Interactive Effects of Team Virtuality and Work Design on Team Functioning

Task interdependence

Task interdependence can be defined as “the degree to which taskwork is designed so that members depend upon one another for access to critical resources and create workflows that require coordinated action” (Courtright et al., 2015, p. 4).

An initial and important observation from our review is that task interdependence is operationalized in various ways across different studies. Several studies relied on a workflow typology proposed by Thompson (1967), which aligns interdependence on a continuum ranging from pooled/additive workflows (i.e., requiring low interdependence), through sequential workflows (i.e., requiring moderate interdependence) to reciprocal workflows (i.e., requiring high interdependence; see Baba, Gluesing, Ratner, & Wagner, 2004; Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000). Alternatively, different levels of task interdependence can be mapped on disjunctive tasks (i.e., tasks for which efforts of a single member suffice for high team performance, thus requiring low task interdependence) versus conjunctive tasks (i.e., tasks which require all team members equally contribute, thus requiring high task interdependence; see Faddegon, Ellemers, & Scheepers, 2009). Different levels of interdependence can also be captured by comparing nominal, that is, noninteracting, groups (requiring almost no task interdependence) with intact teams (i.e., where all members work collaboratively, which equals higher levels of task interdependence; Dennis & Valacich, 1994). Finally, interdependence has been mapped on McGrath’s (1984) circumplex model, which distinguishes generate tasks (e.g., an idea generation task, which requires little coordination as examples of low interdependence) versus execute tasks (e.g., building a tower, which requires high levels of coordination and interdependence; see Baltes, Dickson, Sherman, Bauer, & LaGanke, 2002).

With respect to the beneficial effects of task interdependence, we primarily identified studies that focused on how different levels of interdependence affect team processes (e.g., team learning) or emergent states (e.g., trust) within the context of high virtuality. That is, the following studies all describe main effects of task interdependence within a fixed virtual context. For instance, longitudinal field research focusing on virtual student project teams showed that high levels of task interdependence indirectly increased team satisfaction and viability (i.e., willingness to work together in the future; Ortega, Sánchez-Manzanares, Gil, & Rico, 2010). In this context, interdependence was important because it facilitated team learning (i.e., the process of reflection and action to detect, understand, and adapt to changes in the environment and to improve team performance; cf. Edmondson, 1999), which, in turn, promoted team satisfaction and viability (Ortega et al., 2010). In other words, virtual teams benefited from high levels of task interdependence because it required them to interact with each other more frequently and gain an understanding of one another, such as by asking questions or seeking feedback. In a similar vein, qualitative field research suggests that task interdependence in virtual teams triggers negotiation processes (i.e., effort to reach consensus), which helps to increase shared cognitions among team members and allows teams to develop better team mental models (Baba et al., 2004). Furthermore, task interdependence in virtual teams was shown to increase team effectiveness through motivational constructs such as perceived instrumentality (i.e., the perception that one’s personal contribution is crucial for the team success; see Hertel, Konradt, & Orlikowski, 2004). That is, when team members experienced high task interdependence, they perceived their own contribution to be more important, thereby motivating them to exert more effort into their (team-)work. High levels of task interdependence in virtual teams also strengthened the relationship between communication and team trust (Rico, Alcover, Sánchez-Manzanares, & Gil, 2009) by stimulating higher levels of social presence (i.e., the perception to be psychologically and relationally close; cf. Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Highly interdependent groups have also been shown to generate more ideas than groups with low task interdependence (i.e., participants working in separate subgroups or even in nominal groups, that is, with noninteracting members; Dennis & Valacich, 1994). Although the study by Dennis and Valacich (1994) was only performed within virtual teams (i.e., teams with high technology use), the authors implied that virtuality moderates the relationship between task interdependence and performance, such that teams with high virtuality would benefit (more) from task interdependence than those low in virtuality.

