With increased globalization, Internet connectivity, and competitive economic conditions, global organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of effective global collaborations. Hence, there is a need to extend the use of psychological teaming strategies for domestic team-formations to also accommodate teams that are globally distributed. Previous research efforts have investigated psychological factors for design creativity and effective global collaboration; however, few have addressed these factors concurrently. The focus of this dissertation is therefore on the formation of creative design teams in a globally distributed and culturally diverse environment. This dissertation provides a theoretical foundation for teaming methodologies for globally distributed and culturally diverse teams. It also presents a new global collaborative and creative design team formation method: the Global Design Team Formation (GDTF) method. This is a novel computational method that uses potential team members' psychological and cultural traits, in an attempt to form effective teams that are psychologically and culturally cohesive. The method is based upon and merges Jung's theory with the theoretical frameworks of (a) Teamology and (b) Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE), and it provides a quantitative representation scheme combining scores from the Meyers-Briggs Test Indicator (MBTI) and the Kogut and Singh index (KS index) using the GLOBE dataset. The GDTF method has been applied to three populations. The control group consisted of 42 three-person teams in a sophomore-level mechanical engineering design course at a US university, to validate the Teamology framework, which is based on Jung's and Belbin's theories. The GDTF method was then applied to two international teaming situations: a globally team-taught course on engineering design at the senior and graduate levels with 8 globally distributed teams across the US, Germany, Mexico, and China; and 23 dyadic teams of US undergraduate students performing automotive research with German graduate students in Germany. Results of this research shows that psychologically balanced and cohesive teams provide improved design creativity, and that this performance difference can be predicted using the team members' psychological traits. Statistical analysis indicates that creativity in engineering design depends on the presence of Te, Fe, Fi, and Si psychological traits, in decreasing order of importance, within the teams. The importance of these traits remains dominant in global teams, though global diversity negatively impacts team cohesiveness and hence their effectiveness, though not their creativity. / Ph. D.

Middle school students misuse social media without understanding the negative influence on their global digital footprint and lives. Research does not provide insight into how students develop digital citizenship skills for positive digital footprints and appropriate social media use. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore students' growth as digital citizens while participating in one digital citizenship project using global collaboration and social media. The conceptual framework included Ribble's theory of digital citizenship and Siemens's theory of connectivism. Research questions asked how students' digital citizenship developed when they were engaged in social media and global collaborative projects. Participants included 7 middle school teachers and 1 project administrator. Structured interviews and Wiki data were analyzed using an iterative open coding technique to identify rich, thick themes and patterns. The findings showed global collaborative projects and social media served as catalysts to motivate students as they took action as digital citizens, overcame barriers to digital citizenship, used social media for learning and collaboration, and adopted less ethnocentric views of the world. Students compared other cultures to their own, considered the welfare of others online, and modified their online behavior in favor of positive global digital footprints. Students used social media responsibly, were academically motivated by an authentic audience, and shared their academic learning with others in their local and extended communities. Reform of middle school curricula to include global collaborative projects and instruction in digital citizenship may bring about positive social change as students learn to be responsible users of social media.

Aus der Einleitung: "Bedingt durch eine geforderte, lokale Präsenz eines global agierenden Unternehmens gegenüber weltweiten Kunden sowie durch global verteiltes Engineering, Produktion und Service sind Unternehmen zunehmend in der Pflicht, sich global zu positionieren. Auch die Verlagerung von Engineeringaufgaben zu externen Zulieferern und Partnern erfordern organisatorische sowie prozesstechnische Maßnahmen, die durch eine entsprechende informationstechnische Unterstützung flankiert werden müssen. Für diese Unterstützung können sogenannte PLM-Systemumgebungen genutzt werden, die sich auf PDM-Systemen abstützen."

Aus der Einleitung: "Bedingt durch eine geforderte, lokale Präsenz eines global agierenden Unternehmens gegenüber weltweiten Kunden sowie durch global verteiltes Engineering, Produktion und Service sind Unternehmen zunehmend in der Pflicht, sich global zu positionieren. Auch die Verlagerung von Engineeringaufgaben zu externen Zulieferern und Partnern erfordern organisatorische sowie prozesstechnische Maßnahmen, die durch eine entsprechende informationstechnische Unterstützung flankiert werden müssen. Für diese Unterstützung können sogenannte PLM-Systemumgebungen genutzt werden, die sich auf PDM-Systemen abstützen."

