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Introducing Real-Time Collaboration Systems: Development of a Conceptual Scheme and Research Directions

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This paper presents Real-Time Collaboration (RTC), a new and emerging type of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system that has its roots in both the telecommunications and groupware market. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it outlines the evolution of RTC systems and offers a conceptualization of RTC consisting of usage scenarios and four main building blocks - integration of communication channels, presence information, context integration, and further collaboration features. Second, in order to understand the organizational implications of this complex and socially embedded information system, the paper intends to offer a starting point for future research on RTC by touching upon and systematizing different directions and typical questions for researching RTC and its organizational implications.
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INTRODUCING
REAL-TIME COLLABORATION SYSTEMS:
Development of a Conceptual Scheme and
Research Directions
Kai Riemer
European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS)
The University of Münster, Germany
kai.riemer@ercis.de
Frank Frößler
Centre for Innovation, Technology, and Organisation (CITO)
University College Dublin, Ireland
frank.froessler@ucd.ie
ABSTRACT
This paper presents Real-Time Collaboration (RTC), a new and
emerging type of information and communication technology (ICT) system
that has its roots in both the telecommunications and groupware market. The
aim of the paper is twofold. Firstly, it outlines the evolution of RTC systems
and offers a conceptualization of RTC consisting of usage scenarios and four
main building blocks integration of communication channels, presence in-
formation, context integration, and further collaboration features. Secondly, in
order to understand the organizational implications of this complex and so-
cially embedded information system, the paper intends to offer a starting
point for future research on RTC by touching upon and systematizing differ-
ent directions and typical questions for researching RTC and its organiza-
tional implications.
KEYWORDS: Real-Time Collaboration (RTC), Unified Communication (UC),
2
Presence Information, Instant Messaging, Virtual Collaboration, Research
Agenda
I. INTRODUCTION
Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) presents itself as a new and emerg-
ing technology in the communication and collaboration systems market with a
wide range of new products currently entering the market [Riemer, 2007a].
Initially created from the integration of instant messaging tools, with their text
chat functionality and presence information, and communications technology,
in particular Voice over IP (VoIP) communication, the field of RTC has been
maturing over the past three years. Further information and communication
channels have been added and RTC technology shows significant potential
for integration with other collaborative applications, such as general purpose
software like office software, or enterprise-specific systems, such as ERP.
However, RTC is still in its infancy, with new systems not yet living up to the
promises providers present in their roadmap documents. While roadmaps
and show case prototypes illustrate the potentials of RTC technologies, em-
pirical examples of RTC application in organizations show that the envisioned
features are yet to be implemented.
The aim of the paper is twofold. Firstly, it outlines the evolution of
RTC systems and offers a conceptualization of RTC consisting of usage sce-
narios and four main building blocks. Secondly, the paper is intended as a
starting point for research on RTC by outlining potential research questions.
For doing so, the paper first starts with a discussion of organizational and
technological developments that led to workplace changes. Drawing from
these challenges of dispersed workplace setups, section 3 discusses the
evolution of RTC systems, briefly introduces RTC vendors and then provides
a conceptualization of RTC. Section 4 introduces a set of typical RTC usage
scenarios that illustrate RTC applications in contemporary work environ-
ments. Finally, section 5 presents a research agenda comprising propositions
for future research. RTC technology is promising and complex at the same
3
time and needs deep integration within organizations in order to unfold its
potential. At the moment, there are not only many open research questions
regarding the design of RTC systems, but also in regards to the social and
organizational implications induced by the application of RTC systems.
II. BACKGROUND
Today’s work practices have been undergoing significant changes
over the past couple of years, which led to new forms of organizing, com-
municating, and collaborating. The virtualization of organizations and work
contexts on the one hand and the emergence of new information and com-
munication technologies on the other hand are two major causes for this de-
velopment. These two drivers led to an all but perfect communication situa-
tion from the point of view of the users as well as those organizations that
rely heavily on dispersed collaboration across organizational units.
VIRTUALIZATION LEADS TO DISPERSED WORKPLACES
New virtual forms of organizing present new challenges for people
in their daily work. Virtualization is fuelled, on the one hand, by a globaliza-
tion, which leads to internationally diversified organizations. On the other
hand, the ongoing trend towards inter-firm partnering manifests itself in the
formation of strategic alliances, joint ventures, and business networks. These
organizational developments are enabled by the capabilities of modern in-
formation systems and infrastructures like the Internet. The widespread claim
is that organizations can improve their performance by capitalizing on the
potentials of groupware technologies as teams can be formed corresponding
to individuals’ qualifications rather than their local availability [cf. Konradt and
Hertel, 2002, Tuma, 1998]. ‘Virtual’, ‘remote’, ‘dispersed’ or ‘mobile’ forms of
collaboration have gained increasing interest and assumptions are being
made that some ‘new’ sets of activities can be contrasted from ‘traditional’
forms of carrying out work [Bultje and van Wijk, 1998]. A large body of re-
search concentrates on understanding the implications of these forms of col-
4
laboration on issues such as leadership [Townsend et al., 1998, Tyran et al.,
2003], trust [Javenpaa et al., 1998, Kanawattanachai and Yoo, 2002], mana-
gerial issues [Hinds and Bailey, 2000, Montoya-Weiss et al., 2001, Townsend
et al., 1998], or communication [Carlson and Zmud, 1999, DeSanctis and
Monge, 1999, Maznevski and Chudoba, 2000]. Although recent studies cau-
tion against the performance claims of virtual forms of organization [cf. Intro-
na, 2000, cf. Riemer and Klein, 2003], the existing academic interest in the
topic mirrors the ongoing transition of today’s work practices as well as the
importance of the topic. As a consequence of these trends, fragmented and
dispersed workplaces are common today. Hence, people rely more and more
on computer-mediated communication and groupware-supported collabora-
tion.
NEW COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY INCREASES COMPLEXITY
Over the last two decades, a number of new communication chan-
nels (e.g. Voice-over-IP telephony, Instant Messaging) have mushroomed,
creating a heterogeneous accumulation of technologies that are available to
the average user [Lyytinen and Yoo, 2002b]. To add to the multitude of
communication channels, many people do not just possess one e-mail ad-
dress, phone number, or instant messenger account, but rather they use
several similar channels for corresponding with their peers across a number
of social groups [e.g. Rybczynski and Shetty, 2005]. Consequently, the “es-
calating variety of communication devices and the ever increasing volume of
messaging activity” [Hutton, 2001, 50] increase drastically the communicative
complexity for both the initiator and the recipient of a communication request.
For initiators situations are characterized by a high uncertainty as they have
to think about the recipient’s location and context, the appropriate channel,
and the relevant contact details in terms of accounts and phone numbers
[Lazar, 2006]. Generally, all required information is not at the disposal of the
initiator, resulting in failed communication attempts that are time consuming
and costly. The recipient on the other hand is confronted with a myriad of
5
communication devices as well as several addresses and numbers, creating
a fragmented communication landscape whose coordination is time consum-
ing and tedious.
INTERACTION OVERLOAD AS A CONSEQUENCE
The two aforementioned trends bring about structural changes to
today’s working environment that manifest itself in the workplace situation of
people, i.e. the situation of virtual team members and mobile professionals
[cf. Kakihara, 2003]. Work conditions are marked by increased fluidity of in-
teractions with others. While fluidity offers benefits, such as interacting re-
motely and flexibly with others, it also creates interruptions and disturbances
as asymmetries of interaction become more likely [Kakihara et al., 2002].
Asymmetries of interaction occur if “the time and topic are convenient for the
initiator, but not necessarily the recipient. This asymmetry arises because
while initiators benefit from rapid feedback about their pressing issue, recipi-
ents are forced to respond to the initiator’s agenda, suffering interruption”
[Nardi et al., 2000, 83]. Current technologies such as mobile phones offer
only limited support for people in managing their increased communicative
volume. Specifically, the effect of decreasing communication delays of new
technologies on the part of the initiator of a communication request often
translates into work interruptions on the part of the recipient [Rennecker and
Godwin, 2005]. And interruptions most often come at the cost of deeper con-
centration on a single task [de Poot et al., 2005]. Information and communi-
cation requests reach each person unfiltered and people don’t have gate-
keepers which might help to manage and control the communicative volume.
