Virtual vs. face-to-face teams: deadbeats, deserters, and other considerations

• Authors: Emmeline de Pillis;Kimberly Furumo
• Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on computer personnel research: Forty four years of computer personnel research: achievements, challenges & the future
• Year: 2006

201 participants were randomly assigned to complete an intellective task in either virtual or face-to-face three-person teams. Virtual teams displayed lower average performance, less cohesion and satisfaction, more time spent on the task, and more "deadbeats" or free-riders than face-to-face teams. Among the virtual teams there were also two "deserters," individuals who openly abandoned the group. These findings indicate that virtual work design should only be selected over face-to-face work if cost savings are sufficient to justify the probable reductions in efficiency, morale, and performance.Average grade performance of female participants was 3.9% higher than that of male participants in the virtual teams, but only 0.9% higher than that of male participants in the face-to-face teams. In both conditions, males were more likely to be deadbeats than were females. The highest likelihood of being a deadbeat was among males in the virtual teams: 10.4% of them were reported as deadbeats by both team members. 7.3% of females in virtual teams and 3.6% of males in face-to-face teams were reported as deadbeats by both team members. There were no reports of female deadbeats in the face-to-face teams. Both of the deserters in the study were also males in virtual teams. The greater gap between male and female performance in the virtual teams, together with the incidence of free riding among males in the virtual teams, may indicate that virtual work might be an especially poor fit for the skills or working styles of at least some males.