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Master Thesis Organisation Studies
A quantitative study on Transformational Leadership, Cross-Cultural Awareness
and Task Interdependence in Virtual Teams
Karin In der Maur
June, 2011
Details of student: Karin In der Maur
ANR: 824430
Names of the Supervisors: Name supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. M.J.M. Vermeulen
Name supervisor 2: MSc. K.E. de Ries
Second reader: Dr. J.P. de Jong
Tilburg University: Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Department of Organization Studies
Master Circle 10: Leadership and Coordination in Distributed Teams
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Abstract
A quantitative study on Transformational Leadership, Cross-Cultural Awareness
and Task Interdependence in Virtual Teams
Karin In der Maur
Tilburg University, 2011
This research provides insight into the relationship between transformational leadership, cross-
cultural awareness and task interdependence in virtual teams. Virtual teams became more common
in organizations and virtual team leaders have to deal with other complexities than leaders in
conventional teams. One of these complexities is that members of virtual teams often have different
cultural backgrounds due to their geographical distance. This can result in creative solution solving
but can also lead to miscommunication and conflict instead. Therefore, this study suggested that it is
important that leaders effectively deal with these cultural differences by stimulating cross-cultural
awareness in order to enhance team effectiveness. Furthermore, task interdependence has been
included in this research because prior research showed the implications of it on group structure and
processes. The following research question was formulated: To what extent 1) is transformational
leadership related to the effectiveness of virtual teams, 2) is this relationship mediated by cross-
cultural awareness, and 3) is the association of cross-cultural awareness with team effectiveness
moderated by task interdependence? The research has a cross-sectional design and data is gathered
through questionnaires conducted in 18 global virtual teams (145 members and 18 leaders) of 10
different multinationals. Multiple regression analyses are conducted on team as well as on individual-
level. The results provided support for the positive influence of transformational leaders on the
effectiveness of virtual teams. The mediating role of cross-cultural awareness on the association of
transformational leadership with team effectiveness is not supported, though individual-level
analyses indicate that cross-cultural awareness can be influenced by transformational leaders and
that it has an effect on team effectiveness as well. The moderating role of task interdependence on
the association of cross-cultural awareness with team effectiveness is not supported. Hence, a direct
relationship between task interdependence and team effectiveness has been detected.
Keywords: virtual teams, transformational leadership, team effectiveness, cross-cultural awareness,
task interdependence
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Preface
This report is the result of a research conducted for my master thesis for Organisation Studies at
Tilburg University. In the preface I will elaborate on my choice for the research subject. Furthermore,
I would like to grab this opportunity to thank some people.
My previous education, the Hotel Management School in Maastricht, did not satisfy me enough and
when I finished it I decided to search for a greater intellectual challenge. Therefore, I started the
premaster Organisation Studies at Tilburg University two years ago and I must admit that the past
two years definitely gave me the challenge I searched for. My passion about other cultures, including
their habits, ways of working and views on the world, started with my traineeship in 2006 in Malaysia
and grew during my international experiences later on. This fascination for other cultures influenced
my decision for a circle and topic for my thesis; I wanted to do something within an international
context. In the track ‘Leadership in Distributed Teams’ I have been able to combine this personal
interest with a very interesting, upcoming phenomenon within organisations, called virtual teams.
I enjoyed doing this research, though it has not always been that easy. Especially the acquisition of
global virtual teams turned out to be very hard and has cost a tremendous amount of effort. Also the
several analyses were brain-racking here and there. Overall I can say that I went through a great
learning experience.
Finally, I would like to thank several persons who were involved in writing this thesis. I would like to
start by thanking my supervisors, Joris de Rooij, who unfortunately had to leave after finishing my
Individual Research Proposal (IRP), Marc Vermeulen and Kirsten de Ries for their guidance through
the whole process. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jeroen de Jong for his comments during the
defences, both the IRP and thesis defence. I also would like to thank my fellow students, with special
thanks to Malou Lambregts with whom I have visited a lot of organizations and Imke Verheij, for the
pleasant collaboration. Moreover, I am thankful to all participating teams and their members. As
mentioned before, it has been very tough to gather data so their effort is even more appreciated.
Last but not least I would like to thank my family and boyfriend for their infinite support.
I hope you will enjoy reading this thesis and that it is satisfying for all of you.
