Overcoming Tensions in Collaborative Development Activities within Immersive Environments

Michael Cahalane University College Cork, Ireland

Joseph Feller University College Cork, Ireland

Patrick Finnegan University of New South Wales, Australia

Abstract
Evolving from their hedonic roots as systems of play, open cultural virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life) are increasingly recognized for their utilitarian and economic value. Virtual worlds provide a shared, immersive and persistent online environment in which individuals, organizations and communities may collaborate to develop rich, interactive virtual goods. Virtual goods hold both instrumental and symbolic value, acting as mechanisms for enabling self-expression, increasing capability and utility, generating income, fostering relationships amongst users, and enabling the creation of virtual ‘places’, thus facilitating further user activity. While the technologically enabled collaborative development of digital artifacts within both virtual communities (e.g. open source software) and virtual teams (e.g. distributed software development) have emerged as significant research topics in the IS discipline, collaborative development activities in immersive environments such as virtual worlds are underresearched to date. Specifically, we lack an understanding of how individuals and groups overcome the context specific tensions that arise from collaboration in such environments. To address this gap in our knowledge, the objective of our study is to identify the key tensions that emerge in such activities, and to explore how these tensions are resolved.

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Reference:	Cahalane, M., Feller, J., Finnegan, P. (2010). "Overcoming Tensions in Collaborative Development Activities within Immersive Environments," Proceedings > Proceedings of IFIP 8.2/Organizations and Society in Information Systems (OASIS) . Sprouts: Working Papers on Information Systems, 10(100). http://sprouts.aisnet.org/10-100
Keywords:	Virtual Worlds, Collaborative Development, Activity Theory
Item Type:	Article - Volume 10 Article 100 (2010)
Language:	English
Email:	Michael Cahalane (mrcahalane@gmail.com) Joseph Feller (JFeller@afis.ucc.ie) Patrick Finnegan (p.finnegan@unsw.edu.au)

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