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Antecedents to team member

commitment from near and far
A comparison between collocated and
virtual teams

Team member
commitment

299

Anne Powell
School of Business, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville,
Illinois, USA

John Galvin
Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, and

Gabriele Piccoli
School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose The paper has two primary purposes: the first is to determine antecedents to commitment
to a work team; the second to compare how antecedents to commitment differ between collocated and
virtual teams.
Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected using 52 three-member teams 28
collocated teams and 24 virtual teams using graduate students from three countries.
Findings Results indicate that team work processes and member effort have a significant, positive
relationship with trust in collocated teams, but results for virtual teams show that member efforts is
not a significant predictor of trust. Comparing collocated teams and virtual teams, collocated teams
had stronger relationships (compared to virtual teams) between member effort and trust, and between
trust and normative commitment. Virtual teams had stronger relationships (compared to collocated
teams) between work processes and trust, and between trust and affective commitment.
Research limitations/implications Additional studies of longer-term teams are needed to see if
results remain consistent. One form of commitment (continuance), in particular, can be studied in
long-term teams.
Practical implications Managers of work teams need to firmly establish a foundation of trust to
ensure commitment of team members. Managers of virtual teams should particularly organize and
communicate work processes to be followed by virtual team members.
Originality/value Little research has been conducted examining antecedents to commitment to the
work team, as well as commitment to a work team when work is conducted using technology (e.g.
virtual teams). This paper fills a void in these two areas.
Keywords Team working, Team performance, Employee productivity, Job satisfaction
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Organizations have long recognized work teams as an essential structural form for
accomplishing business objectives (Sundstrom et al., 1990) and the use continues to
increase rapidly (Levi, 2001). A work team consists of a . . . collection of individuals
All authors contributed equally to this manuscript and the order of authors names is random.

Information Technology & People

Vol. 19 No. 4, 2006
pp. 299-322
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0959-3845
DOI 10.1108/09593840610718018

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who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see
themselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or
more larger social systems, and who manage their relationship across organizational
boundaries, (Cohen and Bailey, 1997, p. 241). The extent to which the benefits of
teamwork are realized, however, is dependent on many influences at the individual and
group level (Cohen and Bailey, 1997; Mohrman et al., 1995).
One such individual level factor that has had a resurgence of interest since the early
1990s is that of team members commitment in the workplace . . . an individuals
feelings of identification with and attachment to the groups or organizations goals or
task (Bettenhausen, 1991, p. 364) which provides a force that binds an individual to
a course of action of relevance to one or more targets (Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001,
p. 301). Since this reflects an individuals psychological state towards continuing their
work behaviors, its effect on team outcomes can be felt even when extrinsic motivation
is absent (Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001). As such, the level of team member
commitment will have a direct impact on team effectiveness.
Organizations value committed employees. Employees committed to the
organization or their team are less likely to be late or quit and more likely to be
creative and innovative (Katz and Kahn, 1978). Committed employees are more likely
to be intrinsically satisfied and have positive relationships with co-workers (Mathieu
and Zajac, 1990). Team members who are committed to their team have been found to
engage in more pro-social behaviors toward team members and supervisors (Becker
and Billings, 1993). While both organizational commitment and team commitment
have been found to be negatively related to intent to quit and positively related to job
satisfaction and pro-social organization behaviors, commitment to the work team has
been found to explain greater variance of these outcomes over and above that
explained by organizational commitment (Becker, 1992). For these reasons,
commitment to the team is a construct still of vital interest to organizations today.
Meyer et al. (1993) conceptualized the view of commitment beyond a single
interpretation into three distinct and independent facets affective (desire to remain),
normative (assumed obligation to stay), and continuance (perceived cost of leaving).
This multidimensional perspective revived interest in the phenomenon since the
antecedents, processes, and outcomes that had been of interest to researchers since the
1970s (see Steers, 1977, p. 47), should now be looked at afresh for their effects on each of
the three dimensions. While much research has focused on the outcomes attributed to
commitment, Meyer and Herscovitch (2001) suggest that research on factors that lead
to the development of commitment has received less of a focus. This article thus begins
to explore, within the context of work teams, antecedents to team member
commitment.
The latter part of the twentieth century has provided a dramatic change in work
team structures by moving from centralized, collocated teams to decentralized or
dispersed teams (Haywood, 1998; Henry and Hartzler, 1997). Information and
communication technologies (ICTs) have contributed greatly to shifting the
arrangement of team membership beyond the physical and geographical boundaries
of the workplace (Ahuja and Carley, 1999) which has resulted in the emergence of work
groups that have been termed virtual teams: groups of geographically,
organizationally, and/or time dispersed individuals brought together by information
and telecommunication technologies to accomplish a common goal. Virtual teams rely

