A study of the success of group formation in virtual teams using computer-mediated communications

In the digital domain, virtual teams are becoming common within organizations and corporations. Restructuring an organization or corporation is vital because competition and globalization are increasing. In this era of globalization, distributed working groups need to develop a competitive advantage in these ever-changing environments. Historically, teams had experienced problems stemming from geographical and temporal limitations. With the increase of technology in telecommunications, people are increasingly forming virtual teams, which have become critical to the survival of nearly any organization or corporation.

Virtual teams have some of the same problems that regular teams have. One of them is their method of forming teams in digital environments. Despite the difficulties, the digital environment has made successful team development all the more critical. The variation in people's skills makes the formation of teams even more difficult. This is why individuals cannot determine in advance if a virtual team will be a success.

In an effort to determine the success of team formation in a virtual setting, the researcher intends to evaluate the role of ComputerMediated Communications (CMC) in a virtual team. This study seeks to determine how CMC, specifically in conjunction with social networking sites (SNS), can help overcome the difficulty of team formation and collaboration between individuals in virtual teams. By creating these groups in the virtual world, and monitoring how successful the groups are using SNS as their medium of team formation. The results of this study can be informative to help organizations identify ways to support effective team formations.