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Trust and leadership in virtual teamwork: A media naturalness perspective
Author(s) -
DeRosa Darleen M.,
Hantula Donald A.,
Kock Ned,
D'Arcy John
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
human resource management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.888
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1099-050X
pISSN - 0090-4848
DOI - 10.1002/hrm.20016
Subject(s) - naturalness , teamwork , schema (genetic algorithms) , knowledge management , perspective (graphical) , computer science , virtual reality , human–computer interaction , artificial intelligence , political science , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , law
Abstract Paradoxically, virtual teams are ubiquitous and often successful, contrary to most current communication theories'predictions. Media naturalness theory (Kock, 2001), an evolutionary perspective on communication and its principles of media naturalness, innate schema similarity, and learned schema diversity can be used to understand, study, and manage successful virtual teamwork. In particular, potential problems of trust and leadership in virtual teams are shown to be amenable to solutions rooted explicitly in an evolutionary context. From a media naturalness perspective, geographic distance and technological complexity are secondary to processes of adaptation, as humans remain the most complex and flexible part of the communication system. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.