Multicultural Virtual Team Performance: The Impact of Media Choice and Language Diversity

Globally distributed multinational virtual teams (MNVTs) are increasingly prevalent. To better understand communication in MNVTs, we explored the effects of using verbal and written synchronous communication media under different levels of English Language Proficiency (ELP) diversity. The results of data collected from 45 MNVTs, composed of MBA students who worked on a joint project, revealed that while verbal communication leads to higher perceived proximity within low ELP diversity teams, written communication contributes to perceived proximity when ELP diversity is high. Perceived proximity in turn, positively influences MNVT performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for MNVTs.