Team trust has often been discussed both as requirement and as challenge for team effectiveness, particularly in virtual teams. However, primary studies on the relationship between trust and team effectiveness have provided mixed findings. The current review summarizes existing studies on team trust and team effectiveness based on meta-analytic methodology. In general, we assumed team trust to facilitate coordination and cooperation in teams, and therefore to be positively related with team effectiveness. Moreover, team virtuality and documentation of interactions were considered as moderators of this relationship because they should affect perceived risks during teamwork. While team virtuality should increase, documentation of interaction should decrease the relationship between team trust and team effectiveness. Findings from 52 studies with 54 independent samples (representing 12,615 individuals in 1,850 teams) confirmed our assumptions. In addition to the positive overall relationship between team trust and team effectiveness criteria (ρ = .33), the relationship between team trust and team performance was stronger in virtual teams (ρ = .33) as compared to face-to-face teams (ρ = .22), and weaker when team interactions were documented (ρ = .20) as compared to no such documentation (ρ = .29). Thus, documenting team interactions seems to be a viable complement to trust-building activities, particularly in virtual teams. (PsycINFO Database Record
Do we really need personal meetings to develop trust within teams? Which factors impact trust emergence within face-to-face and virtual teams? How do high-trust teams interact compared with teams with low team trust? Trust is seen as an important predictor of behavior in teams. However, the psychological mechanisms linking team trust to both its antecedents and its behavioral consequences are not well understood. The present study introduces a new taxonomy of team trust mechanisms by integrating results from a qualitative interview study with prior theoretical and empirical research on team trust. We conducted exploratory interviews based on the critical incident technique with 55 professionals who had substantial teamwork experience. Altogether, 776 behavioral items were collected stemming from 127 team events that were perceived as critical for the emergence of trust in teams. A content analysis revealed five main categories of perceived trustworthiness factors in teams as antecedents of team trust and three main categories of risk-taking behaviors as behavioral consequences in teams. The findings contribute to a better understanding of team trust emergence and related behaviors in teams. Future research should validate the derived taxonomy of team trust with quantitative data.
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