The emergence of a communication climate in global virtual teams

Focusing on the micro-dynamics of intercultural communication in global virtual teams, we hypothesize that relationally-oriented content, communicated in the first message, and exchanged in the early stage of team formation, facilitates the emergence of psychologically safe communication climate, which in turn improves team performance. We test our hypotheses by examining early asynchronous communication in sixty global virtual teams of MBA students and measuring team communication climate and performance. Our findings support the hypotheses and reveal the anchoring role of the first message exchanged between team members, extending previous research on intercultural communication and relationally-oriented content within global virtual teams.