An Exploratory Investigation of the Development of Mutual Knowledge in Global Virtual Project Teams

The use of virtual project teams (VPTs) is increasingly prevalent in organizations today. This increasing reliance on VPTs introduces obvious challenges relating to virtual team members’ ability to communicate and effectively share knowledge particularly when the project is highly complex. These tasks are further exacerbated by the nature of virtuality itself and the attributes of the collaboration technology used. In view of this, some researchers have argued that mutual knowledge is an important factor in engendering effective virtual team interactions which in turn can ultimately impact VPT performance. This paper presents an exploratory empirical study of how mutual knowledge develops in VPTs through transactive memory processes and the role of information technology in facilitating this development. Our results show that transactive memory theory is an important theoretical lens for explaining mutual knowledge development in VPTs and virtual organizations.