M edia richness theory argues that performance improves when team members use "richer" media for equivocal tasks. This experiment studied the effects of media richness on decision making in two-person teams using "new media" (i.e., computer-mediated and video communication). Media richness was varied based on multiplicity of cues and immediacy of feedback. Subjects perceived differences in richness due to both cues and feedback, but matching richness to task equivocality did not improve decision quality, decision time, consensus change, or communication satisfaction. Use of media providing fewer cues (i.e., computer mediated communication) led to slower decisions and more so for the less equivocal task. In short, the results found no support for the central proposition of media richness theory; matching media richness to task equivocality did not improve performance.

Media richness theory argues that performance improves when team members use “richer” media for equivocal tasks. Virtually all research on media richness theory has focused on perceptions: surveys of individuals’beliefs about media rather than investigating actual performance with richer versus leaner media. This experiment studied the effects of media richness on decision making in two-person teams (all male, all female, and mixed gender) using one form of “new media” (computer-mediated communication). Participants took longer to make decisions with computer-mediated communication. Matching richness to task equivocality only resulted in better performance for the all-female teams, likely because females are more sensitive to nonverbal communication and more affected by its absence in computer-mediated communication. For remaining teams, using richer face-to-face communication did not improve performance to a greater extent for more equivocal than less equivocal tasks. Results support media richness theory only for all-female teams.

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Rita Vick's paper focuses on technology adoption and performance in teamwork contexts. One way to increase performance, she argues, is to increase information sharing. This commentary argues that adoption, performance, and information sharing may depend on satisfaction with current project work. The paper notes that there is evidence that satisfaction with project work is very high. If this is the case, then the adoption of teamwork technologies should continue to be slow. Furthermore, high satisfaction can have a negative impact on group performance, because it may cause team members not to stress challenging information that could disrupt team harmony. We suggest that the experiments that Vick proposes consider satisfaction and consider not only general information sharing but also classify information shared in terms of potential divi. siveness.