Analysis of Distance Collaboration Modalities: Alternatives to Meeting Face-to-Face

Physical and temporal boundaries are rapidly diminishing in an age of swiftly advancing information communication technologies. Today’s technologically sophisticated business and organizational environments offer a number of distance collaboration modalities (DSMs) that can facilitate efficient and cost-effective meetings that have traditionally required face-to-face meeting venues. Selection of the DCMs that maximize meeting effectiveness is significantly challenging given the wide diversity of available options. Theory and empirical data can be useful as a guide in the selection of the most appropriate DCMs to maximize organizational productivity and success. This article reviews the literature on the behavioral and technical affordances and limitations of the various DCMs. It also provides a theoretical model based on media synchronicity theory to help guide selection of effective DCMs. This theoretical framework emphasizes the primacy of media alignment with core communication processes as well as social and interpersonal factors that influence meeting effectiveness.