Academic Exchange Quarterly Spring 2007 ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 11, Issue 1
To cite, use print source rather than this on-line version which may not reflect print copy format requirements or text lay-out and pagination.
Media Richness &
Individual Perceptions of Teams
Paul H. Jacques,
John Garger, Metronome Computer Services, NY
Cynthia S. Deale,
Barbara Jo White,
Paul H. Jacques, Ph.D.
is an Assistant Professor of Management & International Business; John
Garger is an independent consultant and owner of Metronome Computer Services;
Cynthia S. Deale, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Hospitality & Tourism,
Department of Management & International Business; Barbara Jo White, Ph.D.
is an Assistant Professor of Business Computer Information Systems.
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that lean
communication media influence the perceptions of participants in virtual versus
face-to-face teams. Students participated in either a virtual or face-to-face
team environment and returned completed surveys. Results illustrate that leaner
media richness in virtual teams accounts for lower individual perceptions of
team ability, team trustworthiness, and satisfaction with team in virtual
teams. Implications and study limitations are discussed.
Introduction
Increasingly, proficiency in multimedia learning
environments is becoming a necessary tool for students in higher education as
computer-mediated instruction supplements or even completely replaces the
face-to-face classroom.
Distance learning via various computer-based, virtual
platforms is becoming commonplace where students are exposed to online and/or
computer-mediated learning and need to gain competencies in their use through
increased media literacy with electronic learning resources. According to
Goodfellow and Lea (2005), the dearth of online, text-based literacy remains
the greatest challenge for educators in the move from print-based classroom
interactions to electronic-based interactions.
Piccoli, Ahmad, and Ives (2001) found that with regard to virtual
versus face-to-face basic-skills training, there were no significant
differences in performance between undergraduate students enrolled in the two
environments. However, the virtual learning environment led to higher reported
computer self-efficacy, while participants reported being less satisfied with
the learning process. The current study further investigates the differences between
face-to-face and virtual learning experiences by focusing on individual perceptions
of team ability, team trustworthiness, and satisfaction with team in virtual
and face-to-face collaborative projects.
Background
Media can be characterized as residing along a continuum of
lean to rich According to this schema, media are classified based on the
following criteria: feedback, multiplicity of cues, language variety and
meaning, and personal focus. Lean media include much of computer-mediated
communication, such as email and other text communication, while the richest
media is associated with face-to-face communication (Daft, Lengel,
& Trevino, 1987).
People are not likely to be equally comfortable and
satisfied with different media, nor is it likely that people believe that
different media can be used interchangeably to accomplish particular tasks. One
study (Straus, Miles, & Levesque, 2001) examined the effects of different
media, such as-to-face, telephone, and video conference, for both interviewers
and applicants. Results suggest that interviewers rated applicants less
favorably in face-to-face interviews as compared to telephone interviews.
Applicants, on the other hand, generally preferred face-to-face interviews over
telephone or video-conferencing types of interviews. One notion the study did
not examine was whether applicants would gravitate toward particular types of
jobs based on the type of media used and the outcome of the interview.
Information technologies that facilitate communication in
new media are simply tools that are only useful if people adopt them and use
them productively (Bandura, 2002). Thus, when faced with choices among various
media, satisfaction with adopted media is an important concept that affects not
only current adoption but future adoption of media as well. One study by
Jacques, Deale, and Garger (2006) demonstrated that two constructs, perceived
usefulness and ease of use, from the Technology Acceptance Model (c.f. Davis,
1989; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000) predicted future intention to use an
in-class, computer-mediated testing system. However, none of the above studies
examined the impact of media richness in a group decision-making context. The current study, using face-to-face and
computer-mediated group communication, examines the effects of media type on individual
perceptions of team satisfaction, team ability, and team trustworthiness. An
understanding of satisfaction and trust-related issues associated with media
can serve to inform administrators of projects and programs that promote media
literacy.
Current Study
After a review of the literature, a conceptual model was
constructed to demonstrate the effects of lean communication media in virtual
teams on individual perceptions of team ability, team trustworthiness, and
satisfaction with the team. A 6-item scale of ability and an 8-item scale of
trustworthiness were taken from Jarvenpaa, Knoll, and Leidner (1998). The
ability scale was originally from a Schoorman, Mayer, and Davis (1996) working
paper modified by Jarvenpaa et al. (1998) to reflect a team rather than dyadic
context. The trustworthiness scale was originally from Pearce, Sommer, Morris,
and Frideger (1992) also modified by Jarvenpaa et al. (1998) to reflect a team
rather than an organizational environment. The satisfaction with team scale was
measured with thirteen items from Keyton (1991) which captures a full-range of
global team satisfiers. All items were rated by subjects on a 5-point Likert
scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. Since multiple
items were collected per variable, scale scores were created with a mean of the
items for estimation of each construct.
