The Impact of Communication Structure and Interpersonal Dependencies on Distributed Teams

Abstract

In the past decade, we have witnessed an explosive growth of the Web, online communities, and social media. This has led to a substantial increase in the range and scope of electronic communication and distributed collaboration. In distributed teams, social communication is thought to be critical for creating and sustaining relationships, but there is often limited opportunity for team members to build interpersonal connections through face to face interactions. Although social science research has examined some relational aspects of distributed teams, this work has only recently begun to explore the potentially complex relationship between communication, interpersonal relationship formation, and the effectiveness of distributed teams. In this work, we analyze data from an experimental study comparing distributed and co-located teams of undergraduates working to solve logic problems. We use a combined set of tools, including statistical analysis, social network analysis, and machine learning, to analyze the influence of interpersonal communication on the effectiveness of distributed and co-located teams. Our results indicate there are significant differences in participants' self- and group perceptions with respect to: (i) distributed vs. co-located settings, and (ii) communication structures within the team.