With respect to the negative effects of task interdependence, we identified multiple laboratory studies that investigated how task interdependence negatively moderates the association between team virtuality and team functioning. That is, these studies analyzed the interaction between task interdependence and team virtuality. In particular, task interdependence was shown to worsen the effect of virtuality (i.e., technology use) on team effectiveness when solving an employee performance appraisal task (Rico & Cohen, 2005). That is, under high levels of interdependence, virtuality was negatively associated with objective indicators of team effectiveness, whereas, under low levels of task interdependence, virtuality was positively associated with effectiveness. Further laboratory research showed that task interdependence (under conditions of high team virtuality) canceled out positive associations between person-focused organizational citizenship behaviors (e.g., assisting others in need by listening or offering reassurance) and team performance; that is, the opposite effect was observed under conditions of low team virtuality (Rico, Bachrach, Sánchez-Manzanares, & Collins, 2011). As suggested by the authors, this three-way interaction implies that teams high in virtuality only profit from the exchange of information triggered by these citizenship behaviors when they are not impaired by a high degree of coordination demands (required when task interdependence is high; see Rico et al., 2011). Overall, this line of laboratory research suggests that high task interdependence exacerbates the complexity inherent to highly virtual teams, thereby causing overexertion in team members (Rico et al., 2011; Rico & Cohen, 2005).

One laboratory study stood out as it analyzed the main effect of task interdependence in a fixed virtual setting. Here, task interdependence was shown to negatively influence the likelihood of virtual team members adopting a promotion focus (i.e., attempts to gain optimal team outcomes; see Faddegon et al., 2009). Furthermore, this promotion focus also increased virtual team members’ creative thinking under conditions of low task interdependence—but not when teams had to work in a highly interdependent way (Faddegon et al., 2009). Staying with negative main effects of task interdependence, even qualitative field research indicates that virtual teams have to compensate for higher task interdependence by communicating more with each other (Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000) and by working night hours with team members from different time zones to remain effective (Bosch-Sijtsema, Fruchter, Vartiainen, & Ruohomäki, 2011). Qualitative research also suggests that task interdependence may enhance this negative association between relationship conflict and task performance in virtual teams. When task interdependence is low, relationship conflict is less likely to harm performance because it is easier to ignore others within the anonymity of virtual work settings (Kankanhalli, Tan, & Wei, 2006).

Outcome interdependence

Outcome interdependence can be described as “the degree to which the outcomes of taskwork are measured, rewarded, and communicated at the group level so as to emphasize collective outputs rather than individual contributions” (Courtright et al., 2015, p. 4). Examples for outcome interdependence in the reviewed studies were either monetary (e.g., team-based cash incentives; Kahai, Sosik, & Avolio, 2003; Riedl & Woolley, 2017) or nonmonetary team rewards (e.g., a mutual dinner offered by the team manager; Hertel et al., 2004).

The three studies reviewed here found a positive main effect of outcome interdependence within virtual teams. For instance, a field study with virtual teams showed that outcome interdependence increased team effectiveness through motivational constructs (Hertel et al., 2004). Outcome interdependence in virtual crowd-working teams has shown slight positive effects for team performance, yet no effects on the level of team communication processes (Riedl & Woolley, 2017). Moreover, outcome interdependence seems to foster cooperation when team members can identify their individual contributions (Kahai et al., 2003). In other words, the positive effects of outcome interdependence may be attributed to an increase in team members’ perceptions that their personal contributions are crucial for the team success (e.g., Karau & Williams, 1993; Kerr & Bruun, 1983). However, it appears to be important not only that team members perceive themselves as instrumental for team success but also that their individual contributions can be identified (cf. Slavin, 1983, 1996).

