Excerpt
Table of contents
Index of figures and tables
List of abbreviations
Abstract
1 Introduction
2 Literature review
2.1 Global Virtual Teams and Trust
2.1.1 Key conceptualizations of trust
2.1.2 Role of trust in global virtual teams
2.2 Genesis of Trust in Global Virtual Teams
2.2.1 Sources and antecedents of trust
2.2.2 Phenomenon of swift trust
2.3 Evolution of Trust in Global Virtual Teams
2.3.1 Calculus-based trust
2.3.2 Knowledge-based trust
2.3.3 Identification-based trust
2.3.4 Barriers affecting trust formation
2.4 Maintenance of Trust in Global Virtual Teams
3 Implications of the findings and research directions
3.1 Theoretical implications
3.2 Managerial implications
3.3 Limitations and further research directions
4 Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix
Index of figures and tables
Figure A.1: Google scholar hits for 'Global Virtual Teams' and ‘Trust’, 2002-2018
Figure A.2: Distribution of the analyzed academic papers by year, 1972-2018
Table B.1: Prior analysis of sample studies examining trust relationships in GVTs
List of abbreviations
ECM Electronic means of communication
E.g. For example
Et al. And others
GVT Global virtual team
VT Virtual team
Abstract
Increasing global expansion in the environment of knowledge-based competition and globally dispersed business landscape, along with technological progress and a fundamental transformation of modern organizations from hierarchical, bureaucratic structures to more organic organizational designs created a conducive environment for the development of global virtual teams (GVTs). Recent academic research revealed that building trust relationships in a virtual context has a positive influence on the team’s performance and effectiveness. Hence, based on the thorough analysis of 117 academic papers, this study conducts a systematic investigation and critical discussion of the academic literature on the topic of genesis, evolution, and maintenance of trust relationships in GVTs. To examine this intriguing topic and to satisfy the research gaps, this paper has two main objectives: firstly, to emphasize the importance of building trust relationships in GVTs and to analyze what factors influence the development and maintenance of interpersonal trust and communication quality in virtual context; and secondly, to summarize the achieved theoretical and practical implications and provide suggestions for the further research.
1 Introduction
Increasing global expansion in the environment of knowledge-based competition, mobility and innovations have revealed the importance of workgroups as fundamental building blocks of organizations. Traditionally, these groups are represented by different organizational functional departments. Today’s globally dispersed business landscape, along with technological progress and a fundamental transformation of modern organizations from hierarchical, bureaucratic structures to more organic organizational designs, has created a conducive environment for the development of Global Virtual Teams (GVTs).
Also known as transnational (Haas, 2006), remote (Moore, 2017) and multinational multicultural distributed teams (Connaughton & Shuffler, 2007) or multinational workgroups (Hambrick et al., 1998), Jarvenpaa & Leidner (1999) conceptualize GVTs as ‘temporary, culturally diverse, geographically dispersed, electronically communicating work group(s)’. This standard definition concentrates on the four essential features of GVTs: temporary nature of the teams, cultural diversity and physical remoteness of their members and the use of the electronic means of communication (ECM) within the group, which makes the team virtual.
The fact that any communication within a team, which is due to the distribution of members among different geographical locations only possible by the use of ECM, allows businesses as suggested by Black and Edwards (2000) and later by Chang et al. (2014) to ‘generate new products more quickly, decrease the risk of pursuing new opportunities, increase the visible organizational size, and decrease cycle times by relying on synergies of the core competencies of their entire membership’. GVTs also act as an effective mechanism for problem-solving, project management, and global innovation (Jimenez et al., 2017). Hence, GVTs have a strong influence on the performance of the organization and its structure, which causes unique challenges, like cultural barriers, misinterpretation, and lack of communication and trust (Alsharo, 2017).
