A study on communication media selection in IT and service work groups

Media selection behaviour from 18 companies in Japan and China was studied using the media fitness framework. A multiple media usage was found to be more popular than a single medium usage. Factors that affected both primary and complementary media selection were investigated. As a result, social influence was identified as the most important factor for the primary medium selection followed by a rational factor and environment factor. The study revealed that both rational and social influence factors were closely related for a primary medium selection; however, social influence had almost no effect on selecting complementary media. The findings of this study are not only useful to guide risk aversion in media selections in IT and service industries, but also potentially effective in media selections in various remote working fields.