Information Resources Management Journal · 2002 · 99 citations · 41 references
ManagementInformation TechnologyOrganization StudiesGroup ProcessesOrganizational CommunicationTeamworkComputer-supported Cooperative WorkGroup CommunicationSynchronous CollaborationTeam CommunicationTeam Decision-makingVirtual TeamsCollaborative TechnologiesCommunication Technology UseCoordination In Virtual TeamsOnline TeamworkVirtual Group WorkVirtual Project TeamsVirtual Team CollaborationVirtual Team Decision Making
Technological advances, globalization, and changing organizational structures have created distributed virtual work groups, making collaboration and communication critical for team success and prompting interest in IT tools for dispersed teams. The study aims to compare the performance of virtual teams using four collaborative technologies. Sixty-four virtual teams were assigned to use either text‑only, audio‑only, text‑video, or audio‑video communication. While no significant difference was found between text‑only and audio‑only teams, adding video to audio‑only communication significantly improved the quality of strategic decisions.
Technological advances have an ever-increasing impact on our society. Globalization and the changing structures of organizations have created virtual work groups that are distributed across space (different sites) and time. Collaboration among workers is vital to both ongoing organizational activities and project-based activities. Communication is often seen as the most important factor contributing to the success of individuals, project teams, and organizational growth. Improved connectivity together with the increase in groups and teams has resulted in increased interest in extending the usefulness of IT at the individual level to support the issues faced by dispersed teams. This study compares the performance of sixty-four virtual teams utilizing four different collaborative technologies; text-only, audio-only, text-video and audio-video. While the results of the study found no significant difference between the quality of the decisions for teams using text-only versus audio-only communication, the addition of video to audio-only communication resulted in a significant improvement in the quality of teams’ strategic decisions.
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