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The proliferation of the internet and world wide web (WWW) in recent years has resulted in the creation of new social and marketing spaces, and a new form of interaction and identity formation. This paper aims to investigate this phenomenon.

Whilst cost benefits and profit derivation from the internet and other hypermedia mediated communication environments have been the focus of much research, the majority of these assessments have left many assumptions unarticulated. Questions of how contemporary communication content and interactivity is different from the singular “one‐to‐many” communication models have been avoided in this research. This paper investigates these deficiencies and goes on to suggest how academics and practitioners can realign their thinking in the light of these findings.

Computer mediated marketing environments provide organisations with a medium that can be used to deliver content in a variety of ways to consumers. This capability highlights the distinction between the information in marketing communication and the vehicle used to deliver the information: that is, content differs from communication.

The paper highlights how versatility of the internet as an instrument for mediated communication means that organisations can integrate different modalities of marketing communications into a strategy that combines on‐line and off‐line tactics to meet strategic objectives.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to explore how working remotely might impact the superior–subordinate relationship. Specifically, this study examines how immediacy explains articulated dissent, considers how an individual’s attitudes toward online communication predicts immediacy and articulated dissent and compares these relationships in England, Australia and the USA.

Three nations were examined: Australia, England and the USA (n = 1,776). Surveys included demographic questions and the following measures: organizational dissent scale, perceived immediacy measure, computer-mediated immediate behaviors measure and measure of online communication attitude.

The results reveal supervisors’ computer-mediated immediate behaviors and perceived immediacy both positively predict dissent. Some aspects of online communication attitudes positively predict computer-mediated immediate behaviors and perceived immediacy. In addition, attitudes toward online communication positively predict dissent. National culture influences some of these relationships; in each case the effects were substantively larger for the USA when compared to the other nations.

This study is the first to cross-culturally analyze dissent and immediacy. In addition, this study considers the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic influences the superior–subordinate relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to compare effects of different monetary team‐based reward strategies on performance, pay satisfaction, and communication behavior in computer‐mediated groups.

In a laboratory experiment, 32 groups of undergraduate students, each consisting of three individuals, interacted electronically and performed a consensus‐reaching task. Team‐based incentives were distributed either equally (each team member received an equal share) or equitably (each team member's share depended on her/his individual contribution). A control group received no team‐based (or other) incentives.

Hierarchical multilevel analyses revealed that both types of team‐based rewards increased team members' motivation and pay satisfaction compared to the control condition. Moreover, the effects of team‐based rewards on performance were moderated by group members' assertiveness. In addition, team‐based rewards lead to more cooperative and task‐oriented communication in the computer‐mediated groups. Finally, equally divided rewards led to higher pay satisfaction on average than equitably divided incentives.

On a research level, this study shows that team‐based rewards have positive effects not only on performance but also on communication behavior in computer‐mediated groups. As a practical implication, reward effects should be considered cautiously as they might be influenced by team members’ personality. Moreover, whereas no major differences were found between equity and equality principles in terms of performance, the latter seems to be preferable when satisfaction is a major issue in virtual teams.

The medium negotiators choose for communication will influence both process and outcome. To understand how medium influences power expression, this paper aims to compare value claiming by asymmetrically powerful negotiators, using face-to-face and computer-mediated messaging across two studies. Following up on long-standing conjectures from prominent coalition researchers, the authors also directly tested the role of the apex negotiator's personality in coalition formation and value expropriation.

The authors conducted two laboratory experiments which manipulated communication medium (computer-mediated vs face-to-face) in three- and four-person bargaining. They also varied asymmetry of power so the apex negotiator either could not be left out of a winning coalition (Study 1) or could be (Study 2). The authors measured trait assertiveness along with multiple indicators of hard bargaining behavior.

Communicating using instant messages via a computer interface facilitated value claiming for powerful negotiators across both studies. Trait assertiveness correlated with hard bargaining behavior in both studies. An index of hard bargaining behavior mediated the effect of assertiveness on value expropriation but only in the context where the powerful negotiator held a genuine monopoly over coalitions.