Consequently, people are potentially confronted with a level of interaction
that might exceed their personal preferences causing a problem called inter-
action overload [Sørensen et al., 2002].
In such a situation, people might fall back on tactics for minimizing
interruptions or avoiding communication altogether: “For many users, the on-
ly way to avoid this media terror is to abstain from these media completely: to
6
have their telephone off the hook or work at home.” [de Poot et al., 2005: 75]
While this situation is unsatisfying at the individual level it also translates into
organizational frictions in that information processes do not operate as
smoothly as they should. In addition, the lack in availability of key personnel
causes problems in projects and ultimately leads to higher overall cost for the
organization.
III. REAL-TIME COLLABORATION SYSTEMS
Real-time collaboration (RTC) systems are a technological attempt
to mitigate the problems portrayed above. A result of market convergence,
RTC has its roots in both the telecommunications and the groupware market.
Consequently, RTC systems integrate groupware functionality with (IP-
based) communications media. In order to further describe the nature of RTC
as well as its roots, we first take a historic approach and discuss the appear-
ance of the term “real-time communications” in the literature; this leads us to
identify and trace the evolutionary trajectory of concepts that resulted in the
proliferation of RTC systems as discussed in this paper. We will give a brief
overview of the RTC market and then characterize RTC by distinguishing a
set of four main building blocks.
EVOLUTION OF RTC SYSTEMS
The first appearance of the term real-time communications, relevant
in the context of our work, dates back to the 1990s in the computer science
and telecommunications domains. The increasing adoption of the Internet in
both the private and business domain stimulated the need to transmit rich
multimedia data over IP networks. However, multimedia applications such as
voice and video services require predictable and timely data transmissions
[Roman, 1996]. The Internet infrastructure was originally designed for asyn-
chronous data transmission; it was not reliable enough for voice or video
transfer [Elliott, 1997, Roman, 1996]. Consequently, research focused on the
design and development of network protocols for transmitting real-time data
7
over the Internet [Baldwin et al., 1999]. The aim of such work was to enable
effective, real-time, connection-oriented communication services in packet-
switching networks, that were originally not designed for real-time data
transmission [Golden et al., 1999, Hui and Yip, 1999, Shionozaki and Tokoro,
1993]. The Internet as a medium is prone to problems such as delays, jitter
or packet loss compromising the quality of applications that need real-time
data transport [Figueira and Pasquale, 1995]. Protocols that enhance the IP
standard - such as the real-time protocol (RTP) and the session initiation pro-
tocol (SIP) - and architectural ramifications such as the Quality of Service
framework [Golden et al., 1999] are therefore a technological prerequisite for
services like voice over IP telephony or web-based video conferencing.
Over time, business media attention as well as research efforts on
real-time technologies shifted from the technical level to the service level.
Being based on the above described technological advances of the past
decades, new services such as voice over IP telephony and videoconferenc-
ing are spreading quickly and have made fast inroads into the corporate do-
main [Lazar, 2006]. Today, the term RTC is being used to describe an
emerging class of communication systems that integrate computer-based
telephony, voice, and video services with presence technologies and busi-
ness applications [Burton et al., 2007, Lazar, 2006, Mohamed, 2007,
Rybczynski and Shetty, 2005].
The general idea of these systems is to help people juggle with their
communication requests in the face of interaction overload [Oliva, 2003] and
to improve accessibility by integrating media and devices [Hutton, 2001]. This
media integration is often referred to as Unified Communications [Minifie,
2007, Mohamed, 2007]. In fact, the terms RTC and Unified Communications
(UC) are often used interchangeably both in the business literature [Burton et
al., 2007, Mohamed, 2007, Rybczynski and Shetty, 2005] as well as by the
systems providers1. Furthermore, the presence information concept is some-
1 While vendors such as IBM and Siemens refer to their systems as RTC systems, Microsoft, Cisco,
and Avaya for example label their solutions “Unified Communications”.
8
times seen as part of Unified Communications [e.g. Rybczynski and Shetty,
2005] and sometimes as a complementary concept [e.g. Jennings, 2006]. For
conceptual clarity, we will refer to the two as distinct concepts and subsume
them under the RTC label (see below).
RTC as such is the result of an evolution of IP-based communica-
tion technology and the product of three types of convergence (it is also re-
ferred to as “converged communications” [Rosenberg, 2005]): First, network
convergence describes the merging of voice, data, and video communica-
tions onto a single Internet protocol (IP) [Rybczynski and Shetty, 2005]; se-
cond, application convergence refers to the integration of communication
media with groupware technologies and business applications; finally, these
forms of convergence are reflected in the market convergence, which sees
technologies from the software market being integrated with telecommunica-
tions infrastructures. This is mirrored in the list of vendors of RTC systems
and their cooperation efforts.
THE MARKET FOR RTC SYSTEMS
Currently, providers from the telecommunications market such as
Alcatel, Cisco, Nortel, and Siemens and traditional software companies such
as Microsoft, Oracle, or IBM are entering the market with RTC solutions [El-
liot et al., 2005, Mohamed, 2007]. A comprehensive overview of RTC provid-
ers and their systems can be found in [Lazar, 2006], a classification of RTC
systems in the wider context of the market for eCollaboration systems is pre-
sented in [Riemer, 2007a]. We briefly introduce two examples.
Siemens developed Hipath OpenScape on the basis of its tele-
phone and unified communications infrastructure. The system addresses en-
terprises which intend to set up comprehensive RTC environments integrated
with their traditional telephone infrastructure [Gibbons Paul, 2006]. From the
end user stand point Openscape provides what is called a “dashboard to
manage real-time availability and preferred devices” [Moore, 2004, 19]. IBM
on the other hand extends and bundles existing groupware solutions (such
9
as Lotus Notes) with its IBM Workplace Collaboration Services (WCS), offer-
ing various eCollaboration features that are going to be integrated with RTC
features provided by Lotus Sametime. The idea is to provide RTC features in
the context of people’s Lotus Notes environment and to integrate Sametime
with CRM and ERP applications [Mohamed, 2007].
The ongoing market convergence is further reflected in recent alli-
ances between software vendors and telecommunications companies: while
IBM teams up with Avaya, and Cisco with Siemens [Yedwab, 2007], Mi-
crosoft and Nortel have formed what is termed a “Unified Communications
Alliance” in order to integrate Nortels unified communications infrastructure
with Microsoft’s Office Communicator [Fontana et al., 2005, Musich, 2007].
Table 1 gives an overview of some of the providers and their prod-
ucts. This list of vendors and the brief introduction of exemplary systems
above reveal the nature of RTC systems as large-scale integrated systems
that need to be distinguished from smaller tools in the private domain. Tools
such as Skype, AOL messenger, ICQ and the like provide certain real-time
features such as the integration of IP-based voice communication with In-
stant Messaging and presence signaling. However, these tools do not pro-
vide true unified communications, a wider interpretation of the presence con-
cept or the integration with other software applications that characterize the
RTC systems presented in this paper. On the other hand, due to their high
adoption rate in both the private domain as well as the business world [Brad-
bury, 2005], tools such as Skype allow researchers to investigate particular
RTC aspects (see section V below). In the next section we will clarify our un-
derstanding of RTC and distinguish four conceptual building blocks.
Table 1: Overview of RTC providers
Provider
Product name
Alcatel
OmniTouch Unified Communication
Avaya
One-X and Multivantage
Cisco
CU (Cisco Unified)
IBM
Workplace Collaboration Services (e.g. Lotus Sametime)
10
Microsoft
Office Communicator 2005 & 2007
Nortel
Multimedia Communication Server 5100
Oracle
Collaboration Suite
Siemens
Hipath OpenScape
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF RTC
As indicated above, RTC is the product of the integration of various
components and features. Firstly, RTC is based on unified communications
(UC), i.e. the computer-supported combination of communication channels.
In doing so, RTC overcomes the traditional distinction between either syn-
chronous or asynchronous technologies [cf. Johansen, 1988] as both aspects
may be integrated within one application. Secondly, one of the main features
of RTC lies in the provision of presence information in regards to the availa-
bility of the user and his media and communication devices. Thirdly, RTC
systems unfold their strengths when integrated within the context of the user,
in particular with organizational processes and business applications.
