Impacts of team virtuality on performance : a qualitative study

Recent studies on virtual teams reveal that team virtuality varies in a continuum and may take different levels. Different levels of virtuality have considerable impacts on team processes and management as they imply several characteristics concerning communication dynamics and interaction styles, which change when shifting from one level to another. The purpose of this paper is to assess how the variability of team virtuality influences team performance. A multidimensional approach to evaluate virtuality was elaborated to identify changing performance variables at each level. The performance variables retained with relevance to the context study are: output quality, team members` satisfaction, and team processes. A qualitative study was conducted on 6 virtual teams composed of 4 students involved in on-line master degrees at a French university. The results show that performance measures are differently influenced by virtuality level. Although output quality seems not to be related to team virtuality, effective team processes and members’ satisfaction are associated with low virtuality levels. Ineffective processes were found in high virtuality teams, however positive dynamics and tem spirit characterise low virtuality teams.