predominantly on information technology (IT) to communicate (Jarvenpaa and

Leidner, 1999; Powell et al., 2004). To be sure, ICTs have dramatically impacted the
way traditional collocated teams interact and carry out their work. Yet, the defining
difference between virtual and collocated teams remains the extent to which the former
relies almost exclusively on technology to communicate, the opportunity that, if
needed, collocated teams can meet face-to-face, and the extent of chance encounters (i.e.
water cooler talk) that happen when team members are collocated while remaining
impossible for virtual teams.
With increased use of virtual teams in organizations, more studies have been
conducted to compare virtual and collocated teams to identify aspects leading to better
team effectiveness in both environments. Recent research concerning team member
commitment (Becker, 1992; Becker et al., 1996; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990) has
concentrated on collocated entities so the differences or similarities in how antecedents
affect team member commitment within virtual teams has had little exploration. For
collocated teams, the socialization that occurs with face-to-face communications
between members, both within and outside formal meetings, serve to strengthen the
commitment of team members to the organization and their work team (Van Maanen,
1976; Mignerey et al., 1995; Dodd-McCue and Wright, 1996). For virtual teams,
however, being dependent on technology for coordination and control reduces
communication cues considerably and makes socialization activities more difficult
(Chidambaram, 1996; Lipnack and Stamps, 1997; Ahuja and Galvin, 2003). With more
and more organizations employing virtual teams, it is important to extend our
understanding of commitment to include virtual teams and to distinguish whether
there are differences based on team structure and the use of technology to
communicate and form relationships with team members.
Using Meyers multidimensional model as a guide (Meyer and Allen, 1997, p. 106),
constructs were selected to focus on task-related antecedents and affect-related
processes that influence affective and normative commitment. The selection of specific
constructs was based on research that indicated team structure (i.e. virtual vs
collocated) would effect the way individuals acquired the information necessary to
base their commitment decision on. Team work processes refers to how team members
are doing their work and includes aspects of decision making, communication,
helpfulness, and substantive feedback (Allen and Meyer, 1990; Wheelan and
Hochberger, 1996; Zaccaro and Dobbins, 1989). Research has shown that collocated
teams are more satisfied than virtual teams with their work processes (Galegher and
Kraut, 1994; Warkentin et al., 1997). Dissatisfaction among virtual team members
about work processes stems from the delay in communicating and providing feedback
because of geographical and time differences.
Team members are expected to exert an adequate amount of effort, i.e. hard work
(Dictionary, 2005), to accomplish their tasks successfully in order for the team to be
successful (Hackman, 1987). Thus, Team Member Effort represents the work done by a
team member towards the completion of the goal(s) of the team. Managing and
evaluating team members is more difficult in virtual settings; it is presumed easier to
detect team members who are not pulling their weight in collocated teams (DeSanctis
and Monge, 2000). Social loafing, or the tendency to reduce effort when working in a
team (Latane et al., 1979), may occur because an individual reduces effort due to
circumstances (Kidwell and Bennett, 1993), such as distance from team members. As

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members of a group become more isolated from each other, their contributions to a
team decrease (Williams and Karau, 1991).
Trust, defined as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of
another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action
important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other
party (Mayer et al., 1995, p. 712), was selected as the single affect-based focus because
of its importance to team member perceptions and behaviors towards their team
(Costa, 2003)and its importance to individuals working as part of a virtual team
(Jarvenpaa et al., 2004; Suchan and Hayzak, 2001). Building trust in virtual teams is
complicated because time and geographical distance precludes most synchronous
communication. The controls and coordination individuals are accustomed to in
collocated team encounters are often lacking in a virtual environment, making trust
development difficult. Since understanding how team structure might effect a team
members commitment, trust perception was seen as a key difference between virtual
and collocated teams.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: first, a brief review of
commitment and its components is presented; next, the research hypotheses are
presented, followed by a description of the study; and finally, the paper presents the
results of the data analysis, a discussion of the results, and concludes with implications
for research and practice.
Theory and hypotheses development
Team commitment
While research on commitment has focused primarily on employee commitment to an
organization (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990), researchers have long recognized that
commitment within the work environment can take on different forms and can be
conceptually and empirically differentiated from each other (Meyer and Herscovitch,
2001, Mathieu and Zajac, 1990, Reichers, 1985, Morrow, 1983, Morrow and McElroy,
1993). For example, previous research has shown that commitment to an organization
and commitment to a work team are distinct constructs (Becker, 1992; Becker and
Billings, 1993; Morrow, 1993; Zaccaro and Dobbins, 1989). Along with recognizing the
different foci of an individuals commitment, of equal importance towards our
understanding of commitment, has been the extension of the construct into a
multidimensional variable. Meyer and Allen (1991) conceptualized the nature of
commitment into three components: affective (emotional attachment, identification,
involvement with the team); normative (feeling of obligation to remain with the team);
and continuance (awareness of costs associated with leaving). Affective and normative
commitment have been found to be positively related to performance and satisfaction
in organizations and teams (Ashforth and Saks, 1996; Becker, 1992; Becker et al., 1996;
Mayer and Schoorman, 1992; Meyer et al., 1993), while continuance commitment has
been found to be negatively related to performance and satisfaction (Konovsky and
Cropanzano, 1991; Meyer et al., 1993).
Thus, the current definition of commitment reflects both the focus and the nature of
the commitment. Organizations that want higher performance and satisfaction among
employees need to accentuate factors that increase affective and normative
commitment while minimizing factors that increase continuance commitment within
the context of the focus (team, organization, etc.) of the individuals commitment.

