IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/illbus/04-0103.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Faultlines, Communication Media, and Identification in Virtual Teams

Author

Listed:
  • Rock, Kevin

    (U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

  • Pratt, Michael

    (U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

  • Northcraft, Greg

    (U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Abstract

The presence of faultlines (i.e., pre-existing subgroups in a team) may be particularly problematic in light of a critical challenge already facing virtual teams: fostering team identification. We focus on one particular type of subgroup--pre-existing organizational memberships--that may serve to splinter a virtual team. In this paper, we examine how subgroup identification strength, physically distributing subgroup members, and communication technology affect this challenge. Results suggest that for individuals who identify strongly with a subgroup, distributing subgroup members helps overcome barriers to team member identification; but when subgroup identification is weak, using a rich communication medium enhances team identification. Implications for managers and organizations are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Rock, Kevin & Pratt, Michael & Northcraft, Greg, 2004. "Faultlines, Communication Media, and Identification in Virtual Teams," Working Papers 04-0103, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:illbus:04-0103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecl:illbus:04-0103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbuiuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.