Karin In der Maur
June, 2011
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Table of Content
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Preface ............................................................................................................................................. 3
1. Research introduction .................................................................................................................... 6
1.1 Research problem .............................................................................................................................. 6
1.2 Aim and research question ................................................................................................................ 8
1.3 Relevance ........................................................................................................................................... 8
1.4 Structure of this paper ....................................................................................................................... 9
2. Theoretical framework ................................................................................................................ 10
2.1 Virtual teams .................................................................................................................................... 10
2.2 Team effectiveness........................................................................................................................... 11
2.3 Leadership ........................................................................................................................................ 12
2.4 Cross-cultural awareness ................................................................................................................. 14
2.5 Task interdependence ...................................................................................................................... 16
2.6 Conceptual model ............................................................................................................................ 17
3. Methodological framework .......................................................................................................... 18
3.1 Research design ................................................................................................................................ 18
3.2 Sample strategy ................................................................................................................................ 18
3.3 Data collection.................................................................................................................................. 19
3.4 Measurements ................................................................................................................................. 20
3.5 Data analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 22
3.6 Research quality indicators .............................................................................................................. 24
4. Results ........................................................................................................................................ 26
4.1 Preliminary analysis .......................................................................................................................... 26
4.2 Factor analysis and scale reliability .................................................................................................. 26
4.3 Data aggregation .............................................................................................................................. 28
4.4 Descriptive statistics ......................................................................................................................... 29
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4.5 Regression analysis ........................................................................................................................... 30
4.5.1 Assumptions ............................................................................................................................ 30
4.5.2 Team-level analysis .................................................................................................................. 32
4.5.3 Individual-level analysis ........................................................................................................... 34
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 37
6. Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 38
6.1 Theoretical implications ................................................................................................................... 38
6.2 Reflection upon the measurements and analyses ........................................................................... 40
6.3 Limitations and recommendations for future research ................................................................... 42
6.4 Managerial implications ................................................................................................................... 44
Literature references ....................................................................................................................... 45
Appendices ..................................................................................................................................... 48
Appendix A: Invitation questionnaire .................................................................................................... 49
Appendix B: Reminder questionnaire .................................................................................................... 50
Appendix C: Questionnaire .................................................................................................................... 51
Appendix D: Logbook data gathering ..................................................................................................... 60
Appendix E: Characteristics of the participating organizations and teams ........................................... 61
Appendix F: Individual-Level Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations ............................................. 62
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1. Research introduction
This chapter provides further details about the context of this research. The research problem is
outlined and furthermore the aim of the research, the research question and the relevance of this
research will be discussed. Finally, the structure of this paper will be presented.
1.1 Research problem
Many organizations have responded to globalization, technological innovations and rapid changing
customer needs by introducing virtual teams (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002; Hertel, Geister & Konradt,
2005). Virtual teams are "teams whose members use technology to varying degrees in working
across locational, temporal, and relational boundaries to accomplish an interdependent task"
(Martins, Gilson & Maynard, 2004, p. 808). Due to Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
geographical flexibility of organizations is increased which makes it possible to bring the most
qualified individuals together, regardless of their location (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002).
Prior research stated that leadership is an important factor for enhancing team effectiveness in
virtual teams (e.g. Kayworth & Leidner, 2000). Nevertheless, scholars just started to understand
leadership in virtual teams and more research is required (Kahai, Fjermestad, Zhang & Avolio, 2007).
Leaders in virtual teams have to deal with other complexities than leaders in conventional (face-to-
face) teams and they have to learn to manage these complexities in order to improve team
effectiveness (Kayworth & Leidner, 2002). One of these complexities is that members in virtual teams
often have different cultural backgrounds (Hertel et al., 2005) and have therefore greater
management challenges than conventional teams (McDonough, Kahn & Barczak, 2001). According to
Hertel et al. (2005), leaders are not able to choose cultural diversity and therefore recommendations
how to deal with these differences are required.
Prior research indicated that cultural differences within virtual teams can have both positive and
negative influences on team effectiveness. Culturally diverse virtual teams may perform better than
teams with members from the same culture because of their ability to solve problems with creative
solutions (Davis & Bryant, 2003) and their greater variety of perspectives (Kayworth & Leidner, 2000).
“However, restricted communication opportunities in virtual teams might prevent a constructive use
of diversity and might rather increase misunderstandings and conflicts” (Hertel et al., 2005, p. 75).
Miscommunication can also be caused because of the different assumptions, ways of working and
views of the world that culturally diverse members have (Kayworth & Leidner, 2000; Shachaf, 2008).