One such challenge is the formation and maintenance of interpersonal trust relationships among GVT’s members, which is a key to effective teamwork. The importance of this issue is emphasized by the growing number of academic research on the topic of trust in GVT (Figure A.1 in the appendix). The international management literature has begun to accumulate valuable knowledge about this phenomenon. Researchers recognize the potential of building trust relationships in GVTs, such as the fact that the members of the VTs with a high level of trust among each other have greater job satisfaction than members of traditional teams and workgroups (Webster & Wong, 2008) or that the building of trust relationships in VTs has a positive influence on the team’s performance (Lu et al., 2006) and knowledge sharing (Breu and Hemingway, 2004). Critical analysis of the academic literature (Table B.1 in the appendix) has also identified some gaps in the research, as well as possible problems like the understanding that building trust relationships in VTs is different from developing trust in traditional teams (Coutu, 1998) and that the lack of trust between the members of VTs may transform the geographical distance to psychological distance (Jarvenpaa et al., 1998).
Hence, some questions to be considered during this research are how to develop trust relationships between the geographically dispersed members of GVTs, taking into account the use of the ECM within the group, cultural differences, and the temporary nature of these teams, and how to facilitate and maintain interpersonal trust within the GVT to improve the team’s performance.
To answer these intriguing questions and to satisfy the research gaps, this paper has two main objectives: firstly, emphasize the importance of building trust relationships in GVTs and examine what factors influence the developing and maintenance of interpersonal trust and communication quality in virtual context (section 2); and secondly, to summarize the achieved theoretical and practical implications and provide suggestions for the further research (section 3).
2 Literature review
2.1 Global Virtual Teams and Trust
2.1.1 Key conceptualizations of trust
Let’s start with the analysis of meaning and importance of trust relationships in GVTs. This topic has recently received a lot of attention in the academic literature (Figure A.1 in the appendix).
Henttonen & Blomqvist (2005) define the phenomenon of trust as ‘an actor’s expectation of the other actors’ capability, goodwill, and self-reference visible in mutually beneficial behavior enabling cooperation under risk’. Therefore, the following important components of trust could be emphasized: capability, goodwill, self-reference, and behavior, as trust can only be developed in relationships between at least two specific parties (Mayer et al., 1995)1, which are, according to Becerra & Gupta (2003) a trustor, ‘who holds certain expectations about another party, and, as a result, may or may not be willing to be vulnerable to the actions of the other party’, and a trustee, ‘who is assessed by the trustor’. The trustee and trustor relationship may also occur on a team level, and therefore, this relationship includes multiple members. Breuer et al. (2016) define team trust as ‘aggregated trust in the team shared among the team members’.
Becerra and Gupta (2003) notice that any research, exploring the issue of building trust relationships in VTs, has to differentiate between the trustor and trustee and make the trust direction clear. This paper focuses on the relationship between trustee and trustor and examines how the trustee’s trustworthiness – ‘the extent to which a member enjoys the trust of each of the other members within a team’ (Saonee et al., 2011, p. 283), affects her performance in GVTs.
Academic studies on trust have identified a wide range of aspects that affect perceived trustworthiness and for this reason lead to the development of different forms of trust: cognition-based trust, ability-based trust, integrity-based trust, benevolence-based trust, and emotion-based trust (Tenzer et al., 2014). The formation of different forms of trust relationships will be thoroughly investigated in Section 2.2. Genesis of Trust in Global Virtual Teams after the initial examination of the importance of building trust relationships in GVTs.
2.1.2 Role of trust in global virtual teams
Trust has commonly been argued as one of the most relevant components of GVT’s effectiveness. Morris et al. (2002), Ocker (2005), Edwards and Sridhar (2005) and Lu et al. (2006) mention that the development of trust relationships in GVT has a positive influence on the satisfaction of its members and performance of the whole team. Existing trust between the members of the group allows trustor and trustee to feel more comfortable because the other members of the team can be counted on to be reliable (McCallister, 1995). In this way, all team members have confidence that all commitments will be met, the necessity to monitor status and completion of tasks will be reduced, and the teamwork will be more comfortable. Furthermore, trust relationships in the team create a feeling that accepted decisions are not only based on the self-interest of one person but also concern for the other people. So, trust relationships in a team can increase job satisfaction and reduce job stress (Staples & Ratnasingham, 1998).
