Virtual teams that use integrated communication platforms are ubiquitous in cross-border collaboration. This study explores the use of communication media and team outcomes—both social outcomes and task accomplishment—in multilingual virtual teams. Based on surveys from 96 virtual teams (with 578 team members), the research shows that the more time spent in rich communication channels, such as online conferences, increased inclusion and satisfaction, whereas the more time spent with written communication that is lower in richness increased the level of task accomplishment. Team members with lower language proficiency felt less included in all collaboration channels, whereas team members with higher language proficiency felt less satisfied with lean collaboration. In addition, limited language proficiency speakers were significantly less likely to view rich tools as helpful for their teams to reach a mutual decision. Our data support media richness theory in its original context for native and highly proficient English speakers. Our study extends the scope of the theory by applying it to the new context of team members with limited language proficiency. Management should implement a collaboration infrastructure consisting of communication platforms that integrate a variety of media to account for different tasks and different communication needs.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how professional football clubs from the English Premier League, German Bundesliga and Spanish Primera División use digital media to expand their international reach in emerging football markets (EFM) outside of Europe. Based on the EPRG framework and Rugman’s home-region hypothesis, the aim is to broaden the perspective where “sports go global” for a further understanding of actors’ international orientation in the digital sphere. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on data from desk research and a qualitative survey, comprising information on international digital media activities of 58 European clubs. Cluster analysis is used to identify different international orientations with regard to digital media activities. Findings The data provide evidence that clubs differ strongly in their orientations towards EFM. While some global players that provide digital media content in several EFM languages and attract a large share of Facebook followers from EFM exist, other clubs focus on their home region. League-specific differences become apparent. Originality/value This study determines the international online orientations of European football clubs by combining two previously separated research streams in football management studies: internationalisation and digital media activities. Most clubs with a strong EFM fan base choose polycentric, multi-language digital media strategies, followed by geocentric, standardised approaches. By offering a novel angle on internationalisation in professional football, this study contributes towards optimising clubs’ international online strategies for EFM, which are markets that promise high growth rates.

Meeting recordings and algorithmic tools that process and evaluate recorded meeting data may provide many new opportunities for employees, teams, and organizations. Yet, the use of this data raises important consent, data use, and privacy issues. The purpose of this research is to identify key tensions that should be addressed in organizational policymaking about data use from recorded work meetings. Based on interviews with 50 professionals in the United States, China, and Germany, we identify the following five key tensions (anticipated boundary turbulence) that should be addressed in a social contract approach to organizational policymaking for data use of recorded work meetings: disruption versus help in relationships, privacy versus transparency, employee control versus management control, learning versus evaluation, and trust in AI versus trust in people.

Virtual teams that use integrated communication technologies are ubiquitous in cross-border collaboration. This study explored media use and communication performance in multilingual virtual teams. Based on surveys from 96 virtual teams (with 578 team members), the research showed that more time spent in synchronous communication channels such as online conferences increased inclusion and satisfaction. Team members with lower language proficiency felt less included in synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, whereas team members with higher language proficiency felt less satisfied with asynchronous collaboration. Also, limited language proficiency speakers were significantly less likely to view synchronous tools as helpful for their teams to reach a mutual decision. Our data supports Media Synchronicity Theory (MST) for native and highly proficient English speakers. However, MST needs to be adjusted to account for different levels of language proficiency. MST's assumptions. Furthermore, we assess the level of inclusion and satisfaction of team members when using different communication media. We expect both satisfaction and inclusion to be higher when using richer, synchronous communication channels. We anticipate that this effect is be stronger for team members with a high level of language proficiency. Our study contributes to the body of research on communication media in virtual teams by adding the dimension of language proficiency to MST. Specifically, our contribution is threefold: First, our study advances research by showing which communication channels team members of differing levels of language proficiency consider effective for conveyance and convergence of meaning in multilingual virtual teams. Second, we include inclusion and satisfaction as variables of communication performance and show that synchronous communication increases feelings of inclusion and satisfaction within a multilingual virtual team. Lastly, our study provides evidence that team