Friends and Enemies Within: The Roles of Subgroups, Imbalance, and Isolates in Geographically Dispersed Teams

Research regarding geographically dispersed teams (GDTs) is increasingly common and has yielded many insights into how spatio-temporal and socio-demographic factors affect GDT functioning and performance. Largely missing, however, is research on the effects of the basic geographic configuration of GDTs. In this study, we explore the impact of GDT configuration (i.e., the relative number of team members at different sites, independent of the characteristics of those members or the spatial and temporal distances among them) on GDT dynamics. In a quasi-experimental setting, we examine the effects of configuration using a sample of 62 six-person teams in four different one- and twosite configurations. As predicted, we find that configuration significantly affects team dynamics – independent of spatio-temporal distance and socio-demographic factors. More specifically, we find that teams with geographically-based subgroups (defined as two or more members per site) have significantly less shared team identity, less effective transactive memory, more conflict, and more coordination issues. Furthermore, in teams with subgroups, imbalance (i.e., the uneven distribution of members across sites) exacerbates these effects; subgroups with a numerical minority of team members report significantly poorer scores on the same four outcomes. In contrast, teams with geographically isolated members (i.e., members who have no teammates at their site) outperform both balanced and imbalanced configurations

Understanding local news consumption and community participation via the lens of information repertoires and media multiplexity

This study applies and extends the frameworks of information repertoires and media multiplexity to examine how the use of local information repertoires affects multimodal community participation, which is in turn reflected in community integration. A path analysis was conducted on the data gathered by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The results showed that four variables—habits of information seeking, diverse community interests, access to technology, and local information repertoires—were associated with each other. In addition, together they predicted community participation through multiple media use and the media gratifications obtained, which in turn positively influenced the level of local ties, community satisfaction, and community efficacy. Implications of the findings for theoretical and societal contributions and directions for future research are discussed.Accepted versio