Ambidexterity in Mobile Collaboration: Balancing Task- and Socialization-Oriented Communication in Team Member Interaction

Due to the affordance to synchronous information exchange and anytime-and-anyplace communication, mobile instant messaging system (MIMS) becomes increasingly important in project collaboration. Compared to traditional team-collaboration information systems, MIMS better supports both task- and socialization-oriented communication in project member interaction, yet whether this feature improves project performance is still a question to be answered. Analyzing 120 responses from team members in different projects, this study got two interesting findings: (1) Project performance is directly affected by offline team relationship, including work interdependence and social strength. (2) Online communication in MIMS (total number of task- and socialization-oriented communications and the percentage of social communications) interacts with offline team relationship and task type, thus impact project performance under certain conditions. Overall, this study provides a better theoretical understanding of mobile collaboration, and also offers practical implications for how and when to use MIMS in teamwork.