Development in electronically-supported groups: a preliminary longitudinal study of distributed and face-to-face meetings

This longitudinal pilot study compared the developmental patterns of groups in three different electronically supported meeting modes: face-to-face, dispersed-synchronous and dispersed-asynchronous. Comparisons along several behavioral and socio-technical dimensions which influence the group development process indicate that face-to-face groups experience more effective leadership and coordination competence over time compared to the distributed groups. However, dispersed groups did not differ from their face-to-face counterparts in cohesiveness and equality of participation. Moreover, groups in all three modes performed the task equally well. These results suggest that electronically distributed work groups/spl minus/with adequate time and training/spl minus/can become cohesive and perform effectively.<>