New technologies of the communication make easier the application of traditional group methods and techniques, like focus groups, that requires to meet unknown people to talk about a topic during a single meeting. In spite of this facilities, there are a lot of professionals that don't use it, and some authors (Grennbaum 1998; 2000) that consider that there are substantial differences to use live or electronic mediated focus groups. They argue a lot of reasons, like differences in group dynamics, attention to the topic, non verbal inputs and so on. But this hypothesis has not been adequate confirmed. The aim of this paper is to compare this two modalities (live and electronic mediated focus groups) in relation of these main variables. A sample consists of 20 groups of 6 members (120 subjects) pertained half of them to each of the two modalities. Each group met once during one hour time and they discuss specific issues to improve their organization (University). The results show significant differences in group dynamics but no respect about results (topics treated and proposed solutions) neither team climate. Suggestions are proposed in order to guide the application of electronic mediated focus groups.

Organizational communication - Focus group - Virtual teams