AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192

DOI 10.1007/s00146-009-0254-x

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Tension between perceived collocation and actual geographic

distribution in project teams
Renate Fruchter • Petra Bosch-Sijtsema •

Virpi Ruohomäki

Received: 23 April 2009 / Accepted: 20 November 2009 / Published online: 25 December 2009

Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009

Abstract This paper describes an exploratory compara-
tive study of knowledge workers and their challenges in
high tech global project teams. More specifically we focus
on the tension between perceived collocation and actual
geographical distributed project work as a function of: (1)
the demand to distribute and shift attention in multi-
teaming, (2) virtuality i.e. number of virtual teams partic-
ipants engage in, (3) the continuous adjustment and
re-adjustment to new places they perform their activity,
and (4) the collaboration technologies they use. We present
the methodology for data collection that included semi-
structured interviews, surveys, and on site shadowing of the
project participants, and discuss the findings from the data
analysis. The study is based on the bricks-bits-interaction
framework. It is at the intersection of the design of physical
spaces, i.e., bricks; rich digital information and collabora-
tion technology (ICT) content, mobile devices and network
infrastructures, i.e., bits, and emergent work practices,
process, and new ways people behave in communicative
events using the affordances of ICT augmented physical,
virtual spaces and digital content, i.e., interaction.
R. Fruchter (&)
Project Based Learning Laboratory, Stanford University,
473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
e-mail: fruchter@stanford.edu
URL: http://pbl.stanford.edu
P. Bosch-Sijtsema
V. Ruohomäki
BIT: Work Psychology and Leadership,
Helsinki University of Technology,
P.O. Box 550, Greater Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: pbosch@stanford.edu
V. Ruohomäki
e-mail: virpi.ruohomaki@tkk.fi
Keywords Global teamwork
Collocation
ICT

Interaction
Work place and space
Multi-teaming

Virtuality
1 Introduction
‘‘We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.’’
Winston Churchill
In today’s communication intensive environment, the
rapidly changing nature of work, learning, and play is
driven by more and more collaboration, mobility, global-
ization, digital media, interactive devices and spaces, and
convergence of virtual and physical spaces and places.
One of the key challenges faced by organizations, business
process developers, architects, technology developers,
facility designer, builders, and managers is to understand
the relation between and impacts of (1) the work space
and place, (2) digital content that is created and shared,
and (3) business, social, behavioral, and cognitive aspects
of work, learning, play, and community. Knowledge work
involves creation, application, and sharing of knowledge
by highly skilled practitioners who have autonomy in their
work and use ICT in order to produce complex, intangible
and tangible results to provide a competitive advantage or
other benefits in support of the organization’s goals
(Bosch-Sijtsema et al. 2009).
This paper describes an exploratory comparative study
of knowledge workers and their challenges in high tech
global project teams. The research objectives of the study
are to understand and formalize key elements for produc-
tive knowledge work as a function of tasks, context, and
team, and identify requirements for physical, virtual, and
social work environments. We present the methodology for

