IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v69y2016i9p3468-3477.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of role variety and ability disparity on virtual group performance

Author

Listed:
  • Zheng, Sijing
  • Zeng, Xiaohua
  • Zhang, Cheng

Abstract

Virtual groups mobilize talent across geographical boundaries and, as a result, the composition of virtual groups is often diverse. For example, they often consist of people from different functional areas (role variety) and at various levels (ability disparity). This study examines how role variety and ability disparity influence virtual group performance. Its analyses are based on field data from a popular video game that contains one million virtual groups performing collaborative tasks. Group members' characteristics and group performance were objectively recorded by the game system. Regression and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) are used to analyze the data. The results from the regression show that group members' role variety is positively associated with group performance, but this relationship was weakened by their ability disparity. The fsQCA approach further demonstrates how role variety and ability disparity interact with other factors such as members' game experience to influence group performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Zheng, Sijing & Zeng, Xiaohua & Zhang, Cheng, 2016. "The effects of role variety and ability disparity on virtual group performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3468-3477.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:69:y:2016:i:9:p:3468-3477
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.01.039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296316000527
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.01.039?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee Sproull & Sara Kiesler, 1986. "Reducing Social Context Cues: Electronic Mail in Organizational Communication," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(11), pages 1492-1512, November.
    2. Linda Argote & Bill McEvily & Ray Reagans, 2003. "Managing Knowledge in Organizations: An Integrative Framework and Review of Emerging Themes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 571-582, April.
    3. Lu, Chia-Mei & Chen, Shyh-Jer & Huang, Pei-Chi & Chien, Jui-Ching, 2015. "Effect of diversity on human resource management and organizational performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 857-861.
    4. Jehn, Karen A. & Bezrukova, Katerina, 2010. "The faultline activation process and the effects of activated faultlines on coalition formation, conflict, and group outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 24-42, May.
    5. Bradley R. Staats & Francesca Gino, 2012. "Specialization and Variety in Repetitive Tasks: Evidence from a Japanese Bank," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(6), pages 1141-1159, June.
    6. Katerina Bezrukova & Karen A. Jehn & Elaine L. Zanutto & Sherry M. B. Thatcher, 2009. "Do Workgroup Faultlines Help or Hurt? A Moderated Model of Faultlines, Team Identification, and Group Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 35-50, February.
    7. Woodside, Arch G. & Hsu, Shih-Yun & Marshall, Roger, 2011. "General theory of cultures' consequences on international tourism behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 785-799, August.
    8. Skarmeas, Dionysis & Leonidou, Constantinos N. & Saridakis, Charalampos, 2014. "Examining the role of CSR skepticism using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1796-1805.
    9. Wilfred Amaldoss & Richard Staelin, 2010. "Cross-Function and Same-Function Alliances: How Does Alliance Structure Affect the Behavior of Partnering Firms?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(2), pages 302-317, February.
    10. Martha L. Maznevski & Katherine M. Chudoba, 2000. "Bridging Space Over Time: Global Virtual Team Dynamics and Effectiveness," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(5), pages 473-492, October.
    11. Christophe Boone & Walter Hendriks, 2009. "Top Management Team Diversity and Firm Performance: Moderators of Functional-Background and Locus-of-Control Diversity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 165-180, February.
    12. Jonathon N. Cummings, 2004. "Work Groups, Structural Diversity, and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 352-364, March.
    13. Barbara Vis, 2012. "The Comparative Advantages of fsQCA and Regression Analysis for Moderately Large-N Analyses," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 41(1), pages 168-198, February.
    14. Franck, Egon & Nüesch, Stephan, 2010. "The effect of talent disparity on team productivity in soccer," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 218-229, April.
    15. Auh, Seigyoung & Menguc, Bulent, 2006. "Diversity at the executive suite: A resource-based approach to the customer orientation-organizational performance relationship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(5), pages 564-572, May.
