Title: Measuring social capital in creative teams through sociometric sensors

Authors: Peter A. Gloor; Francesca Grippa; Johannes Putzke; Casper Lassenius; Hauke Fuehres; Kai Fischbach; Detlef Schoder

Addresses: MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, 5 Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA 02142, USA ' College of Professional Studies, Northeastern University, 101 Belvidere Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA ' Department of Information Systems and Information Management, University of Cologne, Pohligstr. 1, 50969 Cologne (Köln), Germany ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Aalto University, Finland POB 15400, 00076 Aalto, Finland ' Department of Information Systems and Information Management, University of Cologne, Pohligstr. 1, 50969 Cologne (Köln), Germany ' University of Bamberg, An der Weberei 5, 96047 Bamberg, Germany ' Department of Information Systems and Information Management, University of Cologne, Pohligstr. 1, 50969 Cologne (Köln), Germany

Abstract: We describe the results of an experiment capturing the face-to-face 'honest signals' of knowledge workers through sociometric badges. We find that collective creativity of teams is a function of the aggregated social capital of members. The higher it is, the higher their creative output. We collected communication data of 14 graduate students and their instructor during a one-week seminar, comparing it against the creative output of their teamwork. As a second component of social capital we also measured the level of trust team members show to each other through surveys. We find that the more team members directly interact with each other face-to-face, and the more they trust other team members, the more creative and of higher quality the result of their teamwork is.

Keywords: sociometric badges; creativity; social network analysis; SNA; trust; small teams; knowledge workers; productivity; social capital; teamwork; social media; social networking; creative teams; sociometric sensors; face-to-face interaction; communication.

DOI: 10.1504/IJODE.2012.051442

International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering, 2012 Vol.2 No.4, pp.380 - 401

Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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