The Role of Gender in Computer-Mediated Communication Technology Selection to Disseminate Time-Sensitive Data within Virtual Teams

Abstract

Organizations are ever-increasing the usage of teams of globally dislocated employees, or virtual teams, to collaborate on projects. Employees often need to share time-sensitive data before it decays and becomes useless. To help reduce costs and improve speed, management often requires employees to use computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies, such as email, to share such data. From the literature, males and females have been shown to exhibit differing communication styles. The literature has shown women tend to use synchronous communication more than men. This can potentially lead to data not being shared effectively as a sender may not connect with his or her recipient(s) before the data decays. This research explores how gender can influence CMC technology selection to effectively disseminate time-sensitive data within virtual teams by administering surveys to players in an online game called Travian. Travian has over ten-million players globally collaborating in virtual teams. Surveys were administered over a 30-day period through the forums. As expected, the results of this study showed a relationship between gender and CMC technology selection to disseminate time-sensitive data.