Global teams and technology LO11111

Lee Ann Southorn (102647.2605@CompuServe.COM)
23 Nov 96 15:45:15 EST

For everyone involved in the area of learning organizations:

I am a graduate student in Intercultural Management working on some
research on the effective use of technology in multicultural teams... and
I am eager to find people interested in the topic who might be willing to
give some input or participate in a survey I'm doing. (If this doesn't
apply to you, perhaps you would know someone whom you could forward this
message to??)

IF:
-- you are involved in working on a team project with people from
different cultures... AND
-- you use e-mail, telephone conferencing, videoconferencing or computer
conferencing to communicate with one another because you are divided by
long distances &/or different time zones... THEN:
-- you may want to share some insight into the most effective use of the
above technologies in global teams and receive feedback from the study for
your own use in your teamwork.

Basically, the idea behind the research is this:

I have talked with a lot of teams at large corporations who, for various
reasons, do not meet very often face-to-face, and instead communicate
regularly by e-mail, telephone conference, videoconference, and computer
conferencing like Lotus Notes. Most of these teams are very diverse, with
people in offices around the world, separated by long distances, different
time zones and different cultures. As a result, many people involved in
regular communication via "new technology" have asked for advice on how to
adjust their use of technology for partners in different cultures, in
order to communicate better. (i.e. They have found the way an Italian
partner uses e-mail vs. the way an Indonesian approaches the use of e-mail
to be quite different.)

So, what I'm really interested in doing is: collecting feedback on the
use of "new technology" (e-mail, teleconferencing, videoconferencing,
computer conferencing) from people in a variety of cultures. This will
include perceptions of the strenghts and weaknesses of each technology and
suggestions for "best practices" for each technology, based on cultural
orientation.

I'd really love to get people from a variety of cultural backgrounds other
than the U.S. involved in this survey, to get as much diversity of
perception as possible. So, anyone who is 1) on a global team (members in
a variety of countries), and 2.) uses e-mail, teleconferencing,
videoconferencing or computer conferencing to communicate or meet on a
regular basis would be perfect.

I'm just doing an exploratory, qualitative study at this point, but any
results that I find which might be helpful to global teams to improve
their communication, I would be happy to share with anyone who
participates.

DOES THIS SOUND INTERESTING OR RELEVANT TO YOUR WORK? If so, Please
download the file I have attached, fill out the survey and either e-mail
it back to me (Lee Ann Southorn, INTERNET:102647.2605@compuserve.com) or
fax it back to me at 212-647-0494.

[Host's Note: There was no file attached and we cannot distribute file
attachments on the LO list. Lee Ann, would you post a followup to me list
if there is a web URL for the survey. Otherwise, interested readers
should contact Lee Ann directly. ... Rick]

MANY, MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE!!

Lee Ann Southorn
Windham International
55 Fifth Avenue, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Tel: 212-462-8907
Fax: 212-647-0494

-- 

Lee Ann Southorn <102647.2605@CompuServe.COM>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>