The impact of personality, task and technology on perceived team interaction and performance in virtual teams

As the use of teams increases in organizations, it is important that managers understand how to make teams more productive. While theories related to face-to-face or collocated teams are well established, little is known about virtual teams. Virtual teams are composed of members who are geographically dispersed and rarely meet in person but rather interact and carry out their task via information and communication technology.; This study analyzed how team interaction and performance varied in the virtual and collocated environment for teams completing two different tasks: intellective and preference. Intellective tasks have a correct answer or solution while preference tasks do not. To complete an intellective task, members had to share information and utilize analytical skills while preference tasks required members to use social skills such as negotiating and consensus building.; A second phase of this study analyzed how individual personality dimensions impacted team interaction in the different task (intellective or preference) and technology (virtual or collocated) environments. An experiment was conducted utilizing upper level business students. Data were collected to measure individual personality dimensions; the level of conflict, cohesion, and trust in the team; and team output and satisfaction for the four task/technology conditions. Results are beneficial for the academic and practitioner communities.