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data collection that included semi-structured interviews,
surveys, and on site shadowing of the project participants,
and discuss the findings from the data analysis. The study is
based on the bricks-bits-interaction framework. It is at the
intersection of the design of physical spaces, i.e., bricks;
rich digital information and collaboration technology (ICT)
content, mobile devices and network infrastructures, i.e.,
bits, and emergent work practices, process, and new ways
people behave in communicative events using the affor-
dances of ICT-augmented physical, virtual spaces and
digital content, i.e., interaction (Fruchter 2001). We
believe that if we better understand the relationship
between bricks or physical space, bits or virtual space, and
interaction or social space, we will be able to: (1) design
spaces and places, which better address and adapt to the
communicative events and activities performed by knowl-
edge workers, (2) develop ICT that support natural com-
munication idioms among knowledge workers as they
perform their tasks, and (3) engage knowledge workers in
richer communication and interaction experiences. Any
change in one of the three aspects will impact the other
two. Consequently, it is critical to take a bricks-
bitsinteraction integrated approach in the analysis of the
current state of practice and the creation of future work
environments.
2 Related work
The prevalence of globally distributed project teams in
twenty-first century work environments is driven by the
low cost of communication, the desire to have a presence
in new markets, and bring together the most qualified
people, regardless of their location (Carmel 1999).
Watson-Manheim et al. (2002) introduced the notion
of discontinuity as the change in expected conditions.
Discontinuities are factors that contribute to a decrease in
cohesion in a team, e.g., physical location, time zone,
national culture (Hofstede 1980), professional culture, and
organizational culture. Lu et al. (2006) and Chudoba et al.
(2005) present the notion of virtuality index that assess
how virtual a given organization or setting is as a function
of geographic distribution, time zones, national culture,
work practice, and ICT.
While geographic discontinuity is easy to detect, a
precise characterization of its effects is more challenging
(Griffith et al. 2003; O’Leary and Cummings 2002).
Working across distance, in some cases, has had negative
effects on communication (Olson and Olson 2000),
including misattribution (Cramton 2001) and conflict res-
olution (Armstrong and Cole 2002; Hinds and Bailey
2003), suggesting the importance of assessing geographic
discontinuity. It is important to note that team members do
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AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192
not need to be in different geographic locations to act and
perceive that they are distributed. According to Allen
(1977), team members that are 30 m apart are distributed.
Temporal discontinuities refer to collaboration across
time zones (Armstrong and Cole 2002; Espinosa and
Carmel 2003). Researchers found that teams face more
complexity when members cross multiple time zones, in
large part because of increased difficulties in scheduling
and coordinating work activities (Espinosa and Carmel
2003). In their longitudinal case study of three global
virtual teams, Maznevski and Chudoba (2000) illustrated
the importance to establish a predictable rhythm of
communication exchanges, which becomes increasingly
challenging when team membership encompasses different
time zones (Yoo and Alavi 2004).
Cross-cultural discontinuities lead to significant collab-
oration challenges transforming even simple tasks into
complex efforts, e.g., differences in perceptions of time
have been observed across national boundaries (Hofstede
1991), longitudes (i.e., East vs. West), and latitudes (i.e.,
Southern vs. Northern cultures) (Fruchter 2001; Espinosa
and Carmel 2003).
Discontinuity in work practices can significantly
increase time-to-market cycles as distant members use the
same words such as project review, phase completion, and
test procedure but understand and expect different out-
comes (Armstrong and Cole 2002).
ICT discontinuity is determined by differences in access
to technology resources and infrastructure across members
of a distributed team. These have demonstrated to affect
interactions (Maznevski and Chudoba 2000), where lack or
access to ICT made it difficult for some team members to
contribute to team efforts.
In a number of reviews on distributed teams, perfor-
mance and effectiveness are discussed (Maznevski and
Chudoba 2000; Powell et al. 2004; Martins et al. 2004).
According to Powell et al. (2004), research results con-
cerning distributed team performance are mixed. On the
one hand researchers have consistently found that virtual
interaction increases the amount of time required to
accomplish tasks. On the other hand, there are studies of
better work in distributed teams, making more effective
decisions, generating unique ideas and solutions.
Interdisciplinary, globally distributed projects, where
