Challenges of Virtual Teams: The Complex Effects of Personality and Turnover on Trust, Collective Efficacy, Performance, and Member Retention
(Englisch)
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Both academics and practitioners have suggested that virtual teams (VTs) allow organizations to address the challenges of increasingly complex and dynamic environments. VTs often encounter unexpected coordination and management problems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the coordination challenges that group turnover, virtual communication, and certain group member personality traits present for the development of functional group structures and processes. The experimental study investigated the effects of group personality characteristics, available communication mode, and group turnover on perceived group characteristics, intention to leave, and group performance. The groups participated in a complex, multi-round management simulation in a factorial design (2x2), manipulating: (1) the available mode for group communication (virtual vs. face-to-face communication) and (2) group turnover (turnover vs. no turnover). Preliminary conclusions indicated that turnover in the team results in a disruption or process loss of communication for virtual teams while information exchange across teams occurs in face-to-face teams. Members of the face-to-face teams perceived a higher level of group efficacy than did virtual team members. It was speculated that a new team member provides the group with information on how well other groups are doing and facilitates a richer information exchange among face-to-face team members.