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Finding Common Ground in Dispersed Collaboration

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Effective communication in the workplace and elsewhere hinges on establishing what communication experts call ``mutual knowl- edge.'' Mutual knowledge is knowledge that the parties to a communication share in com- mon and know they share in common. It sometimes is referred to as ``common ground.'' When assessments of ``common ground'' or ``mutual knowledge'' are accu- rate,communicationismorelikelytobe understood as intended.

However,theorganizationofworkis changing,andmanycoworkersliterallydo not stand on common ground. Advances in computing and telecommunications have loo- sened the bounds of space and time on colla- boration. Rather than working at the same timeinthesameplace,manycollaborators work from different places and at different times,usingtechnologytomediatetheircom- munication.Thegrowthinsuchwork arrangements will be the number-one work- placetrendofthenext10years,predictsWork- forcemagazine.Forexample,projectdevelop- mentforelevatorsdestinedforanewof®ce building in Hong Kong is distributed across fourlocationsinthreecountriesÐwithproject managementinHongKong,researchand developmentengineeringinSwitzerland,test assemblyatyetanotherSwisslocation,and component testing in Germany. Software for a new billing system for a client company that operates out of several European locations is directedbyaU.S.company,withcodebeing writtenintheUnitedStatesandIndiabefore being integrated into the client's existing sys- tems in Europe. A New York businessman

hires a consultant in Washington D.C. and asks her to collaborate with his legal team in Chicago. Flextime and telework policies at companies around the world allow workers in a wide range of ®elds to spend one or more days a week working from satellite of®ces or home. The issue of establishing and maintain- ing mutual knowledge presents a challenge across all these situations and locations. This articledescribeshowestablishingmutual knowledge is a central problem of technol- ogy-mediatedcommunicationandgeogra- phicallydispersedcollaborationandoffers suggestions for practice.

Communication theorist Herbert Clark uses the example of a day at the beach to illustrate the principle of mutual knowledge anditsroleinsuccessfulcommunication.He describes standing on a beach on a beautiful day,examiningarareconchshell.Ifhisson joinshim,theirmutualknowledgenow includes the characteristics of the beautiful day,thebeachandthesea,thepresenceof Clark,thepresenceoftheson,theconchshell betweenthem,andtheirawarenessthatthey share this knowledge in common. When they talkwitheachotherthenandlater,theycan refertoaspectsofthisexperiencewithcon- siderable con®dence in being understood. Forexample,thesonmightsuggestpainting a room the peach shade of the conch shell, and the father would know what color he meant. Father and son also can coordinate futureactionswiththehelpofthismutual knowledge.Forexample,theycouldagreeto meet back at the same place on the beach in an hour.

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Thus,mutualknowledgeconsistsnot only of speci®c pieces of informationÐthe coloroftheshell,thelocationonthebeachÐ but also the awareness that the other knows this information. Mutual knowledge is a building block of successful communication andcoordinatedactivity.Withoutit,people speak and understand what is said on the basis of their own information and interpre- tationofthesituation,oftenassumingincor- rectly that the other speaks and understands on the basis of that same information and interpretation.Inface-to-faceconversation,it usually is easy to sort out this kind of con- fusion.However,myresearchsuggeststhat working from different locations increases the likelihood that people will have different information and not know it. Still worse, electronic means of communication make it dif®cult to discover and resolve such mis- understandingsquickly.And®nally,even when misunderstandings are discovered, damage to working relationships tends to linger.

ConsiderthecaseofDonandPaul,mem- bers of a geographically dispersed task force. Don wrote an e-mail to his colleagues describ- ing his ideas for solving a knotty technical problem.Afewhourslater,Donreceivedan e-mail Paul had written to the group that ignored the approach Don had just suggested and proposed an entirely different tack. Don wasirritatedbyPaul'se-mail,whichseemed to him arrogant in tone. The task force adoptedDon'sapproach,butDonremained annoyed with Paul. A week later when Don wroteanothere-mailtothegroup,henoticed that the address for Paul in his address list was different from the return address on Paul's e-mails to the group. Don added the new address to his list and wrote a short e- mailtoPaul,askingwhiche-mailaddresshe preferred and offering to resend recent e- mails.However,DondidnotrealizethatPaul might have ignored Don's ideas because Paul hadnotreceivedthem!Furthermore,when Paul's name came up in a subsequent con- versation,DonsaidhethoughtthatPaulwas niceenoughusually,butseemedresentful whenever Don took the lead.