In this dissertation, we explore the potential of a forum to support collaboration and knowledge sharing among Virtual Communities of practice. We thus propose a coding scheme based on the Rainbow model and test it in order to analyze the content of two forums of R&D VcoP. We demonstrate that a forum supports asynchronous argumentative activities and thus enhances global collaboration and knowledge sharing among R&D VcoP members. We then propose an enriched model based on the work of Line Dube and tested it to characterize the R&D VcoP studied. We prove that the community configuration has a direct impact on the online dynamic of the community. We point out the main factors that play a key role in fostering online collaboration and knowledge sharing between R&D Virtual community members.

As business, technologies, and products changes so quickly in the modern day business environment, the complexity of launching new products into global markets increases. Therefore, the significance of the new product development (NPD) concept is rising, according to researchers. This master thesis is based, through a preliminary literature review, on the assumption that traditional NPD frameworks have deficiencies today. This is because as a NPD process is an on-going process that is performed repeatedly, the importance of putting forth new considerations to the NPD based on multi-aspect industrial characteristics today is needed for a sustainable NPD framework. Therefore, this study will put forth a new multi-aspect NPD framework with emphasis on technological-, global collaboration-, and financial elements to target the literature gap that is claimed to exist. The process of the research methodology followed a deductive approach, with an explorative-, descriptive- and analytical study. The collected data was of qualitative type, through 12 semi-structured interviews. A total of six Swedish high-technological manufacturing firms were interviewed, four of which were for empirical purposes, and two for contextual understanding. The author came to the conclusion that various deviations were found in setting the multi-aspect NPD approach in contrast to traditional NPD frameworks. The significance of “Open Innovation” concepts was adamant as being the stepping-stone for idea generation, conceptualization, and strategic partnership that was not brought up by traditional literature. Openness in all elements of the multiple-aspect NPD framework setup in this study was imperative, as the empirical findings suggested that the business environment for high-technological industries shifted towards an increased technological- and financial convergence. During the latter stages, minor deviations were found, with emphasis on collaboration elements between the R&D-, production- and marketing divisions within the firms.

Nous basant sur plusieurs études de cas effectuées au sein de communautés R&D virtuelles d'Alstom Power Hydro, nous démontrons d'une part, qu'un forum peut soutenir différents types d'intéractions allant de la transmission d'informations à la co-construction de connaissances et co-production de solution. Opérationnalisant et améliorant des grilles scientifiques visant à caractériser des communautés de pratiques virtuelles, nous démontrons aussi, qu'il existe un lien entre la configuration d'une communauté et le type de ses intéractions en ligne. Nous démontrons qu’il existe une configuration optimale, de communautés de pratiques virtuelles appliquées à la R&D, qui garantit des intéractions de type co-construction de connaissance et co-production de solution entre ses membres. A l'heure où Microsoft équipe chaque jour 20000 nouveaux utilisateurs de l'application Share point, cette thèse prend tout sens. En opérationnalisant une méthode d'évaluation des communautés de pratiques virtuelles, et en apportant des conseils pour déployer un forum appliqué à la R&D, nous accompagnons tout projet de création de communauté R&D virtuelle et/ou d'instrumentation de ses intéractions par un forum. / In this dissertation, we explore the potential of a forum to support collaboration and knowledge sharing among Virtual Communities of practice. We thus propose a coding scheme based on the Rainbow model and test it in order to analyze the content of two forums of R&D VcoP. We demonstrate that a forum supports asynchronous argumentative activities and thus enhances global collaboration and knowledge sharing among R&D VcoP members. We then propose an enriched model based on the work of Line Dube and tested it to characterize the R&D VcoP studied. We prove that the community configuration has a direct impact on the online dynamic of the community. We point out the main factors that play a key role in fostering online collaboration and knowledge sharing between R&D Virtual community members.