The Effects of Virtuality on
Team Conflict
Patricia J. Holahan, Stevens
Ann C. Mooney, Stevens
Roger C. Mayer, University of Akron
Laura Finnerty Paul, Stevens
HSATM Presentation, November, 2008
Conflict in Teams

Critical area of study across multiple disciplines,
including management and psychology.

Conflict is multi-dimensional with both
constructive and destructive forms.

Managing conflict effectively is essential
because it allows teams to benefit from
constructive conflict without incurring the costs
of destructive conflict.
Virtuality and Conflict

Although we’ve learned a lot about how to
manage conflict in traditional, face-to-face
teams, we know very little about how to
manage conflict in virtual teams.

This is particularly problematic because
research has shown that virtual teams may
experience more conflict than face-to-face
teams.
Our Research
Question
How can virtual teams
manage conflict
effectively?
Our Research Approach

We begin with what we know about conflict
management in face-to-face teams.

Based on an in-depth literature review, we then
expand on that knowledge by considering how it
changes in light of virtual working conditions.

The end result is a working research model that we
will further test with virtual teams.
Conflict Management
in F2F Teams
(What we know already)
Conflict is Multi-dimensional

Constructive conflict occurs when teams share
diverse perspectives about the tasks at hand.


CC has been shown to promote exchange of ideas,
surfacing of assumptions, and synthesis of diverse
perspectives, which improves decision making and
performance.
Destructive conflict occurs when teams share
diverse perspectives that are outside the context of
the tasks and focused on more emotional and
relationship issues.

DC has been shown to lower decision quality, relationship
acceptance, and satisfaction, which impairs decision
making and performance.
Constructive Conflict Triggers
Destructive Conflict


Constructive conflict has a tendency to trigger
destructive conflict, making the two forms of conflict
difficult to disentangle.
Researchers have explained this has to do with
attribution and social judgment theories:


Attribution Theory – explains that team members
constantly try to interpret other team members’ intentions
and motivations during decision making.
Social Judgment Theory – explains that team members
cannot fully account for decisions that are reached, there is
speculation as to why one course of action was chosen
over another.
Team Trust Weakens the
CC/DC Relationship




Trust is a willingness to be vulnerable to the trustee
when the trustee cannot be monitored or controlled.
Trust is determined by the trustor’s perception of the
trustee’s trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and
integrity).
Trust serves as a means of coping with uncertainty when
risk is present.
If team members don’t trust one another, they will
experience a need to control the outcomes or otherwise
protect their own interests. This leads to a greater
likelihood of misattributions and damaging social
judgments that underpin the tendency for constructive
conflict to trigger destructive conflict.
Behavioral Integration (BI)
Weakens the CC/DC Relationship



Behavioral integration refers to a team’s norms
of mutual and collective interaction.
Behavioral integration provides opportunity for
team members to share and explain the rationale
for their perspectives. As a result, other team
members are more likely to understand each
other’s perspectives and less likely to make faulty
attributions and social judgments.
Thus, when teams experience behavioral
integration, constructive conflict is less likely to
trigger destructive conflict.
Figure 1
Conflict Management in F2F Teams
(What we Know Already)
Trustworthiness
(+)
Behavioral
Integration
Trust
(-)
CONSTRUCTIVE
CONFLICT
(-)
(+)
DESTRUCTIVE
CONFLICT
Conflict Management
in Virtual Teams
(The New Frontier –
i.e. What we Don’t Know)
Defining “Virtuality”

We define virtuality as (Kirkman & Mathieu, 2005):



the extent to which team members use communication
technology to coordinate and execute team processes,
the amount of informational value or “richness” provided
by such technology, and
the synchronicity of team member interactions

Geographic dispersion is not a prerequisite for
virtuality

When teams use synchronous communication
technologies that convey rich, valuable
information, their exchanges are less virtual.
Media Richness Theory (MRT)
and Media Synchronicity Theory (MST)

“Richness” and “Synchronicity” are key
characteristics of communication technologies.

Richness and synchronicity equate to the ability
of information to change understanding in a
timely manner, or the clarity with which
information can be communicated through a
specific technology in a way that reduces
information ambiguity in a timely manner.
Media Richness Theory (MRT)
and Media Synchronicity Theory (MST)

Communication technologies differ in their
richness and synchronicity.

The more limited the media richness and
synchronicity – the more constrained the social
context and social cues.

This, in turn, limits social influence and the
development of shared meaning and
identification with the group.
The Effects on Virtual Teams

Virtual teams have been found to differ from
traditional teams:




Conformity is lower.
Interpersonal bonds and cohesiveness are lower.
Member satisfaction with group interaction is lower.
These findings suggest that the limited social
context and cues conveyed by technologymediated communication may affect the
development of social ties and shared meaning.
Virtuality and Trustworthiness

As teams become more virtual, it becomes increasingly
difficult to convey the social cues that allow team members to
evaluate one another’s trustworthiness.
Because assessments of trustworthiness entail the
assessment of socio-emotional dimensions, visual and voice
cues (e.g., smiling. nodding, voice inflections, etc.) play a
central role.

We contend that technology low in richness and
synchronicity limit one’s ability to gather social cues outside
the literal message being communicated and inhibit the
process by which one person can assess a teammate’s
trustworthiness.

