VCC - Virtual Communities and Collaboration

The goal of the Virtual Communities and Collaboration track is to disseminate research and extend our knowledge and understanding of virtual communities and collaboration. Collaboration is a fundamental part of organizations and organizational partnerships. Following a continuing trend toward globalization, virtual communities and collaboration are an increasingly important part of organizations. Virtual communities are collective groups of individuals who utilize computer-mediated environments to interact and pursue mutual goals. They can be found in virtual worlds, social media, online forums, and crowdsourcing sites, among others. Organizations and teams can use computer-mediated environments to improve their processes and outcomes, as well as create business values. Therefore, researchers and practitioners need to address behavioral, social, cognitive, and technical issues in such environments. Research areas range from design issues in collaboration systems, sense of community and engagement in virtual communities, to impact of virtual communities and collaboration in domains as diverse as business, education, and government. The track aims to solicit contributions from a range of epistemological and methodological perspectives to extend our understanding of virtual communities and collaboration as well as enhance the theoretical foundation for research, share important empirical findings related to these venues, and provide guidance to practitioners.

Track Chairs:
Tom Meservy, Brigham Young University, tmeservy@byu.edu
Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, City University of Hong Kong, fiona.nah@cityu.edu.hk
Chee-Wee Tan, Copenhagen Business School, ct.digi@cbs.dk