Sorry to interrupt: asian media preferences in cross-cultural collaborations

Laboratory studies of culture and computer-mediated communication have provided inconsistent results, in part due to differences in the tasks people were asked to do, the specific cultural backgrounds of participants, and the tools used for communication. We conducted an interview study in an effort to shed light on these inconsistent findings. The goal of the study was to understand when members of different cultures feel particular media (e.g., email, instant messaging, phone) are appropriate and to understand which medium they would chose for specific communication tasks. We discuss key themes from these interviews.