Media Capabilities that Support Identity Communication in Virtual Teams

Virtual teams play an increasingly important role in the modern economy, and many organizations struggle to overcome the weaknesses inherent in technology-mediated work. Identity communication has been shown to greatly improve individual- and group-level outcomes in offline settings, but these benefits have not been investigated in the context of virtual teams, where mediated interaction can reduce the opportunity for identity communication. Building on prior media theories, we develop and test a model explaining how technology can enable identity communication in virtual settings. Using a controlled experiment (N=186), we test our hypotheses and find strong support for the proposed model. Our study has important implications for researchers seeking to understand identity communication via technology and for practitioners hoping to improve virtual team communication and collaboration.