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Building on the complex adaptive systems (CAS) framework, this paper aims to investigate the detrimental effect of virtual teams’ (VTs) challenges and the upholding role of trust on the members’ ratings of VTs’ performance. Also, the study examines the mediating role of the preferences for VTs and investigates the moderating function of the openness to experience personality trait on the relationship between challenges, trust and preference for VTs.

Cross-sectional survey data were collected from a sample of 498 university students in Romania and path analysis was used for data analysis.

The results show evidence of the harmful effect of VTs’ challenges on members’ ratings of VTs’ performance and reveal that trust boosts members’ ratings of VTs’ performance. The findings highlight the mediating role of members’ preference for VTs and show evidence that the openness to experience personality trait strengthens the negative effect of the challenges on members’ preference for VTs.

Given the cross-sectional design of the study, inferences regarding the causal relationship between the variables cannot be made, and further longitudinal research is called for.

The study builds on the CAS framework and addresses the call for research to explore the variables that might contribute or impede VTs’ performance.

In an environment of constant technological change, the use of virtual teams (VTs) has become commonplace for many organizations. VTs bring together dispersed individuals with varying knowledge and skill sets to accomplish tasks. VTs rely heavily on information technology (IT) as the medium for communication and coordination of work. The issue of establishing and maintaining trust in VTs poses challenges for these dispersed workers. Previous research has established that higher trusting teams have better cooperation and experience improved outcomes. The authors hope to contribute to the literature on trust in VTs by exploring how technology can facilitate high trusting teams. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to report the results of the research addressing the following question: how does the use of technology capabilities (TCs) afforded by virtual worlds (VWs) affect the development of trust in VTs?

A multiple case-study approach was used as the primary research design. Each case spanned a two-week period allowing for longitudinal data collection. The research was conducted within a VW setting with an emphasis on IT capabilities that are unique to three-dimensional VWs. Both qualitative and quantitative data collected during this process were analyzed at the group level.

The authors found that communication, rendering and interaction TCs allowed participants to use the technology to assess individual capabilities. While this paper answers some questions about how TCs can help develop trust in VTs, it also raises many questions. This study offers a model and framework for further work on this topic and encourages researchers to investigate other social and behavioral issues faced by VTs in a VW setting.

While this paper answers some questions about how various TCs can help develop trust in VTs, it also raises many questions. The study results may not be generalizable if the respondents who visit an immersive VW are different from those who do not have sufficient VW experience. However, the authors believe that the relationships between the constructs would remain. Another potential limitation has to do with how often trustfulness/trustworthiness were measured in the study. Measuring trustfulness/trustworthiness at additional points in the study would help determine specific points where these constructs changed. Finally, the study suffers from the common criticisms of case study research. Case research requires direct observation which includes cost, time and access hurdles. However, many of these challenges were addressed by using various data collection methods. Another difficulty is the need for multiple methods for triangulation and lack of controls. Again, the study addressed these difficulties by combining qualitative and quantitative data sources.

This research provides deeper insight for organizations using VTs in terms of how TCs can be used to engender trust. This has implications for how we design collaboration technologies.

The fundamental societal implication of this research is the conclusion that human behavior in the present world can potentially carry over in the VW and that TCs can be adapted and used to influence trust in VTs. This has implications for how we design collaboration technologies.

This paper offers practical implications for developing trust in VTs, specifically, how the use of TCs can facilitate trust development. The goal was not to recommend a specific technology platform, but rather explore how unique TCs impact behaviors in VTs. The study identified interesting findings relating to how people use TCs to complete tasks and collaborate on a team. These findings may be used to help develop guidelines and recommendations for using technology to enhance work practices in VTs.

Due to lack of motivation, individuals often fail to perform regular exercise. In view of this, we developed a virtual trainer system (VTS) to encourage users to perform simple exercise routines regularly.

A design science approach is adopted to develop a VTS to motivate users to exercise. Study findings are based on a field experiment with 91 participants recruited from a university in Hong Kong.

