Missing Cues: Understanding Communication Barriers in Multicultural Virtual Teams

Description

Multinational organizations increasingly draw on virtual multicultural teams in an attempt to enhance flexibility across time and space and tap the knowledge of people dispersed in different locations. However, efficiency in such work teams may be hampered as individual members lack information on each other’s work context. The study draws on empirical data from a sample of 105 students participating in a virtual multicultural team project at an Austrian and US-American university. The authors show how a lack of shared understanding of each other’s work context may inhibit communication effectiveness in dispersed teams and bring about misunderstandings, false attributions and conflict.

Period	01 Dec 2006
Event title	Culture and Context
Event type	Conference
Location	GermanyShow on map