ABSTRACT

The social cues that people receive while communicating in remote workplaces are all mediated by communication technologies. According to the hyperpersonal model, people tend to form extremely positive or negative impression regarding their remote counterparts owing to the insufficient social cues transmitted online. When building relationships with remote collaborators over computer-mediated communication (CMC) channels, it is unknown how people associate different types of social cues to form impressions of their remote colleagues, especially among those with weak ties to each other. Therefore, by considering the strength of the ties among remote colleagues, this doctoral thesis aims to investigate how people attribute their perception towards remote weak ties from the various social cues received over online communication channels using four empirical studies. In the first study, we examine how workers associate available and unavailable social cues received from CMC channels with the perceived engagement regarding their remote strong ties and weak ties. The results of a mixed-method approach show that the available and unavailable cues influence workers' assessment regarding their remote weak ties' engagement but not strong ties'. Based on the first exploratory study, this thesis specifically focuses on the effect of three types of online artifacts - augmented online representations (i.e., profile picture in text messaging), augmented contextual information (i.e., virtual background in video conferencing), and technical issues - on people's impression towards their remote weak ties in the three consecutive studies. The results demonstrate that augmented social cues on CMC altered people's perception toward their remote weak ties. Based on the empirical findings, we developed a conceptual model that explains online impression formation among weak ties. This model can further be used for developing methods for researchers and designers to support impression formation and management between senders and receivers when interacting online, especially when they are weak ties to each other.