Gender and Diversity in Collaborative Virtual Teams - Collaborative Technologies and Applications for Interactive Information Design - page 269

how students can best adapt to new educational
environments (Hughes, Wickersham, Ryan-Jones,
& Smith, 2002). Cultural differences are harder to
“see,” but may be much more important causes of
misunderstanding among learners participating in
multicultural educational organizations. Taking
under consideration relevant cultural differences
and preconceptions is a crucial step into creating
effective international learning teams (Myers &
Tan, 2002).
Hofstede (1991) defined a cultural model in
which cultures vary along five dimensions: Power
distance, collectivism/ individualism, feminin-
ity/masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long
term/ short term orientation. Taken together, these
dimensions provide a means of characterizing and
comparing different cultures, as well as providing
a meaning for the use or nonuse of computer-me-
diated software. For example, cultures reflecting
more “collectivist” tendencies, such as Chinese
and those in the Middle East may actually use
collaborative software more effectively than
individualistic cultures like those of the U.S. or
Australia (Chung & Adams, 1997).
Cultures can be learned and reflect the pat-
terns of thinking, feeling, and acting (Harris,
1987). The underlying theme is that culture is
an abstraction from concrete behaviour, but not
behaviour itself. Culture is transmitted mainly
by symbols, constituting distinctive achievement
of human groups, including the embodiments in
artifacts (Chow et al., 1999). It is in this sense
that culture characterizes the whole way of life
of a group. It is a pattern of traditions that can be
transmitted over time and space. Three qualities
underlie its centrality: it is learned, much of it
exists at a non- or unconscious level, and it helps
structure thought perception and identity (Mayers
& Tan, 2002).
Cultural sensitivity must be included in the
initial design stages of a collaborative virtual
learning environment (Rovai, 2002). A level of
cultural sensitivity could be incorporated into the
design of the system, such that users' individual

identities can be expressed, while simultaneously
supporting community development. For example,
cultural sensitivity is paramount in designing
interaction systems (Mudur, 2001; Raybourn,
2001). In answer to this call, data collected from
ethnography, questionnaires, and persona devel-
opment provide the basis for designing cultural
and organizational cues into the community-based
system, in order to engender identification among
the members of the community of practice.
Lessons learned both from face-to-face and
computer-mediated communication tell us that
the quality of successful collaborations depends
largely on sharing cultural information like this
concerning the values, beliefs, and norms of
individuals. That minimizes uncertainty in inter-
personal relationships and enhances interaction
and collaboration among the participants (Chow
et al., 1999). In much the same way, collaborat-
ing organizations, individuals, or communities
of practice share cultural information to reduce
uncertainty and strengthen notions of common
ground (Wenger, 1998). Cultural information
often shared across and within members of or-
ganizations includes values, goals, and histories
that are shared, negotiated, and cocreated by the
members. The future success of collaborative
work in community-based virtual environments
requires not only understanding the sociocultural
dynamics that manifest in online communication
and communities of practice, but also considering
how the design of these environments can sup-
port intercultural communication with cultural of
organizational contextual cues (Leevers, 2001).
A significant factor relative to the develop-
ment of a collaborative community is the mutual
engagement of participants. Mutual engagement
refers to participants' cocreation and negotiation
of actions or meanings, and relates to communi-
cation styles that each participant has developed.
Consequently, mutual engagement is facilitated by
communication, whether occurring in the face-to-
face context, or virtually (Fai Wong & Trinidad,
2004). Observations of heterogeneous groups,