Catherine Durnell Cramton is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at George Mason University. She received her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Yale Uni- versity and her A.B. degree from Harvard University. Her research explores contemporary challenges of collaboration and leadership, in- cluding distributed work, inter-organizational collaboration, project team leadership, and the impact of technology on collaboration. Currently, she is studying information-sharing processes and attribution processes in distributed work groups. Cramton likes to bring her research interests and findings into the classroom and has received national recognition for educational innovation. She is the creator of the Virtual Organization Workshop, which gives her busi- ness students at George Mason University an opportunity to work in geographically dispersed, technology-enabled teams with business stu- dents from universities around the world. Cram- ton's work appears in Organization Science, the Academy of Management Executive, the Acad- emy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, the Journal of Computer Information Systems, the Journal of Management Education, the Journal of Teaching in International Business, and in the book, Distributed Work: New Ways of Working Across Distance Using Technology (P. Hinds and S. Kiesler, eds.). Her research also has been featured in Business Week Online.

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Instudyingforanumberofyears,the communication and activities of geographi- callydispersedworkgroups,Itracedthe development of episodes such as this one. Inparticular,Ianalyzedthecommunication exchanged over an extended period of time by members of 13 geographically dispersed work teams. This included 1,649 pieces of electronicmail,recordsofon-linechats, and work products produced by the teams. This work revealed ®ve serious problems in the way the dispersed groups typically exchanged information. I saw how these fail- ures to establish mutual knowledge damaged trust and destroyed collaboration. Members of dispersed work groups seem to be vulner- able to (1) failures to communicate and rememberinformationaboutcontext,(2) unevendistributionofinformation,(3)differ- encesinwhatinformationissalienttosender andreceiver,(4)differencesinspeedand timing,and(5)uncertaintyaboutthemean- ing of silence. The problems exacerbate each other.

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Oneofthemostpowerful,yetelusive,factsof dispersed collaboration is that locations dif- fer from one another in ways that are difficult for partners to anticipate. Such differences canincludethequality,accessibility,and featuresofequipment,measurementpro- cessesandstandards,thedistancespeople musttraveltoaccomplishtasks,competing responsibilities,pressuresfromlocalsuper- visorsandcoworkers,andlocalholidays, customs,andemergencies.Likethecontext withinwhichawordislocated,thisinforma- tion sheds light on the meaning of remote partners'actionsandmessages.Yet,my research shows that dispersed partners often fail to anticipate which features of their local situation differ significantly from remote situations and communicate this informa- tion,leadingtomisunderstanding.Some- times the source of the misunderstanding

isnotdiscovered,andpeopleinsteaddraw negative conclusions about each other.

Forexample,oneimportantpieceofcon- textual information for collaborations that spannationalboundariesisthedatesofholi- days. I have encountered many instances in which collaborators in one location go on holiday without notifying their remote part- nersinadvance.Theunexaminedassump- tions are that remote partners have the same holidays or that they are familiar with holi- days and customs in other places. In my experience,thisalmostneveristhecase. Instead,anindividualorsubgroupsimply drops out of communication in the middle of what their remote partners consider to be work time.

Considerthecaseofauniversityadmin- istratorintheUnitedStateswhogrewedgy oneweekinApril,ashere-mailmessagesto hercounterpartinSpainconcerningajoint projectremainedunanswered.Atlastthere came a hastily written reply. The Spanish university had been closed for Semana Santa, the week preceding Easter Sunday. This is thecustominmostofSpain,butnotinthe United States. While both partners were relieved to have communication restored, they had to work to forget the curt tones that had crept into their exchange.

Inanotherinstance,aNewYorkbusi- nessman asked his consultant in Washington D.C. to work out a contracting issue with his legal team and provided e-mail addresses. Viae-mail,theconsultantarrangeda10a.m. conferencecallthatwastoinvolve®vepeo- ple,includingtwolegalrepresentatives. As10a.m.cameandwent,onlythreepeople joinedtheconferencecall.Thetwolegal representativesweremissingsotheconsul- tantcalledtheirlawof®ce,reachingtheir voicemail.Miffed,theconsultantwondered why they were not in the of®ce, thought themincompetent,andcontinuedthecon- ference call without them. At 11 a.m. sharp, they entered the conference call, and the source of the problem became apparent. The legal team was located in Chicago, whichhasaonehourtimedifferencewith Washington D.C. and New York. Making

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contact through e-mail was so easy that no one had thought to ask where the others were located.

Partners sometimes do not understand the topography of their remote collaborators' locations.Forexample,theymayassumeÐ without thinking much about itÐthat the drive to a collaborator's test facility is short, because one's own local test facility is only a shortdriveaway.Infact,aremotepartner's test facility may lie at the end of a multi-hour, traf®c-clogged drive. It can be a long time before these types of assumptions are recog- nized.Allthewhile,onepartnerseemsinex- plicably reluctant to go to the test facility (i.e., lazy) while the other seems disrespectful of thetimeandenergyrequiredtomakealong and dif®cult trip.