Summary

In the reviewed studies, task interdependence was shown to positively influence both mediators (e.g., team learning, negotiation processes, and trust) and outcomes (e.g., team performance). This research suggests that the increased coordination demands required in interdependent tasks lead team members to increase their interactions, thus improving processes such as team learning (Ortega et al., 2010), negotiation with each other (Baba et al., 2004), generating more ideas (Dennis & Valacich, 1994), promoting trust (Rico et al., 2009), and fostering perceptions of instrumentality (Hertel et al., 2004). However, it is noteworthy that those studies that showed beneficial effects of task interdependence on virtual team functioning were conducted under conditions of fixed virtuality (i.e., solely within virtual teams).

In contrast, experimental studies that specifically tested interactions of virtuality and task interdependence consistently reported negative effects. In other words, high levels of task interdependence seem to worsen the association between team virtuality and team functioning (Baltes et al., 2002; Kankanhalli et al., 2006; Rico et al., 2011; Rico & Cohen, 2005). This research further suggests that high technology use may be the cause of virtual teams functioning less effectively when task interdependence is high (Baltes et al., 2002). This may be explained with task–technology–fit theories (e.g., Daft & Lengel, 1986; McGrath & Hollingshead, 1993), which consider technology high in informational richness (e.g., face-to-face communication) as more suitable tasks high in interdependence (and thus coordination demands). Accordingly, the combination of high levels of interdependence and technology use seems to harm team performance because communication technology does not transport enough social context cues and is less interactive (i.e., synchronous), thus making coordination harder. While high task interdependence may not impair teams from generating ideas under high levels of technology use (as technology use actually causes less production blocking; see Dennis & Valacich, 1994), high task interdependence may be especially detrimental for teams working on tasks requiring a correct solution (such as in the study by Rico & Cohen, 2005). However, it can further be explained by the fact that experimental teams are usually not familiar with one another (including less familiarity with the task itself), which means that they have less capacity to compensate for the increased demands of virtuality (cf. for example, Handke, Schulte, Schneider, & Kauffeld, 2018; Ortiz de Guinea et al., 2012). Hence, the fact that experimental teams performed worse also suggests that teams without a shared history are more likely to experience negative effects of high task interdependence, whereas virtual teams that are familiar with each other may benefit from high levels of task interdependence. As shown in qualitative studies within virtual teams, task interdependence initially compromises team functioning by increasing coordination and communication demands; nevertheless, when increasing their effort, they are highly effective (Bosch-Sijtsema et al., 2011; Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000).

With respect to outcome interdependence, the reviewed studies showed that outcome interdependence in the context of virtuality was positively associated with team functioning by raising team members’ perception that their own contribution is important for the team to succeed (Hertel et al., 2004; Kahai et al., 2003). Given that only two studies looked at the main effects of outcome interdependence within a fixed virtual team context, we cannot infer whether team virtuality and outcome interdependence have an interactive effect on team functioning. Nevertheless, these results are consistent with positive main effects of outcome interdependence on team performance reported in meta-analytic research (which was irrespective of virtuality levels; Carter et al., 2018; Courtright et al., 2015).

Task complexity

Task complexity describes team tasks that are unstructured, complex, and ambiguous (March & Simon, 1958; McGrath, 1984). The opposite of task complexity can be described as task simplicity (Campion, 1988). Examples of high task complexity in the reviewed studies were a high number of (changing) task dimensions (i.e., purposes or functions, for example, decision-making tasks; Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000) or having to perform multiple subtasks with little assistance (Kankanhalli et al., 2006). So far, the effects of task complexity and virtuality have only been investigated from a qualitative field research perspective. Looking at main effects only, these studies suggest mixed effects of task complexity in virtual teams. On one hand, ethnographic studies suggest that more complex tasks require a higher degree of communication (Bosch-Sijtsema et al., 2011; Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000). As task complexity increases attentional demands, teams need more time for reflection to cope with increased complexity, which suggests a negative effect of task complexity (Bosch-Sijtsema et al., 2011). Accordingly, to remain effective even on complex tasks, virtual teams have to increase their communication and exchange more information. On the other hand, further qualitative research showed a positive effect of task complexity in virtual teams (Kankanhalli et al., 2006). Specifically, the authors suggested that task complexity may moderate the relationship between task conflict and virtual team performance; that is, for simple tasks, task disagreements were not beneficial but, for complex tasks, thorough debates among team members seemed to bring out better solutions (Kankanhalli et al., 2006).

