BUILDING A GLOBAL LEARNING COMMUNITY.

This article focuses on the issue of Internet communication. Groups of managers from around the world come together via the Internet to learn general management principles and to work on projects of relevance to their companies. According to a research, a mix of asynchronous and synchronous tools is vital to team success. Asynchronous tools are more critical for team coordination. E-mail and electronic discussion boards are important tools of communication. Asynchronous communication tools are vital when cultural and geographic distances are great and worker mobility is high. Although simultaneous conferencing and chat technologies are important, authors found the asynchronous nature of group discussion and email technologies are even more important to teams separated by cultural differences and multiple time zones. Technologies and member diversity constitute resources for global learning teams. A team that uses these resources develop group identity and trust.