Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Most of our knowledge of teams and teamwork comes from the study and analysis of traditional teams in which all team members work face-to-face in the same geographic location. However, the use of virtual teams, which communicate without the limits imposed by geography, time and organizational boundaries, is growing within organizations and globally. As virtual project teams become common place in and between organizations, concern about preparing members to work more effectively in a virtual environment increases.
Many factors can affect how well team members manage virtual work and communication. A few factors have been shown to impact the success of virtual project teams: trust (Larsen & McInerney, 2002; Piccoli & Ives, 2003; Jarvenpaa, Shaw, & Staples, 2004; Araujo & Chidambaram, 2008), team member relationships (Lurey & Raisinghani, 2001), relational links (Chidambaram, 1996; Carlson & Zmud, 1999; Beranek & Martz, 2005) and conflict-management (Souren, Seetharaman, Samarah, & Mykytyn, 2004; Hinds & Mortenson, 2005). Past research on virtual team communication has indicated that relational links (Chidambaram, 1996) may have an impact on the effectiveness of team member communication and that the development of relational links among team members has been found to be a significant contributor to the effectiveness of information exchange (Chidambaram, 1996; Warkentin, 1997). In addition, stronger relational links in groups has been associated with higher performance (Warkentin, 1997).
This study examined 23 teams working on a task and interacting as virtual project teams utilizing a Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) system. Twelve of the teams received training on the development of relational links (RL), and the remaining 11 teams received no training. All electronic communications for all teams were recorded and content-analyzed according to McGrath’s time, interaction, and performance (TIP) theory (McGrath, 1991) to discern if the communication modes and functions differed between the teams that received training and those that did not. Pre and post surveys measuring relational link levels were given to all team members.