the actors work on a tight schedule, usually entail a sig-
nificant amount of hidden work, in addition to the primary
production work required for every task. Jin and Levitt
(1996) divide hidden work into three components: coor-
dination, rework, and decision waiting. The amount of
hidden work may vary depending on the characteristics of
the task and the effectiveness of the organization working
on the task. Typically the activities in a project are inter-
dependent. This impacts the communication and decision
AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192
making. The interdependences are of three kinds: pooled,
sequential and reciprocal (Thompson 1967), with recipro-
cal interdependent activities requiring huge coordination
and constant communication. Overall, the hidden work
consumes resources and increases the backlog of the
actors; therefore, it affects the project duration and the
quality of the final product (Levitt and Kunz 2002).
Knowledge workers are challenged to engage in a com-
petitive global market in which corporate objectives are to
reduce project duration by 50%, reduce personnel by 50%,
reduce travel budgets by 50%, reduce work space by 50%,
and increase productivity by 50% as well as maintaining a
high quality of their products. Fast track projects lead to
overlapping interdependent tasks and consequently gener-
ate large unanticipated volumes of coordination and rework.
Such rework is not planned for, is hard to be tracked,
managed, and acknowledged. Managers typically assign
resources only to direct tasks and work. They do not assign
resources to planning and coordination of direct work. This
can lead to stress and burnout, as well as underestimated
scope and scale of coordination, unrealistic schedules with
heroic attempts to meet dead lines. In addition, as a result
of flatter organizations, downsizing, teamwork, matrix
reporting organization structures knowledge workers par-
ticipate in more teams, are in more meetings, and need to
transition rapidly from one team environment to another
with less time between interaction events.
Our study uses the bricks-bits-interaction framework
(Fruchter 2001) to analyze the challenges of collocated and
distributed project teams in global high tech Fortune 500
companies by integrating (1) discontinuities such as geo-
graphic distribution, time zones, national culture, work
practice, and ICT, (2) multi-teaming, (3) hidden work, i.e.,
coordination, rework, and decision waiting, and (4) work
place mobility challenges faced by knowledge workers in
today’s work environment. Each dimension can be mea-
sured and reported. Our specific research questions focus
on: What is the compound impact of these dimensions on
performance and productivity and what insights can it
provide toward identifying areas where solutions are nee-
ded and corporations can respond strategically?
3 Methodology and findings
3.1 Case description
We used comparative case study methodology (Eisenhard
1989) to study collocated and distributed project teams in
global high tech Fortune 500 companies. We present our
observations of two teams. We interacted with team
members at two locations—in the US and in a Nordic
country.
185
The US site had a high tech global team of 55 people
working in the areas of design, prototyping, manufacturing,
testing, and supply chain. Almost the whole team was col-
located (98%). Nevertheless, they work to a large extent
with partners in North America, Europe and had a close
cooperation with several partners in Asia. The core team
worked in one US location on one floor. Each team member
had a dedicated cubicle. Team members were in close
proximity to each other. The knowledge workers used
meeting rooms, teleconference conference room, quiet
rooms, informal meeting spaces, cafeteria, and most
importantly laboratory space that were embedded within
the cubicle floor space. All team members had laptops.
Furthermore, within the team and with the global partners
and customers they worked using telephone conferencing,
Netmeeting, telepresence, intranet, instant messaging, and
email. The team was a long-term team with members who
have been with the company for more than 3 years and up to
20 years. They often traveled to Asia to interact face-to-face
with their partners at the factory during the manufacturing
and testing phase, in order to resolve problems that required
in person interaction with the people and product.
The Nordic site had a team that was part of a global
customer relation management team of 15 people. The
team collaborated with customers and partners in Europe,
Asia and North America. One half of the team members
were working in this team for 3 years or longer and the
other half under 3 years. Their team was 50% collocated
and 50% distributed over several European countries. The
collocated team members worked primarily in the office
working with other people. In a large open space office, the
team members had mobile desks and were located on two
different floors. The office space provided meeting rooms,
conference room, quiet rooms, cafeteria, and lunch rooms.
The distributed team members typically traveled to the