The sample, collected in 2006, consisted of 227
undergraduate, management students across 15 courses in a comprehensive,
mid-sized university. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a virtual or
face-to-face condition and then randomly assigned to 4-person groups within those
conditions. All teams completed a 30-minute project appropriate to the course
in which the study was conducted and deemed by the current authors to be similar
in terms of complexity and difficulty. The face-to-face teams completed the
project collocated while the virtual teams communicated over a chat program. In
the virtual team condition, the first and only contact team members experienced
was over the chat program to preserve the anonymity factor.
An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted with a
computer statistics program to compare means and obtain F-statistics and
p-values to assess significant differences between the virtual and face-to-face
environments.
Results
Means, standard deviations, and scale correlations for
measures in this study are shown in Table 1.
[TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]
As hypothesized, means for individual perceptions of team
ability, team trustworthiness, and satisfaction with the team were
significantly higher in the face-to-face condition versus the virtual team
condition (F = 28.38, p-value < 0.01; F = 40.06, p-value < 0.01; and F =
24.73, p-value < 0.01 respectively). Consequently, the leaner communication
media in virtual teams have a negative effect on the three constructs under
investigation in ad hoc teams.
Limitations and
Further Research
The current authors identified two limitations to consider
when evaluating the results of the present study. First, the sample consisted
of undergraduate, business students only. A more diverse sample is called for
in subsequent research to increase the ability to generalize to
higher-education students or other contexts. Second, there may have been
differentiation associated with subject familiarity or experience with virtual
teams. Varying experience working in virtual teams may be a factor in
determining perceived team ability, team trustworthiness, and team satisfaction
at the individual level, especially in teams where there exist heterogeneous
mixes of subjects in teams in terms of experience.
Implications
The results found in this study have several implications for instructors and administrators in higher education. Students enrolled in business courses were likely to have many experiences working face-to-face to produce a written product in a limited amount of time. Completing such activities in a virtual environment required students to tap into an area of media literacy that may have been new to them. Students in the face-to-face teams used visual cues and synchronous communication to complete their projects while the virtual teams spent more time trying to figure out how to communicate with each other; They were not as quickly able to figure out their group roles or the topic via virtual interactions with each other.
Results of this study may also relate to the need to develop a sense of community in the online environment. In face-to-face classes, the sense of community can be developed fairly easily and naturally with classroom activities, but special attention must be given to these items in the development of effective virtual communication. Kirschner and van Bruggen (2004) defined a valued learning experience as being equal to the sum of the components of pedagogy, content, and community with a need for these three components to be in balance for team effectiveness. A community is an affective structure and that is more difficult to create online, although it can be aided by specific activities that add to the sense of group cohesion and to the reflective component of the team experience. In face-to-face classes, instructors need to help teams to establish rapport and to figure out roles. These tasks are even more important in virtual teams because virtual communication does not lend itself readily to these activities. Instructors can begin the process of virtual team building by engaging students in simple online tasks and in specifically creating online communities with input from the instructor.
It is common in education for instructors to select or
allow students to self select team members and let those teams complete
projects without further involvement. In the case of virtual teams it is
especially important for instructors to provide guidance and to help structure
team activities. If possible, it helps to have virtual team members meet face-to-face
at least initially or if that is not possible, it helps for students to create
web pages and to share images rather than text only to make the experience more
tangible. It may also be helpful for the instructor to focus team members on
the big picture or overall goal of the team because research shows that there
is a tendency for virtual teams to get lost in the distribution and completion
of tasks (Chinowsky & Rojas, 2003). Instructors can also encourage the use
of team managers and work with those team managers to keep the overall goals of
the team clear and to provide feedback about progress. Virtual teams in classes
can also be more effective if instructors follow advice adapted from Griffith,
Sawyer, and Neale (2003) and provide
experience-building opportunities with team members that include both the use
of the technology and the tasks at hand;
allow and encourage virtual teams to develop communities of practice; verbalize
or institutionalize team rules,
terminology, and descriptions; foster the development of individual-level tacit
knowledge; offer and promote access to tools that support independent work, the
transmission of knowledge, and group memory verbalization of rules,
terminology, and descriptions.
