Improving the communicational effectiveness of virtual organizations through workflow automation
International Journal of Electronic Commerce - Special section: Information technology and the virtual organization
Hxi: research down under in distributed intense collaboration between teams
CHI '08 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Task, technology, and tailoring in communicative action: An in-depth analysis of group communication
Information and Organization
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
The Effects of Synchronous Collaborative Technologies on Decision Making: A Study of Virtual Teams
Information Resources Management Journal
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One widely accepted theory on media use is media richness theory. However, media richness theory was developed without consideration of new electronic media and the many social factors that can influence media selection, communication processes, and outcomes. Recent empirical investigations have raised questions about media richness theory's applicability to these new media. Therefore, this paper presents a new theory called media synchronicity theory (MST) which proposes that all tasks are composed of two fundamental communication processes (conveyance and convergence). Thus, communication effectiveness is influenced by matching the media capabilities to the needs of the fundamental communication processes, not aggregate collections of these processes (i.e., tasks) as tested in examinations of media richness theory. A laboratory experiment was conducted to provide an initial investigation into the theoretical underpinnings of MST. This study examined the influence of different media on conveyance and convergence effectiveness. Results from this study provide preliminary support for the concepts embodied in MST.