Human Resource Management 2004

Trust and leadership in virtual teamwork: A media naturalness perspective

Darleen DeRosa¹; Donald A. Hantula^2,3; Ned Kock⁴; John D'Arcy^2,3

¹ Right Management Consultants · ² Temple College · ³ Temple University · ⁴ Texas A&M International University

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.

DOI

10.1002/hrm.20016

Sources

openalex

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APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