The double-edged sword effects of team virtuality: A team development perspective

Abstract

: Team virtuality refers to the extent to which team members disperse in different working locations and collaborate through use of virtual communication tools. Numbers of organizations have reacted to the development of digital economy and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic by enhancing team virtuality. However, whether team virtuality is beneficial or harmful to team performance is still unclear in the extant literature, confusing practitioners on whether they should enhance team virtuality, and if yes, then on how to leverage team virtuality to improve team performance. Relying on team development perspective, this project aims to address these important questions: Whether and why team virtuality lead to both positive and negative effects of team performance and how can team leaders intervene such effects? Towards this end, three studies would be conducted: ① The differential effects of team virtuality on team performance varying as team development stage; ② The positive and negative mechanisms linking team virtuality to team performance and the dominant mechanism in different team development stage; ③ The effective interventions team leader can take to enhance the positive effects while buffer the negative effects of team virtuality on team performance in different team development stage. The novelty of this project: Provide a novel and integrative theoretical framework for interpreting the double-edged sword effects of team virtuality on team performance; Provide a new perspective for team leaders to intervening the effects of team virtuality on team performance based on different team development stage.