| The growth in virtual team use over the past ten years has brought with it a host of new team management challenges that has implications for both research and practice. This dissertation explored the impact member structural arrangement across the virtual space can have on critical team processes and team effectiveness outcomes when communications technology richness varies. It also shed light on what team processes impact team performance, members' perceptions of social presence and affective outcomes of satisfaction in the virtual context. Theories of media richness, social presence, social identification, self-categorization, and diversity faultlines were used to derive the research hypotheses. These hypotheses focused on how the extent of member dispersion and richness of the mediating technology might affect virtual team functioning and outcomes of performance, satisfaction, and social presence perception. A 2 (member spatial arrangement) x 2 (communication modality) experimental design was used to test the research hypotheses. Two hundred forty students participated in the study and comprised 60 four-member adhoc teams. A complex hidden profile group decision task was used during the research session. Following completion of the team task participants were asked to complete an online survey assessing their team experience. The results showed team processes of task conflict, communication, and information sharing differentially impacted the team effectiveness outcomes proposed in the research model. The criticality of information sharing to team performance and the impact both communication and intra-team task conflict can have on members' satisfaction and social presence perceptions were evidenced by this research. While support for the mediating and moderating relationships proposed in the research model was not found, it is premature to dismiss the conceptual relationships delineated. Other experimental manipulation and sampling limitations need to be addressed before definitive relationships between these variables can be determined. These results, study limitations, directions for future research, and practical implications are provided as a final component of this dissertation. |
