Task and technology fit: a comparison of two technologies for synchronous and asynchronous group communication

With the increasing use of emerging communication technologies for collaborative work and group communication, organizations must recognize the benefits as well as the limitations of these technologies for communication effectiveness. An experiment was conducted to examine the interaction between task structure and technology to support synchronous and asynchronous group communication. Two communication technologies, e-mail and a group support system (GSS), and two levels of task structure (less structured and more structured) were used. Group outcomes were measured as total number of unique ideas generated, which were further decomposed into basic and inferential idea categories. Results indicate that GSS-supported groups generated more total and basic ideas. However, groups using e-mail performed a deeper problem analysis as indicated by a higher proportion of inferential ideas generated by these groups. The number and proportion of inferential ideas were also significantly higher in the less structured task than those in the more structured one.