Task uncertainty

Task uncertainty has been defined as “unpredictability and dynamism in the team’s task environment” (Cordery, Morrison, Wright, & Wall, 2010, p. 241). An example for high task uncertainty is work where team members know neither the precise task objective nor its implementation (Painter et al., 2016). One qualitative study suggested negative interactions of task uncertainty and team virtuality on team functioning, specifically coordination (Painter et al., 2016). When tasks were certain (e.g., team members knew exactly the task objective and how to operationally achieve it), high levels of the technology use dimension (e.g., screenshots, project management software) were most important for team functioning. However, when tasks were uncertain, low levels of the dispersion dimension of virtuality (i.e., physical presence, visiting each other on site, having meetings) were most important for team functioning.

Task nonroutineness

Task nonroutineness is defined as “the extent to which the process, problem or desired solution is novel for the team” (Malhotra & Majchrzak, 2014, p. 394). Teams that engage in routine tasks are required to work in a highly consistent, repetitive, and predictable way (Rousseau & Aube, 2010). In contrast, nonroutine tasks involve frequently changing task requirements, many exceptions, and are often not easy to analyze (Withey, Daft, & Cooper, 1983). Examples for nonroutine tasks are team tasks that have not been carried out before (van der Kleij, Schraagen, Werkhoven, & De Dreu, 2009) or problem-solving tasks with unknown solutions (Lowry, Schuetzler, Giboney, & Gregory, 2015).

The reviewed studies consistently revealed negative effects of task nonroutineness. Focusing on main effects within virtual (i.e., teams with high technology use), nonroutine tasks were associated with lower levels of trust (Lowry et al., 2015). One explanation why technology use in virtual teams negatively affects team functioning may lie in better understanding how the teams are using technology (and not if they use it or not; Malhotra & Majchrzak, 2014). Considering the unpredictable nature of nonroutine tasks, it may be difficult to maintain adequate levels of task knowledge awareness (i.e., knowledge of what should be done by whom in the team; cf. Espinosa, Slaughter, Kraut, & Herbsleb, 2007). Accordingly, field research has shown that those virtual teams that used technology specifically to increase their awareness for task knowledge (e.g., by using electronic annotations or commenting functions in a team repository) showed higher performance than those virtual teams that did not use technology to update each other on who was working on what within the team (Malhotra & Majchrzak, 2014). Regarding interactive effects, comparisons between high technology use and low technology use showed that those teams that had more routine with a task (which the authors operationalized as task experience) had better intra-team communication flow (i.e., the duration and number of speaker turns; van der Kleij et al., 2009). This implies that with higher task nonroutineness, the disruptive impact of virtuality (i.e., technology use) on team functioning will be stronger.

Problem solving

Problem solving describes the extent to which unique ideas or solutions are needed in a job (Jackson, Wall, Martin, & Davids, 1993; Wall Corbett, Martin, Clegg, & Jackson, (1990). The effects of problem-solving demands have typically been investigated on the individual level (Jackson et al., 1993; Wall, Corbett, Clegg, Jackson, & Martin, 1990; Zhou, Hirst, & Shipton, 2012). In terms of team work design, the level of problem-solving demands can be mapped on to the concept of intellective versus judgmental tasks (Laughlin & Ellis, 1986). Intellective tasks have a correct solution (i.e., high problem-solving demands), whereas judgmental tasks require teams to come to a judgment or make a decision (there is no accepted demonstrably correct answer; hence, problem-solving demands are low).

