Research On Global Virtual Team Communication Based On Task-Technology Fit Model

Economic globalization and the rapid development of information technology enabled Global Virtual Team (GVT), a new organizational form to exist in various industries widely. GVT means a group of people with different ability or resources work together to accomplish a specific task, who use the aid of Information Communication Technology (Information Communication Technology, ICT) over time, space, organization boundary and border. Establishing GVT can help organizations use scarce resources throughout the world, gather experts with different knowledge, and lower enterprise manpower cost, etc. GVT, this organization form has also helped Chinese software outsourcing industry develop. In recent years, China has become the core to undertake software outsourcing industry relying on the advantages of its talent and market. GVT has brought the obvious advantages in resource allocation and cost reduction for software outsourcing industry, however GVT disadvantage are almost as apparent as its advantages. The characters of virtual, distribution and fluidity make the members of GVT suffer larger challenges than the traditional forms in the communication problems of the information transmission, knowledge exchange, reach consensus and trust. Many scholars regard communication as deciding factor of a virtual team performance, it is also a hot topic for the domestic and overseas scholars. This study aims to discuss impact factors of influencing GVT communication performance under Chinese software outsourcing industry background, which used Task-Technology Fit model.This study founded communication performance model on the theory TTF through reviewing the theory of TTF related theory research about GVT systematically. This study also made a concrete expansion about the factors such as tasks, technical and personal factors through combining Goodhue scholar proposed classic TTF theoretical framework and Chinese software outsourcing industry characteristics. Task dimensions adopted four types of tasks,which were goal-oriented team proposed by McGrath; Technology dimension used media richness and information processing capability as research dimensions; Personal factors include foreign language ability and project experience.The method of this research is case interviews. Through the strict design, this paper interviewed four companies six team of Dalian software park. Through sorting and analyzing interviewing data carefully, the hypothesis of constructed the model were also verified, and the model was amended. The results of Interview showed as following; (1) The people choosed the communication tool selection according to the mission of media ability selection of situations actually. (2) The different ability of choosing media can produce different perception matches in different contexts; Good perception matches will produce good communication performance. (3) The foreign language ability and project experience of GVT members both affects their perception match to tasks and media.