Global virtual teamwork: Eight key empirical findings and related conclusions Ned Kock © Ned Kock

What are virtual teams? Teams of individuals whose members interact primarily electronically in order to accomplish business tasks – e.g., develop a new product, redesign a business process, develop a new contract

© Ned Kock Team data used as a basis for developing the findings Over 400 Business process redesign teams in three countries (US, Brazil, New Zealand) Over 460 New product development teams in the US A variety of other types of teams, performing collaborative tasks of different levels of complexity, in the US, Brazil and New Zealand

© Ned Kock Finding 1: Naturalness scale People seem to perceive electronic media as more or less “natural” (e.g., easy to use) depending on how the media incorporate face-to-face communication elements Face-to-face Video conferencing Audio conferencing Instant messaging Naturalness

© Ned Kock Finding 2: Info. vs. knowledge comm. It is much harder to communicate knowledge than information through unnatural media (e.g., ) It is estimated that conveying knowledge over is at least 10 times more time consuming than face-to-face (for co-located individuals) Information communication –Two people know how a contract should be structured, and have to discuss some of the numbers in a few clauses (e.g., deadline for product delivery) Knowledge communication –One person needs to explain to another how a contract should be structured, what clauses should be include, and why

© Ned Kock Finding 3: Cognitive effort It is cognitively more demanding to communicate using unnatural media Difference FtF vs. e-conferencing = 41% (statistically significant)

© Ned Kock Finding 4: Communication ambiguity Communication through unnatural media is more ambiguous Difference FtF vs. e-conferencing = 80% (statistically significant)

© Ned Kock Finding 5: The speech imperative Support to speech significantly increases the naturalness of a communication medium Difference IM vs. audio conf. = 46% (statistically significant) Difference audio conf. vs. FtF = 3% (not statistically significant)

© Ned Kock Finding 6: Cost (time spent) Communication through certain unnatural (asynchronous) media saves time Difference FtF vs. e-conferencing = 167% (statistically significant)

© Ned Kock Finding 7: Costs other than time spent Transportation costs can be substantially higher in FtF meetings than asynchronous meetings, being usually correlated with the level of geographical distribution of the team members Disruption costs are significantly higher in FtF meetings than asynchronous meetings Other costs can be reduced as well – clerical costs, room & equipment etc.

© Ned Kock Finding 8: Task outcome quality Task outcome quality is not significantly affected by the use of unnatural media Difference FtF vs. e-conferencing = 4% (Not statistically significant)

© Ned Kock Conclusions: Global teams should … Break team projects down into subtasks categorized along a knowledge communication intensiveness scale; say a 4-level scale, from 1 (little KC) to 4 (a lot of KC) Use the following media for the tasks: –1: or similar –2: Instant messaging or similar –3: Asynchronous audio conferencing –4: Synchronous audio or teleconferencing The above assumes that FtF communication needs to be avoided

© Ned Kock References Final slide Kock, N. and Davison, R. (2003), Can Lean Media Support Knowledge Sharing? Investigating a Hidden Advantage of Process Improvement, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, V.50, No.2, pp Kock, N. (2002), Evolution and Media Naturalness: A Look at E- Communication Through a Darwinian Theoretical Lens, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Information Systems, Applegate, L., Galliers, R. and DeGross, J.L. (Eds), The Association for Information Systems, Atlanta, GA, pp Kock, N. (1999), Process Improvement and Organizational Learning: The Role of Collaboration Technologies, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA. Kock, N. (1998), Can Communication Medium Limitations Foster Better Group Outcomes? An Action Research Study, Information & Management, V.34, No.5, pp