Team Interaction Space Effectiveness for Globally Dispersed Teams: Theory and Case Studies

Groups of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed members are increasingly being assembled to accomplish a wide range of organizational tasks using a combi-nation of telecommunication and information technologies. The emergence of such technologically savvy globally dispersed teams has also heralded a complex and largely uninvestigated area of interaction practices of such team members. By enabling team interactions via non-traditional media, information technologies have actually ex-panded and transformed the conventional team interaction space. This merger of physical space with digital space has created a new kind of team interaction spaces, one where organizational, technological and spatial dimensions play significant roles. This research assesses the impact of team interaction space on perceived team perfor-mance using qualitative and quantitative research techniques. To collect qualitative data, interviews were conducted with 82 ' members from globally dispersed teams from three Global 500 companies. 45 audio, video and face-to-face team interactions between these team members were observed and analyzed. A survey on team in