Determinants of cultural adaptation, communication quality, and trust in virtual teams' performance

Abstract

A virtual team is a network group where team members from different cultures are temporarily gathered together for the period of a mission. The present research proposes a general model of virtual teams to investigate how cultural adaptation, communication quality, and trust affect the performance of virtual teams and their interaction with each other. A qualitative method is applied in the study. Four virtual team members from diverse teams are interviewed in order to explore how virtual teams work and whether propositions are confirmed in practice. The analysis results reveal that cultural adaptation, communication quality, and trust have positive effects on the performance of virtual teams. For virtual teams, research findings imply that team leaders should be aware of cultural differences as well as project issues within teams.

Are you a trustworthy partner in a cross-cultural virtual environment?

“…Our findings are in line with Chang, Chuang, and Chao's proposition, in which they suggested that individual's cultural adaptation was positively related to communication quality and trust [10]. Our study confirmed this effect by assessing cultural adaptation with cultural intelligence and testing causal relationships using an experiment setting analyzed within the PLS structural equation framework.…”

Trust Triggers and Barriers in Intercultural Teams

“…It is defined as positive expectation, attitude, belief or confidence about the other party's behaviour even if the risk of being hurt exists (Piniani & Palvia, 2013;Castaldo at al., 2010, p. 658]. Trust is the will to rely or depend on other people -their intentions, motives and behaviours (Chang at al., 2011;Smyth at al., 2010, p. 119). Trust is also strictly connected to interdependence, which is a basic feature of teamwork (DeOrtentiis at al., 2013).…”

Constructing continuity across the organisational culture boundary in a highly virtual work environment

“…We have not been able to systematically measure the long‐term impacts of the organisational culture handbook on, for example, firm performance or organisational trust. Further research could investigate the impact of substitutes for socialisation in virtual organisations, drawing on the relevant literature (eg, Chang, Chuang, & Chao, 2011; Choi & Cho, 2019; Martinez, Beaulieu, Gibbons, Pronovost, & Wang, 2015; Ogbonna & Harris, 2000; Scheibe & Gupta, 2017).…”