Cultural diversity and information and communication technology impacts on global virtual teams: An exploratory study Pnina Shachaf * School of Library and Information Science, 1320 E, 10th Street, LI 005A, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-3907, United States Received 26 December 2005; received in revised form 10 November 2007; accepted 31 December 2007 Abstract Modern organizations face many significant challenges because of turbulent environments and a competitive global economy. Among these challenges are the use of information and communication technology (ICT), a multicultural workforce, and organizational designs that involve global virtual teams. Ad hoc teams create both opportunities and challenges for organizations and many organizations are trying to understand how the virtual environment affects team effectiveness. Our exploratory study focused on the effects of cultural diversity and ICT on team effectiveness. Interviews with 41 team members from nine countries employed by a Fortune 500 corporation were analyzed. Results suggested that cultural diversity had a positive influence on decision-making and a negative influence on communication. ICT mitigated the negative impact on intercultural communication and supported the positive impact on decision-making. Effective technologies for intercultural communication included e-mail, teleconferencing combined with e-Meetings, and team rooms. Cultural diversity influenced selection of the communication media. # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Global virtual teams; Intercultural communication; Information and communication technology; Cultural diversity; Channel selection 1. Introduction The use of information and communication technology (ICT), a multicultural workforce, and changing organizational models that increase worker participation have altered the nature of multinational corporations. One of the significant developments in organizational design is the introduction of team-based structures. An example is the virtual organization [14], of which virtual teams are the building blocks [69]. Members of these global virtual teams (GVTs) are often dispersed world-wide [41]. Advances in technology facilitate communication and the sharing of information among team members. By employing GVTs, organizations can combine the best expertise available for task performance regardless of geographic location, etc [37]. As a result, use of GVTs gives organizations access to a larger pool of skills, which can reduce development time. Teams can increase organizational performance, lateral communication, and employee participation. But in spite of their advantages, GVTs face greater communication challenges than face-to-face teams; traditional communication mechanisms are lost or distorted, and vocal and nonverbal communication cues are often missed [28]. In addition, with members in multiple time zones, logistics are more complex. As a result, building trust among team members and overcoming feelings of isolation and detachment becomes a challenge. Thus ICT use in global organizations increases teamwork complexity and may impact its effectiveness. Finally, the culturally heterogeneous composition of many teams adds to their complexity as cultural biases may distort communication. Researchers are trying to determine howvirtuality impacts team effectiveness [16,57], focusing on a variety of success predictors [18,22], such as conflict management [51], leadership [35], trust [32,33,34,58], communication [48], normdevelopment [42,43], boundary crossing [20], creativity [53,54], team size [5], control [60], and technology www.elsevier.com/locate/im Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Information & Management 45 (2008) 131–142 * Tel.: +1 812 856 1587; fax: +1 812 855 6166. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0378-7206/$ – see front matter # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.im.2007.12.003