Culturally diverse team members “filter information through their cultural lenses” (Kayworth &
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Leidner, 2000, p. 187) which may result in communication difficulties and misunderstandings (Davis
& Bryant, 2003). These different perspectives can also hinder the decision making process
(Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000) and it may be harder to create cohesion and to build trust
(McDonough et al., 2001). In the research of Davis and Bryant (2003), cultural conflicts diminished
team effectiveness, satisfaction and commitment. Lee-Kelley and Sankey (2008) stated that
especially cultural differences influence relationships between virtual team members. Therefore, it is
important to overcome problems that might arise when individuals with different cultural
backgrounds work together in virtual teams in order to optimize team effectiveness.
According to Connaughton and Shuffler (2007) virtual teams will be effective “as long as individuals
learn the cultural logic of others’ divergent beliefs” (p. 396). Their vision has been shared with other
scholars who argue that awareness to other cultures is a critical success factor in virtual teams
(Kayworth & Leidner, 2000; Blackburn, Furst & Rosen, 2003). Cross-cultural awareness has also been
an important focus of training programs to prepare people to cooperate with people with different
cultural backgrounds (Cox & Blake, 1991). Because of the culturally diverse team members in global
virtual teams, cross-cultural awareness seems to be an important concept in the context of these
teams. Additionally, Kayworth and Leidner (2000) found that it is important to undertake a strategy
to build cross-cultural awareness among team members to overcome culture barriers and to
stimulate cooperation in order to optimize team performance. Because of the central role that a
leader possesses in a team, it seems logic to reason that leaders play an important role in
undertaking these strategies. Leaders can facilitate the learning about different cultures within the
team (Huang, Kahai & Jestice, 2010).
Cross-cultural awareness deals with relationships among team members and “an important
determinant of the quality of interpersonal interaction” is the extent to which team members are
interdependent from each other (Van der Vegt & Janssen, 2003, p. 731). Within every team a certain
level of task interdependence is required which has an impact on the structure and processes of the
virtual team (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002). High levels of task interdependence within a team require
team members to interact and cooperate more frequently with each other, compared to teams with
low task interdependence (Mitchell & Silver, 1990). When team members need to cooperate and
communicate more often with each other, cross-cultural awareness within the team seems to be
more important.
Therefore, this research will focus on the relationship of leadership, team effectiveness, cross-
cultural awareness and task interdependence.
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1.2 Aim and research question
The aim of this research is to provide more insight into the influence and role of transformational
leadership (only transformational leadership is incorporated in this research for the reasons provided
in subparagraph 2.3), cross-cultural awareness and task interdependence on the effectiveness of
virtual teams. By increasing our knowledge regarding the influence of, and the relationships between
these concepts, the functioning of virtual teams will be better understood.
Therefore, this research attempts to answer the following research question:
1.3 Relevance
The last ten years the literature regarding virtual teams has grown extensively. As mentioned before,
leadership has been an important factor for enhancing team effectiveness and more research is
required to better understand leadership within the context of virtual teams (Kahai et al., 2007;
Hambley, O’Neill & Kline, 2007a). Additionally, “there has been relatively few published field studies
that have examined leadership in a virtual team setting” (Kahai et al., 2007, p. 3) and “most of the
existing research on virtual team leadership consists of anecdotal case studies of virtual teams in
single organizations” (Hambley et al., 2007b, p. 41). Because leadership is an important aspect in this
research and data is gathered in virtual teams of multiple organizations, this research will extend the
existing amount of research regarding virtual team leadership. Furthermore, this research will extend
the virtual team literature by investigating cross-cultural awareness within these teams. Although
cross-cultural awareness is a known concept in cross-cultural settings, it has hardly been studied
before in research regarding virtual teams. Prior research stated that cultural diversity is an
important predictor of team effectiveness (Davis & Bryant, 2003). Nevertheless, there is a lack of
empirical findings that support this (Shachaf, 2008). Furthermore, Anawati and Craig (2006) argued
that virtual team research mainly focuses on the technological aspects of these work environments
and there is “a lack of research into the behavioural aspects and the issue of cultural differences in
particular” (p. 44). This research is an attempt to provide insight into some behavioural aspects by
extending the knowledge regarding the relation between transformational leadership, cross-cultural
awareness, task interdependence and team effectiveness within virtual teams.
To what extent 1) is transformational leadership related to the effectiveness of virtual teams, 2) is
this relationship mediated by cross-cultural awareness, and 3) is the association of cross-cultural
awareness with team effectiveness moderated by task interdependence?