Nordic office once a month and worked there for about
1 week. They worked from home and did not have an
office desk in their home country. The reason to come to
the Nordic office was to meet their customer and their team
members. They had many face-to-face meetings. Other-
wise they worked mainly at home with wireless connec-
tions and internet access. The team members had laptops
and mobile phones. For collaboration, they actively used
several ICT tools including teleconferencing, Netmeeting,
email, instant messaging, and SMS.
3.2 Data collection
We collected data through semi-structured interviews,
surveys, and on site shadowing of the project participants.
The interviews focused on individual’s role and responsi-
bilities in the team, their work, people they most interact
with, workplace experiences, hindrances and enablers
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Fig. 1 Bricks bits and
interaction temporal analysis
based on shadowing data
related to different workplaces. Individual interviews took
about one hour per person. Interviews were taped and
transcribed. We interviewed eleven team members in the
US team that included the project manager, five team
leaders, four engineers, one technician, and eight team
members in the Nordic team that included the top manager,
the team manager, and six team members.
The surveys focused on job background information of
team members and team, productivity, and workplace.
Surveys were delivered online. The appendix provides an
overview of the questions included in each of the three
surveys. The response rate in both case studies was very
high—between 95% for survey 1 and 75% for survey 3.
Shadowing entailed following and observing both
teamwork and individual work in both cases. In the US
case, we shadowed team session that included two tele-
conference meetings US–Asia in total 4 h, a staff meeting
of three hours, a team-brainstorming session of an hour,
and individuals that included one manager, four engineers,
and one technician. In the Nordic case, we observed four
people that included both local team members as well as
team members that came once a month to the Nordic office.
3.3 Data analysis and key observations
The three data sources, i.e., semi-structured interviews,
surveys, and shadowing provided both quantitative and
qualitative data that allowed us to triangulate and validate
our findings. They provided the perception of the knowl-
edge workers about their work environment and produc-
tivity through interviews and surveys, as well as factual
data though surveys and shadowing regarding enablers and
hindrances of the work environment, i.e., physical/bricks,
virtual/bits, and social/interaction spaces and places.
From a methodological point of view, we used for the
shadowing the floor plan of the site to mark up the routs,
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AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192
tasks, locations, and people the individuals go to, work at,
use, and interact with, respectively. We transcribed the
dialogues captured during the interviews and shadowing
sessions. We processed and synthesized the survey data.
We performed a temporal bricks-bits-interaction analysis
(Fruchter 2001) to understand the enablers and hindrances
of the work environment. The temporal analysis consists of
the following criteria: time, dialogue transcript, speech
act analysis (e.g., sketch, explain, point, inform, solve
problem, negotiate, decide etc.), ICT used in the session,
artifacts brought to the session, used, or created during the
session, location of session or activity, interaction among
participants’ engagement or hindrance to engage in the
interaction, work space configuration including furniture
and movement of participants with regard to each other,
content, artifacts, ICT, and furniture. Figure 1 shows a
segment of such a temporal analysis.
The observed hindrance and ICT limitation in the meet-
ing room identified in the temporal analysis of the shadowed
meeting was reinforced by quotes from team members such
as: ‘‘In remote collaboration we are not good at using the
tools for ad hoc communication. Drawing the picture that is
in my mind. And I think one of the problems of non video
communication is you lose the picture, it’s all words.’’
We observed many similar situations where the existing
ICT did not allow the knowledge workers to make their
local content and conditions visible to their remote part-
ners, such as sketches on paper, diagrams on flipcharts,
gestures indicating actions on devices, measuring methods
in the prototyping laboratory that were significantly dif-
ferent in the US site and the factory in Asia. The interviews
and shadowing of engineers and technicians revealed
numerous cases where differences in work practices and
fabrication processes in US and Asia lead to many long and
frustrating telephone discussions until a strategic decision
was made to travel to the site troubleshoot and resolve the
AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192
problem often in half a day. In the process, weeks and
months were wasted because the work practices and
processes were not explicitly aligned and cross-cultural
