A Longitudinal Analysis of the Effects of Media Richness on Cohesion Development and Process Satisfaction in Computer-Supported Workgroups

Media richness theory argues that different media are more or less appropriate for different tasks. Adaptive structuration theory (AST) implies that technology users may creatively adapt technological structures to mitigate differences in richness. Social Information Processing theory (SIP) suggests a motivation and method guiding such technology adoption. In light of these theories, this paper investigates the development of two important group process factors—cohesion development and process satisfaction—in two different studies of groups supported by EMS. Consistent with AST and SIP, results indicate that cohesion and process satisfaction increase over time in all types of electronic support, despite relative differences in richness.