Moreover,itappearsthatwhencontex- tualinformationiscommunicated,remote partners®nditdif®culttoremember.In oneteamIstudied,e-mailrecordsshowed that a team member did warn the others aboutanupcomingtrip;however,theinfor- mation did not register in the minds of the remotepartners.Requestsfromteammates forimmediateactioncontinuedtoarrivein her e-mail while she was away. It is dif®cult forteammatestocreateamentalmapoftheir distantpartners'situation,andevenmore dif®cult to update that mental map when newinformationarrives.Thisisespecially sowhenateamisspreadovernotjusttwo, but multiple locations. The number of critical details and the rate at which they change can increasegeometrically.

Because dispersed collaborators do not stand on common ground, they tend to lack mutual knowledge of important aspects of each other's situations. They often fail to guess which aspects of their own situation they must explain to their remote partners. Likewise, they ®nd it dif®cult to develop a pictureintheirmindofthecontextswithin which distant partners work. When people do communicate some of their operating constraints to their remote partners, this information often is lost or forgotten. This creates con ict, as remote partners fail to honor the deadlines of others, insist on

particular points seemingly without reason, or drop out of communication without warning.

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One of the most unsettling aspects of the teamcommunicationIstudiedwastheextent to which team members had different infor- mation and did not know it. This often put them on collision paths. The differences stemmedfromhumanandtechnicalerrors in information distribution and also grew out of choices people made without realizing all theconsequences.Forexample,people ended up with different information when teammembersthoughttheysente-mailthat didnotgoout,sente-mailthatwaslostin transit,andsente-mailtosomeonewithan addresssimilartothatoftheintendedreci- pient. The bucket of information being passedamongteammembersprovedtobe far more leaky than they realized. In some cases,erroneouslyaddressede-mailwas returnedtothesender,butthesendernever forwarded it to the original recipient. In other cases,erroneousanddamagingconclusions hadbeendrawnbythetimethee-mailwas rerouted. As demonstrated by the case of DonandPaul,teammembersmaydiscover thesourceofthedifficulty,butnotretracein their minds the inaccurate assumptions they have drawn on the basis of incomplete infor- mation.IntheteamsIstudied,wildlydiffer- ent perspectives among team members evolved because of differences in the infor- mation they received.

Consider the example of two collabora- tors from different divisions of the same organization who lived in the same area, but carried out a great deal of their work bye-mail.Becauseofthecollaboration,Part- ner Two automatically was assigned an e- mail address on Partner One's server. How- ever,bothpartnersignoredthissecondarye- mail address and routinely communicated through their primary addresses. What they did not know was that occasionally Partner

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One's e-mails were being sent to Partner Two's secondary address because of an auto- matic addressing function on Partner One's server that was not detectable by Partner One. Partner Two never checked the second- arye-mailbox,andsoshenevergotthosee- mails. Several months passed before the pair discovered the problem. About a half dozen e-mails had landed in the unchecked mail box,andtensionshadbuiltupinthepair's relationship because each of them had sev- eral times behaved in ways contrary to expectations. Each person's behavior made perfect sense once one took into account the loste-mails.Thus,tensionsbuiltupbetween them because of undetected errors in infor- mation exchange and subtle differences in perspectivethatthiscreated.Moreover,even whenthepairrecognizedtheerrors,ittook considerable effort to trace all the faulty conclusions they had drawn and to dissipate the feelings of annoyance that had devel- oped.

Onanotheroccasion,aprojectmanager followed up on a telephone conversation with an external client by sending two e- mails. One of the e-mails carried an attached proposal. Unbeknownst to the project man- ager,theclient's®rewallstoppeddeliveryof the e-mail containing the attachment while lettingtheothere-mailpass,givingnonotice of this action. On the telephone a few days later,theclientaskedtheprojectmanager questions that were redundant with informa- tion in the attachment. The project manager was annoyed. Was the client stupid? Why didn't he read the attachment? The project managertookadeepbreathandsaid,``Well, asyouknow,intheproposalFFF.''Theclient responded,``Inevergottheproposal.''While the project manager was tolerating see- minglyredundantquestions,theclientwas wonderingwhytheprojectmanagerhad said he would do somethingÐsend a propo- salÐand then failed to do it.

In other cases, people intentionally sent e-mail to only part of a team, but failed to understandhowthispracticeaffectedthe perspectives of team members who did not receive the mail. Sometimes, they forgot

that they had sent a message to only part of the group and later assumed that all mem- bers had the information. There were serious consequences. Private exchanges of e-mail distort perceptions of the volume of activity inageographicallydispersedteam.Those members who are receiving all the e-mail perceive some members as active and others as inactive. Yet those who are not receiving allthemailperceivetheenergylevelofthe teamasawholetobelowandthepacetobe slow. They may further reduce their own participation or blame others for inactivity because they do not know of their efforts. Thecyclecanbeself-reinforcing,aspeople send fewer messages to those perceived to be inactive, which gives the ``inactive'' mem- berslesstorespondtoandtheimpression thatlittleisoccurring!Analysisofteam communication suggests that these kinds of perceptions can be excruciatingly dif®cult to identify and change when a team is dis- persed. Errors in information distribution andprivatecommunicationresultinteam members having different information even though they think they have the same infor- mation. In other words, they lack mutual knowledge.