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Besides the theoretical relevance, this research has a practical relevance as well. The use of virtual
teams within (large international) organizations has become prevalent (Connaughton & Shuffler,
2007). This research will provide better insight into the functioning of virtual teams and managerial
implications have been formulated which can help managers to optimize the performance of their
team(s).
1.4 Structure of this paper
This paper consists of six chapters. The second chapter presents the theoretical foundation of this
research, including the hypotheses and a conceptual model. Chapter three describes the methods
which are used to conduct the research. The results are presented in the fourth chapter and the fifth
chapter contains the conclusion of the research and provides an answer on the research question.
Finally, the last chapter discusses the results, reflect upon the measurements and analyses, provide
limitations of the research, formulate recommendations for future research and managerial
implications are presented. A rough outline of the structure of this paper can be found in figure 1.
Theoretical part Empirical part
Figure 1: Structure of paper
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2. Theoretical framework
This chapter describes the dependent and independent variables which are included in this research,
namely; team effectiveness, transformational leadership, cross-cultural awareness and task
interdependence. Furthermore, possible theoretical relations between the concepts are discussed
and a conceptual model is presented. In order to provide better insight in the phenomenon of virtual
teams, the next paragraph will start with an explanation of them.
2.1 Virtual teams
An extensive amount of definitions about virtual teams exist in the literature. Two examples,
additional to the one presented in the first chapter are; virtual teams are “groups of geographically,
organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information and
telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks” (Powell, Piccoli &
Ives, 2004, p. 7) and “two or more individuals who use a mixture of communication and collaboration
technologies to interact interdependently across boundaries of organization, time and space to
achieve some common strategic purpose for their organization” (Davis & Bryant, 2003, p. 307). There
is no commonly agreed definition of virtual teams because they come in many forms (Curseu &
Wessel, 2005). Furthermore, because of the increased amount of literature on virtual teams, a lot of
virtual team definitions have been presented simultaneously (Martins et al., 2004). Nevertheless,
these definitions show quite some similarities and most of them include the same virtual team
attributes (Martins et al., 2004). According to Hertel et al. (2005), who made an attempt to
summarize these attributes, virtual teams consist of “(a) two or more persons who (b) collaborate
interactively to achieve common goals, while (c) at least one of the team members works at a
different location, organization, or at a different time so that (d) communication and coordination is
predominantly based on electronic communication media (email, fax, phone, video conference,
etc.)” (p. 71).
A distinctive type of a virtual team, which received a great amount of attention in the literature, is
the global virtual team (e.g. Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000; Davis & Bryant, 2003). Global virtual teams
consist of members who are culturally diverse because they work and live in several countries
around the globe (Powell et al., 2004) and differ from domestic teams which are teams consisting of
members from the same country (Davis & Bryant, 2003). According to Davis and Bryant (2003), global
virtual teams are harder to manage because the members are culturally diverse. Furthermore,
members are geographically separated and operate in different time zones (Davis & Bryant, 2003).
This research only gathered data in global virtual teams because the members of the virtual teams
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which are involved in this research represent different cultures. The name global virtual teams and
virtual teams will be used interchangeable within this report.
(Global) virtual teams have many advantages. “They allow organizations to access the most qualified
individuals for a particular job regardless of their location, enable organizations to respond faster to
increased competition, and provide greater flexibility to individuals working from home or on the
road” (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002, p. 15). Furthermore, virtual teams are an effective way of decreasing
travel time and costs (Martins et al., 2004). Overall you can say that virtual teams can enhance the
competitive advantage of an organization because with virtual teams, organizations are able to
eliminate organizational boundaries and therefore, increase their flexibility (Davis & Bryant, 2003).
2.2 Team effectiveness
Organizations have high expectations of virtual teams. Nevertheless, this new phenomenon within
organizations must show to be successful in reaching organizational goals (Powell et al., 2004). When
researching virtual team outcomes, two major measures of effectiveness of virtual teams can be
found in the literature. A lot of research on virtual team effectiveness has made the distinction
between team performance and member satisfaction (Martins et al., 2004; Powell et al., 2004).
According to Piccoli, Powell and Ives (2004) “effective teams should be able to produce high quality
output (i.e. products and services) and reward team members in terms of gratification and
satisfaction with the working experience” (p. 362).