The reviewed studies showed both positive and negative interactive effects of problem-solving demands and team virtuality (i.e., technology use) on team functioning. With regard to positive effects, higher problem-solving demands appeared to increase team members’ tendency to bring new information into a discussion (called influence behaviors; Huang & Wei, 2000). More specifically, teams with high technology use showed greater influence behavior when problem-solving demands were high and less influence behavior when problem-solving demands were low compared with teams low in technology use. As virtuality increases tendencies to focus on the task, contributing new information may help the team to achieve more accurate decisions (Huang & Wei, 2000). On a negative note, however, high levels of problem-solving demands were shown to worsen the association between team virtuality and team functioning (Mennecke, Valacich, & Wheeler, 2000; O’Neill, Hancock, Zivkov, Larson, & Law, 2016). Specifically, when problem-solving demands were high (but not when problem-solving demands were low), higher levels of team virtuality reduced conflict managing processes (i.e., conflict management, De Dreu, 2011; and constructive controversy, that is, teams staying constructive despite task conflict, Tjosvold, 2008) and team potency (i.e., a team’s collective confidence to perform well (O’Neill et al, 2016; Shea & Guzzo, 1987).

Information processing

Information processing “reflects the degree to which a job requires attending to and processing data or other information” (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006, p. 1323). The immense quantity of information brought about by technology has drastically increased the information processing demands. Although both of the reviewed studies looked at main effects of information processing demands within a virtual team context (i.e., high technology use), these studies also reported mixed findings. The first study showed a positive effect of offering more information (leading to higher information processing demands) to individuals in a hidden profile team task (Schreiber & Engelmann, 2010). This was done via a collaboration tool that offered visualizations of each of the other team members’ domain knowledge. Compared with a control group, which received only their own as well as the entire group’s visualization, this condition improved knowledge and information awareness, thereby augmenting team performance (Schreiber & Engelmann, 2010). With regard to negative effects of information processing demands, the second study concentrated on developing a collaboration tool that allowed teams to store information in a buffer for later time points (Ferreira, Antunes, & Herskovic, 2011). This tool allowed teams to gradually deliver new information whenever there was a task switch and showed improvements in virtual team performance (Ferreira et al., 2011).

Summary

With regard to beneficial effects in virtual teams, knowledge characteristics initiated better informational exchange (Huang & Wei, 2000), increased information/knowledge awareness (Schreiber & Engelmann, 2010), and moderated the relationship between task conflict and performance, such that task conflict was less detrimental for performance when tasks were complex (Kankanhalli et al., 2006). Overall, however, the reviewed studies largely showed a negative association between knowledge characteristics and virtual team functioning (e.g., conflict management processes, communication, potency, trust, and team performance). Given that a higher degree of knowledge characteristics places more demands on individuals (cf. Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006), it may also negatively affect virtual teams (which already have higher coordination demands). Most importantly, five studies specifically looked at interactive effects of knowledge characteristics and different levels of team virtuality, suggesting that high levels of knowledge characteristics (e.g., task complexity, task nonroutineness, and high problem-solving demands) worsen the relationship between team virtuality and team functioning (Huang & Wei, 2000; Mennecke et al., 2000; O’Neill et al., 2016; van der Kleij et al., 2009). Similarly to high task interdependence, tasks with high problem-solving demands also require technology that is sufficiently high in media richness (e.g., video and audio channels) to successfully exchange information about the problems that have to be solved (cf. Daft & Lengel, 1986; McGrath & Hollingshead, 1993). Because intellective tasks involve a considerable extent of discussion and convergence with respect to problem solving, virtual tools that do not sufficiently allow synchronous communication negatively affect team functioning. Moreover, having to exchange such a considerable amount of information via asynchronous, text-based communication media is likely to induce perceptions of information overload (Ellwart, Happ, Gurtner, & Rack, 2015). Taken together, team tasks with high problem-solving demands can be problematic when virtuality (more specifically, the technology use dimension of virtuality) is high (Mennecke et al., 2000; O’Neill et al., 2016).