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The dispersed collaborators I studied also ran into problems when they assumed that what was salient to them in an e-mail mes- sage would be salient to their remote part- ners.Forexample,apartnerinasmallfirm specializing in the design of performance appraisal systems sent a six-paragraph e- mail to his three partners concerning the firm'snewassociationwithalargerconsult- ingcompany.Amongothersuggestions,he proposed that the partners be highlighted as subject matter experts on the consulting com- pany's Web page. One partner responded with an e-mail consisting of two words, ``Goodplan.''However,whenthispartner's photograph appeared on the consulting com- pany'sWebpage,hewasoutragedand

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blamed the consulting company for over- stepping itself. Although he had read his partner'se-mailandrespondedtoit,he had focused on aspects of the proposed plan other than the question of the Web page display.Inthiscase,thepartnerswerein possessionofthesameinformation,but lacked mutual knowledge because they dif- fered in what parts of the long e-mail were salient to them.

Similarly,agroupofengineerscarried out a discussion via e-mail by using the ``reply'' key in response to previous mes- sages.Theydidnotchangethesubjectline even though the exchange drifted from the original topic. Two problems resulted: Some people deleted e-mail when they saw the out- of-datesubjectline,notrealizingthatnew topicswerebeingaddressed.Otherpeople did not read all the way down through the daisy chain of e-mails and missed important informationthattheircolleaguesassumed they had read. Different parts of the long chain of correspondence were salient to dif- ferent members of the group.

Inface-to-facecommunication,people often indicate what they consider to be the most important part of a message through toneofvoice,facialexpressionandgestures. Likewise,receiversofmessagessignaltheir understanding through what researchers call ``back-channel'' communication: head nods, brief verbalizations such as ``yeah'' and ``m- hmmm,'' smiles, and the like. These signal- ing activities tend to be lost or more laborious for people who are communicating electro- nically. It takes time and effort to write e-mails that say in effect, ``I received your e-mail and this is what I took as the key point. Is that what you intended?'' Observed one member of a geographically dispersed pro- jectteam,``Withsomuchinformationgoing back and forth, it was dif®cult for my team- matestoabsorbeverydetailFFF.BecauseI couldn't `see' if the receiver was paying attention, I didn't know if my message hadtoberepeated.Yetitistime-consuming to let the sender know my perception of theirmessage.''Restrictedcuesandlabor- ious or slow feedback make it dif®cult for

dispersed collaborators to carry out the pro- cess of con®rmation that establishes mutual knowledge.

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It is not only slow feedback that challenges dispersed teams. My research also suggests thatdifferencesintherelativespeedofcom- munication among parts of a group can inter- fere with collaboration. One part of the group cancarryonarelativelyrapidexchange,but must wait to hear from the rest of the group. This will be the case if some people have more restricted access to communica- tionstechnologythanothers,ifsomemem- bershavelesssophisticatedtools,orifsome members are able to meet face-to-face while others must communicate electronically. For example,someteammembersmayhave24 hour e-mail access while others can only access e-mail during working hours. People who work from the road may be able to dial infore-mailmessagesonlyoccasionally. Those with less frequent access may find that decisions are made without them or that partnersbecomefrustratedwaitingforthem, blamingthemfordelaysthattheymaynotbe able to help.

Differences in software platforms also can lead to relative differences in the speed of communication within a group. A project manager for a major Internet service provi- der undergoing a merger with another com- pany described his dif®culty including one manager from the new company in his team's deliberations. The Internet service provider's (ISP) software platforms were more current than those used by the new partner,alesstechnicalcompany.Whenever the project manager sent an attachment to his team,hehadtoremembertosavethedocu- ment in a format the new member could read andsendittoher.Whenheforgot,shewould callandsay,``Youmadethatmistakeagain.'' Likewise,anAmericanprojectmanagerinan internationalconstructioncompanysaid,``I generate ®les that other people can't open,

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anditslowsthingsdownortheyignorethe ®le entirely.''

Groups spanning large distances also sometimes ®nd that synchronous ``chats'' become disordered because of differences in the speed of electronic transmissions among parts of the group. Consider the example of a team that included members inVirginia,TexasandAustralia.Theteam members at the two U.S. locations could carry on a relatively rapid exchange until being ``interrupted'' by team members in Australiawhoalwaysseemedtoreferto subjects from which the others had moved on.Atthetime,telephonelinescarriedmost of the Internet traf®c between the United StatesandAustralia,andtheyfrequently becameoverloaded,resultinginbreakdowns andtimelags.Inotherwords,partsofthe team were communicating at different ratesÐone rate between the two sites in the U.S. and another rate between the U.S. and Australia. This created frustration and irritation for everyone. If the members in Australia responded to messages the instant theyreceivedthem,theirresponsesstill would appear in the chat room traf®c well after the conversation between the U.S. part- nershadmovedon.Moreover,fromthe perspectiveoftheAustralianpartners,a stream of unrelated comments by the U.S. partners always would follow their mes- sages. It would appear that their contribu- tions were ignored.

