The Impacts of Media Symbol Variety on Performance in Virtual Teams

The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of media symbol variety on group performance in virtual teams. Symbol variety is defined as the number of ways in which information can be communicated and includes Daft and Lengel [1986]'s multiplicity of cues and language variety. According to media richness theory and media synchronicity theory, the use of media with high symbol variety is assumed to facilitate and promote communications among virtual team members. Therefore, it is expected that the media symbol variety is positively associated with group performance in virtual teams. Furthermore, online relationship building is expected to mediate the impacts of symbol variety on the performance. To confirm the suppositions, a controlled lab experiment was conducted with 60 undergraduate students as subjects. In the experimental virtual teams, subjects were allowed to communicate with other members using text-based messenger with emoticons. Subjects in the control virtual teams were allowed to communicate using only text-based messenger. The direct impact of symbol variety on group performance in virtual teams was found insignificant. However, the online relationship was found to completely mediate the positive impact of symbol variety on group performance. The implications and limitations of this study are also discussed for future research.