Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams

  • Authors:

  • Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa;Dorothy E. Leidner

  • Affiliations:

  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • Organization Science
  • Year:
  • 1999

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.02

Visualization

Abstract

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.