Research problem: Much of the research on electronic communication media so far has been characterized by a focus on the impact that specific media may have on individuals and teams, as opposed to the impact that multiple media, when used in combination, may have on individuals and teams. Research questions: (1) Does a high degree of media variety facilitate the implementation of team mechanisms for coping with task complexity? (2) Does the degree of implementation of team mechanisms for coping with task complexity positively influence team performance? Literature review: Based on a focused literature review, we develop a new set of propositions relating media variety and team performance, which we tested in the context of teams engaged in new product development. Methodology: Data from 290 new product development teams in 66 organizations located in the Northeastern US were analyzed through partial least squares-based structural equation modeling. The analysis was conducted with the software WarpPLS 2.0. Results and discussion: The results of the analysis suggest that a high degree of electronic communication media variety facilitates the implementation of task complexity coping mechanisms, such as coordination activities, in new product development teams. This, in turn, seems to lead to significant gains in team efficiency and effectiveness in those teams. The results also suggest that while electronic communication media variety plays an important facilitation role, by facilitating coordination activities, it has a much less pronounced direct effect on team efficiency and effectiveness. In other words, in the absence of task complexity coping mechanisms, such as coordination activities, a high degree of media variety may not be very useful for teams carrying out complex tasks such as new product development.

E-communication in businesses has been the target of intense research. The theoretical hypotheses that have informed the media richness hypothesis have been influential in some circles and have also been strongly attacked by social theorists. It is argued in this paper that this theoretical polarization involving advocates of the media richness hypothesis and social theorists is due to two problems. The first is that there is a wealth of empirical evidence that provides direct support for the notion that human beings prefer the face-to-face medium for a variety of business tasks that involve communication, which seems to provide support for the media richness hypothesis. The second problem is that the media richness hypothesis is built on a vacuum, as no underlying explanation was ever presented by media richness theorists for our predisposition toward rich (or face-to-face) media. The main goal of this paper is to offer a solution to these problems by providing an alternative to the media richness hypothesis, referred to here as media naturalness hypothesis, developed based on Darwin's theory of evolution. The media naturalness hypothesis argues that, other things being equal, a decrease in the degree of naturalness of a communication medium (or its degree of similarity to the face-to-face medium) leads to the following effects in connection with a communication interaction: (a) increased cognitive effort, (b) increased communication ambiguity, and (c) decreased physiological arousal. Like the media richness hypothesis, the media naturalness hypothesis has important implications for the selection, use, and deployment of e-communication tools in organizations. However, unlike the media richness hypothesis, the media naturalness hypothesis is compatible with social theories of behavior toward e-communication tools. Among other things, this paper shows that the media naturalness hypothesis (unlike its media richness counterpart) is compatible with the notion that, regardless of the obstacles posed by low naturalness media, individuals using those media to perform collaborative tasks may achieve the same or better task-related outcomes than individuals using media with higher degrees of naturalness.

This article provides an introduction to the special issue on Expanding the Boundaries of E-Collaboration. It presents an operational definition of the term e-collaboration, and a historical review of the development of e-collaboration tools and related academic research. That is followed by an introductory development of the notion of e-collaboration boundaries. The article concludes with a summarized discussion of the articles published in the special issue.

Action research has been presented as a promising approach for academic inquiry because of its focus on real world problems and its ability to provide researchers with a rich body of field data for knowledge building. Published examples of action research, however, are hard to find in business communication literature. What are the reasons for this? I try to provide a basis for answering this question as well as helping other business communication researchers-particularly those interested in computer-mediated communication issues-to decide whether and when to employ action research. I offer a first-person, confessional tale-like account of an action research study of computer-mediated communication in groups. In order to focus on the lessons learned, my focus is on the process of conducting action research and not on empirical results. Some of the situations and related lessons discussed are somewhat surprising and illustrate the complex nature of action research. The doctoral research, conducted over four years in Brazil and New Zealand, highlights the challenges associated with action research's dual goal of serving practitioners and the research community.

It can be argued that process redesign has a long history, going as far back as Taylor's (1911) scientific management and reaching its peak in the 1990s with business process re-engineering. Throughout most of its history, operational-level approaches to process redesign maintained a focus on "workflows," or the chronological flows of activities in processes. It is argued in this paper that while this makes some sense in materials transformation processes whose final product usually is a tangible manufactured item (e.g., a car engine), this orientation is fundamentally inconsistent with the communication-intensive nature of the vast majority of processes found in organizations today. This paper attempts to show that a focus on communication flow representations and methods is likely to lead to better process redesign outcomes than is a focus on representations and methods in connection with "workflows." It does so by developing a set of research questions based on the communication flow optimization model and answering those questions in the context provided by three process redesign projects conducted at a defense contractor in the US.

Previous empirical findings from the computer-mediated communication research literature are consistent with media richness theory because they suggest that the use of electronic communication media is likely to have a negative impact on the success and outcome quality of process improvement groups. These findings lead to the expectation that electronic communication media will not be as appropriate as the face-to face medium to support the type of complex and knowledge-rich communication that takes place in process improvement groups. The paper analyzes 12 process improvement groups interacting through an electronic communication medium and finds this expectation unfounded. In fact, the use of an electronic communication medium can actually have the opposite effect, that is, a "positive" effect, on process improvement group success and outcome quality. Two other theoretical models, namely the compensatory adaptation and social influence models, are used to explain these counter intuitive findings.