One impact of this work has been to carefully elucidate the problems arising in intercultural computer-mediated communication (CMC) such that we understand what problems need to be solved to improve intercultural interaction.
A second impact of this work has been to raise awareness of the importance of cultural issues to successful teamwork. The number of papers on cultural issues submitted to the major conferences on computer-mediated communication is rising.
A related impact is progress in raising intercultural computer-mediated collaboration to the status of its own research domain, with its own conferences and journal papers. We have established a new bi-annual conference that focuses exclusively on this topic, and we have held several workshops in conjunction with other conferences.
impact statement issue
Difficulties in collaboration among individuals from different cultural backgrounds are well documented. Many workers in New York state and elsewhere engage in international and intercultural interaction. Many problems and confusions arise in such collaborations. Our goals are to understand these problems and confusions and to design new computer-mediated communication tools to reduce or eliminate them.
impact statement response
A series of published and in-press laboratory studies have examined computer-mediated intercultural communication among American-born and Chinese-born team members. In addition, we have conducted one international survey study examining how Instant Messaging is used by people from cultures with different styles of communication. An interview study is in progress that explores cultural differences in communication styles and how these affect use of, and satisfaction with, computer-mediated communication tools. We are also building a prototype text chat system to improve intercultural communication.
impact statement summary
The overall goals are to understand the problems that arise in intercultural interaction via computer-mediated communication technologies and to develop and evaluate new tools to improve computer-mediated intercultural communication.