Through this integration and the provision of presence information, RTC goes
beyond the idea of simple synchronous communication in that it enables real-
time communication within the work context, i.e. by enabling spontaneous
initialization of a communication event. A core idea thus is to circumvent the
need to pre-schedule communication and to solve the users’ information
needs by immediately allowing them to communicate [Lazar, 2006]. Finally,
RTC also incorporates various groupware and eCollaboration features. Con-
sequently, we interpret the acronym RTC as real-time collaboration instead of
real-time communication to account for the integration of a rich set of collabo-
rative technologies [e.g. Burton et al., 2007], which goes beyond enabling
mere communicative acts but allows for real-time collaboration, e.g. on
shared object such as documents. All in all, four main components of RTC
systems can be distinguished (see table 2).
11
Table 2: Building blocks of real-time collaboration (RTC) systems
Description
Various media and communication channels
Media and device integration
Rule-based configuration of message routing and call diversion
Definition of preferred media
Unified messaging portal
Presence awareness of people, media classes, and devices
Aggregation of presence information on group, role, and object level
Active buddy list management
Individualized and automatic signaling
Embedding and customizing of RTC features to organizational pro-
cesses
Integration with office software and enterprise applications
Context specific buddy lists
Mobile RTC with location-based services
Audio and video conferences, web seminars
Ad hoc Application sharing
Joint whiteboards and discussion forums
Team calendars and contact management
Document folders
Unified communications (UC)
The idea behind Unified Communications (UC) is to relieve the user
of the burden to juggle with a large number of devices and channels in differ-
ent contexts. Unified communications can be defined as the integration of
communication technologies to improve workers’ ability to interact [Minifie,
2007, Mohamed, 2007]. UC systems thus aim at integrating different infor-
mation and communication channels, such as e-mail, telephone, instant
messaging, or SMS in order to reduce the fragmentation and complexity of
today’s information and communication landscape. UC is an extension of the
earlier concept of Unified Messaging (UM) [Rosenberg, 2005, Rybczynski
and Shetty, 2005]: The aim of UM systems is to manage and coordinate a
user’s asynchronous communication in a single mailbox [Hampton, 1998]
and thus to provide an all-in-one message-retrieval system [Clark, 1999]. By
12
collecting all incoming messages of various channels such as email, audio,
fax, or SMS, accessing all types of messages from one device becomes fea-
sible [Brodsky, 1999]. Moreover, UM allows for a conversion of messages
between these media types (e.g. text-to-speech conversion) [Hampton, 1998,
Lai et al., 2002].
UC extends the UM integration idea to synchronous communica-
tions. Users are aided by a communication middleware in the management of
channels and devices through a rule-based coordination and filtering system.
The user can define preferred channels (text, audio, and video) and devices
(landline, mobile or IP phones). The system provides users with a universal
phone number which finds them wherever they wish to be found [Hutton,
2001, Rosenberg, 2005]. Incoming calls can thus be diverted and transferred
between channels and devices according to a set of filters or rules [Jennings,
2006]. These rules can be related to time, situations (“in the office”, “at
home”), or callers (“colleagues”, “customers”). For example, when the user is
not logged-in to his office computer, all incoming calls from colleagues might
be transferred to the mobile phone, while after hours any caller might be di-
verted to the voice box. On the technical level, this media integration is based
on IP-technology and consequently on protocols such as the above men-
tioned SIP protocol [Rosenberg, 2005, Steinmann, 2007].
All in all, UC features enable users to manage their channel com-
plexity and communication volume corresponding to their preferences and
contextual demands. The locus of control is shifted from the initiator to the
recipient who can decide which media and devices to use or which requests
might need immediate consideration.
Presence information
The second defining feature of RTC is what is most often termed
“presence information” by the system providers [Jennings, 2006]. Much like
in the increasingly popular Instant Messaging (IM) tools, users can manage
buddy lists of contacts that show a “presence status” icon for every contact.
In the Instant Messaging literature, this status feature is sometimes also re-
13
ferred to as a presence awareness capability [Cameron and Webster, 2005]
or presence management feature [Li et al., 2005]. The idea of this presence
information is to signal to the initiator of a communication act, independent of
a recipient’s physical location, the availability for interaction, i.e. the “ability
and willingness to communicate” [de Poot et al., 2005: 84]. Combined with
the UC concept, presence information enables someone to see if people are
available to receive a phone call before dialing [Jennings, 2006, Oliva, 2003].
In simple IM tools, the status feature determines the availability of
others by technical means, e.g. the system deduces from the user being
logged into the system a “present” status; a lack of user activity is usually
interpreted as “away” [Grinter and Palen, 2002] (for presence signaling pro-
tocols and architectures see [Brok et al., 2006]). In RTC systems, presence
information can originate from all devices a user possesses [Jennings, 2006].
It can be derived from the technical availability of channels and devices in
that for each device or for a particular channel (text, audio, video) a presence
status is provided. For example, the status for audio communication might be
‘available’, if one of the user’s audio devices is registered being ‘active’ by
the RTC system [Riemer, 2007b]. To the contrary, both audio and video
communication status might show ‘temporarily unavailable’ whenever the
user is talking on one of the registered devices. In the latter situation, syn-
chronous text communication via instant messenger might still be possible,
as this does not have the same disruptive impact on the recipient. Users can
override this technically determined status and “explicitly set their own pres-
ence to one of several pre-determined states.” [Herbsleb et al., 2002, 172]
While in most instant messaging tools the presence information is
always related to the availability of one particular person, professional RTC
systems extend the notion of presence information to identities such as roles,
groups, locations, or objects. ‘Identities’ can then be attached to documents
or be used in enterprise applications to allow people to access, on an ’on-
demand’ basis, responsible individuals without knowing in advance who they
are.
14
Finally, another presence facet in the context of RTC is the possibil-
ity of active presence management by the user. To avoid interaction over-
load, recipients can filter incoming information and communication requests
as they assign priorities and preferences to particular events. Recipients can
actively manage their contact list according to priorities or contexts, thus re-
stricting availability for certain people in certain circumstances. Active signal-
ing is important to avoid interruptions when engaged in a particular creative
or annoying/boring task, where interruptions are less tolerated [de Poot et al.,
2005].
It is worth mentioning that the technological concept of presence in-
formation needs to be distinguished from the social concepts of presence
and awareness [Frößler, 2006]. Presence information (the status feature)
supports the production of what is termed ‘presence awareness’ in the litera-
ture [Herbsleb et al., 2002, Li et al., 2005, Ljungstrand and Segerstad, 2000,
Tran et al., 2005]. Awareness “is an understanding of the activities of others,
which provides a context for your own activities” [Dourish and Bellotti, 1992:
107] and helps people to align their interdependent activities [Schmidt, 2002].
However, as we have argued elsewhere, awareness is not a product of tech-
nology, but the result of shared practices of using technology in a social con-
text [Frößler, 2006]. While presence information ideally signals the recipients’
availability, its specific interpretation and the resulting value in creating
awareness depend on the shared social practices of technology usage. As
for the presence concept, Giddens defines presence as a sensation agents
have whenever “they are close enough to be perceived in whatever they are
doing, including their experiencing of others, and close enough to be per-
ceived in this sensing of being perceived” [Giddens, 1984: 67-8].2 Presence
in this sense refers to the sensation of closeness people experience in a
shared virtual environment through the production of rich forms of aware-
ness.
15
To sum up, presence information in RTC allows people to indicate
their presence and availability for communication and thus supports a more
focused communication in that it provides valuable awareness information for
the initiator of a communication event. In addition, presence information can
be derived on the device level and be attached to various types of objects in
information systems.
Contextualization
The third building block of RTC comprises the above mentioned in-
tegration of communication features with organizational processes for ena-
bling context-sensitive collaboration. To this end, RTC vendors envision the
integration of their RTC products across multi-supplier software environments
such as CRM and ERP systems [Mohamed, 2007]. Provided with such inte-
gration, the user can initiate a communication act immediately from the soft-
ware application in use, without having to decide on a particular channel for
reaching a recipient or having to search for contact details and a suitable de-
vice. The RTC system can present the user with a context-specific buddy list
that only contains, together with their presence status, people that are rele-
vant in a particular context (e.g., all specialists for a problem). For example,
an insurance specialist might be able to see immediately in the CRM applica-
tion whether a colleague, who has entered a customer complaint to the sys-
tem, is accessible for immediate communication. The Integration of RTC sys-
tems with enterprise software enables contextualized real-time communica-
tion which reduces the interrupting character of communication, especially
when specific information from colleagues is needed urgently.
