This study looked at strategic ways to use language to support effective virtual communication and collaboration. I thought this was pretty relevant towards trust and virtual teams since they did a linguistic analysis on teams communication patterns via their email messages.
One of the challenges that caught my attention in this paper, was the challenges of relational space and trust in virtual teams. As stated, "This spatiality can often impact the ability of a team to establish attention and motivation [18], and its absence can severely limit the degree to which collaborators trust in one another’s level of commitment and reliability. Lack of spatial reference also limits paralinguistic cues, which further inhibits trust by complicating collaborators’ ability to interpret meaning. For example, simple gestures and glances indicating where listeners should direct their attention are easy to recognize in co-located settings, but require creative interventions in virtual settings." As a result of these barriers, space and trust are mostly built through written language in virtual environments.
The paper goes on to talk about speech act theory and the three levels of communication that results in how we view its complexity and indirectness. I thought these levels of communication were important towards communication in virtual teams:
"Locutionary Force: the words as they are actually uttered or written
Illocutionary Force: The Speakers intention
Perlocutionary Force: The understanding or the effect that the speech act has on the context participants’ world "
I also found the results really interesting. Specifically, I found this statement in the paper interesting: "The students in Cohort 2 (group that took prior course content in mutli-culture communication), in contrast, used far fewer directives in their written conversations, perhaps because the direct requests were taken care of through carefully planned documents and a tacit commitment to adhere to the schedule versus less-formal emails and continually negotiated deadlines". Cohort 2 needed to request information less often than the control group, but were receiving more knowledge from their members, compared to cohort 1. Additionally, cohort 2 "demonstrated more expressive and more assertive in their language patterns. That is, these students engaged in specific linguistic practices that contribute to relational space and knowledge sharing". I found this interesting because teams who took relevant course content on communication, were able to be more expressive, and in result more assertive. I thought these concepts were pretty relevant on virtual teams and collaboration.
This study looked at strategic ways to use language to support effective virtual communication and collaboration. I thought this was pretty relevant towards trust and virtual teams since they did a linguistic analysis on teams communication patterns via their email messages.
One of the challenges that caught my attention in this paper, was the challenges of relational space and trust in virtual teams. As stated, "This spatiality can often impact the ability of a team to establish attention and motivation [18], and its absence can severely limit the degree to which collaborators trust in one another’s level of commitment and reliability. Lack of spatial reference also limits paralinguistic cues, which further inhibits trust by complicating collaborators’ ability to interpret meaning. For example, simple gestures and glances indicating where listeners should direct their attention are easy to recognize in co-located settings, but require creative interventions in virtual settings." As a result of these barriers, space and trust are mostly built through written language in virtual environments.
The paper goes on to talk about speech act theory and the three levels of communication that results in how we view its complexity and indirectness. I thought these levels of communication were important towards communication in virtual teams: "Locutionary Force: the words as they are actually uttered or written Illocutionary Force: The Speakers intention Perlocutionary Force: The understanding or the effect that the speech act has on the context participants’ world "
I also found the results really interesting. Specifically, I found this statement in the paper interesting: "The students in Cohort 2 (group that took prior course content in mutli-culture communication), in contrast, used far fewer directives in their written conversations, perhaps because the direct requests were taken care of through carefully planned documents and a tacit commitment to adhere to the schedule versus less-formal emails and continually negotiated deadlines". Cohort 2 needed to request information less often than the control group, but were receiving more knowledge from their members, compared to cohort 1. Additionally, cohort 2 "demonstrated more expressive and more assertive in their language patterns. That is, these students engaged in specific linguistic practices that contribute to relational space and knowledge sharing". I found this interesting because teams who took relevant course content on communication, were able to be more expressive, and in result more assertive. I thought these concepts were pretty relevant on virtual teams and collaboration.