miscommunications precluded the identification of the
problem using single channels ICT such as phone or email
without any visual inspection.
A number of key preliminary observations were syn-
thesized from the data analysis. It is important to note that
in both case studies the knowledge workers were highly
motivated and committed to produce high quality products.
They reported very high job satisfaction, individual and
team performance. Surveys revealed that the key motiva-
tions for knowledge workers to come to work were to work
with colleagues, informally interact with colleagues, use
facilities such as laboratories, and build team identity. The
most productive work places for individual work were the
dedicated desks, home office, and for teamwork the labo-
ratories and project team areas. Work place enablers were
related to proximity to team members and laboratory
spaces that are embedded within the cubicle area to allow
quick transitions from private dedicate desk space to team
work spaces in the laboratory. As Allen (1977) observed in
his study, team members from the US site noted that
Having the proximity to people I work with is
important
Team members that are not within a relatively small
radius (200 feet) do not have the benefit of informal
brainstorming and troubleshooting. Those offsite are
left out of many of the important verbal interactions
and interactions around hardware or other develop-
ment and test equipment.
No way can I have free address cube! People would
not know where I am.
Similarly team members from the Nordic site said:
I need to be near my team members to work with…
With the shrinking work space in corporate facilities,
knowledge workers need to be creative in using the smaller
and smaller work spaces. For instance in the US site, alleys
between cubes are used for informal interactions in small
groups, measuring equipment takes up space in the cubicles
because laboratory space was reduced, or using 10 9 8
cubicles for small group meetings up to five people were
four people huddle within the cubicle and one sits in the
alley between cubes, obstructing the circulation.
When studying diverse work environments, it is critical
to understand the differences in what we call use scenarios
that specify the business unit, the product that is delivered
and its size, and the stakeholders that are engaged in
the activities, creation of the product, and its delivery.
Specifically, in the case of the US site the team was part of
the design, prototyping, manufacturing, testing, and supply
187
chain business unit, producing large printer devices, and
engaging manufacturing designers and engineers, techni-
cians, fabricators, and suppliers. In the case of the Nordic
team, they were part of the customer relation management
team, their product is a service or software for the client,
and involves the team members and client. These explicit
observations and characteristics are significant as the
bricks-bits-interactions are analyzed and needs for new
work environments are determined. For instance, reducing
laboratory or cubicle space can lead to reduced perfor-
mance and productivity as the data shows (quotes from
multiple team members) in the US case study:
Over the last several years, our development space
has shrunk. I have had to pull more of my develop-
ment and test equipment into my cubicle in order not
to lose it. I cannot as effectively set-up and test
product that is 1/3 the size of my cubicle inside my
cubicle.
Having a really small cube that I can’t do some of the
work between builds in that I use to be able to do. I do
work for engineers that I need more concentration on
and have limited space in which to do that now.
I need team collaborative work space. Ideas do not
come in a barren cubicle. Meeting space is good for
meeting type activities, but we need collaborative
work/design space for developing prototypes, get
inputs from the organization on ideas.
I need space for equipment and projects other than
desk activities.
I have tried to make space in my cube to have as
group creative space, but as long is it is in my cube,
then it is looked at as ‘my space’ and not group space
and it would be better to have it be group space.
We formalized use profiles that allowed us to analyze
the survey data by roles in the team, e.g., project manager,
coordinator, engineer, technician. These use profiles map
explicitly:
• Distribution of work, i.e., solo work such as collecting
information, creating ideas, analysis, evaluation,
documentation, delivery, or exchange of data, and
collaborative work such as exchange opinions and
information, generating ideas, problem solving, resolv-
ing disagreements, negotiation, and getting to know
some one.
• Space used as a function of collaborative tasks, such as
home office, dedicated desk at office, meeting room,
project space, etc.
• ICT communication channels used by different team
members as a function of their roles.
Figure 2 shows an example of such a profile for the
engineers in the US team determined from the collected
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188 AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192