Insomeinstances,technicalandsitua- tional problems concerning relative speed were dif®cult for team members to detect and were attributed instead to lack of con- scientiousness on the part of the lagged part- ners.Inaddition,recognizingtheconstraints that impede speed of access to information is only of limited help to teams. The group still struggleswithtiming.Relativedifferencesin feedbackcyclesprobablyareevenmore destructive for a group than a uniformly slow pace,becausepartsofagroupgrowincreas- inglyoutofsyncandisolatedfromtherestof the group. If team members are not careful abouthowtheyhandletheirfrustrations, the lagged members can become scapegoats.

Ironically,feedbackcyclesmaybeslower and more uneven among parts of a group under just those conditions for which rapid cycles are most needed: when the contexts of senders and receivers differ substantially. Forexample,feedbackcyclesmaybeunpre- dictable when part of a team is traveling constantly or is located in an area with a weakcommunicationsinfrastructure.Differ- ences in the relative speed of communication among parts of a team erode mutual knowl- edge by interfering with the timing of infor- mationexchange.Inaddition,thestructural causes of timing problems may not be fully understoodbytheteam.

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One of the biggest challenges faced by the dispersed team members studied was inter- preting the meaning of their partners' silence. Silence meant all of the following at one time or another: I agree. I strongly disagree.Iamindifferent.Iamoutoftown.I am having technical problems. I don't know how to address this sensitive issue. I am busy with other things. I did not notice your ques- tion.Ididnotrealizethatyouwanteda response.

Partners often misinterpreted silence. One common problem was interpreting silence as consent when it stemmed from disagreementorinattention.Forexample,a team member who was preparing to go on a trip informed her teammates. ``I asked if they needed anything (from me) before I departed F F F. When I didn't receive a response,Iassumedeverythingwasin order.''Butaftersheleft,herteammates begantosendtersemessages,requesting informationfromher.Inthiscase,silence mayhavestemmedfrominattention,butit was taken to indicate consent.

Inotherinstances,silenceduetotechni- calproblems,vacations,travel,orplanning confusion was interpreted as lack of interest orcommitment.Forexample,ascientistin the United States had discussed a possible

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joint project with a colleague from another country at a conference. As the time for formalplanningneared,thescientiste- mailed the colleague to see whether he still was interested. The e-mail bounced back undelivered,sothescientistsentitagain. Then 2 weeks passed without a response. Wonderingwhetherthesilencemeantthat theremotecolleaguewasuninterested,the scientistdecidedatthelastminutetoagain send the original message to be sure there was no technical problem. A reply came immediately: ``You're right,'' he wrote. ``I never got this message. We've been having some strange technical problems lately that have kept us unconnected. Regarding the project,Ithinkthiswouldbeanexciting opportunity.''

Even in meetings conducted face-to-face, it can be dif®cult to interpret the meaning of teammembers'silence.However,geo- graphicdispersionandrelianceoncompu- ter-mediated communication add new dimensions of uncertainty about the mean- ingofsilenceandcomplicateeffortsto resolve uncertainty. A partner could be out of town or silenced by technical problems. Hemaynothavereceivedamessage,ormay have focused on parts of it other than what was most important to the sender. There also seems to be a tendency to fall silent ratherthanaddresssensitiveissuesbecause of the dif®culty of communicating nuances through electronic media rather than face-to- face.Inparticular,uncertaintyaboutthe meaning of silence can make it dif®cult to knowwhenadecisionhasbeenmadeina geographically dispersed group.

Silencehaltstheprocessofestablishing mutualknowledgeintwoways.First,its meaning is ambiguous. Silence might signify meaningsaswide-rangingasagreement,dis- agreementorindifference,orindispersed collaborationsitmaymeanonlythatames- sagewasundelivered.Second,silencehalts the process of determining what information others do and do not know and what con- clusions they have drawn. Partners can inter- pret silence differently and not know this is the case.

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The consequences for dispersed teams of thesefailuresofmutualknowledgeinclude a tendency toward dispositional rather than situationalattribution,thebluntingofa team'scapacitytolearn,failuretomeeteach other'sexpectations,andlingeringdamage to interpersonal trust.