Portfolio of eCollaboration features
Finally, RTC systems can comprise an additional portfolio of eCol-
laboration resources and features. While ad hoc communication is at the cen-
tre of RTC, collaboration features might enrich the ad hoc interaction be-
2 The notion of ‘being close’ is not limited to physical proximity, rather Giddens argues that comput-
er-mediated communication also permits some of the intimacies existing in unmediated contact [Frö-
16
tween users. True real-time collaboration is enabled by integrating features
such as web conferencing and application sharing. With web conferencing
functionality users might be able to establish communication with more than
one recipient at the same time. Using presence information on the group lev-
el, a user is able to see if a particular group of people (or at least a certain
number of group members) is available for ad hoc communication, i.e. an
audio or video group conference. By integrating application sharing features,
the RTC system might allow users not just to communicate with their peers,
e.g. in regards to a particular document such as an insurance file, but to joint-
ly edit the document on an ad hoc basis.
Another facet of integrating RTC with established eCollaboration
resources is the integration with team calendars. Presence information of
people might be combined with calendar information in order to provide
background information as to why and for how long a particular person might
be unavailable. Also, the integration of presence information of team mem-
bers in the calendar might improve the scheduling of meetings [de Poot et al.,
2005].
In summary, four areas can be distinguished that characterize RTC
systems (see table 2). Potential benefits of RTC comprise a better manage-
ment of personal communication complexity, a better availability of people
and required information, improved control over incoming requests, less un-
predictable disruptions of the work situation by incoming communication re-
quests, as well as the establishment of collaborative real-time interactions on
an ad hoc basis. From a technical perspective, RTC may simply be seen as
the evolutionary stage of existing ICT applications, albeit with the novelty of
integrating a range of functionalities. However, we argue that such a view
lacks to appreciate the potential individual and organizational implications
RTC might bring about. Rather than being the next evolutionary phase on the
organizational and individual level, RTC might represent a coming of a dis-
tinct form of communication which alters existing organizational processes
ßler, 2006].
17
and people’s perception of each other in virtual environments. To motivate
research on RTC and illustrate this assumption, four different scenarios are
presented to show implications on both the individual and organizational level
of analysis.
IV. RTC USAGE SCENARIOS
The following scenarios aim at illustrating the potential application
of RTC systems in a range of organizational settings. These settings were
selected with a view to illustrate RTC application on different organizational
levels and to draw a rich picture of various RTC implications. As shown by
the scenarios, RTC enables distributed collaboration in dispersed settings
and mobile contexts, which can be found in consultancy firms or field service
processes. Moreover, RTC improves reachability in time-critical situations
that are prevalent in hospital emergency rooms or IT recovery scenarios. Fi-
nally, RTC also enables context specific and role-based communication,
where recipients are not personally known to the initiator. Such situations are
found in all of the discussed scenarios.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRM (CONSULTANCY SERVICES)
A consultant who travels frequently and works on site with the client
can benefit from RTC applications by managing communication requests on
different devices through criteria such as priority, presence status, time-of-
day, day-of-week, or device. If the consultant, for example, decides to work at
home, all incoming calls from team members via the office phone number will
automatically be forwarded to his/her private phone number and if that fails,
to the mobile phone. All other calls will be diverted to a self-service-portal.
The self-service-portal allows, depending on the initiator’s access properties,
to access the consultant’s calendar, to schedule appointments, and to read
and retrieve documents stored on an exchange folder. The consultant can
check e-mails, voice-mails, and appointments over a voice-portal while not in
the office. The example illustrates that RTC does not shift control to the recip-
18
ients without taking the initiator’s needs into account. Rather, initiators are
assured that they can close the bracket of a task, as RTC either allows direct
communication or enables initiators to leave a message, schedule an ap-
pointment, or access requested documents. Therefore, RTC can contribute
to minimizing delays on the side of the initiator and give recipients the control
over organizing their work settings.
HOSPITAL LABORATORY (EMERGENCY ROOM)
In a hospital context the availability of critical information can have
life-determining importance. This might apply to information in the patients
records and to background information regarding laboratory files. Given that
an increasing number of hospitals use electronic patients records today, an
integration of these hospital information systems with real-time collaboration
functions may prove beneficial. In such a system the presence information of
authors of laboratory files or patients records can indicate their accessibility
for urgent call-backs by the doctor on duty. Through such RTC features, the
doctor might be able, in case of an emergency, to get in immediate contact
with specialists and laboratory assistants in order to have access to back-
ground information about the patient’s record or to consult with colleagues. A
precondition for this scenario to work is the aggregation of availability infor-
mation at the object level, in this case at the file level. Besides, organizational
rules regarding the on-call service and the usage of mobile devices are nec-
essary, in order for people to be available at any time for ad hoc communica-
tion via the RTC system.
FIELD SERVICES (TRAVELLING SALES MAN SCENARIO)
In mobile field services, RTC solutions might offer advantages, e.g.
when a field representative urgently needs information from people in the
organization or wants to contact a suitable expert. Examples are the insur-
ance broker who has questions regarding a contract, the technician who
needs immediate advice in order to solve a technical problem, or the reporter
who needs background information for a report from the editorial staff in the
19
back office. Common to all these examples is the urgency of the communica-
tion request. The information is required exactly when the employee is on site
with the customer or at the place of an event. Hence, the direct accessibility
of experts is paramount. A real-time collaboration system with suitable avail-
ability information may significantly improve communication in such situa-
tions. Initiation of communication might be role-based, because most often it
is not necessary to contact a particular person, but somebody with a certain
competence or role. Hence, aggregation of presence information at the role
level supports the employee in selecting a suitable expert. In this case, a
context-sensitive buddy list for a particular role (e.g. a network specialist or
insurance broker) can be presented to the field representative. Preconditions
for such a scenario are a context-sensitive role-selection algorithm in order to
create the buddy list and the integration of the RTC system with the mobile
devices of the field representative.
IT INCIDENT MANAGEMENT
In data centers, quick and focused communication is paramount in
IT incident management processes. An RTC system that is integrated with
the main systems recovery process and that helps in selecting available ex-
perts to be added to the communication process can offer significant support
in tight incident situations. Such a selection of people may be carried out by
the responsible incident manager or automatically by the software system,
e.g. based on a databank of past recovery cases (“who was involved earlier
in a similar incident?”). Consequently, RTC systems may create context-
sensitive buddy lists to present only those contacts people need to talk to
during the recovery process. Another feature of such an RTC system could
be to automatically shield people involved in the recovery process from peo-
ple outside the incident management for the duration of the incident. By do-
ing so, interruptions can be reduced and concentration on the service recov-
ery tasks improved. In this case, the availability within the recovery group
might be guaranteed by the RTC system, while to the outside accessibility
20
could be restricted temporarily, e.g. by signaling a special status (e.g. „not
accessible due to major incident“).
V. RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Drawing from the four building blocks and the scenarios discussed
above, RTC presents itself as a novel type of information system rather than
simply a combination of existing features. While RTC is about to reach a criti-
cal threshold to have an impact in organizations, at the moment it is still in a
prototype stage; empirical cases have yet to show the full characteristics of
envisaged RTC systems. At the moment, mainly single RTC components
such as unified communication features (without presence information) or
instant messaging tools are used in organizations. The design of RTC sys-
tems, their technical and organizational implementation, the configurations of
the resulting socio-technical systems, as well as the resulting social and or-
ganizational implications have yet to show up on a broader scale. However,
this early stage opens interesting perspectives for researchers in that the full
RTC life cycle can be subject to research.
RESEARCH TOPICS FOR RTC
In this section we set out to frame potential research topics for fu-
ture investigations on RTC. As currently no systematic attempts have been
made to circumscribe this new field of research, the section intends to pro-
vide a starting point for a discourse on RTC and to sensitize researchers for
the qualitative shift in the information and communication landscape RTC
might bring about. We argue that IS research should concentrate on three
levels of analysis, namely the individual, group and organizational level, on
which RTC offers various potentials but also poses different challenges in
relation to implementation, design, management and use.
