Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning, resolving breakdowns and creating translucence Bjørn, Pernille and Ngwenyama, Ojelanki 2009, Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning, resolving breakdowns and creating translucence, Information systems journal, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 227-253, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2007.00281.x. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads Title Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning, resolving breakdowns and creating translucence Author(s) Bjørn, Pernille Ngwenyama, Ojelanki orcid.org/0000-0001-7124-430X Journal name Information systems journal Volume number 19 Issue number 3 Start page 227 End page 253 Total pages 27 Publisher Wiley Place of publication London, Eng. Publication date 2009-05 ISSN 1350-1917 1365-2575 Summary Managing international teams with geographically distributed participants is a complex task. The risk of communication breakdowns increases due to cultural and organizational differences grounded in the geographical distribution of the participants. Such breakdowns indicate general misunderstandings and a lack of shared meaning between participants. In this paper, we address the complexity of building shared meaning. We examine the communication breakdowns that occurred in two globally distributed virtual teams by providing an analytical distinction of the organizational context as the foundation for building shared meaning at three levels. Also we investigate communication breakdowns that can be attributed to differences in lifeworld structures, organizational structures, and work process structures within a virtual team. We find that all communication breakdowns are manifested and experienced by the participants at the work process level; however, resolving breakdowns may require critical reflection at other levels. Where previous research argues that face-to-face interaction is an important variable for virtual team performance, our empirical observations reveal that communication breakdowns related to a lack of shared meaning at the lifeworld level often becomes more salient when the participants are co-located than when geographically distributed. Last, we argue that creating translucence in communication structures is essential for building shared meanings at all three levels. Language eng DOI 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2007.00281.x Field of Research 080606 Global Information Systems 0806 Information Systems 1503 Business And Management Socio Economic Objective 970110 Expanding Knowledge in Technology HERDC Research category C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal ERA Research output type C Journal article Copyright notice ©2008, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30091462 Document type: Journal Article Collections: Faculty of Business and Law Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics Related Links Link Description Connect to published version Go to link with your DU access privileges   Connect to Elements publication management system Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Thu, 23 Feb 2017, 12:42:39 EST Fri, 24 Feb 2017, 04:00:53 EST Fri, 24 Feb 2017, 05:07:16 EST Wed, 08 Mar 2017, 10:50:30 EST Wed, 08 Mar 2017, 10:56:48 EST Tue, 13 Oct 2020, 06:35:47 EST Sat, 29 May 2021, 02:31:28 EST Sun, 17 Jul 2022, 23:36:52 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 104 times in TR Web of Science Cited 157 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 502 Abstract Views, 1 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Thu, 23 Feb 2017, 12:42:39 EST