Communication and trust in global virtual teams

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jarvenpaa, SL; Leidner, DE
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; INSEAD Business School
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.10.6.791
• 发表日期: 1999
• 页码: 791-815
• 关键词: Global virtual teams; VIRTUAL TEAMS; global teams; virtual organizations; trust; swift trust; COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION; group development

摘要

This paper explores the challenges of creating and maintaining trust in a global virtual team whose members transcend time, space, and culture. The challenges are highlighted by integrating recent literature on work teams, computer-mediated communication groups, cross-cultural communication, and interpersonal and organizational trust. To explore these challenges empirically, we report on a series of descriptive case studies on global virtual teams whose members were separated by location and culture, were challenged by a common collaborative project, and for whom the only economically and practically viable communication medium was asynchronous and synchronous computer-mediated communication. The results suggest that global virtual teams may experience a form of swift trust, but such trust appears to be very fragile and temporal. The study raises a number of issues to be explored and debated by future research. Pragmatically, the study describes communication behaviors that might facilitate trust in global virtual teams.