Role ambiguity

Role ambiguity (and its opposite, role clarity) is defined as the degree that jobs provide clear guidance about expected roles and behaviors associated (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964). We identified three team studies that revealed negative main effects of role ambiguity on virtual team functioning (Strijbos, Martens, Jochems, & Broers, 2004; Weinberger, Stegmann, & Fischer, 2010). In a quasi-experimental field study, virtual student teams were either instructed to use functional roles such as project planner, data collector (low role ambiguity), or they received a nondirective instruction (high role ambiguity; see Strijbos et al., 2004). Those virtual teams in the high role ambiguity condition showed lower well-being, lower performance, and impaired team processes (i.e., less satisfaction with group processes, less collaboration quality, and a higher degree of conflict) than teams in the low role ambiguity condition (Strijbos et al., 2004). Similarly, virtual student teams that received scripts specifying and assigning roles and activities to individual team members (low role ambiguity) showed higher knowledge gains than those teams that did not (high role ambiguity; see Weinberger et al., 2010). Finally, an interview study by Breuer, Hüffmeier, Hibben, and Hertel (2019) identified low role ambiguity (which the authors labeled as responsibility assignment and task-related transparency; that is, providing clear information about work and team roles) as a determinant of trust development in virtual teams.

Time pressure

Time constraints can be considered as a source of stress and have, thus, been shown to be detrimental for both decision-making processes and outcomes (Argote, Turner, & Fichman, 1989; Chu & Spires, 2001). We identified multiple studies that tested interactions between team virtuality (in the form of technology use) and time pressure. These studies showed beneficial, negative, and neutral effects of time pressure.

First, with respect to the beneficial effects, for teams with low technology use, time pressure reduced team members’ well-being (i.e., team members’ satisfaction with group process/results and their commitment to the results; see Caballer, Gracia, & Peiró, 2005). That is, although time pressure seemed to be negative for well-being outcomes at levels of low virtuality, it showed no negative effect for high levels of virtuality. Second, with respect to the negative effects, research has shown that time pressure worsens the effect of virtuality (i.e., technology use) on team performance (in Baltes et al., 2002, time pressure was operationalized by comparing timed vs. untimed discussions). That is, when time pressure was low, virtuality (i.e., technology use) did not affect team performance; yet, when time pressure was high, virtuality was negatively associated with team performance (Baltes et al., 2002). Third, with respect to the neutral effects, time pressure has shown to enhance team member’s engagement (i.e., collective dedication and vigor) independently of levels of virtuality (i.e., technology use; Salanova, Llorens, Cifre, Martínez, & Schaufeli, 2003).

Summary

Almost all of the reviewed studies analyzed interactions between team virtuality and job demands on team functioning. Higher levels of demands showed negative associations with team performance (Baltes et al., 2002; Caballer et al., 2005; Salanova et al., 2003), but not with well-being in virtual teams (Caballer et al., 2005; Salanova et al., 2003). The majority of studies reported that job demands worsened the relationship between team virtuality and performance. Because a high level of virtuality can be considered a demand in itself (i.e., members are dispersed and/or they can only communicate via virtual tools), it is likely that additional demands such as time pressure and/or a lack of role clarity further overexert team functioning. Furthermore, studies testing interaction effects were all based on laboratory designs using teams that did not yet have a shared history or collective norms (which can pose additional demands).

Team autonomy

Team autonomy “captures the extent to which the team, as a whole, has the freedom to determine its own tasks and courses of action” (Carter et al., 2018, p. 23). The more autonomous a team, the more it can make decisions and plan work activities at its own discretion and thus adapt to changing work conditions (Stewart, 2006). Team autonomy has been operationalized in various ways. For example, decision control (i.e., the degree of influence team members have on central decisions taken by the team leader) and process control (i.e., the degree of influence that team member recommendations have on the process) can be reflective of team autonomy (Phillips, 2002). Another way to operationalize team autonomy is the extent to which teams have more or less restrictive coordination structures (Kim, Hiltz, & Turoff, 2002): That is, a restrictive (and sequential) coordination structure is “a step-by-step procedure that leaves no freedom to deviate from a system-defined linear interaction procedure” (Kim et al., p. 385) and constitutes low levels of autonomy (because team members have little control on how work is performed, it reflects low working methods autonomy; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). In contrast, an unrestricted (also called parallel) coordination structure allows team members to move back and forth between different tasks (Kim et al., 2002) and, hence, constitutes an example of high autonomy.