The formation of trust relationships in GVTs may have an even stronger influence on the efficiency and performance of the team and cause some challenges. Jarvenpaa et al. (1998) point out to the particular importance of developing of solid trust relationships, because the lack of trust may transform the geographical distance between the members of the team to psychological distance, supposing that all trust relationships in the team are based on the assumption that the other team members will behave exactly as they are expected. Coutu (1998) states that building trust relationships in VTs is different from developing trust in traditional workgroups. The real people’s behavior in the virtual environment may significantly differ from the expected actions. Byron (2008) argues that behavior of the dispersed members of the GVTs are likely to be perceived more negative than the behavior of the members of face-to-face teams. Even though the ECM provide nowadays sufficient support for communication, Bandow (1998) suggests that nothing can replace the traditional face-to-face interactions for developing of trust among geographically dispersed team members of the GVTs.
As a result, the formation of trust is becoming an important issue for the both academic and enterprise environment. Consequently, the first research question that will be explored in this paper is: ‘What influence the genesis and evolution of trust relationships and formation of different forms of trust?’
2.2 Genesis of Trust in Global Virtual Teams
2.2.1 Sources and antecedents of trust
Academic research on trust has recognized a wide range of factors that lead to the development of different forms of trust relationships. Hence, to examine the formation of trust in GVTs, one needs to analyze the antecedents of trust in the relationships arising between two or more individuals (parties): a trustee and a trustor (Mayer et al., 1995).
The study of Jarvenpaa et al. (1998) shows that the antecedents of trust in face-to-face relationships between the members of the traditional teams may also predict trust in the context of VTs. These specific attributes are the trustee’s perceived ability that can be conceptualized as the particular set of skills enabling a trustee to be recognized as competent (ability-based trust), benevolence or the capacity of the trustee to act beyond egocentric motives (benevolence-based trust), integrity between the taken actions and the stated values (Smith, 2001) – the trustee’s commitment to principles that make her reliable in the eyes of trustor (integrity-based trust), and the trustor’s propensity to trust – her willingness to rely on a trustee, that may be considered as the key attribute (Mayer et al., 1995; Jarvenpaa et al., 1998; Schoorman et al., 2007). These above-mentioned antecedents of trust refer to cognition-based trust, which is characterized by the evaluation of partner’s trustworthiness on the base of her previous experience (McCallister, 1995; Tenzer et al., 2014). Alsharo et al. (2017) supplement the above-mentioned theories and point to the importance of knowledge sharing for the developing of cognition-based trust.
Along with the rational cognition-based sources of trust, the academic literature also educes emotions as one of the important antecedents of trust (Tenzer et al., 2014): affect-based trust, which relies on the ‘emotional bonds between individuals’ and is based on the principals of ‘genuine care and concern for the welfare’ of the others (McCallister, 1995, p. 26). From another point of view, Kanawattanachai and Yoo (2002) suppose that the members of VTs rely more on cognition-based trust than on affect-based trust because they base their assessment of the trustworthiness of the other members of the team on perceptions of evidence and not on the emotions. However, the more recent research shows that the affect-based sources of trust play a significant role in trust development and may complement such cognition-based sources as integrity or ability (Colquitt et al., 2007).
Thus, Henttonen & Blomqvist (2005) consider taking the initiative, delivering agreed results, fostering cooperation, concern for the well-being of others, as well as employee’s participation in decision-making, as trust-building attributes that was oft mentioned in the conducted interviews with the managers of VTs.
Henttonen & Blomqvist (2005) allude goodwill as a specific antecedent of trust in the case of building trust in a VT. Their research shows that interaction norms are especially important for the members of the VTs.
