Research On GVTs Communication Performance Based On Media Synchronicity Theory

With the globalization of economy and the high-speed development of information technology, how to effectively allocate the limited resources and reduce cost has become a widely discussed topic in different fields. As a newly emerged team pattern, global virtual teams (GVTs) have been applied in different industries because of its advantages in low-cost, efficiency and quick-response. Located in different areas of the globe, members in GVTs are connected by information communication technologies (ICT) through which they do most of their communication actives. Therefore, members can coordinate with each other despite of the boundaries of space, time and organization. Though GVTs get these obvious advantages in resource configuration and cost reduction, the ICT based communication mode they are relying on also raises management challenges to GVTs operations. The main purpose of this research is to discuss the influencing factors of GVTs' communication performance in Chinese context.Based on extensive literature review, a GVTs communication performance model was built according to media synchronicity theory which is the newest fit-centered media theory in information system research. In this model we discussed that communication tools are different in their capacity of supporting synchronicity. And in order to communicate effectively media should be matched with communication processes according to different information requirements. Meanwhile, several factors influencing media utilization were also added to the original model.Those factors are:language capacity, social norms, media experiences and corporate culture.A case study was performed in 4 GVTs from 2 international IT corporations in Dalian Software Park (Dalian, China) to test our research model.Through data collecting and analyzing, the findings indicated that:(1)the synchronicity of a media is infected by its media capacities especially by its transmission velocity and parallelism, (2) the fit between communication process and media synchronicity can improve communication performance, (3)in GVTs, media utilization is infected by members'language capacity and the corporate atmosphere they are working in.