MANAGERIAL OPENNESS AND THE ADOPTION OF

DISTRIBUTED GROUP SUPPORT SYSTEMS

The Case of WebWide Participation

John Rohrbaugh

Rockefeller College, University at Albany (SUNY), 135 Western Avenue, Albany, NY, USA

Keywords: Managerial openness; group support systems; asynchronous meetings; distributed meetings; virtual teams

Abstract: The full involvement of designated participants in meeting process is a well-recognized standard of group

effectiveness, yet most face-to-face meetings are undertaken without the presence of every group member.

The problem of total participation in asynchronous meetings convened with distributed group support

systems has been noted frequently but investigated rarely. This paper describes a portion of a large field

study using the distributed group support system WebWide Participation in which explanations for meeting

involvement (and non-involvement) were explored. In particular, four WebWide meetings with varying

levels of participation were selected, and surveys were sent to all designated participants. The hypothesis

was that non-participants have less openness (i.e., one of the key personality dimensions in Big Five

personality theory--the characteristic of being intellectually curious and receptive to new experiences) than

active participants who willingly joined in the meeting process. Using two indices of managerial openness,

a discriminant analysis was undertaken that correctly distinguished over four of every five participants and

non-participants in the targeted WebWide meetings. The importance of this finding for advancing the

adoption of other new group support technologies is discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION

With proliferation of virtual groups with members

distributed in various sites who rarely work together

in the same place at the same time, the use of online

meetings has increased tremendously (Kock, 2000;

Qureshi & Vogel, 2001). This presents additional

challenges for group support, especially in

circumstances where situational determinants such

as distance, time pressure, and efficiency lead to the

use of alternative technologies as communication

channels (Haythornthwaite, Wellman, & Mantei,

1995; Hinds & Kiesler, 1995). Online group support

has acquired even greater significance as

organizations try to gain competitive advantage by

effective facilitation of virtual teams (Furst,

Blackburn, & Rosen, 1999; Beise, Niederman, &

Beranek, 1999).

Typical of organization innovations generally

(Kanter, 1988), most distributed group support

systems were first designed and implemented in

environments apart from organizational units in

which their intended users are located. For this

reason, such new technologies must be transferred

from the R&D settings that hosted the development

of the innovation to the organizational settings into

which they eventually may be assimilated and

institutionalized. Between the preliminary phase of

innovation development when ideas are generated

and realized, and the second phase, termed

assimilation, when systems are adopted, adapted,

and accepted, are found those activities of

technology transfer best described as initiation,

during which the use of some inchoate form of

group support system (GSS) is introduced and used

for the first time in an organization (Applegate,

1991).

Successful initiation arguably encourages a

willingness to use the technology again, perhaps

repeatedly, while problems at the time of

introduction may doom, at least temporarily,

subsequent progress toward assimilation

(Fjermestad & Hiltz, 2001). While new technology

must be modified repeatedly following adoption to

suit the unique demands of each workplace, an

organizational unit also must be able to change

appropriately its established structures and

processes. This mutual adaptation model suggests

that the eventual assimilation of new technology

115

Rohrbaugh J. (2004).

MANAGERIAL OPENNESS AND THE ADOPTION OF DISTRIBUTED GROUP SUPPORT SYSTEMS - The Case of WebWide Participation.

In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 115-120

DOI: 10.5220/0002607501150120

 SciTePress

becomes threatened wherever it is rigidly introduced

or wherever executive teams are not flexible enough

to alter their decision-making routines at the time of

initiation.

1.1 Managerial Openness and the

Adoption of Distributed GSS

Openness was identified by the “Berkeley school”

(Adorno et al., 1950) as an underlying trait of

flexibility, although their emphasis was on the

negative or pathological end of the dimension:

intolerance, rigidity, dogmatism, and premature

closure. There is growing evidence that an

individual's capacity to be cognitively and

behaviorally flexible in dealing with new situations

is one of five key (i.e., the “Big Five”) factors in

personality structure (Digman, 1990; Goldberg,

1993; McCrae, 1987).

Because the openness factor is connected to

intellectual curiosity, creativity, and divergent

thinking (McCrae, 1987) that tend to be encouraging

of efforts toward organizational innovation and

change, not surprisingly, its connection to training

proficiency has been well established (Barrick &

Mount, 1991; Hough et al., 1990; Salgado, 1997).

Individuals who have greater openness to new ideas

may benefit most from training opportunities.

McCartt and Rohrbaugh (1995, p. 577) concluded

that “over 30% of the variance in outcome reports of

decision conference success can be predicted

reliably from the degree of openness in client

organizations.” In a recent international survey of

experienced facilitators, greater openness in groups

(i.e., “members are intellectually curious, flexible,

and creative in approaching issues”) was identified

most frequently (83% of the responses) as the reason

why groups are effective at addressing problems and

successfully accomplishing the tasks on which they

work.

