Contact Information
702 S Wright Street
Urbana IL 61801
Research Interests
Group communication; Communication and collaboration; Organizational communication; Communication, change and innovation; Communication technologies; Information systems; Communication theory and theory construction; Research methodology.
Research Description
Marshall Scott Poole is the David L. Swanson Professor of Communication, Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and Director of I-CHASS: The Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of Illinois. He is also a CCSS Fellow in the Organization Science Program at Vrije University in Amsterdam, Netherlands. His research interests include group and organizational communication, information and communication technologies, collaboration, organizational change and innovation, and theory construction. One of Scott’s current research projects is the Virtual Worlds Exploratorium Project, a multi-university collaboration which investigates communication and behavior in massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Specific research within this project includes studies of team effectiveness, mentoring and learning and trust in MMOGs. Another of Scott’s current research projects focuses on coordination of multi-team systems in emergency response organizations and on how communication and information technologies promote or inhibit effective response.
Education
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
Additional Campus Affiliations
David L. Swanson Professor Emeritus, Communication
Professor Emeritus, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Recent Publications
Ruge-Jones, L., Barley, W. C., Wilson, S. R., & Poole, M. S. (2025). Interacting Barriers: How Barriers Compound Across Levels of Analysis to Affect Teams. Management Communication Quarterly, 39(1), 120-155. https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189241249963
Ahmed, I., Poole, M. S., Norman, E., & Simpson, E. (2024). An analysis of scientific group collaboration at JLESC. Future Generation Computer Systems, 159, 284-289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2024.05.015
Ahmed, I., & Poole, M. S. (2023). A Process Method Approach to Study the Development of Virtual Research Environments: A Theoretical Framework. In Learning, Design, and Technology: An International Compendium of Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy (pp. 1019-1039). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17461-7_118
Rager, S., Leung, A., Pinegar, S., Mangels, J., Poole, M. S., & Contractor, N. (2023). Groups, governance, and greed: the ACCESS world model. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 29(1), 52-83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-021-09352-x
Ruge-Jones, L., Barley, W. C., Wilson, S. R., MacSwain, C., Johnson, L., Everett, J., & Poole, M. S. (2023). Activated Differences: A Qualitative Study of How and When Differences Make a Difference on Diverse Teams. Management Communication Quarterly, 37(4), 846-877. https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189231153847