Outcome-oriented reminders foster stronger perceived risks of health and perceived value of exercises, whereas virtual trainer attractiveness has insignificant effect. Perceived value of exercises is positively related to exercise participation, which has a positive relationship with work productivity.

The findings answer question of how to motivate people to continue exercising.

Findings provide insights for fitness companies to design online exercise training for users.

VTS can promote regular exercise and healthy life.

This research shows that interactive virtual agents can motivate users to exercise regularly. It contributes to the burgeoning research on the use of IT artifacts for improving exercise participation and provides practical insights into VTS designs.

Global virtual teams (GVTs), also known as transnational or distributed teams, are increasingly common as organizations strive to maintain a global presence, find top and diverse talent, and cope with economic constraints. Despite increasing adoption of GVTs, there is a dearth of research addressing whether GVTs are an effective coping strategy for dealing with the world economic crisis and if there are unintended negative consequences on employee well-being as a result of their use. Thus, a focal question guiding the development of this chapter is whether or not GVTs are a sustainable solution for organizations? In this chapter we present a generic framework depicting the cycle by which macroeconomic demands impose changes on organization's structures, which trickle down to the level of the individual who has to cope with the demands the new structure has imposed. We discuss GVTs as an intervention (or cure) for organizations’ dealing with the current world economic crisis and how this organizational intervention inevitably becomes the context (or cause) for the kinds of stressors or demands employees face.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the leadership behaviors of managers of virtual teams (VTs), particularly in the areas of trust building and conflict management. This study aims to expand the research of VT performance by offering first-person accounts from VT leaders on the strategies implemented to drive VT performance.

This study used a grounded theory approach to examine the leadership behaviors through in-depth interviews with eight field managers of VTs employed by different technology companies. Interview questions focused on trust-building and conflict management techniques. This structured qualitative study incorporates elements of narrative inquiry interwoven in the findings.

Building a high-trust environment was found to be critical to VT performance. VT managers indicated that effective conflict resolution skills were also important.

Although the sample size is within the suggested range for a valid phenomenological study, the results may lack generalizability. Participants were limited to the technology industry; leaders of high-performing VTs in other industries could offer differing results.

This study’s contribution is the exploration and identification of innovative techniques that VT managers implemented to build trust and resolve conflict. A lack of holistic training programs for the VT leader is also considered along with suggestions for future research and implications for the VT managers.

This study’s contribution is the exploration and identification of innovative techniques that VT managers implemented that drive VT performance, particularly related to building high levels of trust and managing conflict effectively. Practices are suggested whereby both the VT leader and the organization take an active role in ensuring that the VT has the opportunity to perform optimally.

“Organizational identification” refers to a perception of “oneness” with an organization. The purpose of this paper is to provide a model of organizational identification for virtual team workers and examine the role of cultural dimensions in a virtual setting. Specifically, it poses individualism‐collectivism and uncertainty avoidance as potential situational contingencies that may affect the determinants of an organizational identification relationship in a virtual work setting.

The proposed research framework delineates how cultural dimensions relate to virtual work‐associated individual (interpersonal trust, need for affiliation) and environmental (spatial and cultural dispersion, ICT‐enabled communication) factors and organizational identification. Several testable propositions emerge.

This study provides a foundation for empirical studies that examine the linkages among organizational identification, virtual work, and environment‐related factors and cultural variables.

This study has particular implications for managing virtual teams, as well as specific suggestions for a typology of virtual team members. The typology supports a consideration of expected levels of organizational identification, depending on virtual team member types.

Scholars have devoted very little attention to exploring what factors drive or impede organizational identification in cross‐cultural virtual teams. This paper attempts to fill that void by linking the immediate determinants and the contingency role of cultural variables or organizational identification in the context of virtual work.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that enable work engagement to develop when asynchronous communication is used in virtual team (VT) projects.

Using a qualitative approach, a longitudinal study of an eight-month long VT project was carried out. Data collected included an extensive e-mail archive, project documentation, observation of team meetings and interviews with project members and leaders.

