Browse > Article

Impact of Culture on Virtual Teams' Performance  

Bock, Gee-Woo (School of Business Administration, SungKyunKwan University)
Jain, Tushar (INSEAD)
Publication Information
Information Systems Review / v.11, no.1, 2009 , pp. 1-17 More about this Journal
Abstract
Since 'virtual teams' are not bounded by geographical dimensions, culture becomes an important determinant of their success. Though cultural diversity provides unique opportunities to build up new ideas, it can also create problems in the midst of individual interactions and eventually result in poor performance. With little research on this topic, this study examines the relationship between culture and virtual teams' performance. An experiment was conducted followed by the survey based on subjects' perceptions on the experiment. The results show that cultural diversity has significant impact on virtual teams' performance through confusion and conflict in virtual teams. This study empirically proves the fact that conflict is one of the most critical antecedents of a virtual team's performance with high R-square values in both experimental and control groups. In addition, this research introduces and empirically tests a new construct, 'confusion' which turns out to be also important in the virtual team's performance research, and the relationships among confusion, conflict and the virtual team's performance. Next, the findings confirm the importance of studying virtual teams' performance research from the cultural perspective.
Keywords
Virtual Teams; Culture; Conflict; Confusion; Performance;
Citations & Related Records
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 Adler, N. J., Intemational Dimensions of Organizational Behavior (2nd edition)， PWS-Kent Publishing Company, Boston, 1991
2 Berger, M., Cross-cultural Team Building: Guidelinles for More Effective communcation and Negotiation, McGraw-Hill, London, New York, 1996
3 Bumer, G. C., K. E. James, and P. J. Hensel, Marketing scales handbook, Vol.3, 2002
4 Daily, B. F., J. Loveland，and R. Steiner, "A comparative artalysis of reactions from multicultural and Culturally homogeneous teams to decision making with and without GDSS technology", ACM SIGCPR Computer Personnel, Vol.18, No.1, 1997
5 Galbraith, J. R., Organization Design，Addison-Wesley, 1977
6 Gudyknust, W. B., Bridging Differences: Effective Intergroup Communication, Sage publication, 1991
7 Gudyknust, W. B., P. Stewart，and S. Ting-Tooney, "Communication, Culture and Organizational process", Sage Publications, 1985
8 Gudykunst, W. B., "Cultural variability in communication", Communication Research, Vol.24, No.4, 1997, pp. 327-348   DOI
9 Gudykunst, W. B., S. Ting-Toomey，and T. Nishida, "Communication in Personal Relationships across Cultures", Sage Publications, 1996
10 Hall, T. Edward, Beyond Culture, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1976
11 Hofstede, G., Culture’s Consequences, Sage Publications, 1984
12 Hofstede, G., Culture’s Consequences: International Differences, Sage Publications, 1980
13 Karolak, D. W., "Global Software Development: Managing Virtual TeaIllS and Environments", Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr, 1998
14 Loden. M. and J. Rosener, Workforce Anlerica: Managing Employee Diversity as a Vital Resource, Homewood, IL: Buisness Orte Irwin, 1999
15 Nunnally， J. C., Psychometric Theory (2nd ed.), New York: McGraw-Hill， 1978
16 Pare, G. and L. Dube, Virtual teams: An exploratory study of key challenges and strategies, Proceeding of the 20th International Conference on fuformation Systems, 1999
17 Polzer, J. T., L. P. Milton, and W. B. Swann Jr., "Capitalizing on diversity: interpersonal congruence in small work groups", Administrative Science Quarterly, 2002
18 Rathnam， S., V. Mahajan， and A. B. Whinston, "Facilitating Coordination in Customer Support Teams: A Framework and Its hnplications for the Design of Information Technology", Management Science, Vol.41 , No.12, 1995, pp. 1900-1921   DOI   ScienceOn