Prior research has shown that teams are not effective when team members are not satisfied with
being a member of the team (Lurey & Raisinghani, 2001). This indicates the importance of the socio-
psychological dimension of team effectiveness. A model which emphasizes the socio-psychological
constructs, rather than only socio-technological aspects, is Hackman’s model of group effectiveness
(Furst, Blackburn & Rosen, 1999). According to Hackman’s model there are three criteria to consider
with regards to team effectiveness. The first criterion has to do with the team’s productivity level
because it deals with the “degree to which the group's products or services meet the standards of
quantity, quality and timeliness of those who receive, review and/or use the output” (Furst et al.,
1999, p. 251). The second criterion relates to the “degree to which the group's work processes
enhance the capability of members to work together interdependently in the future” (Furst et al.,
1999, p. 251). Finally, the third criterion has to do with the satisfaction of the individual team
members. A team “must also care for its members and provide the right opportunities for personal
development and growth” (Lurey & Raisinghani, 2001, p. 526).
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This model includes the two major measurements of team effectiveness (team performance and
member satisfaction) which has been used in prior virtual team research. As explained above,
Hackman’s model has one additional criterion besides team performance and member satisfaction,
namely the ability of team members to cooperate successful in the future as well. Nevertheless, the
majority of prior research regarding virtual team effectiveness did not include this dimension of the
model of Hackman. A possible reason for this is given by Lurey and Raisinghani (2001) who stated
that this criterion is not based on the actual outcome that the team obtains. Another reason which
can be thought of is that this feature is already entangled in the other two criteria. Because team
performance and members’ satisfaction are the two major measurements of team effectiveness in
the literature, these two have been included in this research.
2.3 Leadership
Avolio, Kahai and Dodge (2000) define leadership in virtual teams (also called e-leadership) as “a
social influence process mediated by advanced information technology to produce a change in
attitudes, feelings, thinking, behaviour, and/or performance with individuals, groups, and/or
organizations” (p. 617). Several studies highlight the importance and significant impact of leadership
in virtual teams (e.g. Hambley, O'Neill & Kline, 2007b; Hertel et al., 2005; Kayworth & Leidner, 2000).
Two well known kinds of leadership, transformational and transactional, are derived from the book
Leadership of Burns (1978; in Kuhnert & Lewis, 1987). Bass (1985) elaborated on these two
leadership styles of Burns (1978) by applying his ideas to organizational management (as stated in
Kuhnert & Lewis, 1987). Together with the laissez-faire style of leadership, which implies that there is
no leadership at all because leaders do not take appropriate actions (Davis & Bryant, 2003),
transformational and transactional leadership form the Full Range Leadership Theory (FRLT). The
FRLT has been widely accepted and has been the foundation for many studies on leadership in virtual
teams (Hambley et al., 2007b).
Transactional leaders “enter into an exchange with followers by identifying goals and relevant
contingencies, and rewarding followers for goal achievement and punishing followers for failure to
achieve goals” (Davis & Bryant, 2003, p. 318). Transactional leadership consists of three components:
(1) contingent reward - desired behaviour is rewarded; (2) active management by exception - leaders
only take (corrective) action when deviations from standards occur, and they monitor this actively;
and (3) passive management by exception - leaders wait till problems become serious and they are
brought to their attention before taking action.
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Transformational leaders “primarily influence followers by inspiring them to rise above their
immediate self-interests and focus on helping the group and its members” (Huang et al., 2010, p.
1099). Transformational leadership consists of five components: (1 + 2) idealized influence (attributed
and behavioural) - leaders develop trust, emphasize values and are seen as role models by their
followers; (3) inspirational motivation - the leader sets a challenging goal and a clear vision and
encourage followers to work hard to reach this goal and gives them confidence that they are able to
reach that specific goal; (4) intellectual stimulation - leaders encourage followers to be creative and
to challenge existing traditions and assumptions; and (5) individualized consideration - leaders pay
specific attention to the unique needs of individuals and try to help followers to achieve these needs.
Leaders in virtual teams have to deal with other challenges than their colleagues in conventional,
face-to-face teams. Kayworth and Leidner (2002) summarised the following challenges within virtual
teams; communication (e.g. loss of facial expressions), culture (e.g. cultural misunderstandings),
technology (e.g. require knowledge about several technologies), and logistics (e.g. multiple time
zones makes arranging meetings more difficult). These challenges indicate that a more active style of
leadership, such as transformational and transactional leadership, is required within virtual teams
(Huang et al., 2010).