Consistent with the early work of Rogers (1962;

with Shoemaker, 1971), longer-term assimilation

and institutionalization of distributed group support

systems depend upon the potential adopters'

openness to change at the time new technologies are

first introduced in organizations. Applegate (1991),

for example, identified the receptivity or resistance

of end-users as a key factor associated with success

and failure in technology transfer. It can be argued

It is important to note, however, that an individual who displays

substantial openness to change is

not necessarily an innovator,

that is,

not particularly an initiator or "prime mover" of change,

especially capable of originality of thought, greatly motivated to

develop novel solutions to problems (Jackson, 1976, 10).

Special Report, International Association of Facilitators,

February, 1998.

that rigid adherence to established organizational

structures and work routines will preclude any

possibility of achieving the beneficial results

frequently ascribed to new applications of

technology. Managerial openness to change permits

the creative use of alternative, even initially

unfamiliar, methods of deliberation and conflict

management provided by online group support.

Successful introduction of new technology will

increase willingness to use an innovation again, the

basis of its eventual adoption.

1.2 Asynchronous Meetings through

WebWide Participation

The focus of the present study is on a unique form

of online meeting termed “asynchronous” to indicate

that the communication of the virtual group is not

concurrent in time (see, for example, Ocker et al.,

1995; Shirani, Tafti, & Affisco, 1999; Warkentin,

Sayeed, & Hightower, 1997). Such any-time any-

place (ATAP) meetings give each and every

participant complete control over their own

schedules; they join in the group process whenever

and wherever they choose. ATAP meetings are

convened by computer through any local or wide

area network or the Internet and can take place over

a period of one to six weeks, since participants

contribute to the group process whenever they have

a few minutes to spare, even late evenings or

weekends. ATAP meetings are different from other

electronic forums such as bulletin boards,

newsgroups, listservs, and chat groups. An ATAP

meeting gathers individuals together who share

responsibility for a common task, who need to focus

on an explicit problem, and who must be successful

in getting useful results from their collaboration. In

short, ATAP meetings are convened to get work

done with a broader base of effort.

WebWide Participation (WWP) was designed to

support the simplest, most basic form of ATAP

meeting. As a series of elementary Web pages,

WWP allows first-time participants in ATAP

meetings to join in the sessions without difficulty, as

long as they have the capacity in their office or

home to access the Internet. The use of WWP

requires the designation of at least one individual to

serve as the online meeting facilitator whose efforts

on behalf of the group complement the

responsibilities of the group leader(s) (Rangarajan

and Rohrbaugh, 2003).

WWP meetings typically involve 5 to 100

participants over a two to four-week period. There

are three stages to a complete WWP meeting:

listing, categorizing, and prioritizing. In the listing

stage, participants are asked to respond to specific

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elicitation questions by generating lists of proposed

ideas; this is the brainstorming phase of the meeting.

In the subsequent categorizing stage, each

participant sorts all of the proposed ideas into

clusters of identical or quite similar contributions to

the list. The number of resulting categories usually

is about half the number of initial ideas. In the final

prioritizing stage, each participant ranks or rates the

idea clusters according to one or more specific

assessment criteria. Both the meeting facilitator and

group leader(s) actively encourage the involvement

of designated participants during all stages of a

WWP meeting.

1.3 Specifying the Research Question

Since the argument has been made for mutual

adaptation in successful routinization of new

technology, the primary importance of managerial

openness to change appears worthy of further

investigation with respect to distributed group

support systems. The hypothesis directing the

present study was that non-participants in WebWide

meetings have less openness (i.e., the characteristic

of being intellectually curious and receptive to new

experiences) than active participants who willingly

joined in the meeting processes. It was expected

that the measurement of managerial openness would

allow for relatively accurate predictions of which

designated participants either had become actively

involved--or had remained uninvolved despite

multiple invitations to join in the asynchronous

meetings.

2 METHOD OF STUDY

A large field study of ATAP meeting facilitation has

been initiated using WWP and e-mail as the primary

communication channels for each group. Thus far,

12 ATAP meetings have been facilitated for external

organizations facing real, not experimentally

contrived, problems. Meeting size has ranged from

7 to 93 designated participants with a median of 19.

Actual participation rates (i.e., the ratio of active

participants to designated participants) have ranged

from .41 to .94 with a median of .66.

For purposes of this study, four of these

meetings were selected for further investigation:

two meetings with higher participation rates (.94--16

active participants out of 17 designated; .92—23

active participants out of 25 designated); one

meeting with a lower participation rate (.41--9 active

participants out of 22 designated); and one meeting

with a moderate participation rate (.55--28 active

participants out of 51 designated).

