Addressing Team Dynamics in Virtual Teams (original) (raw)

Virtual communicating, conflicts and performance in teams

Team Performance Management, 2008

Purpose -This paper aims to examine the influence of the level of team virtuality on the effects of intra-team conflicts on team performance, which have hardly been investigated. Design/methodology/approach -A framework is proposed based on the extent to which team members use communication media to coordinate their actions and execute their tasks, taking into account the extent to which the communication media are synchronous and the extent to which the communication media convey para-verbal and nonverbal aspects of communication. Data of 49 teams with 172 team members were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression analysis. Findings -The level of team virtuality influences the relation between intra-team conflict and perceived team performance. The higher the level of team virtuality, the greater the positive impact of task conflict on perceived team performance. In teams with a low level of virtuality task conflict has a negative impact on perceived team performance, and in high virtual teams task conflict has a positive impact. In addition, process conflict has a negative impact on perceived team performance.

Conflict in GSS-based Virtual Teams: Findings from an Experiment

The phenomenon of globalization and the increasing availability of collaborative technologies such as group support systems (GSS) have prompted multinational organizations to use cross-national virtual teams for various tasks. Such virtual teams are usually composed of members of different backgrounds and nationalities who may have differences in opinions, beliefs and orientations. This diversity of team members may enhance the level of group conflict. Unless effectively managed, intragroup conflict has the potential to make group decision making less effective. Using content analysis of group discussions in a set of experimental groups, we identify the positive and negative orientations of each group's comments, assess intragroup conflict, and examine its impact on group agreement and satisfaction. The paper also examines the influence of the number of threads in the decision making discussion on the perceived participation. The preliminary results are encouraging and the area warrants more research.

Managing communicative conflicts and relational challenges in virtual teams

Human Systems Management, 2017

The phenomenon of virtual teams has enabled working relationships to take place at a distance: the spatial and temporal boundaries of enterprises are thus eliminated. The introduction of distance and appropriate technology inevitably change the communication and the relationships both among and within these teams. The fact that virtual teams have fewer opportunities to communicate seems to make them lack social presence, which tends to impede communication and create conflicts. Several conflicting risk factors are associated with virtual teams: limited modes of communication, social and cultural divergences, and difficulty in identifying conflicts. Faced with this new situation, the management of communication conflicts becomes a strategic activity to ensure the sustainability of the virtual team. The purposefulness of this research is to explore the management of communicative conflicts in virtual teams. In order to do this, this research will attempt to present briefly the different types of communication conflicts in the virtual teams, as well as the solutions to overcome them. It will also expose the study's methodology, analyze and discuss the main results. Finally, the research concludes with a reminder of the main results and contributions and indication some possible avenues for future research and practice.

The communication process in virtual teams

Informatica Economica, 2007

The purpose of this paper is to present the paradigms of virtual teams in the communication process in the context of the existing literature in this field. We argue the above issues and we explore the communication process within virtual teams like an interactive, complex and limiting process in connexion with the advantages and disadvantages offered by information technology.

Understanding Conflict in Virtual Teams: An Experimental Investigation using Content Analysis

Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

Virtual teams are temporally and geographically dispersed groups, which may have members from varied cultures and backgrounds. Such diversity may cause intra-group conflicts in virtual teams. We analyzed the contents of the transcripts of GSS-based virtual teams and identified the conflict episodes and the approaches followed to resolve intra-group conflicts. The conflict episodes that occurred in the early phases of decisionmaking were separated from those taking place in the choice phase. The results revealed that conflicts in the choice phase of decision-making were detrimental to global virtual teams. We also found that groups following an integrative conflict resolution style had better performance than those following other conflict resolution approaches, such as a distributive style. While the results contribute towards the understanding of conflict in groups, the area warrants further research.

Direct Communication versus Virtual Communication in Virtual Teams

Procedia Technology, 2014

Several studies suggest that computer-mediated communication can lead to decreases in group effectiveness and reduce satisfaction levels in terms of trust and comfort of its users. Supported by an experiment, where the emotional or affective aspects of communication were tested with the experimentation of two architectures, Direct Communication Architecture (DCA) and the Virtual Communication Architecture (VCA) this paper validates the thesis that, from the users' perspective, there is no opposition to the acceptance of virtual environments and interfaces for communication, and that these environments are able to cope with the reconfiguration dynamics requirements of virtual teams or client-server relations in a virtual enterprise operation.

Impact of computer-mediated communication on virtual Teams’ Performance: An empirical study

2008 International Symposium on Information Technology, 2008

In a complex project environment, project teams face multi-dimensional communication problems that can ultimately lead to project breakdown. Team Performance varies in Face-to-Face (FTF) environment versus groups working remotely in a computermediated communication (CMC) environment. A brief review of the Input_Process_Output model suggested by James E. Driskell, Paul H. Radtke and Eduardo Salas in "Virtual Teams: Effects of Technological Mediation on Team Performance (2003)", has been done to develop the basis of this research. This model theoretically analyzes the effects of technological mediation on team processes, such as, cohesiveness, status and authority relations, counternormative behavior and communication. An empirical study described in this paper has been undertaken to test the "cohesiveness" of diverse project teams in a multinational organization. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative techniques for data gathering and analysis. These techniques include interviews, questionnaires for data collection and graphical data representation for analyzing the collected data. Computer-mediated technology may impact team performance because of difference in cohesiveness among teams and this difference may be moderated by factors, such as, the type of communication environment, the type of task and the temporal context of the team. Based on the reviewed model, sets of hypotheses are devised and tested. This research, reports on a study that compared team cohesiveness among virtual teams using CMC and non-CMC communication mediums. The findings suggest that CMC can help virtual teams increase team cohesiveness among their members, making CMC an effective medium for increasing productivity and team performance.

Impact of computer-mediated communication on virtual Teams’ Performance: An empirical study

2008 International Symposium on Information Technology, 2008

Virtual team interaction: assessment, consequences, and management

Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 2000

Virtual teams are typically made up of geographically dispersed experts, supported by computer‐based communication technologies. Though increasingly popular this is still a relatively unstudied organizational form. Virtual team membership is typically based solely on needed expertise; the teams rarely have any history of interaction and their performance potential is unknown. Research shows that teams exhibit constructive, passive, and aggressive interaction styles, which have significant effects on the decisions the teams produce as well as the teams’ satisfaction with those decisions. We present managerial tools for the assessment of conventional and virtual team interaction styles. We detail how the tools are used, and we also discuss how the styles manifest in each medium, and their effects. We give suggestions to team managers on how to use the insights the tools provide to manage their virtual teams for optimal performance.

Do virtual groups experience less conflict than traditional teams

Research on virtual teams has increased in the last decade, however, is not yet clear whether the dynamics of virtual teams differ from those of face to face groups. Also in virtual groups conflict is considered a critical factor for team functioning. The purpose of this paper is to explore sources of conflict in virtual teams (size, task, CMC communication modalities, degree of collaborative learning) and verify whether asynchronous online educational groups go through the same sequential development model stages proposed for face-to-face groups. Eighty-four psychology majors were randomly assigned to four seminar groups where student worked both in small subgroups and larger groups. We used two content analysis methods: paper-and-pencil and T-LAB software. Results show that asynchronous collaborative learning groups follow a sequential model of group development, but do not present the conflict stage. T-LAB content analysis seems to be less efficient in understanding conflict processes.

Addressing Team Dynamics in Virtual Teams (original) (raw)

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