Virtual team interaction styles: assessment and effects

Abstract

The virtual team is an increasingly common strategic work unit of many organizations. The virtual team, via various computer-based media (e.g. email, groupware) and noncomputer-based media (e.g. telephone), can interact and collaborate though separated by distance and time. One approach to their study is determining whether factors that drive conventional team performance also exist in the virtual environment. Interaction style has been shown to have a great effect on conventional teams' ability to achieve solution quality and solution acceptance on collaborative decision tasks (Hirokawa, 1985; Watson & Michaelsen 1988; Hirokawa & Gouran, 1989; Cooke & Szumal, 1994). Group interaction styles affect communication and thus team performance by facilitating or hindering the exchange of information among group members. These styles reflect an aggregation of behavioral traits of individual team members, rooted in their individual personalities. The interaction style of conventional teams can be reliably assessed, and from that assessment, performance on collaborative decision tasks can be predicted. This study investigated whether or not virtual teams who collaborate via computer-mediated communication also exhibit similar interaction styles, and whether the styles have the same effects on their decision performance and process outcomes as they do with conventional teams. Members of 42 virtual teams completed an intellective decision first individually and then collaboratively. Post-task measures captured individual and team performance data (e.g. solution quality) as well as process perceptions (individual acceptance of the team solution). An additional post-task tool was able to accurately capture the teams' interaction style. Results show that the interaction styles of virtual teams affect both performance and process outcomes in ways that are directionally consistent with those exhibited by conventional face-to-face teams. Implications include recommending the methodology for virtual team management, and suggestions for future research are offered.