The authors contribute to the literature on multiparty negotiations by demonstrating persistent media effects on power utilization and by finally confirming the conjectures of prominent coalition researchers regarding personality. Though personality traits generate consistent effects on behavior, their influence on negotiation outcomes depends on the power structure. Negotiation theory needs to incorporate structural and situational factors in modelling effects of enduring traits. Negotiation research should move beyond a rigid focus on dyads.

Discusses the potential of computer‐mediated communication to reduce the social isolation experienced by many deaf and hard‐of‐hearing individuals. Communication presents significant problems for this group of people, some of which can be bridged by communicating via the Internet or e‐mail. deaf Internet users were surveyed by use of a questionnaire. Their opinions, summarised in this paper, emphasise the significance of computer‐mediated communication for the deaf; namely that interaction can be both less stressful and faster, thereby reducing the isolation many feel due to the physical constraints imposed by their deafness.

Emailing does not preclude emotional exchange and many times it causes us to engage in spiralling exchanges of increasingly angry emailing. The purpose of this chapter is threefold: to explore how factors of temporality are related to anger when emailing, to model circumstances that protect against, but also ignite, anger escalation, and to raise a discussion for practitioners of how to avoid damaging email communication. By intersecting literature on communication, information systems, psychology and organisational studies, factors leading to an ‘emotional verge’ are identified and summarised in a model showing factors likely to prime, but also protect against, anger escalation.

This study aims to examine the impact of task interdependence, communication medium, and sequence of conditions on trust in virtual teams.

A pilot experiment was conducted using 22 subjects in eight groups with a mixed 2×2 design. A within‐groups method with repeated measures was used to explore time pressure and task complexity, communication medium and individual perceptions of trust. A between‐groups method was used for sequence of conditions. The four study conditions were: a simple task in a face‐to‐face condition; a complex task in a face‐to‐face condition; a simple task in a computer‐mediated condition; and a complex task in a computer‐mediated condition. Groups were randomly assigned to a starting condition. Each group was rotated through all the conditions. Following each condition, subjects completed the modified Jarvenpaa‐Knoll‐Leidner trust measure assessing their individual perception of trust for that condition.

Significant effects were found on the relationships between the communication medium and condition sequences of task interdependence and communication medium on individual perceptions of trust. No significant effects were found on the relationship of task interdependence and individual perceptions of trust.

The sample size makes the study more descriptive than inferential.

This study intends to add to the trust literature by examining the impact of task interdependence, communication medium, and sequence of conditions on trust in virtual teams. Its primary contribution is the sequence of conditions on trust. The trust affect of condition sequence is linked to task interdependence, communication predictability, and adpative structuration theory.

Using the perspectives of dramaturgy and symbolic interactionists like George Herbert Mead and Carl Couch this study focuses on paid sex work in the hypermodern, virtual world of Second Life. Using seventeen semi-structured interviews and six months of ethnographic fieldwork, I find that the employment of sexual scripts, carrying off a successful erotic scene, and the creative use of communication and embodiment are highly valued in escorts’ performance of Second Life sex work. Escorts craft an online persona that is a digital representation of the self, which is manifested in the embodiment of their digital body or avatar. In addition to digital representations of the physical self, Second Life allows for multiple methods of computer-mediated communication, and escorts are able to re-embody the first life body through the trading of first life pictures, voice cybersex, and web cam cybersex. The data allow the conclusion that most escorts are unwilling to re-embody the first life body for reasons of personal safety and the desire to restrict access to the first life self. I find, however, that there is a porous boundary between first life and Second Life in which the first life self comes through in the Second Life persona. In the concluding remarks, I explore the implications this study has for the negotiation of privacy for new social media actors who are reluctant to fully disclose their lives yet perform a persistent, archived persona for friends and followers on the Internet. This study contributes to a small, but growing, body of literature on Second Life and expands the existing work on embodiment and privacy in the digital realm.