    16. Wu, Pei-Ling & Yeh, Shih-Shuo & Huan, Tzung-Cheng (.T.C.). & Woodside, Arch G., 2014. "Applying complexity theory to deepen service dominant logic: Configural analysis of customer experience-and-outcome assessments of professional services for personal transformations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1647-1670.
    17. Diane L. Rulke & Joseph Galaskiewicz, 2000. "Distribution of Knowledge, Group Network Structure, and Group Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(5), pages 612-625, May.
    18. Sze-Sze Wong & Richard M. Burton, 2000. "Virtual Teams: What are their Characteristics, and Impact on Team Performance?," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 339-360, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohsen, Kholoud & Eng, Teck-Yong, 2016. "The antecedents of cross-functional coordination and their implications for marketing adaptiveness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 5946-5955.
    2. Linda Argote & Sunkee Lee & Jisoo Park, 2021. "Organizational Learning Processes and Outcomes: Major Findings and Future Research Directions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5399-5429, September.
    3. Argote, Linda & Fahrenkopf, Erin, 2016. "Knowledge transfer in organizations: The roles of members, tasks, tools, and networks," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 146-159.
    4. Lionel P. Robert & Alan R. Dennis & Manju K. Ahuja, 2008. "Social Capital and Knowledge Integration in Digitally Enabled Teams," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 314-334, September.
    5. Ann Majchrzak & Arvind Malhotra & Richard John, 2005. "Perceived Individual Collaboration Know-How Development Through Information Technology–Enabled Contextualization: Evidence from Distributed Teams," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 16(1), pages 9-27, March.
    6. Torres, Pedro & Augusto, Mário & Godinho, Pedro, 2017. "Predicting high consumer-brand identification and high repurchase: Necessary and sufficient conditions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 52-65.
    7. Yu-Li Lin & Hsiu-Wen Liu & Fengzeng Xu & Hao Wang, 2016. "Environmental Conditions, Entrepreneur Alertness and Social Capital on Performance," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(8), pages 1-13, August.
    8. Anca Metiu, 2006. "Owning the Code: Status Closure in Distributed Groups," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 418-435, August.
    9. Catherine Durnell Cramton, 2001. "The Mutual Knowledge Problem and Its Consequences for Dispersed Collaboration," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(3), pages 346-371, June.
    10. Pappas, Nikolaos & Papatheodorou, Andreas, 2017. "Tourism and the refugee crisis in Greece: Perceptions and decision-making of accommodation providers," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 31-41.
    11. Sumita Raghuram & Philipp Tuertscher & Raghu Garud, 2010. "Research Note ---Mapping the Field of Virtual Work: A Cocitation Analysis," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(4), pages 983-999, December.
    12. Bertolt Meyer & Meir Shemla & Jia Li & Jürgen Wegge, 2015. "On the Same Side of the Faultline: Inclusion in the Leader's Subgroup and Employee Performance," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 354-380, May.
    13. Ambos, Tina C. & Ambos, Björn & Eich, Katharina J. & Puck, Jonas, 2016. "Imbalance and Isolation: How Team Configurations Affect Global Knowledge Sharing," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 316-332.
    14. Wei, Yu-Chen & Chang, Chao-Ching & Lin, Liang-Yang & Liang, Shih-Chen, 2016. "A fit perspective approach in linking corporate image and intention-to-apply," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 2220-2225.
    15. Leischnig, Alexander & Kasper-Brauer, Kati, 2015. "Employee Adaptive Behavior in Service Enactments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 273-280.
    16. Pëdro Sáenz Muñoz, 2008. "Gestión del conocimiento en PYME's: Qué aspectos cuentan?," Investigación & Desarrollo 0508, Universidad Privada Boliviana, revised Mar 2008.
    17. Gentina, Elodie & Huarng, Kun-Huang & Sakashita, Mototaka, 2018. "A social comparison theory approach to mothers' and daughters' clothing co-consumption behaviors: A cross-cultural study in France and Japan," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 361-370.
    18. Seny Kan, Anderson Konan & Adegbite, Emmanuel & El Omari, Sami & Abdellatif, Mahamat, 2016. "On the use of qualitative comparative analysis in management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 1458-1463.
    19. Sidhu, Jatinder S. & Volberda, Henk W., 2011. "Coordination of globally distributed teams: A co-evolution perspective on offshoring," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 278-290, June.
    20. Mikalef, Patrick & Pateli, Adamantia, 2017. "Information technology-enabled dynamic capabilities and their indirect effect on competitive performance: Findings from PLS-SEM and fsQCA," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-16.

    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:eee:jbrese:v:69:y:2016:i:9:p:3468-3477. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    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.