According to Blomqvist (1997) and Woolthuis et al. (2005), openness and fairness in behavior are further antecedents of trust. Similarly, Henttonen & Blomqvist (2005) point out that open communication, timely responses, and giving feedback are the crucial factors that influence trust formation in VTs.
Holton (2001) identifies keeping of commitments as the crucial source of trust formation. The researcher claims that in the virtual context it is even more important to keep promises than in a traditional face-to-face team environment, as ‘any inconsistencies are explained by neither environmental nor contextual cues’ (Henttonen & Blomqvist, 2005, p. 114).
Jarvenpaa et al. (1998) propose that social similarity may be crucial for the initial trust formation. The scholars state that such information about the other members of the team like their professional capability or past behavior foster the initial trust. Robert et al. (2009) point out that people are more likely to trust the others in the circumstance of the absence of the information about past behavior of the other team members when they believe that they are similar to them. Henttonen & Blomqvist (2005) supplement this theory by adding a notice that when there is no evidence of the other persons' trustworthiness, the individuals have the expectation of similarity, because they are all from one team, and hence, some level of initial trust seemed to be built.
Eventually, Jarvenpaa et al. (1998) assume that development of trust relationships in the virtual context does not seem to be such different from the process of trust formation in traditional teams, but it has some specific peculiarities: in the VTs circumstances, trust tends to be formed at the beginning of the team building, and hence, the first impressions in the VT context indicate how this team will subsequently interact. This issue is based on the phenomenon that is commonly known as swift trust (Meyerson et al., 1996).
2.2.2 Phenomenon of swift trust
Plenty of studies on developing of trust relationships in GVTs draw on the phenomenon of swift trust, also known as fast trust (Blomqvist, 1997), to conceptualize the trust formation in terms of a geographically dispersed virtual teamwork. Robert et al. (2009) argue that swift trust as high level of initial trust was initially introduced to interpret the idiosyncratic trusting behavior of the members of newly formed temporary teams, though, this alleged form of trust has also been observed among the members of VTs.
In this paper swift trust is defined as a specific form of trust emerging in temporary teams, especially in the circumstances of time pressure and necessity of the swift achieving of project goals and is characterized by willingness of the members of rapidly formed temporary teams to rely on each other in order to perform the formal and informal roles (Meyerson et al., 1996; Mishra, 1996; Zolin et al., 2004). Blomqvist (2005) supplements the concept of Meyerson et al. (1996) of role-based trust and supposes that swift trust can also comprise distinguishing characteristics of affect and personalization.
What are the sources of trust? Germain (2011) founds that the formation of swift trust may include the following three types of categorization: stereotyping, unit grouping and reputation categorization.
Due to the geographical dispersity of GVT's members, they may not have the opportunity to acquire the sufficient and adequate information about the other team members and therefore, they could fail to access the other person’s trustworthiness (Germain, 2011). Hence, the researcher maintains that the members of the GVTs have to develop trust in context which is conversant and familiar for them, using the stereotypical impressions of others. Similarly, Meyerson et al. (1996) note that swift trust can be ‘swiftly’ imported from the person’s previous experiences. According to Robert et al. (2009), swift trust is caused by ‘similarities in the current situation/trustee with that of the past’. Hence, the scholars state that swift trust may be considered as a constituent of cognition-based trust.
Considering the formation of swift trust as a category-matching process of grouping of the other team members on the basis of their characteristics, Meyerson et al. (1996), McKnight et al. (1998), Robert et al. (2009) and Germain (2011) theorize that individuals may evaluate the other person’s initial trustworthiness by employing institutional expectations, preexisting susceptibility, and reputation categorization. Germain (2011) supposes that the members of temporary VTs can rapidly import these above-mentioned categories since they do not have enough time to build trust relationships on the firsthand information.
Self-identification of team members with a particular social group, as suggested by Robert et al. (2009), influences the development of swift trust and helps to develop a ‘swift identity so that the members of VTs may believe that their virtual team is ‘us’’ (Germain, 2011, p. 38).
Once the members of VTs acquire some initial information to assess the trustworthiness of other persons in the group, the fragile effects of swift trust will decline because the antecedents of swift trust will no longer be remarkable predictors of trust (Robert et al., 2009). The recent research on trust development in GVTs shows that three further consequent levels of trust (calculus-, knowledge- and identification-based trust) form the future behavior of the team members in a virtual context.
2.3 Evolution of Trust in Global Virtual Teams
2.3.1 Calculus-based trust
Lewicki and Bunker (1996) establish a three-stage model of the formation of trust relationships in VTs that includes the following phases of trust building: calculus-based trust, knowledge-based trust, and identification-based trust. In this respect, building of trust is a complex process that comprises calculative, personal, and emotional factors (Lewicki et al., 2006).
Building relationships in GVTs begins with the formation of calculus‐based trust. Calculus-based trust or deterrence-based trust (Shapiro et al., 1992) is the rapidly increasing form of trust that is grounded on the expectation of the behavior consistency of VT’s members and on the faith that people will do what they have to do, because during this first stage of trust formation team members have a plenty of motivation to work with each other, and they also realize the benefits of working together (Buvik & Rolfsen, 2015). Moreover, Lettl et al. (2005) argue that calculus-based trust may be formed because the members of VTs comply as they fear punishment and thus, they do what they say and may have more advantages by keeping their promises.
Candlin and Crichton (2013) suppose that calculus-based trust is based on the calculability of the behavior of the other members of the VT and does not require shared values, goals, beliefs, and mutual understanding. Therefore, the above-mentioned researchers define calculus-based trust as the evaluation of the costs and outcomes of maintaining team relationships in virtual context.
Lewicki and Bunker (1996) propose that calculus-based form of trust peaks rapidly in the early weeks after the building of a VT and therefore, in the initial period of trust formation and also remains stable later.
According to Candlin and Crichton (2013), in this phase of trust building GVTs appear to be very coordinated because the team members look for directions that may reduce their concerns and feeling of anxiety.
Consistently, calculus‐based trust between the members of GVTs might be transformed into knowledge‐based trust, which is based on ‘members' knowledge of other members' (Kuo & Yu, 2009). However, several scholars do not identify the calculus-based stage of trust formation in GVTs due to its possible similarity to swift trust, and discuss directly the establishment of knowledge‐based trust (Ardichvili, 2008; Robert et al., 2009; Costa et al., 2018).
2.3.2 Knowledge-based trust
The formation of knowledge-based trust (Shapiro & Cheraskin, 1992) or information-based trust (Hsu et al., 2007) as the next stage of building trust in VTs after a prior development of swift and calculus-based trust is based on the cognitive assessment of past behaviors of the team members through the interactions between them (Robert et al., 2009).
Robert et al. (2009) point out that the members of GVTs experience some difficulties performing the assessment of the trustworthiness of their colleagues before accumulating some knowledge of their ability, benevolence, and integrity. Similarly, Cheng and Macaulay (2014) argue that such factors as a reputation of members of VTs and their possible reliability play a significant role in the process of the development of knowledge-based trust. Therefore, Robert et al. (2009) claim that prior knowledge about past behavior of the members of the GVTs is a prerequisite of building knowledge-based trust.
The individual’s own swift trust beliefs play a considerable role in the development of knowledge-based trust (Robert et al., 2009). Thereby, after gaining some initial knowledge about the behavior of the other members of the team, the individual, according to the scholars, will no longer apply own judgments about trust or category-based processing to build trust relationships and will view each person on the team as an individual personality and hence, will use the past behavior of team members to assess their trustworthiness.
According to Ardichvili (2008), knowledge-based trust develops on the principle of repeated social interactions between two parties and becomes established when trustor and trustee get to know each other better and hence, they can predict how the other party will behave in a future in a particular situation.
Thus, to build knowledge-based trust, Ardichvili (2008) recommends to supplement online interactions of the members of GVTs with electronic teleconferences and even to arrange some face-to-face meetings, when it is possible.
Eventually, the difference between individuals’ trust disposition and perceived risk during the late stages of a knowledge-based trust formation will have a positive influence on the intention of GVT’s members to trust the other members of the team and to rely on them (Robert et al., 2009). That leads to the further development of identification-based trust.
2.3.3 Identification-based trust
The genesis and evolution of impersonal trust (Shapiro, 1987) also known as institution-based trust (Bradach & Eccles, 1989) or relationally-based trust (Candlin & Crichton, 2013) become a contradictory point in the recent discussions between the academic scholars.
Lewicki & Bunker (1995) and later Rosseau et al. (1998) define institution-based trust as a form of trust that is developed on empathy between the team members, shared values, and shared goals that allow individuals to ‘act as the agents’ for each other (Jarvenpaa & Shaw, 1998).
Costa et al. (2018) also supplement that institution-based trust relies on self-identification of the trustee(s) with the intentions and desires of the others and emerges among the individuals that share a common identity. Thus, Lettl et al. (2005) identified this stage of the trust development in GVT as a final point where team members can absolutely rely on each other.
However, according to Alsharo et al. (2017), identification-based trust is based on the organizational norms and rules that allow the members of VTs to trust each other.
Hence, the formation of institution-based trust relies on the belief that the required procedures and team norms will ensure, that the individual members of VTs conduct themselves as trustworthy people (Ardichvili, 2008). McKnight et al. (1998) argue that building institution-based trust will preserve team members from the adverse consequences of procedural and administrative misunderstandings. E.g., the research of Ardichvili et al. (2003) shows that the members of VT do not hesitate to post valuable information public on the VT’s platforms if they assume that the control mechanisms of an organization or a team will protect posted information and prevent other members of a team from abusing it.
Consequently, the founders and leaders of GVTs have to make their expectations transparent by establishing and clearly formulating a set of institutional norms, and by preliminarily informing the members of these teams about the team rules.
The recent findings of Pangil and Moi Chan (2014) show that institution-based trust affects the effectiveness of GVT. Moreover, the scholars argue that trust relationships among the members of VTs rely only on the trust on each other’s competencies to perform the team tasks following the norms and rules and entirely neglecting the personal and knowledge-based factors.
Thus, the problem of building trust relationships in GVTs, its stages and peculiarities remain a controversial topic for the academic discussions. The development of trust is a slow and time-consuming process that includes plenty of antecedents and sources. Hence, it is important to identify and classify the possible barriers and complexities that might occur in the different phases of the formation of trust relationships in GVTs.
2.3.4 Barriers affecting trust formation
Academic research on trust in GVTs shows that virtual teamwork is plentiful with complex issues and challenges. Based on the system analysis of the academic literature, Ishaya & Mundy (2004) have revealed five areas containing potential problems affecting the formation of trust relationships in GVTs: sociological, technological, psychological, legal and economic areas.
The first area to be discussed comprise plenty of sociological factors. GVTs include members with different national and cultural backgrounds (Evaristo, 2003). Therefore, cultural barriers play a significant role in the development of trust in VTs (Ishaya & Mundy, 2004). Zakaria et al. (2004) argue that culture is fundamental in interpreting the behavior of the members of GVTs because having the members of different cultures in a team may affect the level of initial trust between them. According to Simpson (2017), ‘very open and direct’ style of communication that is typical of the western culture might be not accepted by the other cultures. The observations of Simpson (2017) show that Polish managers had fewer problems communicating with more closed Asians than with straightforward Germans. Hence, the researcher claims that cultural barriers lead to mistrust in a VT and provide possible conflicts.
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1 Arguably, the most common and oft cited definition of trust is ‘the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectations 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).