The Impact of Trust on Virtual Team Effectiveness

Abstract

Given the important role of information technology, virtuality has become crucial issue in contemporary organizations. Virtual teams are comprised of members who are located in more than one physical location. They need to be effectively collaborating to harness their full performance capabilities in order to compete in the highly competitive environments. However, virtual team effectiveness is affected by determinants of trust which include three types; personality, cognitive and institutional-based trust. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of trust determinants on virtual team effectiveness represented in virtual team satisfaction and performance. Through a survey of 125 virtual team members who had experienced at least two years in this field, the results indicated that determinants of trust positively influence virtual team satisfaction and virtual team performance. The authors' structural equations modeling findings also support our hypothetical predictions that personality- based trust, cognitive- based trust and institutional- based trust have a dramatic impact on both of virtual team satisfaction and virtual team performance. Moreover, institutional- based trust is the uppermost driver of virtual team effectiveness. This study provides novel insights into virtual team behaviours, managerial and research implications for effective virtual team.