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Wednesday 9 May 2012

Global online meetings in virtual teams -from media choice to interaction negotiation

C and T 2011 - 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, Conference Proceedings

2011, Pages 108-117
5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, C and T 2011;Brisbane, QLD;29 June 2011through2 July 2011;Code8873

Global online meetings in virtual teams -from media choice to interaction negotiation  ( Conference Paper )

Dept. of Economics and IT, University West, SE-461 86 Trollhättan, Sweden
Department of Applied IT, University of Gothenburg, SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden

Abstract

This paper draws on an ethnographical study of a community of technology experts within a global automotive manufacturing company that uses information technology to communicate and collaborate in global virtual teams. Our findings show that discussions, negotiations, compromises and joint problem solving characterize media choices made in virtual teamwork. Practitioners are adding new media to ongoing interactions, rather than using media in sequence. Furthermore, one medium is not used exclusively, rather a number of media can be used in parallel. This shows that some of the fundamental assumptions built into the concept of media choice theories, are somewhat problematic as an analytical perspective when virtual teams are researched in real settings outside of laboratories and hypothetical scenarios. © 2011 ACM.

Author keywords

media choice; media richness; media synchronicity; online meeting; virtual community; virtual team

Scopus - Document details

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