Fig. 2 Use profile framework

and engineer profile example
from US case study

data. Such use profiles provide indicators where solutions
are needed to increase, decrease, or support specific
activities through new physical, virtual or social spaces and
places.
The surveys revealed critical information that was tacit
until this study explicitly illustrated two factors related to
the productivity of knowledge workers, i.e.
• Distributiveness that provided quantitative data regard-
ing number of teams each individual is involved in.
• Virtuality that provided quantitative information
regarding number of geographically distributed teams
each individual engaged in.
In the US case study team members were part of six
teams on average, and part of three globally distributed
teams on average (Fig. 3). Even though the team composed
of 55 members out of whom 98% were collocated, the team
members were working on a regular basis with partners
that were geographically distributed in the US, Asia, and
Europe. This data highlights a tacit indicator of increased
workload, information overload, and high demand on dis-
tributing attention across multiple projects that is rooted in
a hidden tension between perceived sense of collocation,
since a large number of participants was in the same
location, and actual geographic distribution of project

Fig. 3 Example of distributiveness and virtuality data from US case study

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AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192
Fig. 4 Tension between perceived collocation and actual geographic
distribution of team
Fig. 5 Workload per role indicating impact on productivity
stakeholders and team members (Fig. 4). This hidden ten-
sion impacts the productivity and well-being of the
knowledge workers as reported through the interviews and
surveys. Figure 5 shows the survey response results by role
related to workload (scale 1 through 5, where 1 is very low
and 5 very high) indicating that knowledge workers in the
team do not have enough time to reflect on their work,
concentrate on a single task during the workday, and per-
form their tasks. The impact on knowledge work produc-
tivity can be determined as the compound effect of the
tension between perceived collocation and actual geo-
graphic distribution of participants, distributiveness (or
multi-teaming) and virtuality that leads to:
• Significant hidden work, coordination between sites,
rework caused by misunderstandings and misalignment
of work processes and practices between US and Asia,
and decision waiting.
• Discontinuities that impacted productivity and time to
market objectives, i.e., space, time zones, culture, work
practices, and different ICT infrastructures, for instance
in interactions between fabricator in Asia and US
Fig. 6 Example of
distributiveness and virtuality
data from the Nordic case study
189
design, prototyping, testing, manufacturing, and supply
chain sites.
• Discontinuities in attention, work place, and ICT, i.e.,
switching from one project to another that requires
refocusing, moving from one work space to another
(from meeting room, to prototyping laboratory, to
informal meeting space, etc.) to interact with different
teams that are not necessarily collocated, setting up in
the new physical work place, and in the case of
interactions with globally distributed team members
setting up ICT to communicate and share data.
We found a similar aspect in the Nordic case study. Half
of the team (50%) was collocated in the office of the
Nordic country, and the other half of the team (50%) was
distributed in several European countries. They all coop-
erated with customers and partners in Europe, Asia and
North America. The collocated team members had dedi-
cated desks in the open office area in the Nordic facility.
Half of the team was distributed and had a home office.
They traveled to the Nordic office every 4 weeks with the
objective to interact face-to-face with their Nordic team
members who were collocated, and meet the client. As
team members reported during the interviews:
In the office, social interaction and meeting people
are very important for common understanding and for
team performance.
Face-to-face meetings are best and richest way to
communicate, less misunderstandings.
The distributiveness and virtuality of the team members
is illustrated in Fig. 6. During their visit to the Nordic office,
they had to occupy mobile free address desks that were
available on a first come first served basis. The company
policy did not allow mobile knowledge workers to reserve
these mobile free address desks. The mobile knowledge
workers that invested the effort to travel every 3 weeks to
the Nordic office often ended up occupying a free address
desk in a remote location on the same or different floor in the
facility. Consequently, as Allen (1977) also points out, even
though all team members were in the same geographical
location they behaved as a distributed team. The distributed
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knowledge workers had to constantly readjust to the local

physical workplace, the ICT infrastructure, culture, and
work practices. This can have a significant impact on
productivity, teamwork, work life balance, and well-being.
Here are some quotes from the interviews with both collo-
cated Nordic and distributed team members:
We lack a common area for the entire team; the team
members are spread over 3 places and 2 floors inside
the office. Distribution of team members and long Fig. 7 Pendulum effect of frequent relocation
distances between them decrease fluent communica-
tion and team performance. Following is a quote from the interviews that supports
The team members are distributed in three places; we our observations:
have problems to find them when needed, and
Well, I have just one example, and that is I had
we have to walk around or call or send an e-mail.
spotted my counterpart in the office, I saw him talk-
Face-to-face communication is decreased.
ing on the other side of the Nordic office. I made a
I need to be near my team members to work with, but
mental note, I really ought to go and discuss with
have problems to find a desk near them.
him, before I left the office, yesterday, at 2 o’clock to
If team members who I need to work with are not in
go to the airport, to fly back to UK. I tried to find him,
the office, I can stay at home.
so I walked around the second floor, I went down to
the cafeteria area, and I asked his PA, and she said,
As we analyzed this situation, we found hidden costs ‘‘I think he’s in a meeting somewhere, but I’m not so
that are consequences of the aforementioned discontinu- sure where.’’ So I thought, well it’s too late, the taxi is
ities, distributiveness and virtuality of the team, as well as waiting, I’ll go to the airport. When I got to the air-
work space design, ICT, and corporate policy and work port, in the lounge, I gave him a call, and yeah, we’d
practice. The hidden costs and missed opportunities just missed each other. Which we would not have
include: done, had we have been seated close together, he
would have may be made a point of talking to me, or
• travel costs that may not be fully justified for distrib-
me to him. …, that it’s far better to have a five minute
uted team members that come to the Nordic site but
across the desk, rather than leaving, at the airport
behave in a collocated setting as a geographically
lounge. Because sometimes, you forget to phone, or
distributed team, effort and time to travel every month
something else occurs. And these drop-in type con-
to the Nordic site becomes taxing over time and
versations are very valuable…., we picked up on the
impacts work life balance and well-being,
subject, and it then led to kind of a breakthrough
• physical work place and organization policy related to
moment, which we’re progressing right now, simply
desk reservations does not facilitate the creation of
because we were able to share some information very
temporary team areas that allow team members to be in
quickly, then come to a decision about how we could
close proximity and collaborate intensively during
move forward on a particular subject,… benefit our-
these collocated time frames,
selves and the customer. So, we had a breakthrough
• frequent readjusting to new workplaces, ICT, and
moment. But we could have missed that breakthrough
culture that can impact well-being of mobile knowledge
moment.
workers,
• missed opportunities to interact face-to-face, since ICT
does not provide a mechanism to locate on the fly
4 Conclusions
distributed team members who are in the Nordic
collocated workplace even though they traveled to the
The bricks-bits-interaction provided a framework to ana-
Nordic site, and
lyze the challenges of collocated and distributed project
• last but not least frequent travel increases corporate
teams in global high tech Fortune 500 companies. The
CO2 footprint and impact the environment.
exploratory comparative study of knowledge workers and
Figure 7 illustrates the pendulum effect of frequent their challenges in high tech global project teams deter-
relocation and constant readjustment experienced by the mined key factors that can impact the individual and team
distributed knowledge workers of the Nordic team that performance and productivity, i.e., tension between per-
impacts their performance and productivity. ceived collocation and actual geographical distributed

