3 - The shape of groups to come: Efforts to define, label, explain, and model collaborative activity

Summary

“Committee Coma”

The meeting's so dull

That when there's a lull,

It's hard not to notice or mention

That eyelids are lifting

On those who are drifting

And everyone snaps to attention.

D'Amico, 1990

Picture a modern office setting, perhaps an insurance company headquarters. Some people are writing on sheets of paper. Others are looking into computer screens, entering numbers into a spreadsheet. Still others are conversing. Which of these individuals are working individually, and which are engaging in cooperative work? And which of the individuals engaging in cooperative activity are participating in healthy, well-working groups? Some of these issues might appear to be riddles or trick questions. Whether there are “riddles” (or linguistic puzzles) involved, the issue of how best to construe cooperative work activity is one of the most salient focal points of research and theory in CSCW applications.

In much the same manner as healthy and unhealthy forms of individual behavior have been constructed by social scientists, today's administrative theorists, network-based system developers, and CSCW researchers are attempting to construct notions of “functional” and “dysfunctional” collaborative behavior. Several of the theorists whose work is described in this chapter are attempting to segregate some kinds of work as “cooperative” and give them special forms of support. Others want to transform existing forms of work from their current, supposedly noncooperative form into cooperative work. Still others label all work as cooperative and want us to see work itself in a new light. Many have identified “right” ways of thinking about and engaging in cooperative activity, their conclusions bolstered with theoretical scaffolding, empirical research, and appeals to common sense.