Scaffolding Solutions to Business Problems

Abstract

Teams whose interactions are mediated entirely via internet-based communication, virtual teams, are becoming commonplace in businesses. Although trust has been identified as key for virtual teams to work effectively, researchers have not developed scalable methods that consistently promote trust. This study examines the formation of trust perceptions, which is inherently a learning process. Strategies employed to promote more traditional definitions of learning can be used to promote trust development. In this paper, the authors investigate how a strategy of modifying the design of the communication system for virtual teams can be use to promote perceptions related to trust. The authors conduct an experiment to examine the impact of a template-driven messaging system to scaffold the development of the three antecedents of trust—integrity, benevolence, and ability—within a virtual team environment and communication activity. The study shows that participants who used the template-driven messaging system perceived their team members as having a higher level of ability than those who used the regular system. Moreover, users of the template-driven environment authored more messages and read a greater percentage of the messages, suggesting that messaging scaffolds were successful in improving the flow of information and fostering an environment favorable to trust development.