Communication and leadership differences in virtual design teams: Why some teams do better than others

摘要

Organizations in today’s global economy face continual pressures to remain responsive to changes in the competitive marketplace. One way that firms have adapted to these pressures is to use web-based communication technologies to support virtual project teams. To better understand the effectiveness of these dispersed teams, we have analyzed the transcripts of eight virtual design teams composed of graduate students in information systems. Using a coding scheme based on design rationale concepts, we compare and contrast the communication activities of high and low performing virtual teams working on the early stages of software design.