Bringing group-level personality to the electronic realm: A comparison of face-to-face and virtual contexts.

Abstract

Despite the increasing popularity of virtual teams in organizations, very little is known about how personality traits may differentiate effective virtual teams from effective face-to-face teams. This paper sought to examine if extraversion, oppenness to experience, and an individual's predisposition to be a team player would be differentially related to team performance and team cohesion based on whether the teams met face-to-face (FTF) or via videoconference (VC). A total of 285 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to 62 teams (35 FTF and 27 VC) of four to five members. It was found that openness to experience was positively related to team cohesion for the VC teams and negatively related to team cohesion for the FTF teams. Openness to experience was positively related to team performance only in the FTF condition. The relationship between extraversion and team cohesion was positive in the FTF condition. In FTF teams a positive relationship was found between predisposition to be a team player a...