Virtual Teams In Different Media And Task Conditions, Information Sharing And Team Effectiveness Research

With the development of information technology and globalization, virtual teams have played a great role in our daily life. Based on the Media Synchronicity Theory, we used laboratory experiment method to explore the impact of information sharing, communication style under different media and tasks on virtual team effectiveness.Firstly, media, task, information sharing and communication style are difined and their relavant researches are reviewed; secondly, based on MST and previous reseaches, hypotheses and research model are proposed. A 2×3 factor design (idea generation task and problem-solving task×FTF/instant massage/E-mail) is adopted, a total sample of 236 undergraduates that making up 76 teams participated in the experiment, and data was collected through paper scale and record coding. Results showed that:Communication media and task type have an interaction effect on process satisfaction, information sharing gross and depth. High synchronicity media will prompt high information sharing gorss and breadth, but there is no significant diffenerce between IM and FTF groups in information sharing depth. Compared with idea-generation task, problem-solving task will lead to more information sharing.Media synchronicity will significantly predict information sharing, and the prediction effect between information sharing and team performance is depend on task type. In idea-generation task, information sharing has a predicted effect on performance, and aggressive style or passive style will negatively moderated the relationship between information sharing and performance. Unfortunately, there is no prediction effect of information sharing on performance in problem-solving task.In subsequent chapter, research results are analyzed and discussed, and implications for future research and practiceare also provided.