Intellectual Teamwork

This book seeks to establish an interdisciplinary, applied social scientific model for researchers and students that advocates a cooperative effort between machines and people. After showing that basic research on social processes offers much needed guidance for those creating technology and designing tools for group work, its papers demonstrate the mutual relevance of social science and information system design, and encourage better integration of these disciplines. This comprehensive collection closely examines the variety of electronic tools being deployed to solve traditional problems in communication and coordination. Unfortunately, research shows that these tools have not been as successful as their designers had envisioned, partially because they were not always produced with the needs and goals of their human users in mind. The editors' goal is to entice more social scientists to orient their research around questions of practical interest to information system designers and to convince designers to search for the knowledge about social and organizational behavior that would make their tools more useful.

"This dense collection of papers provides a deep understanding of the issues in computer-supported cooperative work....suitable as a major textbook for studying CSCW within an interdisciplinary program or a program with a strong emphasis on social and behavioral aspects."—Computing Reviews"This exceptionally well-edited collection is important for administrative scientists as well as for those who specialize in computer and information science. Not only does the volume fit squarely in small-group research and the sociology of science and technology, it is must reading for all serious students of organization who care about new organizational forms, interorganizational relations, managerial communication and control, and the management of innovation....an important addition to the administrative science literature."—Administrative Science Quarterly