Research

Virtual Business Research

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Research

Background—Vinco research project

This research is part of the research project “Vinco—Innovative Business and Collaboration in Virtual Environments”

VinCo is a multidisciplinary research project studying how collaboration and communication in global distributed teams and in fully virtual environments can enhance business and innovation. The project is funded by Multidisciplinary Institute of Digital Engineering (MIDE) research program at Aalto University.

The purpose of this study is to get insight into the value creation logic and economic principles of the different actors in Second Life.

For this reason, your avatars will be given an automatic script that records your movements and interactions in Second Life. Combining the recorded information from the duration of exercise we will create a network picture containing your social contacts, and traded objects – whether they are information or virtual products and services. This network picture is used to analyze the value creation logic of the different parties you interact with. The financial and Input-output ratios of your own business are used to determine the economic principles of different business models in virtual worlds.

During and after the research we guarantee that the following conditions will be met:

· Your real name (or your avatar name for that matter) will not be used at any point of information collection, or in the final network picture – instead, you and any other person and place names involved in the data collected will be given pseudonyms that will be used in all verbal and written records and reports.

· Your participation in this research and exercise is voluntary – you have the right to withdraw at any point of the exercise, for any reason, and without any prejudice. However, should that happen, we reserve the right to use the information collected until the withdrawal for research purposes.

· You will receive a copy of the final network picture before it is analyzed, so that you have the opportunity to suggest changes to the researcher, if necessary.

Teemu Surakka Sami Ahma-aho

Researcher, Ph.D. student Researcher

If somebody ask you about the research during the exercise, you can give our contact information for further inquiries:

Teemu Surakka

Phone: +358 50 381 9787

E-mail: teemu.surakka(at)tkk.fi

In-World: Decode Masala

Sami Ahma-aho

Phone: +358 50 544 9811

E-mail: sami.ahma-aho(at)tkk.fi

In-World: Sam Neutron