Effects of knowledge sharing and miscommunication on the effectiveness of workgroup diversity: Does the medium matter? An empirical study examining how the relationship between diversity and team performance depends on the type of virtual communication channel

Cultural diversity in the workplace is increasing and so is the number of corporate managers interested in learning how to capitalize on the benefits of diverse workgroups. Literature on the effectiveness of workgroup diversity show that scientists have widely explored this field by now. However, findings regarding the effects workgroup diversity has on task performance have been so far inconsistent. This study seeks to find some clarity in this. Given the pervasiveness of virtual media channel use in the workplace nowadays, the model of this study aims to examine the moderating effects of media channel through the mediating effects of knowledge sharing and miscommunication. Consequently, the research question of this study is: What is the influence of media channel on the relationship between workgroup diversity and task performance. The way this study planned to approach this research question was via an experimental study which involved a between-group experimental design. Task performance was measured objectively by requesting the subjects to participate in a decision-making group exercise. Thereafter, knowledge sharing and miscommunication were measured subjectively through a survey. Finally, group diversity was measured based on the group composition of nationalities in the group. Participants were tested in three different conditions, namely, video- audio-, and text-based channel setting. At the end, a mediation and moderation analysis was executed via a multi-regression analysis. Study results showed that, media channel was not a relevant factor to explain the inconsistent findings in the literature. The last chapter provides a discusses about why this might be the case and includes future research recommendations. Last but not least, despite the model not being significant, the study findings managed to challenge widely shared misconceptions regarding the capabilities of text- and audio-based channels to facilitate task performance in diverse workgroups. Corporate managers are encouraged to consider alternating the channels to enhance task performance.