Attribution is the process through which individuals make interpretations about the causes of behaviors or outcomes. One bias in the way people make attributions is known as the ``actor-observer effect.'' Researchers havediscoveredthatpeopleoftenare inclined to attribute their own behavior to situationalcauses,whileobserversofthe same behavior are inclined to attribute it to thepersonalityordispositionoftheactor.For example,aguestspeakerwhoislateforhis presentation may attribute his lateness to the traf®c that day and confusing directions pro- videdbytheorganizer.However,theorga- nizer and the audience may attribute the late arrival to carelessness on the part of the guest speaker. One reason for the tendency for attributions to differ in this way is that actors often have more information than observers about how their own behavior varies from situationtosituation.Forexample,theguest speaker may make himself feel better by thinking of instances in which he was not late. Actors also tend to be more focused than observers on the details of the situation in whichthey®ndthemselves,suchasthetraf- ®c that day and the directions given. On the otherhand,observerstendtofocustheir attentionontheindividualbeforethem rather than the details of the individual's situation,manyofwhichtheydonotknow. Theytendtoseetheindividualasbeing responsibleforhisorhersituation,whatever itis.

Several of the failures of mutual knowl- edge described here tend to lead to disposi- tional rather than situational attributions concerning the causes of remote partners' behavior. Failure to share information about

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contextandconstraints,unevendistribution ofinformation,anduncertaintyaboutthe meaning of silence can leave dispersed part- ners without situational information with which to make situational attributions. For example,theymaybeunawareoftechnical constraints and problems affecting remote partners.Whenpeoplefeelcalm,theymay consider that there could be a situational explanation for puzzling behavior from remotepartners,eventhoughtheydonot knowwhatitis.However,whendemands multiply,situationsbecomemorecomplex, andpeoplefeellesscalm,itseemstobecome more dif®cult for them to eschew quick, uncomplicated attributions to personal qua- litiesofindividuals.Inotherwords,they seem more likely to judge remote partners as careless or lazy than to think through all the possible reasons why a remote partner might not have performed as expected.

Whether the attributions are favorable or unfavorable,onemajorproblemwiththis tendency is that it limits a dispersed team's abilitytolearn.Itdirectsattentionawayfrom analyzing the characteristics of the dispersed situationÐwhich almost always will be com- plexÐand dwells instead on the personal qualities of individuals composing the team. Forexample,localpartnersmayseemtobe reliablepeople,whileremotepartnersmay seem to be slow and dif®cult people. Some- timesthisisthecase,butothertimesitisthe dispersedteam'sstructureandsituationthat isslowanddif®cult.Inordertolearn,a dispersed team must focus on analyzing andmodifyingitssituation,itsprocesses, orthe®tbetweentheseelementsandthe individuals composing the team. Laying blame on individuals derails this process.

Anotherconsequenceofthesefailuresof mutualknowledgeisthatremotepartners often fail to ful®ll each other's expectations. Forexample,whenthepartnersdonotsuc- cessfully signal each other about what each considers to be most important in a message orasituation,theirbehavioroftendiverges fromexpectations.Likewise,whentheir communication infrastructure or situation forces them to communicate at different

rates,theyoftencannotmeeteachother's expectations.Thisfailuretomeetexpecta- tions damages interpersonal trustÐespe- cially when people do not have complete or accurate information about their remote partners'situationthatmighthelpthemsee why partners behaved as they did.

Ateamofresearchersrecentlyconcluded that trust in the dispersed teams they studied was predicted most strongly by members' perceptionsofeachother'sdependability andreliability.However,the®veproblems ofmutualknowledgedescribedhereshow communicationacrossdistanceandviatech- nology to be a leaky and incomplete process. Remote partners' perceptions of each other's dependabilityandreliabilityaredamaged when they stumble into these pitfalls of infor- mation exchange and interpretation inherent to dispersed collaboration.

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Clearly,therearepracticalimplicationsfor designers and members of geographically dispersed teams and for anyone who com- municates by electronic mail. Designers of dispersed teams should aggressively explore inadvancepotentialdifferencesinteam members'localsituationsthatcouldaffect collaboration. Examples include differences incommunicationinfrastructureandacces- sibility,schedulesandholidays,localtopo- graphy,toolsandstandardprocedures,and incentives and priorities. Situations should bealignedwheneverpossible.Whenthey cannotbealigned,thesedifferencesshould be brought to all team members' attention. They might also be recorded in a database accessibletoall.Forexample,differencesin workinghours,schedules,timezones,and holidays should be made clear.

Leadersofnewlyformedteamswhose members will be working from dispersed locations typically are advised to bring theteammemberstogetherforaface-to-face meetingatleastonceattheoutsetinorderto build relationships and trust. While this is a good idea, it does not adequately address

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the problems of mutual knowledge described here. It would be better for people whowillcollaborateremotelytovisiteach other's locations at least once. This gives them anopportunitytoseehowapartner'ssitua- tion differs from one's own and to absorb details that a partner may neglect to men- tion, as well as allowing partners to get to know each other better. If this is not possible, an alternative might be sending in uential team members or people in lea- dership positions to visit the locations remotefromtheirown.Shouldproblems acrosslocationsarise,thesemoreinformed members may be able to guide colleagues towardconstructiveinterpretationsofthe behaviorofpartnersintheremotelocations.

