| The emergence of internet provides various media options for collaborative decision-makings in which tradeoffs is inevitable. The present study investigates the collaboration factors affecting the use of five popular media technologies (email, instant messaging, voice over internet protocol, webcam, and video conferencing) in deriving consensus. A three-way (task formality, task clarity and the familiarity with decision partners) factorial experiment was conducted to test hypotheses attributed to the Social Presence Theory, Media Richness Theory and cost concern. Vignettes were developed to solicit user¡¦s favoritism attitudes toward the five technologies. The results provided mixed supports of the formality effect for video conferencing, the clarity effect for webcam, and the relationship effect for both. |
Updated 07/09/2013