UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPORTING GEOGRAPHICALLY DISPERSED TEAMS

Globalization and the changing structures of organizations have created work groups that are distributed across space (different sites) and time. As organizations become more geographically dispersed, the individuals increasingly rely on multimedia technologies and Internet-based systems to enhance their communication. Collaboration among workers is vital to both ongoing organizational activities and project-based activities. In examining the impact of communication media on groups, researchers have compared groups utilizing electronic technology to groups meeting without any technological assistance. The underlying assumption of these studies is that groups have the alternative to meet in either a face-to-face or a computer mediated setting. This study compares the performance of distributed teams utilizing different communication technologies. The results of the study found the addition of video to audio only communication result in significant improve in the quality of the groups strategic decisions