Indesigningandlaunchingdispersed teams,leadersshouldgivecarefulattention to the communication system and norms. They should educate team members about the pitfalls of failing to share situational information and making assumptions about remote partners and locations. Team leaders should monitor the effectiveness of commu- nication processes across locations as a reg- ular part of their job.

Membersofdispersedteamsandpeople communicating via computer mediation should resist making assumptions about thesituationandconstraintsofremote others.Instead,theyshouldactivelyseek out such information. One also should take care to explain one's own situation to remote partners,andtrytoseeitthroughtheireyes. It is important for individuals to monitor the tendency to leap to dispositional attributions about remote partners. This may be quick andeasy,butcouldalsobeinaccurateand destructive to collaboration. Situational causesshouldbeconsideredroutinely,even if information to support them is not imme- diately available. Giving remote partners the bene®t of the doubt when questions or pro- blems arise is a simple but powerful practice, particularly when modeled by team leaders.

Ideally,allmembersofadispersedteam should be sent the same information. Beyond thecontentoftheinformation,thisprovides eachmemberwithanaccuratepictureofthe

paceofactivityinthecollaboration,including any differences in pace among collocated subgroups.Inpractice,however,theinfor- mation load could be overwhelming. If there isariskofoverload,leadersandmembersof dispersed teams should be sure to commu- nicate information that establishes or makes adjustments to the parameters of collabora- tion such as (1) the availability of members, including identi®cation of holidays and con- straints on availability such as competing responsibilities,(2)theobjectivesofthecol- laborationandsolutioncontexts,(3)local requirements,customs,processesandcon- straints that bear on member availability, objectives,orsolutions,(4)communication meansandnorms,includingspeci®cback-up procedures,and(5)reportsonthepaceof activityoverallandthepaceinanysub- groups.

It is good practice to establish clear understandings about how often remote teammates will check for and respond to messages. When people suffer through unex- pected silence on the part of a remote partner, they often draw inaccurate conclusions that linger even after communication resumes. Providingpromptfeedback,evenjusta fewwords,canhelppeopleinvolvedindis- persed collaboration feel each other's pre- sence,detecterrors,andcorrectinaccurate interpretationsandattributions.Itisagood idea to investigate ambiguous or unusual messages and occurrences before drawing conclusions,becauseofthemanysources of uncertainty inherent in communication across distance and via technology.

It also is helpful to highlight important messagesandimportantpartsoflongmes- sages transmitted via e-mail and other such technologies. Questions that need to be addressed by a remote partner should be placed and marked so that they are instantly apparent. Dispersed collaborators might cre- ate a few shorthand symbols that senders and receivers can use to identify the most importantpartsofmessagesandquestions for which a response is required. Because assumptionsaboutthemeaningofaremote partner'ssilencemaywellbewrong,itisbest

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not to frame matters for decision in such a way that a response of silence can be taken as consent.

When confusion or problems do occur in adispersedteam,theteamshouldanalyzeits operating practices and look for opportu- nities to improve them. Even though blame couldbelaidonanindividual,itisimportant to recognize how complex the situation and processes of dispersed teams tend to be. The perspectives of individuals and subgroups often differ far more than the group as a whole realizes. If people involved in dis- persed collaboration and computer- mediated communication are willing to learn fromthesedifferences,theyarelikelyto strengthen their overall effort.

We have entered a new era of collabora- tive activity. Electronic mail and other such

tools have revolutionized professional com- munication. It is feasible for work groups to span time zones rather than yards or miles. These developments offer many advantages. Organizationscanmaximizetheuseofscarce resources and explore new opportunities. But effective collaboration requires common ground.Establishingcommongroundwith- out the advantages of shared location and face-to-face communication is a central chal- lenge of dispersed collaboration. Individuals and groups that wish to carry out stable, effective collaborations across space and time need to recognize and understand this chal- lenge.

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Muchresearchisunderwayconcerningdis- persed collaboration and the communication challenges that accompany such arrange- ments.Theresultsofthisworkarestarting to appear in print. This article is based on research reported in detail in C. D. Cramton, ``The Mutual Knowledge Problem and its Consequences for Dispersed Collaboration,'' OrganizationScience,2001,12(3),346±371;and C.D.Cramton,``InformationProblemsin Dispersed Teams,'' Academy of Management BestPaperProceedings,1997,298±302.

