The knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) needed to succeed in virtual teamwork and in text-based computer-mediated communication

Technological advancements and the globalization of work have led to the emergence and rise of virtual teamwork. This new form of collaboration is complex and challenging: The use of digital media for communication, the geographic distance among colleagues, and the cultural differences between individuals can pose challenges for collaboration that need to be handled competently by team members. Although many research efforts have been directed to the identification of the required knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) to succeed in virtual teamwork, a comprehensive model of virtual team KSAOs that integrates the available literature has not yet been developed. This is a notable gap in existing research and carries importance because personnel selection and development of virtual team members could profit immensely from such a model. Furthermore, a roadmap for future research could be provided to move the field of virtual team KSAOs forward. Besides the need for the synthetization of past research, rigorous empirical tests are needed to examine the relevance of specific KSAOs. One class of KSAOs that could be of particular or even unique importance for virtual collaboration are the KSAOs needed to communicate competently via text-based digital media. Although computer-mediated (CM) communication is ubiquitous in virtual teamwork and beyond, the line of research evaluating KSAOs in the CM communication context is still in its infancy. It is neither clear how CM communication KSAOs relate to well-established face-to-face (FtF) communication KSAOs nor if they provide any advantage in terms of predictive validity to their FtF counterparts. It is vital to shed light on this issue to rule out the possibility that CM communication KSAOs are just “new wine in old wineskins”. If it turned out that CM communication KSAOs add something unique to the equation, this could inform human resource management and would provide future directions for research alike. In the current dissertation, I realized three studies to address the outlined research gaps. Specifically, a review of the virtual team literature was conducted to integrate the heterogeneous and scattered landscape of virtual team KSAOs into a comprehensive competency model (Study 1). Besides the theoretical review of the literature, the empirical part of my thesis was dedicated to the systematic examination of the relevance of CM communication KSAOs by using a three-step methodology: First, I examined the shared variance between FtF and CM communication KSAOs in order to find out if both forms of KSAOs can be discriminated (Study 2). Second, I compared the predictive validity of FtF and CM communication KSAOs for a variety of communication relevant outcome variables (Study 2). Third, I investigated if FtF and CM communication KSAOs are predicted differently by antecedental variables in the form of the Big Five personality dimensions as a final test of their distinctiveness (Study 3). The results of the three studies add valuable knowledge to the virtual team KSAOs and communication competence literature. In the review article, an initial model of virtual team KSAOs was developed. In this model, challenges of virtual teamwork were aligned with specific KSAOs which proved to aid in competently handling the challenges identified in past studies. This model may give more guidance for personnel selection and training of virtual team members and illuminates important research gaps that need to be addressed in future research. The empirical studies highlighted that FtF and CM communication KSAOs are more different than they are similar. They shared only little to moderate variance, differed in their predictive validity for important communication outcomes, and were differentially predicted by personality variables. These results suggest that CM communication KSAOs could play an important role in today’s digital interactions and deserve more attention in future virtual team studies.