19 Ronny, V., The business of culture and the culture of business, in Cross-cultural team building: guidelines for more effective communication and negotiation, Mel Berger (ed), McGraw-Hill, 1996, pp. 13-35
20 Steinfield, C., C. Y. Jang, and B. Pfaff, Supporting virtual team collaboration: the TeamSCOPE system, Proceedings of the Intemational ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work, 1999
21 Trompenaars， Alfons, Hampden-Tumer, Charles, Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Global Business, McGraw-Hill, 1998
22 Williams, K. Y. and C. A. O’Reilly, "Demography and diversity in organizations: A review of 40 years of research, in: B. Staw, R. Sutton (Eds.)", Research in Organizational Behavior, Greenwich, CT: JAl Press, Vol.20, pp. 77-140
23 Wold, H., Introduction to the Second Generation of Multivariate Analysis, Theoretical Empiricism, Paragon House, New York, 1999
24 Thomas， D. C., A. Kevin， and C. R. Elizabeth, "Cultural variation and the psychological contract", Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol.24, No.5, 2003, p. 451   DOI   ScienceOn
25 Pelled, L. H., K. M. Eise띠wdt， and K. R. Xin, "Explorlng the black box: An analysis of work group diversity, conflict, and performance", Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol.44, 1999, pp. 1-28
26 Simon, J. S., "The impact of culture and gender on web sites: an empirical study", Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, Vol.32, No.1, 2001, pp. 18-37
27 Straub, D., "Validating instruments in MIS research", MIS Quarterly， Vol.13, No.2, 1989, pp. 147-169   DOI   ScienceOn
28 Hui，C. H., "Measurement of individualism-collectivism", Journal of Research in Personality, Vol.22, 1988, pp. 17-36   DOI
29 Baxler，L. A. and T. L. Shepherd，"Sex-role identity， sex of other, and effective relationship as determinants of Interpersonal conflict-manage style", Sex Roles, Vol.6, 1978, pp. 813-825
30 Schein, E., Organizational Culture and Leadership, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985
31 Lending, D. and S. A. Slaughter, Understanding differences in ethical beliefs and behavior towards software copying: the Effect of the organizational culture, Proceedings of the 1999 ACM SIGCPR Conference on Computer Personnel Research, 1999, pp. 253-260
32 Caisy，Y. T., R. D. Hung, and R. Alan, Lionel, Trust in virtual teams: towards an integrative model of trust formation, Proceedings of tlte 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04)，2004, p. 10042a
33 Massey, A. P. and Y. T. Hung, Mitzi Montoya-Weiss, V. Ramesh, When culture and style aren’t about clothes: perceptions of task-technology "fit" in global virtual teams, intemational ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2001
34 Mark Mortensen, "Conflict and shared identity in geographically distributed teams", The International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 12, No.3, 2001, pp. 212-238   DOI   ScienceOn
35 Nardi, B. and S. Whittaker, The place of face to face communication in distributed worκ in: P. Hinds and S. Kiesler (Eds), Distributed Work: New Research on Working Across Distance Using Technology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002， pp. 83-110
36 Piccoli, G. and B. Ives, Virtual teams: managerral behavior control’s impact on team effectiveness, Proceedings of the Twenty First futemational Conference on hlformation Systems, 2000
37 Pruitt， D. G., Social conflict, in: D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology (4th Ed), 2, New York: McGraw Hill, 1998, pp. 470-503
38 Lipnack, J. and J. Stamps, Virtual Teams: Reaching Across Space, Time, and Organization with Technology, John Wiley, New York, 1997
39 Fornell, C. and D. F. Larcker, "Structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement errors", Journal of Marketing Research, Vol.18, No.2, 1981, pp. 39-50
40 Lebra, T. S., Japanese Pattems of Behavior, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1976
