Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams

Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa and Dorothy E. Leidner
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Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa: Graduate School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
Dorothy E. Leidner: INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305 Fontainebleau, France

Organization Science, 1999, vol. 10, issue 6, 791-815

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.

Keywords: Global Virtual Teams; Virtual Teams; Global Teams; Virtual Organizations; Trust; Swift Trust; Computer-Mediated Communication; Group Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (183)

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