An Empirical Analysis of Communication on Trust Building in Virtual Teams

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the communication on trust building in virtual teams. Ten teams consisting of three workers (an editor, a designer, and a coder) were asked to create a sample web page in one week. All workers were in remote environment and a text-only communication tool was provided to all teams. In addition, five teams could use a non-text communication tool through which one can see other member’s situation with a web camera image and a short text message. All communication logs were collected and classified into three types: formal communication, informal communication, and awareness communication. All participated workers answered the questionnaire about trust before and after the task was completed. The analysis results based on the questionnaire and communication log data are discussed at the end. The result shows the use of non-text communication tool did not affect trust building; however, amount of awareness communication affected trust building. Log-in to the communication system at the same time also affected trust building. The findings of this study showed the tendency of awareness communication helping team building trust in the remote environment.