A manufacturing collaboratory case study :

I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS II TABLE OF CONTENTS III 1.1. BACKGROUND 1 1.2. ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 4 1.3. THE RESEARCH STUDY 5 1.4. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH EXPECTATIONS 6 1.4.1. Distributed teams in organizations 6 1.4.2. Contribution to research on collaborative tools 7 1.4.3. Challenges to effectiveness of distributed teams 8 1.4.4. Collaborative tools to overcome geographic dispersion 9 1.4.5. Collaborative needs of engineers 10 1.4.6. Effect of collaborative tool introduction on communication, performance and trust. . 11 1.4.7. Review of research questions and expectations 14 2. DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH 15 2.1. CONTEXT OF THE CASE-STUDY 15 2.1.1. Collaborative Product Development 15 2.1.2. The Product 17 2.1.3. The Research site 18 2.1.4. Power and political issues within the team 21 2.1.5. Cultural differences 24 2.1.6. Work and management styles 24 2.1.7. Technical Issues 25 2.1.8. Collaboration processes within the team 27 2.2. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AND EVALUATION APPROACH 27 2.2.1. User-centered Design 27 2.2.2. Interview method 28 2.3. BASELINE INTERVIEW DATA AND OBSERVATIONS 30 2.4. REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLABORATION 33 2.4.1. Synchronous communication 33 2.4.2. Asynchronous communication 34 2.4.3. Time zone issues 34 2.4.4. Scheduling 34 2.4.5. Security 35 2.4.6. Design specific 35 2.4.7. Other 36 2.5. PREINTERVENTION QUESTIONNAIRE 36 2.5.1. Background items 37 2.5.2. Independent variables 39 2.5.3. Outcome measures 44 2.6. POSTINTERVENTION QUESTIONNAIRE 48 2.6.1. Items eliminated from Survey Time 2 48 2.6.2. Items altered in Survey Time 2 50 2.6.3. New items in Survey Time 2 50 2.6.4. Items repeated from Survey Time 1. 51 3. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 52 3.1. TIME 1 ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEW DATA 52