Hypothesis 1
H1: Virtuality will relate
negatively to team trustworthiness
Virtuality and Behavioral
Integration



Researchers have shown that the lessening of
social influence and social identification processes
will make the establishment of strong team norms
and the identification with the group’s norms more
problematic.
This is consistent with MST, which proposes that
shared understanding of one another’s
expectations (norms) can only be had when teams
use communication technology that is high in
richness and synchronicity.
Thus, we argue that virtuality makes it more difficult
for teams to establish mutual and collective teams
norms – i.e., exhibit “behavioral integration”.
Hypothesis 2
H2: Virtuality will relate negatively
to behavioral integration
Figure 2
The Influence of Virtuality on Conflict
(-)
Trustworthiness
Virtuality
(+)
(-)
Behavioral
Integration
(+)
Trust
(-)
(-)
CONSTRUCTIVE
CONFLICT
(+)
DESTRUCTIVE
CONFLICT
The News Isn’t All
Bad:
Virtual Teams Can Avoid the
Pitfalls of Virtuality by Developing
the Right Experience.
Experience with the Communication
Technology


Researchers have proposed that team members’
experience with the communication technology
(e.g., email, discussion boards, video conferencing)
may in fact mitigate the negative effect of virtuality
on communication processes.
As team members become more experienced with
a given communication technology, they are likely
to become more comfortable with its shortcomings
and adapt it accordingly, in essence “enriching” it
enabling more social cues and thereby weakening
the negative effects of virtuality.
Hypotheses 3a & 3b
H3a: The negative relationship between
virtuality and trustworthiness will be weaker
when experience with the communication
technology is high.
H3b: The negative relationship between
virtuality and behavioral integration will be
weaker when experience with the
communication technology is high.
Experience with One Another and
Trustworthiness


Consistent with other researchers, we contend that
the relationship between virtuality and the ability to
assess trustworthiness depends on the extent to
which team members understand, or have
knowledge regarding one another.
The message conveyed (shaped by the
communication technology used) combined with
our experience with one another should interact to
shape the accuracy of our impressions of the
meaning behind the message, and thus the
trustworthiness of the sender.
Hypothesis 4a
H4a: The negative relationship between
virtuality and team trustworthiness will
be weaker when experience with one
another is high.
Experience with One Another and
Behavioral Integration

Virtual teams comprised of members who have
experience with one another would be expected
to enact shared mental models, roles, and norms
from their prior experience of working together
(Maruping & Argarwal, 2004).

This shared understanding around norms, roles,
goals, etc., lessens the effects of virtuality on
behavioral integration.
Hypothesis 4b
H4b: The negative relationship between
virtuality and behavioral integration will
be weaker when experience with one
another is high.
Feedback Loops



The key moderators of conflict – trust and
behavioral integration – should be inhibited by
virtuality as well as the effects of time.
The literature suggests that as team members
experience destructive conflict, they adjust their
observations and perceptions of team members.
The more emotional and relationship issues
related to destructive conflict seem likely, over
time, to make team members less likely to
perceive their fellow team members as
trustworthy. It should also make it less likely for
team members to work together with mutual and
collective norms, i.e., exhibit behavioral
integration.
Hypotheses 5a & 5b
H5a: Destructive conflict will relate
negatively to team members’ subsequent
perceptions of team trustworthiness.
H5b: Destructive conflict will relate
negatively the team’s subsequent
behavioral integration.
Figure 2
The Influence of Virtuality on Conflict
(-)
Trustworthiness
Virtuality
(+)
(+)
(+)
(-)
(-)
Experience
with Comm,
Technology
&
Teammates
Behavioral
Integration
(+)
Trust
(-)
(-)
CONSTRUCTIVE
CONFLICT
DESTRUCTIVE
CONFLICT
(+)
(-)
Our Contribution



Our research focuses on how virtuality affects the
relationship between constructive and destructive
conflict.
Our model proposes that virtuality makes conflict
more difficult to manage because virtuality inhibits
the team trustworthiness and behavioral integration
that are essential to keeping conflict constructive.
These negative effects of virtuality can be mitigated
when team members have experience with the
communication technology used and experience
working with each other.
Preliminary Insights
Advice for Managers
Develop Experience with Virtual
Communication Technologies




Don’t rely solely on on-the-job training for virtual
communication technologies.
Training should begin when employees join the
organization and refreshed on a regular basis.
Focus not only on depth – understanding a
technology well – but breadth – being proficient
in a wide variety of communication technologies.
Provide instruction of the advantages and
disadvantages of different technologies and how
to choose technologies that are well-suited for
their communication processes
Develop the Virtual Team’s
Experience with One Another




Consider including team members that have
prior experience working together.
Offer team building opportunities to help team
members without prior experience together gel.
Time team building opportunities at the
beginning of the project.
Consider some time face-to-face team building
opportunities.
Next Steps for Our
Research
Model Development and
Empirical Test
Next Steps

Improve model by:




Prepare and submit a conceptual paper for
publication.
Empirically test model by:



Reviewing literature more extensively;
Interviewing experienced industry professionals.
Examining conflict management in virtual and face-to-face
courses;
Conducting a large-scale survey study of virtual industry
teams.
Prepare and submit empirical paper(s) for
publication.