The applied theoretical lens for identifying the research issues is
broadly informed by empirical results from case studies regarding the use of
groupware [cf. Bansler and Havn, 2004, Bødker et al., 2004, Kelly and Jones,
21
2001, Malhotra et al., 2001, Orlikowski, 1996, Orlikowski and Hofman, 1997,
Qureshi and Keen, 2004] and existing research on Instant Messaging, which
shows some characteristics of RTC and thus provides the closest under-
standing of the implications of RTC one can get at the moment.
While it can be argued that practitioners and academics might learn
form the experiences already gained from these studies, it will be required to
undertake new empirical endeavors specific to the application of RTC in or-
der to fully appreciate its implications. This is all the more important since
research on Instant Messaging itself is still in its infancy. While we frequently
refer to existing IM research in the next sections it is important to point out
that most research in this domain reports on the development, application,
and evaluation of IM prototypes [Herbsleb et al., 2002, Isaacs et al., 2002,
Ljungstrand and Segerstad, 2000, Scupelli et al., 2005, Tran et al., 2005].
Due to the typically low ecological validity of such research [Bryman and Bell,
2003], the transferability of its findings to other contexts such as the organi-
zational application of RTC is problematic. Moreover, existing empirical re-
search in the domain mostly concentrates on the individual [Grinter and
Palen, 2002, Li et al., 2005] and group level of IM application [Cameron and
Webster, 2005, Nardi et al., 2000]; to our knowledge no research is available
on the organizational effects of this technology that appreciates the influence
of the social context of systems appropriation and use.
As we will argue, in line with work on groupware applications [Or-
likowski and Hofman, 1997], RTC is best described as general-purpose-
technology that needs to be adapted to the organizational context to match
with users’ work practices, communication norms and local conditions
[Riemer et al., 2007]. Its properties are dependent upon the context and are
enacted by individual or collective, intended or unintended activities. The im-
plementation process is never completed but should rather be understood as
a continuous process with anticipated, emergent and opportunity-based
changes. Next, informed by this understanding, we will develop a catalogue
of research questions on the individual, group and organizational level for the
22
following three domains: (1) potentials and benefits, (2) implementation and
design, and (3) management and RTC-in-use. Table 3 shows a summary of
these research questions. The following paragraphs discuss the research
agenda in more detail.
Table 3: Research questions regarding implications of RTC systems
Level of
analysis
Real-Time Collaboration
Potentials & benefits
Implementation & Design
Usage and management
challenges
Organization
What will the main benefits
of RTC be and under which
conditions are they
achieved cost savings,
better coordination, flexibil-
ity, etc.?
Will RTC lead to lower cost
of communication or will
the savings be compen-
sated by increased time
spent using RTC?
Will RTC systems
strengthen social network-
ing in the organization?
Will RTC systems lead to a
culture of open communi-
cation and information
sharing?
What type of organiza-
tion/process might benefit
the most from RTC - struc-
tured or already flexible
ones?
What will be the retarding
factors for RTC adoption
complexity, required
change, investments,
culture, lack of standards?
What measures facilitate
the implementation of RTC
within organizations?
Will RTC systems have to
be heavily customized to
show the desired effects in
organizations?
Will RTC systems have to
be integrated with typical
enterprise information
systems?
How can RTC be applied
in inter-organizational
contexts?
What management instru-
ments are necessary to
communicate structures,
rules, and processes for the
use of RTC?
What kind of support is
needed for users to make
effective use of RTC?
How are informal commu-
nication practices enacted
via RTC?
Will RTC systems lead to a
culture of control and sur-
veillance or trust and open-
ness?
Will RTC systems promote
tighter management ap-
proaches or lead to more
loosely coupled work envi-
ronments?
Groups/
teams
Will RTC improve the quali-
ty of group communica-
tions?
Will RTC help mitigate
barriers in dispersed set-
ups, e.g. bridge gaps of
awareness and improve
social inclusion?
Will RTC help to mitigate
issues caused by diversity
in cross-organizational
teams?
Will RTC lead to better
coordination in knowledge
intensive work?
How can RTC be adapted
to different group structural
setups?
What is the effect of group
culture on successful RTC
adoption?
What effect do network
brokers (or technology
champions) have on RTC
adoption?
What changes to group
processes will RTC induce;
how are they managed?
How is RTC appropriated
by social groups?
What kinds of social proto-
cols are needed for facilitat-
ing efficient use of RTC?
Will RTC lead to higher
centralization or decentrali-
zation of social networks?
Will people accept the
additional degree of team
availability?
Individual
Will RTC help to attain time
critical information more
What are specific usability
requirements of RTC inter-
Will people show different
interaction behaviors?
23
easily?
Will RTC usage reduce
unwanted interruptions?
Will users experience more
control over their interac-
tions with RTC?
Will RTC enable a better
personal time manage-
ment?
faces?
How can different user
devices be integrated with
RTC systems?
Do RTC systems need to
be adaptable to specific
user needs?
How can the cognitive
efforts for the users be
reduced in using RTC?
What are suitable
measures to automate the
signaling process?
Will people use the signal-
ing mechanism to hide and
block out others?
Will RTC lead to increased
interruptions of people?
Will RTC (e.g. the chat
feature) distract people
from their actual work?
Organizational level: potentials & benefits
At the organizational level, the introduction of new technology is al-
ways accompanied by promises and assumptions concerning the implica-
tions of the application. With RTC systems management may hope to reduce
communication costs, improve coordination, or increase the flexibility of or-
ganizing work. However, as research on groupware shows, new technologies
often fail to live up to such high expectations [Karsten, 1999]. While the in-
tended effect of RTC is to lower communication costs, increased communica-
tion volume could result as an unintended consequence of the use of RTC in
the long run since increased awareness for the availability of people might
trigger communication. By doing so, it might neutralize its positive effects.
Similarly, rather than automatically determining positive changes on the so-
cial level - such as strengthened social networking or a culture of openness
and help-giving through improved awareness in the work processes - RTC
should rather be understood as an enabler whose implications depend upon
existing social protocols and the organizational context in more general. Re-
lated to the contextual aspects, spotting and assessing organizations or pro-
cesses that could benefit from RTC may not only contribute to better under-
stand RTC but also to identify potential sectors for further research.
Organizational level: implementation & design
24
General-purpose technologies such as RTC need to be continuous-
ly adapted to the organizational context. Consequently, the implementation
process is not limited to the installation of the computer system, rather it is
best understood as a continuous process with anticipated, emergent and op-
portunity-based changes. Besides the technological dimension, social and
political issues might have crucial implications for the acceptance of the RTC
system. Understanding the retarding factors of RTC implementation might
sensitize managers for the complexity of RTC initiatives and facilitate the
identification of measures to support such endeavors. So far, organizations
make mainly use of stand-alone applications whose main advantage is that
they are easily implemented. However, over the next few years it is expected
that more complex RTC solutions will gain ground which will raise new chal-
lenges. Questions need to be answered concerning the required scope of
customization to a specific context and integration with legacy systems or
enterprise information systems. Furthermore, while RTC is currently intended
to support intra-organizational collaboration, in the mid- or long-term, applica-
tions are expected to expand beyond organizational boundaries. Because of
varying technological infrastructures, processes, cultures, and business ob-
jectives, new challenges are likely to occur in inter-organizational settings
which need to be investigated in more detail.
Organizational level: usage & management
Management needs to play a central role as to increase the ac-
ceptance or appropriation and use of RTC in organizations. For setting ex-
pectations and guidelines on how RTC is supposed to be used organization-
wide, rules and processes need to be defined and communicated throughout
the organization. This is especially important in regards to setting the pres-
ence signals and responding to communication requests. If people for exam-
ple try to hide from their social peers by signaling non-availability, this might
ultimately compromise the very idea of RTC. Research in the IM domain has
already shown that reaching a critical mass of users is particularly important
for success, but also challenging [Cameron and Webster, 2005]. On the other
25
hand, users should have the opportunity to adapt their usage of RTC over
time as they get more experienced with the technology and learn new ways
of integrating RTC in their work processes. More specifically, understanding
the enactment of RTC by its users and the implications it has on the organi-
zation’s communication practices could yield interesting results that help to
fathom potential usages of RTC. Such research which takes account of the
enactment of RTC within the broader organizational context could also bring
about an appreciation for the conditions under which RTC might lead to a
culture of control and surveillance or trust and openness.
Group level: potentials & benefits
Virtual or remote forms of collaborating with fragmented and dis-
persed team members are fragile ICT-enabled organizational constructs [cf.
