Virtual Teams and Multiple Media: Structuring Media Use to Attain Strategic Goals

Work environments have grown substantially more complex over the years. Teams are increasingly distributed, and presented with a variety of different communication technologies, e.g., e-mail, instant messaging, cellular phones, pagers, and intranet applications, for use in distributed collaborative activities. Further, individuals often belong to multiple teams concurrently. This study explores how virtual team members structure their use of multiple media to attain strategic goals in complex work environments. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze data gathered from forty interviews of information technology workers. Our results indicate that there are two primary structures individuals employ when making use of multiple media: sequential and concurrent. Sequential combinations are of three types: redundant, serial, or complementary, while concurrent combinations are of two types: independent or complementary. Further, individuals strategically use multiple media to accomplish specific communication goals beyond simply transmitting the message, such as message acknowledgement, enhancement of mutual understanding, and participation in multiple communication interactions. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.