In this paper, we present a theoretical model on the relationships among group atmosphere, shared understanding, and perceived task conflict in virtual teams. We validate the theoretical model by analyzing data that was collected in a laboratory experiment on virtual teams. We find that cultural diversity of virtual team adversely affects group atmosphere and group atmosphere has a positive inf...

Contemporary competitive demands have forced many organizations to increase levels of flexibility and adaptability in their operations. A growing number of such organizations have explored the virtual environment as one means of achieving increased responsiveness. In particular, the use of virtual teams appears to be on the increase. However, the increased use of virtual teams has not been acco...

Organizations depend on teams for their success, and as information technology (IT) capabilities have improved they have increased their use of virtual teams. Virtual teams allow organizations to dynamically adjust to changing needs, but present unique leadership challenges. There is currently little theory on how leadership works in virtual teams and few studies that provide empirical evidence...

Globalization and the changing structures of organizations have created work groups that are distributed across space (different sites) and time. Collaboration among and between organizations is needed to support outsourcing strategies. As organizations focus on long term outsourcing and off-shoring relationships, effective communication is often seen as an important factor contributing to the ...

This study describes the community building process of virtual learning teams as they form, establish roles and group norms, and address conflict. Students enrolled in an HRD masters program taught entirely online were studied to determine (1) how virtual learning teams develop their group process, and (2) what process and strategies they use as they work through the stages of group development...

In this paper, advantages and drawbacks of virtual teams in research and development (R&D) are studied. With the globalization of commercial practices and advances in information and communication technologies, increasing numbers of enterprises are establishing cross-functional, geographically distributed virtual teams. Virtual teams in R&D are designed to access external resources and knowledg...

With the rapid development and extensive application of information technologies, use of virtual teams to encourage collaboration with students from other campuses is receiving increasing attention from educators. Prior research has demonstrated that it is difficult for the virtual team to achieve the same performance as the traditional face-to-face team. We wanted to study whether the use of a...

The research described in this paper is concerned with examining trust issues in global teams and whether there are any implications for trust in respect to the cultural orientation of firms. Trust is the individual’s (or group’s) belief that another individual (or group) makes good faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both explicit and implicit. This research was carried ...

Work groups are of critical importance to organizational effectiveness. Whether group members can function together cohesively affects the performance of a team. Therefore, the relationship between group cohesion and performance has been the focus of many studies. With advances in information technology, virtual teams have been employed in firms for a variety of tasks. Compared to face-to-face ...