All studies that we reviewed revealed a positive main effect of team autonomy on virtual team functioning. These suggest that team autonomy (in a computerized decision-making task) increases perceptions of procedural justice (most likely because control about processes and decisions increases perception about social status and one’s personal contribution toward team success; Phillips, 2002). Furthermore, higher levels of team autonomy have shown positive associations with perceived decision quality, satisfaction with decision processes, and communication effectiveness for laboratory teams that worked on a financial investment task (Kim et al., 2002). Finally, a content analysis based on interviews with virtual team members identified autonomy as a crucial determinant of intra-team trust development (Breuer et al., 2019).

Feedback

Feedback consists of information provided to a team to increase performance and can originate from the task itself or from others (e.g., peers or team leaders; Carter et al., 2018; Geister, Konradt, & Hertel, 2006). Furthermore, two types of feedback can be distinguished that we will primarily focus on: outcome feedback and process feedback (Earley, Northcraft, Lee, & Lituchy, 1990). While outcome feedback reflects information about the task performance itself, process feedback reflects how the task was performed. Typical operationalizations of outcome feedback are visualizations of team or individual performance (e.g., Jung, Schneider, & Valacich, 2010; Martinez-Moreno, Zornoza, Orengo, & Thompson, 2015). Moreover, feedback is an important aspect of structural support (i.e., organizational reward management and the quality of information that teams receive about their work; Hoch & Kozlowski, 2014), which is provided to organizational teams. In the reviewed studies, process feedback was largely operationalized by giving reports to the team that contained team members’ evaluations of different group processes (e.g., communication; Geister et al., 2006; Martinez-Moreno et al., 2015). Furthermore, research has investigated the extent of feedback positivity that team members provided to one another during decision-making tasks (Kahai, Huang, & Jestice, 2012).

All reviewed studies revealed positive main effects of process feedback on virtual team functioning. For example, in virtual student teams, process feedback on motivation, satisfaction, or perceptions of group processes (e.g., planning, goal setting, communication) showed beneficial effects for performance (Geister et al., 2006) and conflict management strategies (Martinez-Moreno et al., 2015) in comparison with teams that received no feedback. Furthermore, individuals with low initial motivation benefited from process feedback because they experienced an increase in satisfaction and motivation (Geister et al., 2006). Similarly, providing visual feedback to groups on their patterns of participation and turn taking significantly improved intra-team cooperation only under conditions of high (vs. low) team virtuality (Kim, McFee, Olguin, Waber, & Pentland, 2012). Moreover, team feedback in virtual student teams has also been shown to enhance team learning (Peñarroja, Orengo, Zornoza, Sánchez, & Ripoll, 2015; Puhl, Tzovaltzi, & Weinberger, 2015). The reflection processes triggered through feedback is assumed to increase team members’ awareness that a task requires to exchange and integrate information (Edmondson, 1999). Finally, the extent to which team members expressed positivity in their feedback was shown to promote both well-being and performance (i.e., satisfaction with the team discussion, reduce task completion time) and team emergent states (i.e., perceptions of social presence, team cohesion; see Kahai et al., 2012).

