Communication at a distance

Abstract

Aim: The overarching aim is to investigate how an IT department that consists of virtual teams communicates to complete their daily tasks, giving support to users, and finishing projects. The main research goal is to see how virtual teams communicate, their experiences and uses of communication channels, modes and resources, and how they reason about using different communication technologies. Theory: The socio-cultural perspective has been used as a theoretical perspective in that people learn and develop using tools. In this study these tools have been seen as communication channels and modes. Other theories that are brought up to be used to understand how these teams work and communicate are literacy and personal learning environment. Literacy is another word for knowledge that a person needs to learn and can share with his or her community or team. When persons collect knowledge about communication and tools for communication they are building their own personal learning environment. Method: Content analysis has been used so as to be able to categorize and find patterns in the data. The data has been collected using a survey sent out to 37 people of which 21 answered, together with five support issues that were observed. In addition to the observation was an interview with one participant involved in the issue. Result: The result from this study suggests that teams work differently depending on their situation and environment. Virtual teams are flexible and find the best workable communication environment using the communication channels and modes available to them. They work around problems like language and cultural differences and when communication channels break down they are flexible in selecting a back-up channel. It is important to understand that teams work differently and prefer different ways of communicating. It depends on both their work and their way of socializing.