A three-page questionnaire was sent to every

active participant in each meeting. Altogether 76 of

these surveys were distributed. This questionnaire

asked respondents to evaluate the usefulness of

(seven questions) and satisfaction with (six

questions) the WWP meeting. In addition,

respondents were asked to agree or disagree (using a

six-point, Likert-type scale) with ten descriptive

statements about the WWP meeting and to estimate

the amount of time that they had devoted to meeting

participation.

A two-page questionnaire was sent to every

designated participant who did not at any time join

in the WWP meeting. Altogether 39 of these surveys

were distributed. This questionnaire asked

respondents to rate on an 11-point scale the

importance of 12 alternative reasons why they did

not join in the WWP meeting.

The final page of both the three-page (for

participants) and the two-page (for non-participants)

forms of questionnaire were identical. All

respondents were asked to agree or disagree (using a

six-point, Likert-type scale) with statements about

organizations and also about themselves. These

items were selected specifically to measure the level

of managerial openness for each individual. For

example, statements about organizations included

“Most managers fails to provide sufficient stability

and consistency in office routines,” “Organizations

do not need to take any risks in order to achieve

excellence,” and “Experiments belong in the

laboratory, not in the workplace.” Personal

statements included “I think it’s interesting to learn

and develop new skills and hobbies,” “My friends

and family might say that I’m a person who is pretty

much set in my ways,” and “I prefer a job that

doesn’t require me to keep learning new tasks.”

The response rate (i.e., the ratio of returned

questionnaires to distributed questionnaires) was .74

for participants and .51 for non-participants.

Altogether 76 of the 115 distributed questionnaires

were returned, producing an overall response rate of

.66. The response rates for each of the four selected

meetings were .94, .84,.64, and .47, respectively.

Respondents to the questionnaire were

demographically similar to all participants in WWP

meetings. Women only slightly outnumbered the

men. Respondents typically were in mid-level

management positions and between 35 and 45 years

of age.

MANAGERIAL OPENNESS AND THE ADOPTION OF DISTRIBUTED GROUP SUPPORT SYSTEMS: THE CASE

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117

3 RESULTS

3.1 Participants Only

On the whole, participants (n = 56) reported quite

positive experiences with WWP meetings. Nearly

60% generally or strongly disagreed that “first-time

participants will find it difficult to join in a WWP

meeting,” and three-quarters (77%) generally or

strongly agreed that “once group members join in,

they will find that it is easy to contribute to a WWP

meeting.” When asked if they “would be very

willing to participate in another WWP meeting,”

80% generally or strongly agreed. More than 85%

reported that they were either generally or extremely

satisfied with the overall meeting process.

Participants did not appear to have spent a great

deal of time joining in the WWP meetings. On

average, participants reported spending about five

minutes “initially finding and getting access to the

right Web pages” and about 20-30 minutes for each

of the three meeting stages: “contributing to the list

building,” “categorizing all the ideas that everyone

had contributed,” and “prioritizing the idea

categories during the final week of the meeting.”

The greatest amount of individual time reported in

any of these four-week meetings was four hours.

3.2 Non-participants Only

Although non-participants (n = 19) indicated a

variety of important reasons for not joining in the

WWP meeting, two explanations were widely

offered. About two-thirds (65%) reported “My

schedule was so full of other meetings and tasks that

I just didn’t have time.” A second explanation given

by over 40% was “The meeting could produce good

results from others without requiring my time.”

Other reasons identified by two or three non-

participants included: “I was away from my office

and home during most of the meeting period without

Internet access;” “I didn’t know that I was expected

to participate in the meeting;” “I didn’t think that I

could make a useful contribution to the meeting;”

and “Our group should not be working on issues by

using Internet meetings.”

3.3 Openness Differences between

Participants and Non-participants

As shown in Figure 1, differing levels of agreement

with statements pertaining to managerial openness

emerged between participants and non-participants.

In particular, significant differences (p < .10) were

found with two organizational statements:

“Organizations do not need to take any risks in order

to achieve excellence” (t = 1.99) and “Most

managers fail to provide sufficient stability and

consistency in office routines” (t = 2.10). In

addition, significant differences (p < .10) were

found with two personal statements: “I think it’s

interesting to learn and develop new skills and

hobbies” (t = 2.43) and “My friends and family

might say that I’m a person who is pretty much set

in my ways” (t = 1.80).

It is important to note that the differences in

responses of participants and non-participants

shifted in opposite directions from organizational to

personal statements.

Non-participants were

significantly less open to risk taking and changes in

routine than participants in responding to

organizational statements. However,

non-

participants described themselves as significantly

more open to developing new skills and less set in

their ways than participants’ self-reports. These

differences allowed for the development of a

multivariate statistical model for discriminating

between participants and non-participants which is

described in the next section.

