness in a work context? (study 1 – literature study, study 4 – large scale empirical study w. questionnaire) • How do people develop a sense of trustworthiness in a virtual team setting? Do people benefit from having a profile with information elements available to support the formation of a mental model of their team members? (study 2 – pilot study w. questionnaire and telephone interviews) • Which information is important to enable virtual project team members to form an initial mental model of trustworthiness of each other? (study 3 – field study and questionnaire) • Do trustors in a virtual project team use the antecedents of their mental model of trustworthiness as a reference while selecting preferred information elements in order to decide on a trustee’s trustworthiness? (study 5 – questionnaire)

10. Study 1 - Literature study

11. Study 2 – Pilot European Virtual seminar • Teams of 4 people • From different universities across Europe • Didn’t know eachother in advance • Solving a complex environmental problem • Through text-based communication (chat/discussion forum) • Offer a static PIP (Personal Identity Profile) in order to accelerate initial trustworthiness assessments • Ask about role of PIP and acceptability of presenting ‘dynamic’ info on behaviour to team members

13. Study 2- Other categories in profile template:

14. Study 2- What did we want to know? • What information did students use to form an impression of others online rather than f2f? • Was the profile implemented useful for online impression formation? • What information was especially useful? • Did students miss relevant info?

15. Study 2- results (1): • Questionnaires (27 students, 16 responses) • 13 interviews (7 Pexpi, 6 no Pexpi from the start) • some fragments from interviews:- [student 1] – 20 sec.- [student 2] – 30 sec. • => Seems to have positive influence

16. Study 2 - results (2)- Top 10 most important information • Educational background • Non-work/study related personal information (spare time activities, preferences, e.g. music/hobbies) • Photo • Professional background/work experience • Age • Gender • Affiliation (university, organization) • Expectation of course • Country, living place • Future plans, activities, professional aspirations/inspirations

17. Results (3)

18. But, only in initial phases !

19. Study 4- Aim of study • Operationalise a conceptual model of trustworthiness between individual virtual team members in a symmetric work relationship • Test conceptual model of trustworthiness empirically • Derive a validated measurement instrument to test the effect of an identity profile on trustworthiness estimation

20. Study 4 - Methodology • Selected 92 items corresponding to conceptual model (based on literature on measurement of trust). Statements about person, e.g. ‘I trust … because he/she shares the same interests’ =>23 antecedents each 4 items (2 positive, 2 negative) • Questionnaire: 7 item Likert-scale & items shuffled ranging from (1) Strongly disagree to (7) Strongly agree • Respondents filled questionnaire for person ‘trusted most’ and ‘trusted least’ within one specific project context

21. Study 4 - Operationalization of model in questions: TrustWorthinessANtecedent (TWAN) model

22. Study 4 - Methodology • Convenience sample: students each collected 5 questionnaires among professionals with collaborative experience • 1180 respondents each ‘rating’ 2 cases: 2360 cases • randomly created two subsamples via SPSS (n = 1164 en n = 1196) • Determined: • Construct validity – literature and reaction of small group of respondents • Reliability (internal consistency) – Cronbach’s alpha • Content validity – exploratory factor analysis • Predictive power – multiple regression analysis with General Trustworthiness (GT) value

23. Study 4 - Results TrustWorthinessANtecedent (TWAN) scale Strong predictor of GT Strong predictor of GT Strong predictor of GT Strong predictor of GT Strong predictor of GT Cronbach’s alpha (internal consistency) too low Not loading on the factor ‘trustworthiness’ Strong predictor of GT Strong predictor of GT

24. Study 3 – Aim of study • What type of profile elements are currently made available by system designers to inform initial assessments of trustworthiness in existing high-trust-requiring environments? (field study) • What type of information elements do users commonly consider important to inform an initial assessment of trustworthiness in a virtual project team? (questionnaire) • What type of information elements do users consider as practical for collaboration in a virtual project team? (questionnaire)

25. Study 3 - methodology • Field study: review 17 high trust requiring environments, such as dating, buying/selling, couch exchange, social networking, recruitment, groupware and professional environments = > what information elements are available in these environments • Questionnaire: 226 respondents with virtual project experience indicated on a 5 point Likert Scale which information elements they considered most important to form an initial trustworthiness assessment and most practical for online collaboration

26. Study 3 – Results (1) • We extracted a list of 157 information elements. This list could be divided in static (unchangeable) as well as dynamic (changeable, based on behaviour) information elements (Danis, 2000). • overlapping elements across these environments: • Name (first and surname) • Pseudonym (alias/display name) • Photo • Personal description/about me • Age/date of birth • Reference to personal URL (blog,website, homepage) • Contact data (business/private) • Contact method • Location data (business/private) • Occupation/function/position/role • Company/organization/employer • Education • Interests (private/professional) • Languages (level, preferred language for communication) • Testimonials (references, info from others about person)

27. Study 3 – Results (2)- importance for trustworthiness

28. Study 3 – Results (3)- importance for trustworthiness

29. Study 3 – Results (4)- practical importance

30. Study 5 – aim of study • Do trustors in a virtual project team use the antecedents of the mental model of trustworthiness as a reference while selecting preferred information elements in order to decide on a trustee’s trustworthiness? Do they: • a. prefer information elements that provide cues for multiple antecedents within the TrustWorthiness ANtecedent schema? • b. prefer information elements that provide unique cues for an antecedent within the TrustWorthiness ANtecedent schema?

31. Study 5 - methodology • Questionnaire: 226 respondents with virtual project experience selected the information elements they considered most important to form an initial trustworthiness assessment and provided explanation of their selection • Use TrustWorthiness ANtecedent model as a coding schema for their explanations extended with other concepts important for the interpersonal trust formation process • Determine interrater-reliability: TWAN = 0.79 and total coding schema = 0.73. Excluded one category (Other) as the two coders consistently understood this category differently • Further coding needs to be done…

33. Thank you for your attention ! Any questions or suggestions?ellen.rusman@ou.nlCELSTEC, Open University of the Netherlands