DeSanctis and Monge, 1999, Montoya-Weiss et al., 2001]. Distributed set-
tings challenge traditional ways of managing availability, coordinating and
collaborating. At the same time, groupware and e-mail significantly shape the
quality of interactions as they require users to express their experiences in
writing, and by doing so, causing additional effort involved in creating these
representations and placing limits on how much of a person’s experiences
can be usefully represented [Kelly, 2005]. By emphasizing verbal communi-
cation, RTC might have the potential to overcome some of the shortcomings
of traditional groupware and e-mail by putting the people back in the
knowledge management loop rather than trying to externalize every bit of
information. However, as indicated by research on instant messaging, ambi-
guity might arise if RTC is interpreted as both synchronous and asynchro-
nous technology since conventions of verbal and written communication get
mixed up [Voida et al., 2002]. In addition, research is needed to appreciate
whether the combination of presence information and integrated communica-
tion channels might lead to better coordination of knowledge intensive work,
a feeling of inclusion in dispersed settings [Sahay, 1997], improved aware-
ness for peoples’ work contexts, and a better understanding among team
26
members from different professional and cultural backgrounds. While re-
search on instant messaging has already pointed to the potentials of the
technology in enabling the creation of rich types of awareness [Tran et al.,
2005], further research is needed in this area.
Group level: implementation & design
While virtual teams are often characterized as ‘all-star teams’
[Goldman et al., 1995] with experts spending only a part of their time working
on joint projects, the demands of virtual teams concerning technological in-
frastructure, but also collaboration, coordination, and communication differ
widely depending on the tasks, experts, and organizational context. An un-
derstanding is needed of how RTC can be adapted to the varying require-
ments. Especially, in line with research on instant messaging, future studies
should investigate the different functions for which RTC can be used, e.g.
carrying out work, asking quick questions, coordinating work, or social talk
[Isaacs et al., 2002]. Furthermore, a more in-depth understanding is needed
on how a group atmosphere may be cultivated in which the use of RTC is
highly appreciated. An appropriate culture with both formal guidelines but
also informal social protocols might proof to be mandatory for the successful
implementation of RTC. Managers and network brokers might play a crucial
role in communicating the guidelines and social protocols; however, a dearth
of knowledge currently exists concerning the mediation of appropriate
measures in virtual settings.
Group level: usage & management
Similar to groupware [Karsten, 1999], different forms of RTC usage
are likely to occur, namely (1) exploratory/ conservative/ cautious usage, (2)
well-planned usage, or (3) extensive usage with proactive user involvement.
Depending on the form of usage, changes to group processes might vary
significantly. More detailed investigations are needed to elucidate the implica-
tions RTC has on group processes, i.e. formal or informal ways of communi-
cating, collaborating and organizing. As mentioned before, while social proto-
27
cols that buttress RTC-in-use need to be developed and nurtured over time,
caution is required should RTC disturb existing group protocols and estab-
lished modes of engagement. Understanding established social protocols
and practices may then help to appreciate whether and under which circum-
stances RTC mediated forms of organizing and collaboration will result in
centralization or decentralization and whether team members accept the in-
creased team availability. Additionally, studies may concentrate on forms of
media switching and people’s reasoning for preferring some communication
channels over others; for related research in the IM domain see [Isaacs et al.,
2002, Nardi et al., 2000]. Rather than perceiving RTC as a substitute for ex-
isting forms of communicating, such research might elaborate on different
ways of how RTC complements the existing ICT landscape.
Individual level: potentials & benefits
Flexible collaboration brings about a situation in which knowledge
workers need instant access to information without any big delay. However,
especially those professionals whose skills are in high demand have to cope
with frequent interruptions. As already pointed out in the beginning, current
communication technologies (e.g. mobile phones) decrease communication
delays for the initiators while translating into interruption on the part of the
recipient [Rennecker and Godwin, 2005]. Research is needed to understand
how rule-based forwarding of calls, self-service portals, integration of com-
munication channels and presence information qualitatively shift the control
over communicative events; i.e. does RTC enable knowledge workers to re-
ceive time critical information without delays?; does RTC reduce unwanted
interruptions?; do knowledge worker experience more control over the out-
going and incoming communicative events?; and does the increased control
consequently result in more efficient time management? So far, research on
instant messaging shows mixed results; while some studies point to a reduc-
tion in unwanted interruptions through IM [Rennecker and Godwin, 2005],
others point to problems [Cameron and Webster, 2005] or a possible contin-
28
gent nature of the perception of interruptions [Cutrell et al., 2000]. Further
research is needed in the RTC domain, especially because of its integrative
nature and a possible interplay of features at the individual level.
Individual level: implementation & design
Knowledge workers or mobile professionals (i.e. consultants, doc-
tors, traveling sales men) work in (organizational) settings with significantly
contrasting demands. Understanding the specific characteristics of different
settings assists in deriving appropriate usability requirements. Part of the ex-
isting work settings are ICT devices such as personal organizers (e.g. Mi-
crosoft Outlook) or mobile devices (e.g. smartphone, PDA, Blackberry). As to
create a unified messaging platform, integrating RTC into personal organiz-
ers or mobile devices might be desirable from the user perspective. Conse-
quently, respective RTC systems need to be designed that integrate these
devices and applications. However, user requirements or organizational cir-
cumstances might change over time and strategies need to be set out to
adapt RTC systems to these altered demands. Additionally, research on the
workplace introduction of Instant Messaging has shown that people do not
necessarily appreciate and integrate new communication media in their daily
routines without explicitly illustrating to them the potential benefits for their
work [Herbsleb et al., 2002].
Moreover, presence information is a central element of RTC sys-
tems with topicality and accuracy of availability information being crucial for
facilitating the efficient management of personal communication. As the cog-
nitive effort involved in constantly updating availability information often de-
ters people from doing so, different types of automatically tracking and updat-
ing presence information are imaginable (e.g. availability based on physical
presence, electronic calendar, or dominant device which defines status of
other devices), whose feasibility needs to be tested.
29
Individual level: usage & management
On the individual level, RTC might potentially alter the dynamics of
interactions as people make use of presence information, self-service portals
or other RTC specific features. Management needs to develop strategies to
prepare and sensitize users for the transition process towards RTC-mediated
forms of communicating and organizing. The changes that are potentially
brought about by RTC are likely to be subtle and hard to track down although
their impact on team dynamics could be substantial. Research covering the
whole spectrum of RTC features is needed to understand its implications,
e.g. are signaling mechanisms used to hide or block others?; is RTC oppor-
tunistic and will the technology inevitably lead to increased communication
volume and more interruptions [Nardi et al., 2000]?; with on-the-fly confer-
encing and other instantaneous forms of communication, will RTC cause
more distractions and disturbances?
VI. CONCLUSION
Inter-personal communication and collaboration are essential pro-
cesses in organizational knowledge work. These collective processes how-
ever need to be balanced with the interests of both the recipient and the initi-
ator of an interactive act [de Poot et al., 2005]. Therefore, context information
is needed in regards to activities and location of the recipient, which requires
signaling of presence information to the initiator. This paper makes a contri-
bution to elucidating the potential of RTC in tackling some of the issues of
today’s complex working environments. RTC might help people to organize
their work by integrating information and communication channels, balancing
delays and interruptions of work, and by supporting people to cope with the
informative and communicative volume.
Over the next few years, it is expected for RTC to become closely
integrated with existing legacy and ERP systems. Currently, no empirical
studies exist on the implications RTC might have in organizations. Research-
ers therefore are “’dreaming’ and ‘creating problems’ as much as they are
30
solving problems and recording and theorizing about effects” [Lyytinen and
Yoo, 2002a: 65]. This paper dared to risk an outlook on the consequences of
RTC and argued that people may contact others with the needed skills, re-
sources or job roles, depending on their availability rather than previously
established contacts. Communication therefore may become more instanta-
neous or spontaneous as others are only one mouse-click away.
