The impact of virtuality on team functioning: a meta-analytic integration

Abstract

Communication technologies have become a central characteristic of workplace functioning. The literature has suggested that the use of these technologies fundamentally changes the manner in which team members interact. The present study sought to reorganize previous research on the impact of virtuality on team emergent states and behavioral processes to elucidate how different degrees of team virtuality shape team functioning, and to investigate the manner in which these relationships differ according to team type, team membership stability, and publication year. Findings from 174 studies (total number of teams = 9204; total N approximately 26,050) suggest that there is not a strong relationship between team virtuality and emergent states and behavioral processes. However, moderator analyses revealed that a reliance on highly virtual tools may be most detrimental to action teams and ad hoc teams. Moreover, findings demonstrate that the degree to which virtuality shapes team transition and action process may be changing over time.