Affective reward and the adoption of group support systems: Productivity is not always enough

Research shows that group support systems (GSS) have dramatically increased group productivity. However, researchers in the field discovered that users sometimes find themselves feeling emotionally unfulfilled despite exceptionally good results; users report a loss of the affective reward often associated with a challenging meeting where they struggle and succeed. This lack of engagement has been shown to be a cause of user resistance to adopting GSS technology. Team effectiveness may be reduced over time as users seek less-effective but more-gratifying alternatives. This paper frames affective reward as a function of excitation transfer. It describes the development and validation of an instrument to measure affective reward, and presents the results of the first laboratory investigation of the construct.