The Impact of Group Context on Patterns of Groupware Use: A Study of Computer Conferencing as a Medium of Work Group Communication and Coordination

This paper describes a study of the use of computer conferencing for work group communication and coordination. The goal of the study was to examine the relationship between group context and technology utilization, i.e. the social factors which influence a group's use of groupware. This paper describes three work groups, identifies patterns of computer conferencing use for each group, and examines the relationship between use patterns and group context. The findings provide considerations for groupware introduction.