Developing and validating an instrument to measure the impact of group support technology on affective reward

Research shows that Group Support svstems (GS$) have dramatically increased group productivity. However, researchers m the field discovered that users sometimes find themselves feeling emotionally unjiiijiiied despite exceptionally good results. They report a loss of the affective reward often associated with a challenging meeting where they struggle and succeed. This lack of engagement has been documented to be a cause of user resistance to adopting GSS technology. Team effectiveness may be reduced over time as users seek lesseffective but more-engaging alternatives. This paper presents preliminary theory development frammg affective reward as a jiinction 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