Because this research concentrates on work teams, just normative and affective
commitment will be explored. Continuance commitment is defined as costs that will be
incurred by leaving a team or as long-term economic investments put into the team
(Meyer and Allen, 1997). While continuance commitment will develop to an
organization as employees realize the cost to leaving the organization, it is highly
unlikely that continuance commitment will develop in short-term work teams. Since
the majority of prior research has viewed the organization as the commitment focus
(Meyer and Allen, 1997), this research extends the prior work in two ways: first, it
expands the commitment focus to include that of work teams and second, it broadens
that work team focus to include the role of technology by studying both collocated and
virtual teams. We provide a theoretical model (see Figure 1) that focuses on both the
task-related antecedents (member effort and team work processes) and an affect-based
antecedent (trust) and test it in both types of work team environments. The following
sections, then, develop the hypotheses associated with the model.

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303

Member effort
If an individual believes their team members effort toward the team goal(s) are
sufficient and predictable, then trust can emerge within the team (McAllister, 1995;
Scully and Preuss, 1996). Based on equity theory (Adams, 1965), the individual
perceives that the team members activities will fulfill that members commitment
towards the team goals and that the relationship among all members is equitable (Ring
and Van de Ven, 1992). Thus, if an individuals experience with other team members
has been one of reciprocal effort, i.e. all members putting forth approximately equal
effort, trust can develop since perceptions of another team members characteristics,
e.g. adherence to a set of principles such as work habits has been found to have a
positive relationship with trust (Jarvenpaa et al., 1998). This can be stated as follows:
H1a. An individuals perception of other team members efforts will be positively
related to trust.
Visibility of work activity is constantly available in collocated teams. Thus, team
members can more readily evaluate the effort being exerted by their other team

Figure 1.
Team member
commitment model

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members. Virtual teams, however, do not have similar information available due to the
lack of everyday interaction (Platt, 1999) so other factors become more important in the
development of trust. In early stages of team development, members will rely on
dispositional trust, or their own personal tendency to believe in either the positive
(more trusting) or negative (less trusting) attributes of others on the team. Dispositional
trust is essential early in the life of the team because members have little or no other
information on which to judge other members (Mayer et al., 1995; McKnight et al.,
1998). Likewise, swift trust is a trust that develops in temporary or short-term teams
where members have little time for relationship building (Meyerson et al., 1996).
However, this form of trust has been found to be very fragile and temporal (Jarvenpaa
and Leidner, 1999). Given a short time frame to complete a task, virtual teams may not
have enough time to exchange the social information that helps develop strong
relational links that lead to trust (Chidambaram, 1996). A collocated team, given the
same short time frame is more likely to provide members with the feedback and
information necessary to establish trust. As team work continues, additional feedback
and social interactions create situational trust. The ability to comprehend the situation,
and thus form situational trust, is constrained in virtual teams, leaving virtual team
members to rely on the more fragile swift trust and/or dispositional trust. The amount
of information available, the communication of such information, and the
communication of work done is constrained when the only visible method of
seeing a team members efforts is through electronic means. Thus:
H1b. The relationship between member effort and trust will be stronger in
collocated teams than in virtual teams.
Team work processes
Research on team work processes has primarily focused it as an antecedent of team
outcomes such as performance and satisfaction. However, recent research has
identified team work processes as antecedents of variables defined as emergent states
(Marks et al., 2001). These emergent states represent qualities of a team and can
represent member attitudes and values (Marks et al., 2001). From this, we hypothesize
that an emergent state such as trust will emerge from team members perceptions of
the teams work processes.
Perceptions of a teams work processes can impact a team members trust in his/her
team. Dysfunctional team work processes erode a teams trust (Robbins and Finley,
2000; Steiner, 1972). According to Mishra and Morrissey (1990), open communication,
decision making by team members, sharing of critical information, and true sharing of
perceptions and feelings are four basic factors that encourage trust. Trust is necessary
for people to work together, but it is also a consequence of successful, cooperative work
(Leana and Van Buren, 1999). Thus:
H2a. An individuals perception of his or her teams work processes will be
positively related to trust.
Distance has been recognized as an inhibitor towards social controls being effective
tools within a work team (Snow et al., 1996). Thus, factors such as direct supervision,
commonness of background or culture, or peer pressure become less influential in
virtual teams than in collocated teams. As such, trust in virtual teams develops
through non-experiential factors such as dispositional and institutional (belief that