For additional scholarly treatment of key issuesconcerningdistributedworkthat includesattentiontopractice,seethebook, Distributed Work: New Ways of Working Across DistanceUsingTechnology,editedbyP.Hinds andS.Kiesler(Cambridge,MA:MITPress, 2002). The book includes a chapter on attribu- tion in distributed work groups. Another goodresourceisthebook,VirtualTeamsThat Work: Creating Conditions for Effective Virtual Teams,editedbyC.GibsonandS.Cohen,and forthcoming from Jossey-Bass. Harvard Pro- fessor Dorothy Leonard and her colleagues analyze uses of communication technology by virtual teams in a global systems integration consulting ®rm and offer practice recommen- dationsintheirchapter,``VirtualTeams: UsingCommunicationsTechnologytoMan- ageGeographicallyDispersedDevelopment Groups.'' The chapter appears in the book, Sense and Respond: Capturing Value in the Net- workEra,editedbyS.BradleyandR.Nolan (Boston,MA:HarvardBusinessSchoolPress, 1998,285±298).Foracompellingdescriptionof thechallengesofdispersedcollaborationina Fortune100company,seethechapter,``Mana- ging Distances and Differences in Geographi- cally Distributed Work Groups'' by D. Armstrong and P. Cole. It appears in the book, DiversityinWorkTeams,editedbyS.Jackson andM.Ruderman(WashingtonD.C.:Amer-

icanPsychologicalAssociation,1995,187± 215). Floyd Kemske describes workplace trendsofthenext10years,includingtherise ofdispersedcollaborationinhisarticle,``HR 2008:AForecast,''inWorkforce,1998,77,46±55.

The mutual knowledge problem is dis- cussed extensively in the work of communi- cation theorist Herbert Clark and his associates.Onegoodsummaryofthiswork appearsinH.H.ClarkandS.E.Brennan, ``Grounding in Communication,'' which is Chapter7inthebook,PerspectivesonSocially SharedCognition,editedbyL.Resnick,J. Levine,andS.Teasley(Washington,D.C.: AmericanPsychologicalAssociation,1996, 127±149). The chapter includes a thorough butreadablediscussionofthefunctionof mutualknowledgeinconversation,andcon- siders how communication media affect the process of establishing mutual knowledge. Tenyearsago,RobertKraussandSusanFus- sell foresaw that new communication technol- ogiesmightimpacttheprocessofestablishing mutual knowledge in collaboration. Their description of the mutual knowledge problem and its possible interaction with technology appears in the chapter ``Mutual Knowledge and Communicative Effectiveness'' in the bookIntellectualTeamwork,editedbyJ.Gale- gher,R.Kraut,andC.Edigo(Hillsdale,NJ: Erlbaum,1990,111±145).

There is a long tradition of social psy- chology research concerning attribution pro- cesses.EdwardJonesandRichardNisbett presentanauthoritativedescriptioninlay- man'slanguageoftheactor-observereffectin theirarticle,``TheActorandtheObserver: DivergentPerceptionsoftheCausesofBeha- vior,'' which appears in the book, Attribution: PerceivingtheCausesofBehavior,editedbyE. Jones,D.Kanouse,H.Kelley,R.Nisbett,S. Valins,andB.Weiner(Morristown,NJ:Gen- eralLearningPress,1972,79±94).

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Be that as it may, such cooperation is defenseless against 5 pitfalls of data trade and elucidation inability to convey and recollect relevant data uneven appropriation of data contrasts in what data is notable to sender and recipient contrasts in velocity and timing and instability about the importance of hush. These all are indications of the issue of setting up common learning in scattered joint effort. Without shared learning scattered accomplices regularly neglect to meet each other's desires, harming trust. Contrasted with gathered accomplices scattered accomplices will probably presume that an issue originated from the failings of a remote accomplice than from the way of the circumstance. This happens on the grounds that individuals normally have more data and more exact data about nearby circumstance and requirements than about remote circumstance and limitations. This makes proposals that originators pioneers and individuals from topographically scattered groups can take after to maintain a strategic distance from such correspondence pitfalls.

Establishing in correspondence hypothesis has depicted discussion as a type of collective action.While establishing in correspondence hypothesis has been connected to interceded correspondence the hypothesis basically delivers up close and personal discussion. Bunches cooperating will ground their discussions by thinking of shared conviction or common learning. The individuals will use this learning with a specific end goal to add to a more proficient dialogue.Grounding measure is the common conviction between conversational accomplices that everybody included has a sufficiently reasonable comprehension of the idea to move forward.to achieve this condition of establishing basis bunches utilize three techniques for achieving an understanding that they can push ahead.

New Contribution: An accomplice advances with another thought, and holds up to check whether their accomplice communicates disarray.

Declaration of Acceptance: The accomplice getting the data affirms that he comprehends by grinning gesturing or verbally affirming the other accomplice. They may likewise attest their comprehension by staying quiet.

Demand for Clarification: The accomplice getting the data requests illumination

Social loafing is the propensity of people to withhold commitments to an undertaking in a group setting. Group size and scattering are two essential drivers of social loafing in innovation upheld group settings. However the instruments through which these drivers influence social loafing are not surely knew. Thusly the target of this study is to recognize the subjective systems that intervene the impact of group size and scattering on social loafing in innovation upheld groups. Drawing on the hypothesis of good withdrawal, we set that three essential psychological systems dissemination of obligation attribution of fault and dehumanization will intervene the impact of group size and scattering on social loafing.

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