The results of this study suggest that students need help learning to work in a virtual environment which includes developing literacy with online tools. However, instructors need to be careful not to emphasize the mastery of collaborative online work over knowledge of the subject matter. If instructors wish to utilize online learning environments they would do well to introduce students to the medium gradually with several assignments aimed at increasing their comfort level and competency with online writing and collaborative activities. Also, instructors need to be cautious about simply “virtualizing” existing practices and assignments; instead, they should give serious thought to the creation of appropriate assignments that are compatible with online teaching and learning technologies within the specific subject matter.
Given that the teams formed for the purposes of the research
were ad hoc and the online students were located in the same lab similar to a
Group Decision Support System situation, students may not have perceived a
reason behind using the ad hoc, collocated teams. In fact, there was
considerable online conversation to that effect. Therefore, instructors should
provide the virtual teams with more opportunities to get used to working with
one another and also to explain the purposes behind collocated, virtual teams. Although
people may work face-to-face, even collocated colleagues in the same
organization find themselves working in virtual teams to complete projects since
adopting a media richness level commensurate with the complexity of the intended
message allows teams to take advantage of online communication media
intelligently.
Although virtual teams were not viewed as satisfactorily as
face-to-face teams in the current study and while satisfaction with a media may
lead to its continued use, the ability to work in virtual teams may simply be a
necessity of work life in a technology-driven society. More and more
collaboration takes place in virtual environments and educators can help
prepare students to work in such environments through the use of web-based
classroom platforms and through assignments and projects that require students
to work synchronously or asynchronously in online environments.
References
Bandura,
A. (2002). Growing primacy of human agency in adaptation and change in the
electronic
era. European Psychologist, 7(1), 2-16.
Chinowsky, P. S. & Rojas, E. M. (2003). Virtual teams:
Guide to successful implementation. Journal
of Management in Engineering, 19(3), 98-106.
Daft, R. L., Lengel, R. H., & Trevino, L. K. (1987).
Message equivocality, media selection, and manager performance: Implications
for information systems. MIS Quarterly,
11(3), 354-367.
Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of
use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-339.
Goodfellow, R. & Lea, M. R. (2005). Supporting writing for assessment in online learning. Assessment and
Evaluation in Higher Education, 30(3). 261-271.
Griffith, T. L., Sawyer, J. E., & Neale, M. A. (2003).
Virtualness and knowledge in teams: Managing the love triangle of
organizations, individuals, and information technology. MIS Quarterly. 27(2), 265-287.
Jacques, P. H., Deale, C. S., & Garger, J. (2006). Formal and informal applications of the
Technology Acceptance Model in the hospitality classroom. Journal
of Hospitality & Tourism Education. 18(3), 67-75.
Jarvenpaa, S., Knoll, K., & Leidner, D. E. (1998). Is
anybody out there? Antecedents of trust in global virtual teams. Journal of Management Information Systems,
14(4), 29-64.
Keyton, J. (1991). Evaluating individual group member
satisfaction as a situational variable. Small
Group Research, 22(2), 200-219.
Kirschner, P. A. & van Bruggen, J. (2004). Learning and
understanding in virtual teams. Cyber
Psychology & Behavior, 7(2) 135-139.
Pearce, J. L., Sommer, S. M., Morris, A., & Frideger, M.
A. (1992). A configurational approach to interpersonal relations: Profiles of
workplace social relations and task interdependence.
Piccoli, G., Ahmad, R., & Ives, B. (2001). Web-based
virtual learning environments: A research framework and a preliminary
assessment of effectiveness in basic IT skills training. MIS Quarterly. 25(4), 401-426.
Schoorman, F. D., Mayer, R. C., & Davis, J. H. (1996).
Empowerment in veterinary clinics: the role of trust in delegation. Department
of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management,
Straus, S. G., Miles, J. A., & Levesque, L. L. (2001).
The effects of videoconference, telephone, and face-to-face media on
interviewer and applicant judgments in employment interviews. Journal of Management, 27(3), 363-381.
Venkatesh, V.,
& Davis, F. D. (2000). A theoretical extension of the technology acceptance
model: four longitudinal field studies. Management Science, 46(2), 186-204.