However, it remains to be seen whether RTC systems may live up
to the high expectations of their providers. The authors are cautious of any
technological deterministic claims. Benefits that are often mentioned in line
with mobile technology and RTC, such as minimization of idle time, faster
response time, or more freedom and higher quality of life [Ala-Pietilä, 2004],
are not an automatic outcome of technologies. People should be aware that
the implications and properties of RTC will depend on the enactment by its
users. The most collaborative software is futile, if people are not willing to
interact or share their ideas. However, generalized representations as given
by this article are needed at this early stage as they provide the canvas upon
which to perform deconstructive work. Currently, research in the groupware
domain offers a pool of findings one can use as starting point and sensitizing
devices. Nonetheless, more in-depth analyses are needed in the future to
make sense of what the implications of RTC are on organizing dispersed
work. While the technology is promising, as the conceptualization and the
scenarios in this paper have shown, the technical and organizational chal-
lenges are manifold and yet to be fully understood. For doing so, the paper
has presented open research questions and ideas for empirical research.
RTC offers scholars a rich field for future research as aspects analyzed for
earlier groupware need to be revisited and new questions need answering.
With RTC systems still in early stages, today design-oriented research might
be carried out to investigate certain usage and design aspects by developing
prototypes, while this will be followed by research context such as action re-
search approaches, ethnographical studies, or case studies that provide a
richer picture, from which conclusions in regards to a variety of research
31
questions might be drawn once empirical examples of RTC applications be-
come available.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Kai Riemer is an assistant professor with the Department of Infor-
mation Systems and the European Research Center for Information Systems
(ERCIS) at the University of Münster, Germany. He has held positions with
the University College Dublin and with the University of Melbourne in Austral-
ia. His publications and research interests cover the areas of e-Collaboration,
inter-firm networking and E-Commerce. He currently chairs the Collaboration
management and systems (e-Collaboration) research group in Muenster,
where he focuses on the organisational and social impact of new ICT, in par-
ticular on technologies such as Instant Messaging and RTC.
Frank Frößler is PhD candidate with the Centre for Innovation,
Technology, and Organisation (CITO) at University College Dublin (UCD).
His research interest concerns the extent to which new technologies enable
and constrain innovative forms of organizing work. Currently, he is focusing
on the implications of Skype and Sametime in software development pro-
jects.
... Recent WCT developments are characterized by the integration of instant messaging, primarily consisting of text-chat functionality and presence information, and voice-based communications, and increasingly comprise additional channels (Riemer and Frößler, 2007). The demand for such highly integrated tools is fuelled by a number of workplace developments, such as the rising importance of virtual, locally dispersed teams that are composed according to knowledge and skills rather than place (Tuma, 1998). ...
... The demand for such highly integrated tools is fuelled by a number of workplace developments, such as the rising importance of virtual, locally dispersed teams that are composed according to knowledge and skills rather than place (Tuma, 1998). Attempts to provide communication in real-time date back to the 1990s (Riemer and Frößler, 2007), and have become ubiquity due to the omnipresence of online-compatible devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones (Ladd et al., 2010). The advent of mobile and inter-device computing with its specific requirements regarding input and output modes has also influenced organizational IS through consumerization (Harris et al., 2012;Jarrahi et al., 2017). ...
... A significant precondition for multiplexed platforms is the convergence of infrastructure and "interoperable applications and services on an integrated machine" (Riemer and Frößler, 2007, p. 286). These characteristics have sparked a multiplicity of denominations, such as real-time communication and real-time collaboration systems (Riemer and Frößler, 2007), enterprise communication and collaboration (Kryvinska et al., 2009), unified communications and collaboration (Alias et al., 2017;Chung and Shin, 2011), unified communications (Riemer and Taing, 2009), and unified messaging (Lai et al., 2002), which share many commonalities and are often used interchangeably. ...
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Highly integrated software environments for various routine and non-routine tasks promise productivity gains for organizations. To fulfill this promise, users need to be willing to employ the new technology. A combined perspective of sufficient and necessary conditions in the form of fsQCA and NCA is used to examine the technology acceptance of workstream collaboration tools, advancing examinations from a multivariate perspective to a more holis-tic view. One hundred thirty participants were trained in the software application Slack for three months. Following the training period, configurational analysis using fsQCA and NCA based on a UTAUT framework was conducted based on 116 qualified questionnaires. Necessity assessment shows that all influence factors exhibit necessity properties, with facilitating conditions and effort expectancy most substantially constraining an individual's intention to use. Sufficiency evaluation confirms UTAUT's variable choice and identifies social influence as a key condition that enables intention to use. Segmentation according to gender further reveals that effort expectancy and facilitating conditions are necessary conditions for female users but not for males.
... Recent developments are characterized by the integration of instant messaging, primarily consisting of text-chat functionality and presence information, and voice-based communications, and increasingly comprise additional channels (Riemer and Frößler, 2007). The demand for such highly integrated tools is fuelled by a number of workplace developments, such as the rising importance of virtual, locally dispersed teams that are composed according to knowledge and skills rather than place (Tuma, 1998). ...
... Attempts to provide communication in real-time date back to the 1990s (Riemer and Frößler, 2007), and has become ubiquity due to the omnipresence of online-compatible devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones (Ladd et al., 2010). The advent of mobile and inter-device computing with its specific requirements regarding input and output modes has also influenced organizational IS through consumerization . ...
... A significant precondition for multiplexed platforms is the convergence of infrastructure and "interoperable applications and services on an integrated machine" (Riemer and Frößler, 2007, p. 286). These characteristics have sparked a multiplicity of denominations, such as real-time communication and real-time collaboration systems (Riemer and Frößler, 2007), enterprise communication and collaboration (Kryvinska et al., 2009), unified communications and collaboration (Alias et al., 2017;Chung and Shin, 2011), unified communications (Riemer and Taing, 2009), and unified messaging (Lai et al., 2002), which share many commonalities and are often used interchangeably. ...
Thesis
Full-text available
Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Technologieakzeptanz neuer Instrumente, welche nachhaltiges Handeln im organisationalen und Konsumentenkontext ermöglichen und verbessern sollen. In zwei Teilen werden dazu Coworking Spaces und deren technologische Grundlagen sowie ausgewählte Phänomene des Konsumentenmarktes beleuchtet. Als zentrales Motiv im organisationalen Kontext wird die Identifikation und Nutzbarmachung materieller und immaterieller Ressourcen am Beispiel von Coworking Spaces erkannt. Diese Arbeitsplätze sollen neben einer basalen Infrastruktur vorrangig Raum für eine offene, kollaborationsorientierte Gemeinschaft bieten. Hierzu finden unterschiedliche, integrierte Technologien parallel zu architektonischen und sozialen Instrumenten Anwendung, jeweils mit überlappender Zielsetzung. Der Fokus des ersten Teils der vorliegenden Arbeit liegt auf der Klärung, welche positiven Auswirkungen die Nutzbarmachung der vorhandenen Ressourcen mittels digitaler Technologien auf die beteiligten Coworker entfalten kann. Zunächst wird gezeigt, dass Coworker vom Zugang zu solchen Ressourcen in Form von Wissen unmittelbar profitieren. Zu diesem Zweck werden so genannte Matchmaking Tools in die Coworking-Literatur eingeführt, welche Profile von Coworkern erzeugen und darauf basierend Kooperationspartner identifizieren. Matchmaking Tools können dazu dienen, die in Coworking Spaces vorhandenen Ressourcen, etwa in Form von fachlicher Expertise und beruflichen Netzwerken, sichtbar und greifbar zu machen. Sie ergänzen damit das bestehende Spektrum an kooperativen Instrumenten um einen eigenständigen Beitrag. Die empirische Analyse wird anhand einer Kombination aus Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) und Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) durchgeführt. Der zweite Teil, welcher sich mit ausgewählten Instrumenten im Konsumentenmarkt befasst, klärt die Akzeptanz nachhaltiger Alternativen in den Bereichen Mode, individuelle Mobilität und Ernährung. Allen Teilbereichen ist gemein, dass sie bedeutende Märkte bilden, zielgruppenübergreifende Relevanz aufweisen und somit großen Einfluss auf nachhaltiges Handeln entfalten. Die Märkte werden als heterogen in ihren Anforderungen und Zielsetzungen erkannt und Handlungsempfehlungen für Anbieter und politische Entscheidungsträger werden abgeleitet. In Spiegelung zum ersten Teil der Arbeit basiert die Analyse auf der methodischen Kombination von PLS-SEM, fsQCA und NCA.
... Seamless integration within this information system enables the creation of smoother communication channels, encompassing various media such as text messages, emails, or other collaborative platforms (Riemer & Frößler, 2007). This paves the way for students to obtain the necessary assistance and support in their academic journey more easily, whether it be obtaining information, clarifying inquiries, or seeking guidance from instructors or administrative staff. ...