The findings show that VT leaders can actively promote work engagement through the effective use of resources along with appropriate practices that foster its development. They can also sustain and nourish work engagement throughout the different phases of the VT lifecycle project.

The study has examined work engagement in asynchronous mediated settings. Future work should involve studying the effect of synchronous communications on work engagement within VTs.

Organizations that are interested in promoting effective virtual work practices need to train VT managers on how to keep VT members engaged throughout the various phases of the VT project.

It is posited that developing work engagement is not a one-off practice, but instead, requires ongoing effort that should be evident and supported across the different phases of the VT lifecycle.

This paper forwards an important debate on work engagement in alternative, non-permanent, work settings.

This paper aims to explore the role of goal‐oriented attitudes and behaviors as antecedents of conflict management and the subsequent impact of conflict management on team outcomes in virtual teams. Of particular interest is the role of “commitment to team goals” as a predictor of successful conflict management and the subsequent impact of conflict management on team outcomes.

This paper describes the results from a quasi‐experimental study examining the relationships among commitment to team goals, conflict management and team outcomes in virtual teams. First, it provides an in depth review of relevant empirical findings. Next, it describes a study examining the relationships between three sets of variables: commitment to team goals; conflict management; and team outcomes (performance and attitudinal) in the context of virtual teams. Data were collected from 141 students grouped in 39 teams size 3 to 4 that were part of four cohorts of an Engineering Management course.

The results provide some preliminary evidence that conflict management mediated the relationships between goal commitment and team outcomes. Results suggest that commitment to team goals is a significant predictor of successful conflict management. Findings also suggest that teams that are more actively involved in preventing and solving their conflict experience a significant increase in the relationship between commitment to team goals and team performance, suggesting that use of effective conflict management can support team effectiveness in the context of virtual teams. Finally, limitations and suggestions for future research are presented.

This paper sheds some light into the role conflict as a mediator on the relationship between goal commitment and virtual team effectiveness. It provides preliminary evidence that conflict management plays a critical role in enhancing virtual team effectiveness.

Vocational training by those involved in small land‐based businesses can lead to innovation as transferred knowledge may be applied to make marginal changes to enterprises or, in some cases, a major reorganisation of resources within a business. The purpose of this paper is to explore how knowledge is disseminated in personal business networks and how this is used in a very traditional industry.

A synthesis of three interrelated concepts, those of knowledge, social network structure and trust in relationships, provides the basis for a tripartite model of knowledge transfer. Through conducting in‐depth interviews, data are collected on each aspect of the model to map the structure of personal business networks, to provide qualitative data on the type of relationships that exist within these and to whom knowledge has been transferred.

The emphasis on innovation through loose ties or the role of the outsider may not be an appropriate model for small land‐based business. With the pre‐dominance of strong ties and low flows of information, these businesses are unlikely to change either quickly or easily. Radical changes to business structure imply a more costly and focused intervention than the current emphasis on project and programme based support for rural businesses.

Creating a snapshot of knowledge transfer occurring in small land‐based businesses provides valuable insights into the flows of information within a business and how training is deployed. However, a longitudinal study would deepen understanding of how cumulative knowledge transfer is practically implemented.

Applying social network analysis to small businesses to examine knowledge transfer is in itself innovative, particularly as the research draws upon a peer‐group of businesses enabling some comparisons to be made.

The design, manufacture and delivery of a product requires ever‐higher levels of knowledge and expertise within the supply chain. If concurrent engineering (CE) in tiered supply chains is to be fully implemented, a practical CE strategy needs to recognise that successful, concurrent designs are built on rich relationships amongst all parties. Virtual teaming is the most appropriate framework and mechanism in which to examine how such relationships can be created across a distributed supply chain, with members separated geographically. In principle, virtual teaming could allow joint commitment, feelings of mutuality, trust and creativity, and rapid decision making to operate within a supply chain. For this to be possible, a virtual team needs to be built by concentrating on process, teaming and technology factors. However, experience from other IT‐based initiatives is that technology will be concentrated on to the exclusion of other factors. Data from the two sources support this contention.