Design Patterns for Cross-Cultural Computer-Supported Collaboration

This paper introduces design patterns for cross-cultural computer-supported collaborative design learning. It presents four patterns derived from an in-depth analysis of interactions between Hong Kong and Korean distributed teams and a cross-cultural comparison of interactions within these teams to interactions in Hong Kong/Austrian, Hong Kong/USAmerican and Hong Kong/Taiwanese teams. The patterns concentrate on design solutions that resolve breakdowns in the collaborative interaction between those cultures. Introduction To the author’s knowledge, there has been no research conducted that proposes design patterns for addressing cross-cultural differences in collaboration. However, studies in internationalization and localization of products and systems show the need to address such difference in the design of computational systems, products and services (Marcus, 2005). The patterns reported in this paper address a very specific area of cross-cultural collaboration supported through computer technology. Incorporating international collaboration in learning, and especially in design education contexts, has been gaining more attention in research and praxis in recent years (Cheng, 2003). Setting up global virtual teams with students distributed over time and space, diverse in nationality and sometimes profession often serves as a cross-cultural collaborative learning module in design education. This educational environment usually consists of local design teams who are connected to geographically and culturally distant teams. Together global virtual teams are formed. Students work over the time of the course collaboratively on a common project. Although such international design collaboration was found to inform creative processes in teams, misunderstanding and breakdowns in communication were also reported to be more frequent and severe than in homogeneous and collocated teams (Adler, 2002). Such problems in international design collaboration need to be addressed in order to support creative design learning processes. However, knowledge about breakdowns in cross-cultural communication and how to overcome them is scattered across various research domains. Hence, design patterns were thought to be an appropriate medium to communicate knowledge about cross-cultural differences in collaboration and how to overcome breakdowns in communication caused by those differences. Educators and systems developers can use the proposed patterns in this paper to support the development of international distributed design courses. Research into design patterns in collaboration often employs situated and ethnographically informed methods to identify patterns in the context of collaborative work or learning. Martin et al (2001) consider patterns of collaborative work as a