Perceived Individual Collaboration Know-How Development Through Information Technology–Enabled Contextualization: Evidence from Distributed Teams

TLDR

Distributed teams are increasingly used to leverage resources, but members must develop collaboration know-how, a process hampered by the absence of face‑to‑face cues that can be mitigated by communicating context. The study derives a theoretical model to explain how information technology can support individuals’ communication of context to develop collaboration know-how. The model was tested with a survey of 263 individuals in structurally diverse distributed teams using various virtual workspace technologies. When tasks are nonroutine, greater IT support for contextual communication positively predicts collaboration know-how, whereas for routine tasks partial IT support reduces know-how due to misunderstandings, prompting the authors to discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Abstract

In today’s global market environment, enterprises are increasingly turning to use of distributed teams to leverage their resources and address diverse markets. Individual members of structurally diverse distributed teams need to develop their collaboration know-how to work effectively with others on their team. The lack of face-to-face cues creates challenges in developing the collaboration know-how—challenges that can be overcome by communicating not just content, but also context. We derive a theoretical model from Te’eni’s (2001) cognitive-affective model of communication to elaborate how information technology (IT) can support an individual’s communication of context to develop collaboration know-how. Two hundred and sixty-three individuals working in structurally diverse distributed teams using a variety of virtual workspace technologies to support their communication needs were surveyed to test the model. Results indicate that when individuals perceive their task as nonroutine, there is a positive relationship between an individual’s perceived degree of IT support for communicating context information and his collaboration know-how development. However, when individuals perceive their task as routine, partial IT support for contextualization is associated with lower levels of collaboration know-how development. This finding is attributed to individuals’ misunderstanding of the conveyed context, or their struggling to utilize the context conveyed with partial IT support, making a routine task more prone to misunderstanding and leaving the user worse than if she had no IT support for contextualization. We end the paper by drawing theoretical and practical implications based on these findings.