Personality and Virtual Reality Team Candidates: The Roles of Personality Traits, Technology Anxiety and Trust as Predictors of Perceptions of Virtual Reality Teams

Abstract

This paper examines personality traits as antecedents to perceptions of the usefulness and intention to use a virtual reality team (VRT) environment at an early stage of virtual team education. Subjects watched a training video emphasizing communication in VRTs across various boundaries including time, culture, social norms, and organizational expectations. Subjects then completed and returned surveys collecting relevant constructs. Support for the proposed model was found in which personality traits predicted propensity to trust and technology communication anxiety. In addition, propensity to trust and technology communication anxiety predicted perceived VRT usefulness and intention to use VRTs respectively. The model suggests that both stable personality traits such as extraversion and openness, and situation-specific traits such as technology communication anxiety predict subjects' perceptions of the useful and intention to use a virtual team in the near future.