41 Trice, H. M. and J. M. Beyer, The Culture of Work Organisation, Prentice hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1993
42 Van de Vliert, E., Conflict and conflict Management, in: Drenth, J. D. Pieter, Thierry， Henk (Eds), Handbook of work and organizational psychology (2nd ed.), 3: Personnel psychology. Psychology Press/Efibaum (Uk) Taylor and Francis, Hove, England UK 1998, pp. 351-376
43 Hair，J. F., L. T. Ronald, E. A. Rolph, and B. William, Multivariate Data Analysis, Prentice Hall, 5 edition, 1998
44 Zigurs, I., "Leadership in virtual teams: oxymoron or opportunity?", Organizational αlnamics， Vol. 31, No.4, 2003, pp. 339-3   DOI   ScienceOn
45 Richard, E. P. and A. B. Pieπe， "Understan이ng human interactions and performance in the virtual team", JITTA: Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, Vol.4， No.1, 2002
46 Geber, B., "Virtual teams", Training, Vol.32, No.4, 1995, pp. 36-40
47 Carmel，E., Global Software Teams: Collaborating Across Borders and Time Zones, Prentice Hall, NJ
48 Deal, Thomas，A. Kennedy, Corporate Cultures, Addison-Wesley，1982
49 Hall，E. and H. Elizabeth, How Cultures Collide, in: Gary Weaver (ed), Culture, Communication and Conflict in Intercultural Relations, Pearson Publishing, Boston. 2000
50 Redding, S. G., "Cognition as an aspect of culture and its relation to rnanagement process: an exploratory view of the Cjomese case", Journal of Management Studies, Vol.17, No.2, 1980, pp. 127-148   DOI
51 Gudykunst, W. B., T. Nishida, H. Koike, and N. Shiino, "The influence of language on uncertainty reduction: An exploratory study of Japanese-Japanese and Japanese-North American interactions", in: M. McLaughlin (Ed.), Communication Yearbook 9, Sage Publication, 1986, pp. 555-575
52 Fisher, M. and M. D. Fisher, The Distributed Mind, American Management Association, 1998
53 Georgios，D., "Investigating cultural difference in virtual software teams" EJISDC, Vol.7, 2000，pp. 1-14
54 Hofstede, G., Cultures and Organization: Software of the Mind, Mc-Graw Hill. 1991
55 Jr. Hair, J. F., Multivariate Data Analysis, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N. J., 2002
56 Qureshi, S. and I. Zigurs, "Paradoxes and prerogatives in global virtual collabαation"， Communications of the ACM, Vol.44, No.12, 2001
57 Berger, P. and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London, Penguin Books, 1967
58 Raghu Nath, and Kunal K. Sadhu, Comparative analysis, conclusions, and future directions， in: Comparative Management-A Regional View; Raghu Hath (ed.), Cambridge MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1988, p. 273
59 Wong, S. and R. M. Burton, "Virtual teams: what are their characteristics, and impact on team performance?" Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Vol.6， 2000， pp. 339-360   DOI   ScienceOn
60 Ilze Zigurs, K. Bonnie, Buckland, R. James, and E. Connolly, "A test of task-technology fit theory for group support systeIllS", DATA BASE, Vol.30, No.3-4, 1999, pp. 34-50   DOI
61 Bamatt， C., "Office space, cyberspace and virtual organization", Journal of General Management, Vol.20, No.4, 1995, pp. 78-91
62 Triandis， H., Collectivism vs. individualism: A reconceptualization of a basic concept in cross-cultural psychology， in: G. Venna, C. Bagley (Eds), Cross-Cultural Studies of Personality, Attitudes, and Cognition. London: Macmillan, 1988
63 Gudykunst, W. B. and S. Ting-Toomey, "Culture and Interpersonal Communication", Sage Publication. 1988
64 Jarvenpaa, S. and D. Leidner， "Communication and trust in global virtual teams"， Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Vol.3, 1998
65 Chin, W. W., "Issues ard opinion on structural equation modeling", MIS Quarterly, Vol.22, No.1, 1998, pp. 7-16
66 Mockler, R. J. and D. G. Dologite, Multinational cross-cultural management: an integrative context specific process, Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1997, p. 315
67 Marcus, A. and E. W. Gould, "Cultural dimensions and global web user-interface design", Interactions, Vol.7, No.4, 2000