Abstract
Members of virtual teams lack many of the visual or auditory cues that are usually used as the basis for impressions about fellow team members. We focus on the effects of the impressions formed in this context, and use social exchange theory to understand how these impressions affect team performance. Our pilot study, using content analysis (n = 191 students), suggested that most individuals believe that they can assess others' emotional authenticity in online settings by focusing on the content and tone of the messages. Our quantitative study examined the effects of these assessments. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis (n = 81 student teams) suggested that team-level trust and teamwork behaviors mediate the relationship between team emotional authenticity and team performance, and illuminate the importance of team emotional authenticity for team processes and outcomes.
Highlights
Virtual teams are common in organizations, because they allow a variety of members to participate despite geographic barriers (Hakonsson et al, 2016)
Within-team heterogeneity in interaction intensity, and gender diversity were captured at the team level, but our other variables required the aggregation of individual-level data to the team level
We examined team’s authenticity from an additive perspective, it is possible that teams with a high consensus about the authenticity of the emotions expressed by the team would have higher levels of team trust or performance than teams where some team members believe that other members are authentic but others believe that they are being insincere or fake
Summary
Virtual teams are common in organizations, because they allow a variety of members to participate despite geographic barriers (Hakonsson et al, 2016). The use of lean media (e.g., technologies where the communication partners cannot see or hear each other, such as email, instant messaging, enterprise social networking tools) has been shown to increase unproductive conflict or conflict escalation (Friedman and Currall, 2003), information suppression between team members (Hedlund et al, 1998), and social loafing (Chidambaram and Tung, 2005). These challenges can make virtual teams difficult to manage and can diminish team performance (Turel and Zhang, 2010, 2011). One new variable which may explain team dynamics and performance is that of emotional authenticity, which is normally studied at a dyadic level and which captures service receivers’ beliefs
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