Can You Hear Me Now? Communication in Virtual Product Development Teams^*

Abstract

Globalization and technological advances are driving organizations to extend the boundaries of new product development (NPD) teams from traditional colocated settings to dispersed or virtual settings. Virtual NPD teams have a wide array of information and communication technologies (ICTs) at their disposal. ICTs allow team members to communicate and collaborate as they cope with the opportunities and challenges of cross-boundary work. The purpose of this paper is to explore ICT use by members of virtual NPD teams. This study presents an exploratory test and integration of two competing perspectives of media use in virtual teams: media capacity theories and social dynamic media theories. Specifically, this paper examines the role of task type, organizational context, and ICT type as critical contingency variables affecting ICT use. It also examines how different patterns of ICT use relate to individual perceptions of team performance. The findings from this study of 184 members of virtual NPD teams in three global firms suggest that communication via ICTs in virtual NPD teams is contingent on a range of factors.

Development of an automatic marketplace using virtual collaboration

“…However, the results of some studies have shown that the mere availability of ICTs does not necessarily lead to their use. Therefore, it is essential to establish some standards for the availability and acknowledgement of communication in order to define when dispersed team members should be available for collaboration and how quickly they should respond to the messages [19]. These standards should be specified carefully, since other studies have shown that the frequency of communication has a subtle influence on creativity within the teams.…”

Collaboration Capability in Virtual Teams: Examining the Influence on Diversity and Innovation

“…Bjørn and Ngwenyama (2009) also found that although virtual meetings have been identified to be crucial for the success of distributed teams, they could also lead to communication breakdowns under some circumstances such as language. Poor communication results in deterioration of the effectiveness of the team in building relationships and promoting efficient team coordination (Montoya et al, 2009) and is shown to be costly in terms of resources, frequently resulting in confusion and uncertainties that weaken the cohesion among the team members (Reed and Knight, 2010). Peters and Manz (2007) suggest that team members need to share their personal information by also sharing their visual images in order to build a sense of collaborative community, which will encourage deeper social interaction and relations within the virtual teams.…”

Assessing the impact of budgetary participation on budgetary outcomes: the role of information technology for enhanced communication and activity-based costing

“…The authors used a 3-item instrument to assess managers' perceived use of the intranet (ITEC in the current study): two of the items were established in prior research by Winata and Mia (2005), the third item was developed by the authors on the basis of prior literature (e.g., Andres 2002;Sakthivel 2005;Montoya et al 2009) (see appendix). Responses were collected on a seven-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = "low use of ITEC" to 7 = "high use of ITEC").…”