Investigating the impacts of team type and design on virtual team processes

Abstract

While much is known about virtual team processes and outcomes, the literature relies on a variety of team configurations and types (including student versus organizational samples, short-term versus long-term teams, functional versus project-based teams, and teams with various task types) yet has not systematically examined how these differences impact team processes. This is important because much of the virtual teams research has been based on student samples, which are easier to access and control, with the implicit assumption that the findings from student samples will generalize to organizational virtual teams. This manuscript reviews the last 15 years of research on virtual teams and conducts an analysis of team type and study design on a sample of 265 articles. We then analyze several systematic differences based on these factors that are apparent in research in three areas: leadership, cultural composition, and technology use, and develop propositions to guide future research in these areas. Our findings have important implications for future virtual teams research by suggesting that researchers should be more explicit about the biases carried by particular methods and designs and the ways in which they impact our knowledge of the field.