needed structural conditions are present within the environment you are working in)
factors (McKnight et al., 1998). Work processes are components of institutional factors
since they describe structures that have been established to control the way work is
accomplished and should be more relevant than behavioral controls. Because of the
ambiguity of working over computer-mediated means, setting clear expectations,
being explicit in the definition of tasks, and setting concrete rules for providing
feedback is particularly essential in virtual teams (Platt, 1999). For collocated teams,
work processes are still important, but when evaluated versus virtual teams:
H2b. The relationship between team work processes and trust will be stronger in
virtual teams than in collocated teams.
Trust
While trust has been examined extensively in both collocated team research (see, for
example, Kramer and Tyler, 1996; Mayer et al., 1995) and in virtual team research
(Jarvenpaa et al., 1998; Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999; Jarvenpaa and Shaw, 1998; Suchan
and Hayzak, 2001) little research has been conducted on the relationship between trust
and commitment to a team in information systems or management literature.
Work that has examined the trust-commitment relationship can primarily be found
in marketing literature. Examining trust and commitment within marketing channels,
several studies have found positive relationships between trust and affective
commitment. This relationship has been found when examining dealers and suppliers
(Geyskens and Steenkamp, 1995), clients and providers in business-to-business
relationships in various industries (Gounaris, 2005); and in customer-supplier
relationships in high technology markets (Ruyter et al., 2001). In a meta-analysis
examining marketing channel relationships, affective commitment was found to be a
consequence of trust (Geyskens et al., 1998). In addition, it has been found that any
negative effects interdependence might have on the formation of affective commitment
between two parties is lessened by trust (Geyskens et al., 1996).
While the marketing literature has examined the trust-affective commitment
relationship, less has been done on the trust-normative commitment relationship.
Morgan and Hunt (1994) found that trust was positively related to commitment. Their
measurement of commitment included aspects of both affective and normative
commitment. Typically, normative commitment has not been examined per se, but a
trust-loyalty commitment relationship has been examined. In these cases, loyalty
commitment is similar to normative commitment, since both refer to an assumed
obligation to remain in a relationship. Positive relationships between trust and loyalty
commitment have been found between buyers and sellers (Schurr and Ozanne, 1985)
and between manufacturers and dealers (Gilliland and Bello, 2002). Similarly, trust in
vendor credibility increases a retailers expectations for a long-term relationship
(Ganesan, 1994), and, in a meta-analysis, trust increased expectations of continuity in a
relationship (Geyskens et al., 1998).
While research from the trust-commitment literature in marketing has not generally
focused on teams, there are similarities between the marketing relationships and
teams. For example, the interdependence required between those in marketing
channels (i.e. dealers and suppliers) is similar to the interdependence we see among
team members to complete team tasks. Another characteristic shared by both teams

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and marketing relationships is shared responsibility for the ultimate outcome. Thus,
this preceding discussion provides for the following:
H3a. Trust will be positively related to affective and normative team commitment.

306

Collocated team members have ample opportunity to bond with other team members
through frequent face-to-face meetings. Because of geographical differences, virtual
team members are often constrained from even meeting electronically at the same time.
In addition, collocated team members can actually observe many of their team
members work efforts toward the project goal. Collocated team members can draw
from many experiences during the project life cycle when evaluating the
trustworthiness of their fellow team members, and many experiences help develop
their commitment to the team. Virtual team members can not see what their
teammates are doing; they can only see the outcome. Virtual team members must rely
more on their trust of team members to develop a feeling of commitment to their team.
Trust is an important contributor to team performance in general but has been
acknowledged to be even more critical in virtual teams (Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999).
Research has continued to examine and compare the overarching importance of trust
when face-to-face communication is less prevalent (Gibson and Manuel, 2003; Piccoli
and Ives, 2003; Jarvenpaa et al., 2004) showing it to be a stronger contributor in virtual
teams than in collocated teams.
Taking all of this together, it is reasonable to suggest that:
H3b. The relationship between trust and affective commitment will be stronger in
virtual teams than in collocated teams.
H3c. The relationship between trust and normative commitment will be stronger in
virtual teams than in collocated teams.
Methodology
We tested the research hypotheses through a cross-sectional study using a student
sample involving 53 three-member teams 29 collocated teams and 24 virtual teams.
A total of 159 graduate students from the USA, Australia, and Ireland participated in
the study; 157 completed all surveys. Since the two missing surveys were from the
same collocated team, that entire team was dropped from the analysis. All participants
were enrolled in graduate level electronic commerce courses and signed up for class
based on their schedule requirements. Assignment to teams and treatments was
random. Virtual teams drew one member from each participating university and were
created by randomly selecting one participant from each university. Collocated teams
were exclusively composed of Ireland-based and Australia-based students[1].
Procedures
A preliminary survey was administered to students prior to their beginning the project.
Information was collected on a number of demographic variables, work experience,
experience working in teams, self-reported experience using the available
communication and collaboration technologies, attitudes toward information
technology and computer self-efficacy. The survey was used to confirm that there
was no pre-treatment difference between virtual and collocated teams on the above
dimensions. A substantial percentage of each students final grade (20-25 percent) was

assigned to the exercise to increase students motivation. A financial incentive was also
secured from a venture capital firm. The top team received $2,500, the second team
$1,500, and the third team $1,000. Moreover, the winning teams were also given the
option to submit their project to the venture capital firm for further funding and
development of the idea.
The project lasted four weeks and began with a simple team building exercise
designed to help subjects become acquainted with the available communication and
collaboration technologies and to stimulate early communication and team
development. The main project consisted of the development of a business plan for
a newly formed company that specializes in developing and marketing a business
innovation. The teams selected the product or new business they intended to pursue,
carried out the necessary research and studied the viability and market potential of the
selected innovation. They were provided with a general template to be followed when
developing the business plan.
A similar research and planning project has been used in previous virtual team
research (Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999; Jarvenpaa and Shaw, 1998). This project is
particularly well suited for the investigation of the research questions in this study
because the task requires considerable interaction among members of the team and
could not be easily accomplished by one or two group members. Specifically, the
project has components of decision making, information exchange and requires
extensive communication and coordination of effort. Since virtual teams are expected
to generally focus on such projects as planning, reporting, and developing ideas (Furst
et al., 1999), the project chosen for this study is realistic as well.
A communication hub was created for each team. Through the hub, the team
members had easy access to an e-mail distribution list, synchronous and asynchronous
electronic discussion facilities, shared server space, and the exercise schedule. In
addition, team members were allowed to phone or fax each other. Collocated team
members were also able to meet face-to-face.
At the conclusion of the project, a second survey was administered to collect data on
member efforts, perceptions of team work processes, trust, and commitment to the
team. The scale for member efforts asked for information on other team members
efforts. All other scales were self-report; the subjects own perceptions of the team.
Results
Operationalization of research variables
All research variables were measured using multi-item scales (see Appendix). Existing
validated scales were used to measure all constructs with modifications made to reflect
the characteristics of the current experiment. The scale for member efforts was adapted
from Druskat and Wolff (1999); team work processes used a seven-item scale five
items were adapted from the Taylor and Bowers Measures of Group Process (1972)
and two items (my team was usually aware of important events and situations and
the people on my team made my job easier by sharing their ideas and opinions with
me) were added after Q-sorts showed them to sort with the team work processes
construct; trust from Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999); and team commitment from Meyer
and Allen (1991) (a 12-item scale, with six items each for normative and affective
commitment) modified to reflect commitment to a team rather than to an organization.
All items except Member Effort used a 7-point scale (0 best, 6 worst); Member

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Table I.
Sample demographics

Effort used a 5-point scale (0 best, 4 worst) and were assessed for each of the other
team members. The six items were then averaged to represent the perceived level of
effort for that team member.
Demographic characteristics are shown in Table I.
Measurement model and construct validity
The measurement model was first evaluated using all items and then the PLS results
were used to eliminate problem items (Churchill, 1979). Each item with an outer model
loading lower than 0.60 was dropped even though we expected that some items could
be below 0.60 in loading and the variable might still demonstrate adequate convergent
validity (Chin, 1998b).
The Appendix shows which items were eliminated. The measurement model was
then re-run. Each scales internal composite reliability (ICR), like Cronbachs alpha,
should ideally be above 0.70 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). All ICR figures exceeded 0.80,
demonstrating acceptable reliability. Next, convergent and discriminant validity tests
were done. To demonstrate convergent validity, each variables average variance
extracted (AVE) must exceed 0.50. The lowest AVE was 0.60 for normative
commitment while the highest was 0.83 for trust, so the constructs passed the
convergent validity test. For discriminant validity, the correlations among latent
variables must be less than the square root of the AVEs for the two constructs. This
test was also passed. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis showed all items to load
highly on their construct. A summary of these results is shown in Table II.
In this study, all constructs, except member effort, were modeled in PLS using
reflective indicators since the items used were designed to tap into the same concept or
Missing

30.0 (5.1)

Age
Gender
Male
Female

100
57

Note: age is number of years

ICR
Affective commitment
Member effort
Normative commitment
Trust
Work processes
AVE
Table II.
Inter-construct
correlations

Mean (std dev.)

0.91
0.81
0.85
0.95
0.94

Affective
commitment

Member
effort

Normative
commitment

Trust

Work
processes

0.82a
0.62
0.36
0.69
0.71
0.68

0.83a
0.35
0.72
0.76
0.69

0.77a
0.49
0.39
0.60

0.91a
0.83
0.83

0.86a
0.73

Notes: athese numbers on the leading diagonal are the square root of the variance shared between the
constructs and their measures; italicised elements are the correlations among constructs. For
discriminant validity, diagonal elements should be larger than off-diagonal elements

phenomenon and would have the tendency to move in the same direction. The member
effort construct was considered to be an overall assessment of all members effort and
formed by the perceptions about each team member. Thus, since a change in
perception of one of the team members would not imply a similar directional (negative
or positive) change for other team members, the construct was modeled using
formative rather than reflective indicators (see Chin, 1998a p. ix for a more detail
discussion). This had the effect of treating each team members effort as a second order
factor for the overarching construct whose value was computed by averaging the six
items since the associated items could not be used directly in the analysis (Bollen, 1989;
Rigdon et al., 1998).
Collectively, these results suggest that our scales exhibit good psychometric
properties.

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The structural model

Following scale validation, data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS). PLS, a
latent structural equations modeling technique, uses a component-based approach to
estimation which places minimal demands on sample size and residual distributions
(Chin, 1998b; Fornell and Bookstein, 1982; Lohmoller, 1989).
The path coefficients and explained variances for the measurement model using all
team members are shown in Figure 2. Path coefficients in PLS can be interpreted as
standardized beta weights in regression analysis. Results of testing this model
provided empirical support for all of the relationships posited in the measurement
model (H1a, H2a, and H3a) and explained 48 percent and 24 percent, of the variance in
the two commitment factors.
Since another goal of this study was to compare the significance of the hypothesized
relationships between collocated and virtual teams, the data were then split between
members of collocated teams (28 teams, 84 individuals) and virtual teams (24 teams, 72
individuals). The model was then re-run to determine differences between the two team

Figure 2.
PLS Structural model
results

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Figure 3.
PLS results

Figure 4.
PLS results

types. The collocated team results supported all the hypotheses while the virtual team
model supported all except H1a. The PLS results are shown in Figures 3 and 4.
To test the collocated vs virtual hypotheses (H1b, H2b, H3b, and H3c), the path
coefficients for each model were then used to perform a multi-group analysis in PLS as
described by Chin (2003). This was accomplished by running the PLS measurement
model for each group (collocated teams and virtual teams) and then, using the standard
error for each path coefficient in each group, calculating a single, pooled standard error
and multiplying that value by the square root of the sum of the sample size reciprocals
(i.e. 1/70 1/85). This value is then used to determine a t value by dividing it into the
difference between the corresponding path coefficients from the collocated and virtual

team model results. The results of the path analysis are shown in Table III. Table IV
summarizes the results of the hypothesis testing. H1b, H2b, and H3b were supported.
H3c, while significant, was opposite to what was expected.

Team member
commitment

Discussion
Along with examining commitment to a team and what contributes to it, we were able
to discern the type of communication used when several methods of communication
are available to teams. Not surprisingly, collocated teams took advantage of their

311

Model path

SE
collocated SE virtual

S pooled

PC
collocated PC virtual

p
(2-tailed)

MbrEff-Trust

0.1348

0.0968

0.1155

0.33

0.099

WkProc-Trust

0.1182

0.1048

0.1110

0.5759

0.7647

Trust-Affect

0.0471

0.0377

0.0422

0.6867

0.706

2 2.83364

0.005

Trust-Norm

0.0767

0.1119

0.0976

0.6012

0.336

16.83343

0.000

No.

Hypothesis

1a

An individuals perception of other

team members efforts will be positively
related to trust
An individuals perception of his or
her teams work processes will be
positively related to trust
Trust will be positively related to
affective and normative team
commitment
Trust will be positively related to
affective and normative team
commitment
The relationship between member effort
and trust will be stronger in collocated
teams than in virtual teams
The relationship between team work
processes and trust will be stronger in
virtual teams than in collocated teams
The relationship between trust and
affective commitment will be stronger
in virtual teams than in collocated
teams
The relationship between trust and
normative commitment will be stronger
in virtual teams than in collocated
teams

2a
3a
3a
1b
2b
3b

3c

All teams

Collocated
teams

12.39194
2 10.5342

Virtual
teams

p , 0.001

p , 0.01

Not
supported

p , 0.001

p , 0.001

p , 0.001

p , 0.001

p , 0.001

p , 0.001

p , 0.001

p , 0.001

p , 0.01

0.000
0.000
Table III.
Collocated vs virtual
teams path coefficient
assessment

Collocated
vs virtual

p , 0.001
p , 0.001

p , 0.001
p , 0.01
(but
opposite)

Table IV.
Summary of support for
hypotheses

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312

ability to meet face-to-face. Many teams reported scheduling at least weekly meetings,
with most teams meeting at least twice a week face-to-face. Both virtual and collocated
teams communicated through e-mail, although collocated team members were more
likely to use personal e-mail accounts (p 0:007) while virtual teams members were
more likely to use the team distribution e-mail through the provided communication
hub (p 0:000). While both types of teams had access to a synchronous chat session,
few teams took advantage of it. No doubt, collocated teams met often enough
face-to-face to render the chat sessions inconsequential while the time zone differences
between virtual team members made the synchronous chat sessions difficult. Another
method of synchronous communication, the telephone, was used often by collocated
team members, less often by virtual team members (p 0:000). Results of the amount
of telephone usage among collocated teams were surprising given their daily and
weekly reliance on e-mail and face-to-face meetings. Yet, nearly 30 percent of collocated
team members reported talking on the phone with team members on a daily basis. Only
about 15 percent of collocated team members reported not using the phone at all, while
65 percent of the virtual teams reported no use of the phone. Although one third of the
virtual teams reported using the phone, the use was very infrequent as opposed to the
collocated teams daily use. Obviously, the time zone differences and the added expense
of long-distance calls played a role in the virtual teams limited use of the phone.
One important result of this work is finding differences in the development of
commitment for a virtual team and the development of commitment for a collocated
team. We examined differences in structures and perceptions of team work processes
and how they contributed to the development of trust to the team. We then looked at
how trust related to team commitment.
The results supported the research model (see Table IV) for teams in general
collocated and virtual combined. Member efforts and team work processes were
examined as antecedents to trust. In past research on commitment, team work
processes have often been examined as a direct antecedent to commitment. However,
because of past research that found team work processes an antecedent to member
attitudes and values (Marks et al., 2001), we examined the relationship between
member efforts and team work processes to team trust.
Interestingly though, perceived member effort of other team members played no part
in the development of trust in virtual teams, but did so in collocated teams. One possible
explanation for this is that the leaner media available to communicate with each other
likely influenced the relationship between member effort and the feeling of trust within
virtual teams. Collocated team members have more visible means of assessing the work
activities of others and they use these direct cues to help establish the trustworthiness of
other team members. Collocated team members not only met face-to-face, they were able
to view their team members in class. In virtual teams, members dont have these cues
available since technology is the media for communication exchanges. Thus, how other
members are accomplishing their work is not known; only the outcome is seen. Based on
the loss of visual cues, its not surprising that the member effort path relationships to
trust are weaker for virtual teams.
As expected, perceptions of the teams work processes were a significant predictor
of trust for both virtual and collocated teams. When the strength of the relationships
was compared between collocated and virtual teams (H2b), the team work processes
trust relationship was stronger for virtual teams suggesting that work structure is

more important in virtual teams. With lower levels of social presence, individuals have
to resolve uncertainties in other ways. When work processes are established, then some
of the project uncertainties are removed since the team members will have rules and
regulations that all are to follow.
Past research examining commitment has examined antecedents such as early
socialization, culture (particularly collectivist culture), and psychological contracts
made with an organization by an individual (Meyer and Allen, 1997). Our results
showed trust in team members to be a significant predictor of both affective and
normative commitment.
The relationship between trust and affective commitment was found to be stronger
in virtual teams than collocated teams, as expected. We hypothesized that the lack of
other social ties would emphasize the trust-affective commitment relationship in
virtual teams, and we found this to be true. Contrary to what was expected however,
trust in collocated teams explained triple the variance in normative commitment over
virtual teams (R 2 of 0.35 vs 0.11). Thus, trust appears to play a larger part in the
development of normative commitment for collocated teams than it does for virtual
teams. One explanation for this can be inferred from the difficulty of coordinating
activities in virtual vs collocated teams (Chidambaram, 1996; Galegher and Kraut,
1994; Hollingshead et al., 1993). Collocated teams, again, have multiple means of
effecting coordination since face-to-face opportunities are more readily available.
Collocated team members also know there are many more avenues for other team
members to check up on them. The great majority of collocated team members
reported e-mailing on a daily basis, phoning on a weekly basis, and meeting
face-to-face at least twice a week. While virtual teams were not able to meet face-to-face
because of the distance from one another, even phoning was difficult because of the
differences in time zones. According to Latanes (1981) social impact theory, the more a
team member socially compares with people in his or her team, the stronger the social
force toward compliance. Thus, a member of a collocated team, working with others
from his or her own location would find greater similarities than a member of a virtual
team working with others from different locations. In addition, the immediacy of the
source may impact perceptions of the team and members. People are influenced more
by those things near to them, and pay more attention to immediate cues than to remote
cues because immediate cues have greater social impact. Collocated team members are
situated together and can communicate in a face-to-face manner. Virtual team members
are separated by both time and space and have to use technology to communicate.
When team members are physically and psychologically closer, the social impact or
force of one variable on another will be stronger (Homans, 1972). Virtual teams, using
technology as an intermediary for communications, have a more difficult time
establishing a personal link with other team members so it is more difficult to develop
a sense of loyalty and commitment to the team out of sight, out of mind.
In summary, while many of the same factors affect the development of team
commitment in collocated and virtual teams, the factors contributing to an individuals
level of commitment do operate differently depending on the role of technology and the
type of communication used.
Implications for research and practice
Previous research on commitment has concentrated on organizational commitment
and collocated team commitment. This study shows us how much more important

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perceptions of member efforts and team work processes are to the creation of trust, and
ultimately commitment, in different team types. Team work processes and structures
should be clearly specified to virtual team members to encourage trust. This study also
showed for the first time the importance of trust to the development of normative
commitment for collocated teams
Knowledge that trust explains a large percent of variance in team commitment
indicates that managers should do more to build trust relations in both collocated and
virtual teams. Since studies have shown that greater commitment leads to better
performance and satisfaction, and lower turnover rates, the results from this study
suggest that managers of virtual teams will want to emphasize activities that
encourage trust and introduce ways to enhance it to keep team commitment high.
Limitations and future research
One criticism of using students as a means to examine groups over time is the
predominant reliance on zero-history groups as well as the limited duration of the
experiments (George and Jessup, 1997). In the study of short-lived virtual teams, however,
these characteristics become strengths rather than weaknesses because, by definition, our
unit of interest has no common history and disbands after a limited amount of time.
While many virtual teams are designed to be short-term entities (Chase, 1999;
Lipnack and Stamps, 1997), additional studies of longer-term teams are needed. In
particular, the construct of continuance commitment can be more fully studied with
long-term virtual teams. The full impact of continuance commitment in virtual teams
has not been investigated. In a longer term virtual team (. 3 months), it may be
possible to find the full effects of antecedents and consequences to continuance
commitment, as well as determining if other results found in this study are replicated
in a long-term virtual team. One inherent limitation associated with using student
teams is that they often lack clear power structures and that the task they are
presented with is often well defined early on (Tucker and Panteli, 2003). While the task
we used was quite realistic, future research should test the generalizability of our
findings with complementary methodological approaches and actual working teams.
Due to the nature of the teams and the data collection, we had to rely on surveys to
be completed at discrete times. Thus readers should be mindful of possible common
method variance threats when interpreting our results. Since our results showed
discriminant validity (see Table II) and an examination of the survey items used to
measure work processes and trust both from previously validate scale shows that
the two scales differ in their focus and nature of the questions, our conclusion was that
the high degree of correlation between work processes and trust is indicative of the
significant positive effect that work processes have on team trust for both virtual and
collocated teams in our study a result congruent with our theoretical expectations.
In this study, we used students from three countries to be on each virtual team,
while collocated teams were comprised of members from just one country. Although it
has been found that it is the distance between team members rather than cultural
differences that contributes more to challenges the virtual teams face (McDonough III
et al., 2001), we wanted to minimize any confounding aspects of cultural differences. To
do this, we chose schools from countries that were culturally similar. Participation in
the study was secured from schools in the USA, Ireland, and Australia. Hofstedes
(1980) cultural research showed that these three countries were similar in all four

dimensions investigated. Culturally, citizens of these three countries are individualistic

(emphasis on individual initiative); prefer small power distance (superiors are
accessible; superiors consider subordinates people like me and vice-versa); have
weak uncertainty avoidance (acceptance of uncertainty and dissent; more willingness
to take risks); and are more masculine (achievement motivated; performance counts).
By selecting schools from these three countries, we were able to minimize aspects of
cultural differences that might affect actions within the virtual teams. Demographics
between the three groups of students were not (for the most part) significantly
different[2]. However, some cultural or school differences between members may have
played a part in how the virtual teams interacted versus how collocated team members
interacted with each other. A future study might examine whether our findings are
replicated when virtual team members are all from the same country. Similarly, some
cross-cultural comparisons may not be possible because none of our collocated teams
were comprised solely of US students (although each virtual team had a US member).
Again, we believe the work of Hofstede provides the possibility that results from just
US-based collocated teams would not differ significantly from Ireland-based or
Australia-based collocated teams.
Future research might also include specific questions about the three forms of
commitment. Are the three components of commitment equally important in both virtual
and collocated teams? Are all three components necessary in both types of teams?
Conclusion
Our work has been a first step in examining the development of commitment in
collocated and virtual teams and offers three primary contributions. First, this study
found member efforts to be significantly related to trust among collocated team
members but not among virtual team members. Second, past research has generally
used team work processes as an independent variable to determine its effect on some
dependent variable. This study examined team work processes as an antecedent to
trust and found significant relationships in both virtual and collocated teams though
more salient for virtual teams. Finally, rather than looking at culture or socialization as
antecedents to normative commitment, this study extended existing knowledge by
finding trust to be a significant factor in the effecting the dimensions of commitment in
both virtual and collocated teams.
Notes
1. Due to differing class sizes, it was not possible to create a matching group of USA-based
collocated teams.
2. Students from the Melbourne Business School (Australia) were significantly older
(approximately four years) than students from Louisiana State University (USA) and
University College Dublin (Ireland). All other demographic data differences were non-significant.
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About the authors
Anne Powell is an Assistant Professor of Computer Management and Information Systems at
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her areas of research interest include organizational
and individual impacts of virtual team work and user acceptance of information technologies.
Dr Powell received her MBA and PhD from Indiana University. Her research has appeared in
Information Technology and People, The DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems,
Information Systems Management Journal, and other academic journals and conferences. She is
the corresponding author and can be contacted at: apowell@siue.edu
John Galvin is an Assistant Professor in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
His areas of interest include technologies used to support group work and interactions, the
impacts of technology implementation on individual behaviors, and new organization forms
enabled through IT. Dr Galvin has an MBA from Emory University and earned his PhD at
Florida State University in information systems. He has spent 30 years in the computing
industry managing a variety of software development and corporate sponsored projects before
embarking on a career in academia.
Gabriele Piccoli is on the faculty of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University.
His research interests relate to the business application of network and Internet technologies in
support of internal activities, such as training and teamwork, and external activities, such as
customer service. His research has appeared in MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, IT
and People, Decision Sciences, The DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems as well as
other academic and applied journals.

Team member
commitment

Appendix

PLS
evaluation
model
Member effort (averaged for each of two
team members)
Defers responsibilities he or she should
assume to other teammates
Does not do his fair share of the work
Puts forth less effort when teammates can
cover for him or her
Puts forth less effort than other members of
his or her team
Avoids performing housekeeping tasks
(e.g. editing, proofreading, combining
contributions, etc.) as much as possible
Leaves work to teammates which he or she
should really complete
Team work processes
Team members planned together and
coordinated their efforts
Everyone in the team understood what they
were to do and how to do it
As a team, we were dedicated to meeting
our objectives successfully
Team members worked hard to provide
substantive and timely feedback on ideas
and work presented
My team was usually aware of important
events and situations
The people on my team made my job easier
by sharing their ideas and opinions with me
Trust
Overall the people in my team were very
trustworthy during the business plan
project
Members of my team were usually
considerate of one anothers feelings during
the business plan project
The people in my team were friendly
during the business plan project
I could rely on those with whom I worked in
my team during the business plan project
Affective commitment
I would be very happy to spend the rest of
the course with this team
I really felt as if this teams problems were
my own

Measurement
model

Mean

STD

0.66

0.80

U
U

U
U

1.24

1.42

1.53

1.55

0.98

1.18

1.32

1.34

1.29

1.33

1.29

1.50

1.08

1.28

1.31

1.48

0.91

1.21

1.29

1.49

2.14

1.92

N/A

N/A
(continued)

321

Table AI.
Questionnaire items
(italicized items dropped
from analysis)

ITP
19,4

322

Table AI.

I did not feel like part of the family with

my team.
I did not feel emotionally attached to this
team
This team had a great deal of personal
meaning for me
I felt a strong sense of belonging to my
team
Normative commitment
I did not feel any obligation to remain with
my team
Even if it had been to my advantage, I do
not feel it would have been right to leave
my team
I would feel guilty if I left my team
My team deserved my loyalty
I would not have left my team during the
project because I had a sense of obligation
to the people in it
I owe a great deal to my team

PLS
evaluation
model

Measurement
model

Mean

STD

1.51

1.35

2.26

1.66

3.01

1.64

2.11

1.51

N/A

N/A

U
U
U

U
U
U

2.14
1.51
2.26

1.92
1.35
1.66

U
U

3.01
N/A

1.64
N/A

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