Understanding Group Effectiveness in a Newly Formed Online Community

October 26, 2006
Roderick Lee | Alfred P. Sloan Fellow at Pennsylvania State University

This research in progress study investigates the joint effects of group development and social capital on the effectiveness of a newly formed online community. Despite over four decades of research on the group development-performance relationship and over five decades of research on the network-performance relationship there is still confusion as to why some groups outperform others. For example, linear and non-linear models of group development provide competing explanations on the developmental trajectories of groups. In an effort to shed light on this problem, a conceptual framework is developed that identifies the relationships among group maturity, social capital, group processes and long term group effectiveness of a newly formed group of historians from diverse organizations that are in the process of integrating technology into their work practices. This new knowledge is translated into principles and guidelines to inform the design of technologies to support groups across time and space.

Speaker Details

Roderick Lee is a doctorial candidate and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow from Pennsylvania State University. Additionally, Roderick is an instructor of Information Systems in the School of Business at Penn State University/Harrisburg. He earned a B.S. in Marketing, B.S. in Information Systems, MBA and A M. S. in Information Systems from Penn State/Harrisburg. Roderick is the recipient of the Pennsylvania State University Ralph Dorn Heltzel Award, the Pennsylvania State University Graduate Student Service Award and the Pennsylvania Association of Graduate Schools Distinguished Graduate Student Award. In addition, he was selected by Harrisburg Area Community College as one of the top 40 alumni over the past 40 years. His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Communities of Practice and Organizational Behavior.