In a similar vein, the majority of studies on outcome feedback found positive main effects on virtual team functioning. Providing student laboratory teams with outcome feedback on task performance has been shown to improve both conflict management strategies (Martinez-Moreno et al., 2015) and team performance (Jung et al., 2010; Michinov & Primois, 2005; Serge, Priest, Durlach, & Johnson, 2013). Outcome feedback can be given both in reference to individual performance and in reference to group performance (or both). Providing a combination of individual and team-level task performance appeared to be most effective for team performance (Jung et al., 2010; Michinov & Primois, 2005), as it enabled to clearly link individual efforts to team performance, thereby reducing free riding effects (i.e., the tendency to let others do the work in groups; cf. Karau & Williams, 1993). Moreover, adaptive feedback (i.e., feedback describing the exact error sources rather than just giving overall performance scores) leads to significantly higher and faster performance improvements (Serge et al., 2013). Qualitative studies further suggest different mechanisms why frequent performance feedback (either by using visual management tools or positive outcome feedback from the team leader) helps increase virtual team functioning: Performance feedback allows teams to better plan their performance, enhances the transparency of operations and structures (Eaidgah, Abdekhodaee, Najmi, & Arab Maki, 2018), and it likely also strengthens team identification (Sivunen, 2006). With regard to positive interactive effects of outcome feedback and team virtuality, a field study by Hoch and Kozlowski (2014) indicates that team virtuality shows more positive associations with team performance when teams receive high levels of feedback (in the form of structural support).

Social support

Social support “reflects the degree to which a job provides opportunities for advice and assistance from others” (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006, p. 1324). Social support in the reviewed studies has been operationalized as relational strength (i.e., the frequency and intensity of prior knowledge-related collaboration; Tzabbar & Vestal, 2015), team member modeling practices (i.e., vicarious experiences gained by observing others’ performing activities; Staples & Webster, 2007), and support by others for speaking out (Spears et al., 2002).

All reviewed studies found positive interactions between social support and team virtuality. For instance, field research with research and development (R&D) teams has shown that social support (i.e., relational strength) positively moderated a curvilinear relationship between team virtuality (i.e., geographic dispersion) and innovative novelty (Tzabbar & Vestal, 2015). More specifically, the study by Tzabbar and Vestal (2015) revealed that moderate levels of virtuality showed a positive association with innovation novelty (because access to knowledge that originates from different locations helps the team to be innovative), whereas very high levels of virtuality showed negative associations with innovation novelty (because virtuality increases coordination requirements and impedes information exchange). Moreover, the association between team virtuality and team innovation was amplified by the extent of social support in those R&D teams. That is, teams with higher levels of social support showed a stronger positive association at moderate levels of virtuality and a weaker negative association at high levels of virtuality (Tzabbar & Vestal, 2015). Social support also showed positive effects on teamwork self-efficacy (i.e., an individual’s perception that one’s own activities will help the team to be effective; Staples & Webster, 2006). That is, teamwork self-efficacy showed stronger associations with team performance when virtuality was high in comparison with low levels of virtuality. The beneficial effects of social support when team virtuality is high was explained by the importance of team member modeling practices in virtual teams, that is, under high virtuality, team members may have less possibilities to gather information or feedback in informal ways (Staples & Webster, 2006).

Summary

In the reviewed studies, research consistently showed that a higher extent of job resources in virtual contexts was positively associated with team functioning (e.g., processes such as conflict management strategies and team learning, performance outcomes such as innovation and well-being). These positive effects are consistent with research based on traditional teams (i.e., teams usually working under lower levels of virtuality; see Carter et al., 2018). Most of this research has studied the main effects of job resources within a virtual team context, but even the few studies that tested how job resources moderated the association between team virtuality and team effectiveness (interactive effects) showed that feedback and social support were more strongly associated with team functioning under conditions of high team virtuality. We compared our results with meta-analytic studies on teams, which suggest that team autonomy and feedback promote team performance (Carter et al., 2018). Virtuality components such as technology generally make task demands more salient (e.g., Cramton, 2001; Gibson, Gibbs, Stanko, Tesluk, & Cohen, 2011). Accordingly, while job resources such as autonomy and feedback appear to be important buffers against negative effects of task demands in all contexts, the effects appear especially pertinent under conditions of high virtuality.