Newcomers, or new members to organizations or professions, bring insights that are critical to the advancement of society. Yet newcomers often have low self-efficacy, or low beliefs in their abilities to achieve a task, which can impact performance and retention. Research suggests that self-efficacy can be developed through in-person social support. However, less is known regarding how self-efficacy can be developed in newcomers through online social support. Online social support can help newcomers through utilizing online audiences to support in ways that are less accessible offline due to distance and time. As such, this dissertation asks: How might we design socio-technical systems that facilitate online social support to build the self-efficacy of newcomers? To answer this question, I first conduct an interdisciplinary literature review of relevant theories and systems focused on facilitating offline and online social support for newcomers. Based on this literature review, I design and present three original research studies that examine how socio-technical systems can be designed to support newcomers using online crowds, groups, and individuals. My findings suggest that online social support is difficult to facilitate online due to lack of time, uncertainty by the mentor of how to best support, and resistance of the newcomer to online sharing. However, prompting newcomers to externalize progress online can help online supporters understand newcomer needs, increasing the possibility of newcomers receiving both online and offline social support. Theoretically, this work provides an emergent understanding of the applications of Social Cognitive Theory online by providing evidence that online communities can help to prompt online and offline social support for newcomers through externalizing mastery and social modeling. Practically, this work identifies design implications for building online social support systems and introduces two novel socio-technical systems. The findings broaden our understanding of how online social support might facilitate aid to newcomers by externalizing progress and providing role models online in a variety of contexts — from entrepreneurship, education, corporations, and beyond.

Creator

• Harburg, Emily Kathryn

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-zh80-9q59

Subject

• Computer science
• Communication

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14413
• etdadmin_upload_618138

Keyword

• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
• Human Computer Interaction
• Newcomers
• Mentorship
• Social Support
• Self-Efficacy

Date created

• 2018-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright