Project characteristics and group communication: an investigation

The research study presented examined the effects of technological complexity on project group communication. The same project teams performed three separate projects involving the development of an HTML Website, the development of a local area network (LAN), and the development of blueprints for a wide-area network (WAN). Each of the projects exposed groups to a different level of complexity. The results of the study indicated differences in group information sharing, group communication focus, and group gatekeeping activities. In each of these cases, the groups had greater communication with the less complex project task, the HTML project. The study did not find significant differences in group communication concerned with member withdrawal or group conflict.