Article
Conventional educational management systems often face limitations in handling student data, curriculum, and other academic processes, leading to difficulties in effectively monitoring and enhancing students' academic performance. With the rapid advancement of information technology, the use of management information systems in educational contexts has become increasingly crucial. This research aims to examine the management and utilization strategies of management information systems in enhancing students' academic performance. The methodology employed in this research is a literature review using a qualitative approach and descriptive analysis. Descriptive analysis is utilized to present characteristics, patterns, and trends emerging from data obtained from articles published on Google Scholar between 2007 and 2024. Theme identification is one of the research data analysis techniques. The main themes in the article were identified, focussing on aspects such as information systems, education management, and student academic performance. The study results indicate that the utilization of Management Information Systems (MIS) has demonstrated a significant role in enhancing efficiency and effectiveness across various fields, including education. In the educational context, the management of MIS can be a key factor in improving students' academic performance
... By combining many synchronous communication channels into one integrated environment, RTC solutions allow users to collaborate in real time [6]. This covers phone conversations, document editing, and multi-person video conferencing. ...
Article
Full-text available
The Internet is expanding quickly, and many desktop apps are already being developed for the online. Using the Internet, many apps may be easily accessible at any time and from any location. Code editors are one of the tools that developers require to design their applications. The goal of this research is to employ web socket technology to build and develop a real-time code editor application that facilitates user collaboration while working on the project. Users of this program can work together in real time on a project thanks to its capability. The authors employed an analysis process that includes studying the literature, and studying the code editor software that are currently in use. CrossCode is a web application that offers a workspace for creating, performing, and collaborating with other users in real-time over the terminal. The primary functionalities of the application include a workspace for creating, running, and building source code as well as real-time chat and terminal building. The programming languages C, C++, Python, and Java are supported by this application. The current research contributes to the advancement of online code collaboration tools, providing developers with an efficient and accessible platform for remote teamwork and code sharing.
... Real-time collaboration is defined as the collaborative editing of data by multiple modelers over a network, in real-time [21]. A well-known example of this type of real-time collaboration is the collaboration functionality offered by Google Docs, where multiple modelers can work on a single document at once, seeing the input of others appear as it is typed [22]. ...
Article
Full-text available
Real-time collaboration in model-driven software engineering is gaining increasing attention from both the research and industrial community. This is due to its potential adverse effects on the efficiency of software modeling process. However, current approaches for real-time collaboration are tightly coupled to modeling platforms and language workbenches. To address this issue, we present BUMBLE-CE, the first extensible approach for cross-platform real-time collaborative modeling which is independent of both the modeling platforms and the domain-specific modeling language used by the modelers. One of the main characteristics of BUMBLE-CE is that it allows modelers to work on the head revision of their models as usual and, when necessary, they can start and terminate on-demand real-time collaborative modeling sessions. This paper reports on the requirements driving the design of BUMBLE-CE, its architecture and underlying design decisions, implementation of BUMBLE-CE using EMF.Cloud technologies and an example application of BUMBLE-CE to state machine models realized in Eclipse EMF and Jetbrains MPS.
... These studies highlighted the importance of exploring the negative impacts of T-M interruptions in more depth. Two later review papers by Riemer and Frößler (2007) and by Stephens (2008) supported this notion, indicating that T-M interruptions cause substantial productivity losses by leading workers to feel stressed and, as a result, to withdraw from various desirable behaviors (such as IS use). Overall, while little research has empirically examined the negative impacts of T-M interruptions on stress and downstream withdrawal behaviors, it has consistently viewed these interruptions as problematic, affecting stress and work behaviors. ...
Article
Full-text available
Mobile technologies have dramatically increased the number of work-related interruptions, especially after regular work hours. At the same time, many employees have limited freedom to decide how and when they accomplish their work, a condition that renders the explosion of interruptions especially problematic. This study proposes that perceived interruption overload negatively impacts work-related technology-usage via workers’ experiences of work-life conflict, a key source of stress, and that this indirect effect is stronger for lower levels of worker control (moderated mediation). Data were collected from 601 knowledge workers and analyzed through Conditional process analysis, which integrates moderation and mediation analyses. The results supported our model. This study takes an important step toward elucidating the role of mobile technology in work-life conflict and technostress, and it illustrates the roles of perceived interruption overload as well as conflict and technostress in IT use.
... Unified Communications does not represent a singular technology, rather it describes an interconnected system of enterprise communication devices and applications that can be used in concert or successively [Fikry et al. 2012]. According to K. Riemer and F. Froßler, Unified Communications Systems integrate traditional and novel communication media (speech, text, video) and devices (phone, computer) with present information and further collaboration features [Riemer, Frößler 2007]. ...
... This also results in the fact, that the ideas and concepts underlying IM and the research around IM inform new paradigms in ICT and CMC. For example, Unified Communications (UC) systems and Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) systems [Riemer & Frößler 2007] aim to integrate different communication channels spanning devices (i.e., phone, fax, desktop and mobile computers) and media (i.e., text, audio, video), making a person reachable under one universal phone number "which finds them wherever they wish to be found" [Riemer & Klein 2009, p.267] through the provision of presence information. ...
Thesis
Full-text available
Modern Computer-mediated Communication technologies like Instant Messaging (IM) systems enable spontaneous communication over distance. With the advances in Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, these technologies move away from the desktop computers of our offices, and become more and more pervasive and interwoven with our daily lives. The introduction of these great possibilities to communicate from everywhere with everyone however comes at a cost: The cost of constantly being available to everybody, everywhere, leading to an increasing number of interruptions in our daily tasks. The challenge is, that current technology does not empower users to manage their availability in an adequate manner. Most IM clients for example, only support one single online status that needs to be managed manually by the user. In this work I am founding the concepts of Presence and Availability on a deep understanding of human privacy needs, derived from literature. Based on this foundation, I show how the selective and dynamic nature of privacy is not sufficiently reflected in current systems. Based on two user studies I reveal patterns for selective information disclosure and present an analysis of Selective Availability needs. With the collected study data, I further show that Selective Availability for nomadic users can be predicted based on sensors installed on the users’ laptop computer with a good accuracy through machine learning. As the personalised nature of the data requires new concepts for building an adaptive system, I introduce the LILOLE Framework. The LILOLE Framework outlines the concept of an adaptive system that relies on stream-based active learning to continuously learn and automatically adapt fine-grained personal availability preferences for individual users. The concept is validated through a proof-of-concept implementation and an evaluation based on real user data. In comparison to related work, the presented work is one of very few examples that goes beyond the pure analysis of the predictability, but provides a concept and an implementation of a real system as validation. My approach is novel by combining concepts from Data Stream Mining and Active Learning to predict availability, thus making it very flexible for different settings. This way I am able to address the selective and dynamic nature of availability preferences for nomadic users.
Chapter
E-Collaboration systems have become the backbone infrastructure to support virtual work in and across organizations. Fuelled by recent technology trends the market today offers an abundance of systems that often support a wide range of communication and collaboration features. In this article I present a study that aims to shed light on the market for E-Collaboration systems by structuring the range of available systems into meaningful classes. To this end, a sample of 94 E-Collaboration systems were characterized using a classification approach. A cluster analysis led to the identification of five system classes and a range of sub classes. I describe the system classes and discuss trends of systems integration and convergence. The results should be equally helpful for researchers who deal with E-Collaboration systems as their objects of interest, as well as for business executives, who need to gather information to support buying decisions.
Chapter
In this paper, the author examines RTC and its implications on people’s lives. This paper analyzes the production and reproduction of presence and awareness through (RTC-mediated) communication genres. Specifically, the author argues that presence and awareness are two interrelated concepts. Four communication genres are presented, which people intentionally or unintentionally draw on in dispersed settings to create awareness. Furthermore, presence, understood as a person’s sensation of being perceived by others in whatever he or she is doing, is influenced by the information imparted through communication genres. The author argues that the sensation of presence shapes the characteristics of communication genres and that RTC technology modifies existing or enables new communicative practices. Consequently, emerging RTC technologies may affect the sensation of presence in dispersed settings. The line of argument is developed by presenting the working conditions and communication practices of a university professor, working on several projects with both dispersed and co-located colleagues.