Interactive effects of team virtuality and work design
on team functioning
Handke, L., Klonek, F. E., Parker, S. K., & Kauffeld, S. (2020)
● Aim of the study: investigate how teamwork design shapes the impact of team virtuality
on team functioning
● Methodology: literature review -> 48 studies
● Modern work environments are more and more characterized by virtual teams
○ Virtual-teams = teams who collaborate toward a common goal under conditions
of geographical, temporal or organizational dispersion, so that communication
and coordination are predominantly based on electronic communication media
● Two core dimensions of virtuality: technology use and geographic dispersion
○ Technology use = the extent to which team members use virtual tools of lower
informational value and synchronicity than face-to-face communication
○ Geographic dispersion = the extent to which team members are working from
different locations and are spatially and/or temporally separated
● Benefits of virtual collaboration:
○ Organisational perspective
■ Have experts from all over the globe
■ Lower maintenance costs for office space
○ Teams perspective
■ Work across time zones
○ Individual perspective
■ Increased flexibility for the individuals
■ Less time commuting
■ More possibilities of balancing work-family obligations
● Theoretical arguments suggest that team virtuality can lead to performance losses by
impending crucial team processes, such as coordination and communication
● Research in this area has shown that team virtuality has positive, negative, and
sometimes no effect on team performance -> there may be factors that moderate this
relationship, with one important factor being the work design of the team:
○ Teamwork design = nature and organization of tasks, activities, and
responsibilities applied to the team level, such as the autonomy of the team
and the degree of interdependence among team members
○ Teamwork design: recognised as an important influence on team outcomes
○ Recent research showed that certain teamwork design variables (i.e. autonomy,
feedback, interdependence) have an overall positive effect on team
performance
1
, Research question: whether the impact of team virtuality on team functioning (team
processes, emergent states and team effectiveness) varies according to different levels of
work design.
Key definitions and overall framework
Team virtuality
● Dichotomy approach: contrasts virtual teams with traditional
● Dimensional approach: virtuality is seen as a continuum, with teams ranging from low
to high virtuality
○ The multiple dimensions approach considers multiple virtuality dimensions
separately
○ A unidimensional approach focuses on one of the multiple virtuality dimensions
only in form of geographic dispersion or technology use
○ The dimensional-composite approach focused on a combination of multiple
virtuality dimensions
● Dimensions of virtuality distinguished in this research:
○ The level of (geographical/temporal) dispersion
○ The level of technology use
Teamwork design (mediator)
● Teamwork design refers to:
○ The specification of team membership
○ Definition and structure of a team’s tasks, goals and members’ roles
○ The creation of organizational support for the team and link to the broader
organizational context
● Four broad work design themes:
○ Interdependence: a core feature in the definition of teams, used to differentiate
teams from other types of collectives
○ Knowledge characteristics: knowledge-related aspects that are required by a
job
○ Job demands: aspects of the job that require sustained effort
○ Job resources: those aspects of the job that help achieve work goals, reduce
demands, or promote growth from the job demands-resources model of work
design -> task characteristics of motivational work design
Team functioning
● The study differentiated team functioning into:
○ Mediating variables: explain why certain inputs affect team effectiveness
■ Team processes: members interdependent acts that convert the input to
outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioural activities directed
towards organisational taskwork to achieve collective goals
■ Team emergent states: cognitive, affective, motivational team states that
are typically dynamic in nature and vary as a function of team context,
inputs, processes and outcomes
2
on team functioning
Handke, L., Klonek, F. E., Parker, S. K., & Kauffeld, S. (2020)
● Aim of the study: investigate how teamwork design shapes the impact of team virtuality
on team functioning
● Methodology: literature review -> 48 studies
● Modern work environments are more and more characterized by virtual teams
○ Virtual-teams = teams who collaborate toward a common goal under conditions
of geographical, temporal or organizational dispersion, so that communication
and coordination are predominantly based on electronic communication media
● Two core dimensions of virtuality: technology use and geographic dispersion
○ Technology use = the extent to which team members use virtual tools of lower
informational value and synchronicity than face-to-face communication
○ Geographic dispersion = the extent to which team members are working from
different locations and are spatially and/or temporally separated
● Benefits of virtual collaboration:
○ Organisational perspective
■ Have experts from all over the globe
■ Lower maintenance costs for office space
○ Teams perspective
■ Work across time zones
○ Individual perspective
■ Increased flexibility for the individuals
■ Less time commuting
■ More possibilities of balancing work-family obligations
● Theoretical arguments suggest that team virtuality can lead to performance losses by
impending crucial team processes, such as coordination and communication
● Research in this area has shown that team virtuality has positive, negative, and
sometimes no effect on team performance -> there may be factors that moderate this
relationship, with one important factor being the work design of the team:
○ Teamwork design = nature and organization of tasks, activities, and
responsibilities applied to the team level, such as the autonomy of the team
and the degree of interdependence among team members
○ Teamwork design: recognised as an important influence on team outcomes
○ Recent research showed that certain teamwork design variables (i.e. autonomy,
feedback, interdependence) have an overall positive effect on team
performance
1
, Research question: whether the impact of team virtuality on team functioning (team
processes, emergent states and team effectiveness) varies according to different levels of
work design.
Key definitions and overall framework
Team virtuality
● Dichotomy approach: contrasts virtual teams with traditional
● Dimensional approach: virtuality is seen as a continuum, with teams ranging from low
to high virtuality
○ The multiple dimensions approach considers multiple virtuality dimensions
separately
○ A unidimensional approach focuses on one of the multiple virtuality dimensions
only in form of geographic dispersion or technology use
○ The dimensional-composite approach focused on a combination of multiple
virtuality dimensions
● Dimensions of virtuality distinguished in this research:
○ The level of (geographical/temporal) dispersion
○ The level of technology use
Teamwork design (mediator)
● Teamwork design refers to:
○ The specification of team membership
○ Definition and structure of a team’s tasks, goals and members’ roles
○ The creation of organizational support for the team and link to the broader
organizational context
● Four broad work design themes:
○ Interdependence: a core feature in the definition of teams, used to differentiate
teams from other types of collectives
○ Knowledge characteristics: knowledge-related aspects that are required by a
job
○ Job demands: aspects of the job that require sustained effort
○ Job resources: those aspects of the job that help achieve work goals, reduce
demands, or promote growth from the job demands-resources model of work
design -> task characteristics of motivational work design
Team functioning
● The study differentiated team functioning into:
○ Mediating variables: explain why certain inputs affect team effectiveness
■ Team processes: members interdependent acts that convert the input to
outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioural activities directed
towards organisational taskwork to achieve collective goals
■ Team emergent states: cognitive, affective, motivational team states that
are typically dynamic in nature and vary as a function of team context,
inputs, processes and outcomes
2
