Wei, F; Hwang, B G; Zainal, N S B and Zhu, H (2024) Trust, team effectiveness, and strategies: A comparative study between virtual and face-to-face teams. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 150(7): 04024065, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread implementation of virtual teams (VTs) in the built environment industry, transitioning the industry to virtualization. However, to our best knowledge, studies are limited on trust-building and team effectiveness of VTs compared with traditional face-to-face teams (TFTs). As such, this research aims to: 1) investigate the differences in factors affecting trust and levels of team effectiveness between VTs and TFTs; and 2) propose strategies that can effectively develop trust in VTs. To achieve these objectives, trust-influencing factors were identified under cognitive and affective dimensions through comprehensive literature reviews. Additionally, team effectiveness was assessed based on team performance and team satisfaction, followed by a structured questionnaire survey validated by experts to identify the significant factors affecting trust-building, to evaluate levels of team effectiveness in VTs and TFTs, and to assess feasible strategies to develop trust in VTs. Moreover, interviews with industry experts were conducted to validate the survey results. The results showed that the most significant factors affecting trust were competence, integrity, and relation in VTs and TFTs, although these factors showed different relative importance. Further, the factors affecting VTs were more affective-based and less cognitive-based than TFTs. In terms of effectiveness, the result showed that VTs had a higher team performance level, while their team satisfaction levels were lower than TFTs. The top-three strategies that could assist trust-building in VTs were proved to be sharing of personal interest and information, ice-breaker exercises, and face-to-face meetings when possible. The findings of this study can serve as a guide to improve the trust and effectiveness of VTs in the built environment industry, providing a valuable reference for organizations moving toward more digitalization and virtualization of their team meetings.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Index terms: | integrity, virtual team, exercise, satisfaction, influencing factor, pandemic, team performance, implementation, dimension, built environment, effectiveness, comparative study, survey, literature review, face, strategy, digitalization, COVID-19, interview, relative importance, trust-building, team effectiveness, questionnaire, competence |
| Subjects: | personnel development, health safety and environment, performance management, health risk and incident analysis, management, information systems, infrastructure and transport systems, health behaviours and lifestyles, research design and methodology, data collection methods, risk assessment, project delivery, health monitoring assessment and metrics, contractual arrangements, data analysis and analytics, psychology, digital technology |
| Topics: | Risk Management, Procurement, Business Strategy, Health and Safety, Project Management, Research Practice, Organizational Design, Digital Applications, Urban Studies, Human Resources, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here