Social Virtual Reality: Design and Potential for Social Exchange and Cohesion in Virtual Teams

The success of information and communications technology (ICT)-mediated
interaction is vital for organizations. In the era of remote work, virtual teams are
dispersed across the globe and successful collaboration does not necessarily require a face-to-face communication. However, conventional remote work tools are far from perfect, especially in terms of their ability to facilitate the strengthening of social ties, or team cohesion, which are considered crucial for the performance of virtual teams. Respectively, many researchers and practitioners predict that the lack of face-to-face communication can significantly affect organizations’ long-term performance.
The main proposition of this dissertation is that multi-user virtual reality (VR)
applications, hereafter social virtual reality (SVR), has the potential to provide a
solution to this problem. The biggest promise of SVR relies on the premise that
human cognition is built upon natural, spatial interaction, and communication.
Organizations are thus increasingly investing in SVR technology, because of its
ability to simulate or transform almost any experience, including face-to-face
communication. However, we do not yet know much about SVR’s ability to facilitate organizational communication. Prior research has shown that communication is one of SVR’s key affordances for organizations, but its potential of facilitating interpersonal or group level communication has not been studied elaborately.
Furthermore, prior studies recognize SVR’s ability to not only simulate, but enhance social interaction to something for which there is no equivalent in the real world, but we do not yet understand the impact and potential of this to organizations. This dissertation addresses to the research gap by investigating the potential of SVR in the context of social exchange and team cohesion of SVR-enabled virtual teams, both of which are important indicators of team performance.

In terms of methodology, the dissertation employs an action design research
(ADR) approach which combines qualitative, theory and review, empirical, and
design science research (DSR) methods. The dissertation first evaluates how media
synchronicity facilitates social exchange (i.e., patterns of trust and reciprocity leading to stronger social ties) in an organization. The dissertation then outlines how social exchange can be enhanced in SVR-enabled virtual teams. These observations are continued by examining the affordances of SVR in the emergence of team cohesion (i.e., task and social cohesion) in virtual teams. Based on these examinations, the dissertation proposes several design principles for SVR in the context of social exchange and team cohesion. The dissertation also describes the wider benefits of SVR technology for organizations and provides practical guidelines of how they could be realized.
The dissertation provides an understanding of how SVR can enhance
organizations’ remote work and communication practices by mitigating some of the most critical limitations of conventional ICTs. Results of the dissertation indicate that SVR's fundamental advantage is both its almost limitless versatility as a social simulation and naturalness as a means of conscious and subconscious
communication. These advantages come to the fore especially in virtual teams and
knowledge-intensive remote collaboration that emphasize high mental and personal alignment between participants. The results of the dissertation also suggest that these benefits can only be realized if organizations focus on the further development of SVR technology, its material properties, and integration of SVR with organizational workflows and information systems (IS).