3.4 Predictions of GSS Participation

with Use of Discriminant Analysis

Using the two organizational statements where

significant differences were found, a two-item index

of managerial openness was formed by

standardizing the 6-point coded responses of both

participants and non-participants and then

computing a mean for each pair of individual

responses. Similarly, using the two personal

statements where significant differences were found,

another two-item index of managerial openness was

formed in an identical way. As one might expect,

both the organizational index and the personal index

scores generated significant differences (p < .05)

between participants and non-participants (t = 2.73

and -2.60, respectively) in the differing directions

described above (see Figure 1).

A discriminant analysis was performed to test

statistically how well the organizational and

personal indices of managerial openness would

distinguish between participants and non-

participants.

The model chi square (14.77) derived for Wilks’

lambda (.80) was significant (p < .01). Accordingly,

the canonical correlation coefficient--which reduced

in this two-group situation to the Pearson correlation

coefficient between the discriminant score and the

group variable--was .45. Both standardized

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canonical discriminant function coefficients for the

organizational index (.78) and for the personal index

(-.76) were significant (p < .01).

An alternative view of the predictive efficiency

of the discriminant analysis was gained through the

construction of a classification table of correct and

incorrect predictions. For over 80% of the

respondents, the model’s predictions of whether they

did participate or did not participate in an

asynchronous WebWide meeting corresponded to

actual occurrences. The model had a high level of

sensitivity (89%): only six of 53 participants (11%)

were predicted incorrectly as likely non-participants.

The model also had a high level of specificity

(67%): only six of 18 non-participants were

predicted incorrectly as likely participants.

4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Lower than ideal participation rates for many of the

ATAP meetings in our field study (the median rate

for designated participants is .66) is a focus of

considerable concern and well worth documenting

for other applications of computer-mediated

communication systems, as well. Outside of

laboratory settings, participation rates of .40 to .60

are probably not uncommon. Certainly, not

everyone who is scheduled will attend face-to-face

meetings either (or arrive punctually, contribute

actively, and stay through adjournment), but special

effort appears to be required to assure reasonably

high participation rates, especially when the

distributed group support system is directed at ad

hoc groups with little or no history of collaboration,

that is, groups for whom the WWP process was

especially developed. This is an area of inquiry that

largely depends on field study rather than laboratory

research.

This study indicated that measures of one of the

Big Five personality dimensions--openness--were

able to distinguish with about 83% accuracy

between participants and non-participants in one

form of asynchronous, Web-mediated group

process. Such a significant finding implicating the

openness factor in decisions of whether or not to

become involved in ATAP meetings may have

wider implications for predicting participation levels

in other applications of distributed group support

systems, as well. The empirical results reported here

add to a growing body of evidence that managerial

openness is a key variable in explaining successes

and failures in the introduction and appropriation of

a variety of new information technologies and

management systems.

The level of accuracy of the discriminant

function documented in this study was based on

only four statements: two about the nature of

organizations and two in the form of self-reports. It

is both somewhat surprising and encouraging that

differences between participants and non-

participants could be uncovered with so sparing a set

of questionnaire items. However, it is important to

note that the organizational statements and the

personal statements revealed opposite patterns of

response. Although non-participants were more

willing than participants to criticize organizations

for inordinate risk taking and a lack of

stability/consistency, they appeared more likely than

participants to describe themselves

as not so “set in my ways” and particularly

interested in developing new skills.

Why would individuals who refused the

opportunity to join in a meeting using a new

distributed group support system (and who were

relatively less comfortable with risk taking and

disturbances in routine) reply so positively (some

might say excessively) to personal statements about

their openness to new experiences? Although the

answer is not clear, one possibility is that

respondents who are somewhat lower on the

openness factor may be more susceptible to the

demand characteristics inherent in this type of

revealing self-report. As a result, in comparison to

the rest of the population, they may tend to more

strongly agree or more strongly disagree with

personal statements in the scale direction that they

perceive to be more socially desirable.

The difference in managerial openness between

participants and non-participants documented in this

study was relatively large: about three-quarters of a

standard deviation unit on both the organizational

and personal indices. With such a relevant and

meaningful difference in openness between groups,

there was no need for a more powerful statistical test

(i.e., for a larger sample of participants and non-

participants). However, there is no doubt that the

findings reported here warrant replication, not with a

larger sample but with more samples (of

approximately the same size) of designated

participants for additional ATAP meetings. This is

one of the purposes of the extended field study

currently being undertaken.

A better test of the research question would be to

administer the managerial openness measures to

designated participants in advance of the online

meeting. With this method, the predictions from a

validated discriminant function truly would be a

forecast of participation or non-participation well

before the distributed group support system was

introduced to the group. The opportunity to assess

the openness of a prospective management team to

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119

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