Groupware case studies: trust, commitment and the free expression of ideas

The use of teams and groups in the workplace continues to grow and trust and commitment to decisions remain desirable characteristics for team members. Group Support Software (GSS) or groupware software has been developed to automate the basic activities of group meetings and thus, help groups. This study combines the two sets of interests; specifically, it looks at the changes in trust and commitment to decisions exhibited by five teams using groupware. The data set was collected from five real‐world (federal, state and commercial) groups as they undertook their actual (Business Process Re‐engineering (BPR) and Joint Application Development (JAD)) projects using groupware. Using a case‐based research methodology, the data set was collected over a series of 41 meetings and organized around group characteristics such as commitment, trust, openness to express ideas, etc. The analysis hints at positive changes in desirable group characteristics over time when using GSS or groupware. However, the groupware characteristic of “more open expression of ideas” does not seem to be the source of the changes. Finally, based upon these findings, the authors suggest that GSS can impact the social components of a group as well as the production components but the cause of the impact resides deeper than a simple idea of providing an environment for more open expression of ideas.