123
AI & Soc (2010) 25:183–192
project work and a pendulum effect of frequent relocation
and constant readjustment to new work environments. The
impact on knowledge work productivity can be deter-
mined as the compound effect of the tension between
perceived collocation and actual geographic distribution
of participants, distributiveness (or multi-teaming), virtu-
ality, discontinuities such as geographic distribution, time
zones, national culture, work practice, and ICT, hidden
work, i.e., coordination, rework, and decision waiting, and
work place mobility challenges faced by knowledge
workers in today’s work environment. Measuring the
effect of each dimension as well as their compound impact
on performance and productivity can provide insights into
areas where solutions are needed and corporations can
respond strategically. Based on these observations and
findings, we identified bricks-bits-interaction key charac-
teristics to be considered in the design of next generation
physical, virtual and social spaces and places. These
include:
• Bricks—proximity to the knowledge and social work
network; embeddedness of labs and team project spaces
in the workspaces; access to people in the knowledge
and social work network; mobility of knowledge
workers; flexibility of work spaces to enable reconfig-
uration and re-purposing on an as needed bases by the
knowledge workers; visibility of people local condi-
tions; transparency of activity; and choice of a variety
of spaces to support diverse activities and interaction
experiences.
• Bits—connectivity through small, medium and large
devices (e.g., smart phones, laptops, tablet pc, Smart-
Board) in a mobile knowledge work environment that is
supported to ensure reliable, robust, accessible, afford-
able and available infrastructure anywhere, anytime.
ICT that supports content creation, sharing, and reuse in
globally distributed teams. ICT that supports expression
and visibility of people, activities, and local conditions
that include work load, availability, resource infra-
structure, as well as rapid people locator for informal
interactions. An ICT that provides choice of diverse
multi-modal and multimedia communication channels.
• Interaction—social interaction spaces and places in both
the physical and virtual world that allow self-represen-
tation; visibility of roles and activities; formal and
informal interaction experiences; and emergent work
practices and processes determined by project teams.
Acknowledgments This study is part of the joint Stanford-Helsinki
University of Technology research project ProWork: Workplace
Management that is sponsored by the Finnish Funding Agency for
Technology and Innovation (TEKES), ProWork project company
partners, and the PBL Lab at Stanford University.
191
Appendix
Survey 1: background information
• Geographic distribution and interaction
• Productivity as a function of skill, role, distance
• Distributiveness that provided quantitative data regard-
ing number of teams each individual is involved in
• Business geographic distribution
• Skill and cultural awareness and social network
• Workload
• Swift vs. long term teams
• Virtuality that provided quantitative information
regarding number of geographically distributed teams
each individual in engaged in
• Physical and virtual space interaction and ICT
• Communication, collaboration, and coordination
• Communication channel preferences by role in team
(i.e., manager, coordinator, engineer, technician) and
task
• Individual and collaborative work tasks
• What-Where-Who: Activity and location where the
activity is performed by role in team
• Challenges and needs that was an open question
allowing each member to identify specific hindrances
that require attention.
Survey 2: knowledge work and productivity
• Job characteristics and satisfaction based on task type,
complexity of task, job satisfaction, control, workload,
team interdependence
• Work distribution
• Change in team composition frequency
• Communication with team members
• Individual performance in terms of work quality,
satisfaction, and self-representation
• Team performance
• Team satisfaction
Survey 3: workplace
• Motivation to go to work
• Role and task driven use of workplace
• Role/Task relation to workplace type
• Workplace performance link to roles
• Enablers and hindrances =[ Opportunities
• Individual productivity-workplace
• Team productivity-workplace
• ICT availability and skills
• Access to space and ICT
123
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