Exploring Trust, Group Satisfaction, and Performance in Geographically Dispersed and Co-Located University Technology Commercialization Teams

A growing body of research exists to support the use of geographically dispersed teams in the commercialization of new technologies. This paper discusses the results of a controlled experiment involving twelve geographically dispersed and co-located teams across three schools to study differences in team performance, group satisfaction, and trust. Introduction Product development and commercialization teams are taking on a new look, with increasing global competition and a shift from production functions to more knowledge-based work environments. For several years now, industry has recognized the need to form strategic partnerships to facilitate innovation. This need to collaborate for innovation has been driven by (1) market demand for new products that has shortened cycle times, (2) Internet and other information technology that has facilitated interactions and collaborations previously impossible to achieve, and (3) barriers to trade and lower capital investments that have produced many more new opportunities than in the past. Universities have been slow to follow industry’s lead, but recently government funders of university research have begun requiring that the results of funded research be transferred to society in the form of useful products and technologies. To successfully accomplish this mandate requires resources and expertise that many universities do not have. Therefore, the ability to collaborate with other universities via virtual teams is beginning to be tested as a solution to the commercialization dilemma, in addition to providing a unique learning experience for students. Moreover, the increasing number of technologies dedicated to facilitating virtual communication and collaboration without regard to geographic boundaries has enabled technology development teams at universities to develop networks of capabilities beyond their local core competencies. This paper discusses the results of a controlled experiment involving twelve geographically dispersed and co-located teams across three schools to study the effectiveness of virtual collaborations for technology commercialization. In this study we focus on determining if there are there significant differences between geographically dispersed teams and co-located teams in terms of performance, group satisfaction, and trust. A growing body of research exists to support the use of geographically dispersed teams in the commercialization of new technologies. That research is based on several fundamental constructs: communities of practice, virtual teams, trust, group satisfaction, and team performance. Communities of practice A community of practice is a group of people who are informally bound to one another by exposure to a common class of problem; it is within the context of the community that work takes place (Brown and Duguid 1991). Members of these communities communicate with each other through a complicated web of personal networks—smaller, frequently overlapping groups comprised of people who know, have worked with, and trust each other (Orr 1996). Communities of practice often have been defined in terms of two parallel sets of interdependent constructs: the Brown and Duguid constructs of working, learning, and innovation, and the Lesser constructs of social capital, behaviors, and organizational performance (Lesser 2001). Brown and Duiguid’s model suggests that working and innovation occur through the common bridge of learning, which consists of a common context, social relationships, and a common language. Learning involves becoming an insider, where participants learn to function in a community. Learning, understanding, and interpretation includes a great deal of process and information that is not explicit or explicable, but rather is developed and framed in a communal context in the form of tacit knowledge (Lave 1988). Tacit knowledge becomes the