Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Current corporate reality demands that companies cooperate across national boundaries (Pick, Romano, & Nicholas, 2008) and many projects are being developed around the world through cooperative activities of people without being in face-to-face contact. This type of activity aims at availing of the competitive advantages being offered by the involved countries in reducing the cost of human resource deployment in countries at different development levels (Daga & Kaka, 2006) and specializations.
This research analyzes the interaction between cultural traces and communication in global virtual projects which rely on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) tools as the primary communication media, specifically the relation between cultural dimensions like “individualism/ collectivism”, “power distance”, “uncertainty avoidance” (Hofstede, 2005) and “cultural context in communication” (Hall, 1976) and perception of the fit of different ICT tools such as e-mail, chat and teleconference (audio and video), which reflect different technology features, to the project’s communication needs.
The sketch (Figure 1) illustrates that the fit between communication technologies and different communication tasks can be weighed by the culture.
Figure 1. Schematic sketch of how culture influences the fit between communication technology and communication task