1 Communication and Collaboration Processes in Global Virtual Teams

which supported this research. We further acknowledge the many other researchers from around the world who contributed their efforts in the project, ABSTRACT: Virtual teams are increasingly global, creating challenges for communication and coordination due to greater distances, multiple time zones, and cultural differences. A longitudinal research program investigating communication and collaboration in globally distributed engineering design teams is described. A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods reveals a number of insights into the inner workings of a series of global virtual teams. We focus on teams' media and collaborative tool usage patterns, and the effect of media use on such group processes as their awareness of remote teammates' activities, the quality of teams' social interactions, teams' abilities to develop trust, and the extent to which teams developed solutions that they found to be satisfactory. Finally, we explored cultural influences on virtual team practices.

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