The research of Davis and Bryant (2003) found support that both transformational and transactional
leadership can be extended to a virtual context and are effective in virtual teams as well. Hoyt and
Blascovich (2003) stated that several studies found a positive relationship between both leadership
styles and performance, but that the effect of transformational leadership and performance was
stronger. Also Hambley, O’Neill and Kline (2007a) named several studies which found that
transformational leadership is more effective than transactional leadership. Whereas transactional
leadership concentrates more on rewards for individual effort, “transformational leaders motivate
followers to transcend self-interest for the good of the team or organization, that is, to work beyond
expectations” (Davis & Bryant, 2003, p. 318). Additionally, the study of Hambley et al. (2007b) found
several behaviours of successful leaders within virtual teams which could be linked to the
transformational style of leadership. They indicated for example that it is important for leaders to
provide a clear direction and vision (inspirational motivation) in order to have a successful virtual
team. Davis and Bryant (2003) stated that “intellectual stimulation should encourage global virtual
team members to become open to the unique demands of working virtually” (Davis & Bryant, 2003,
p. 334). Furthermore, transformational leaders promote “understanding and appreciation of differing
views” and they “intellectually stimulate members to re-examine critical assumptions” (Hambley et
al., 2007a, p. 6). These characteristics of a transformational leader seem to be more important than
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characteristics of a transactional leader (e.g. reward people when they show desirable behaviour, set
clear tasks) when creating cross-cultural awareness. For the several reasons stated above, only
transformational leadership is included in this research.
Therefore I hypothesize:
H1: Transformational leadership is positively associated with virtual team effectiveness.
2.4 Cross-cultural awareness
As stated in the introduction, virtual teams frequently consists of culturally diverse members (Hertel
et al., 2005) and the matter of these cultural differences is one of the main challenges that virtual
teams face (Kayworth & Leidner, 2000). A classic definition of culture comes from Hofstede. He
defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one
group from another” (as cited from Kayworth & Leidner, 2000, p. 187). According to Dubé and Paré
(2004) you can distinguish three kinds of cultures, namely; national, organizational and professional.
In this research culture refers to the national culture of the team members. The composition of
virtual teams seems to be very important because cultural diversity affects team effectiveness
(Shachaf, 2008). According to Powell et al. (2004) it is important that cultural differences between
team members are actively understood and accepted to diminish the negative effects of it and
Anawati and Craig (2006) stated that creating awareness among team members “can help improve
communication and synergy within cross-cultural virtual teams” (p. 54).
According to Stohl (1996) cross-cultural awareness “refers to the ability to understand how another
culture feels from the standpoint of the insider” (as cited from Olson & Kroeger, 2001, p. 118). It is
essential for team members of culturally diverse teams that they learn about and focus on their
differences and similarities (Hofner Saphier, 1996). Cross-cultural awareness has frequently been the
focus of cross-cultural training programs and has been used to prepare people to work with culturally
diverse people (Cox & Blake, 1991). According to Kealey and Protheroe (1996), these cross-cultural
awareness programs enhance the chance of successful collaboration.
Because of the cultural variety of members in virtual teams, it seems reasonable to expect that cross-
cultural awareness is important within these teams in order to be effective. One of the few studies
that incorporated awareness in a study regarding distributed work is Weisband (2002). Weisband
(2002) investigated distributed work among student teams and focused on several types of
awareness. Although she did not incorporate cross-cultural awareness, three out of four other types
of awareness (activity, availability and social) were significant predictors of team performance. This
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finding shows the importance of several kinds of awareness in virtual teams which can be explained
by the fact that within virtual teams a limited amount of face-to-face contact occurs, which makes it
harder to be aware of the behaviour and actions of other team members. Therefore, awareness in
virtual teams needs to receive specific attention. Kayworth and Leidner (2000) stated that a critical
success factor for effective virtual teams is that virtual team members need to be aware of cultural
differences. According to Blackburn et al. (2003) “cross-cultural training expands team member
awareness of differences in language, cultural norms, and values, which is frequently critical to
virtual team success” (p. 108).
There are several reasons why cross-cultural awareness is a critical success factor of virtual teams.
One important reason deals with communication patterns, which are very important to the success
of virtual teams (Kayworth & Leidner, 2000). When culturally diverse team members communicate
they “speak from their cultural perspective” and they “interpret the communication of others from
this particular perspective” (Anawati & Craig, 2006, p. 45). When members are not aware of these
differing communication styles due to cultural differences, and neither consider that these
differences might affect team performance (Anawati & Craig, 2006), misunderstandings are more
likely to occur. Cross-cultural awareness within a virtual team might help to overcome these
communication problems (Blackburn et al., 2003). Furthermore, members with different cultures
may have varying work habits (Blackburn et al., 2003) of which several examples are provided in the
literature. Shachaf (2008) stated that people from different cultures differ in their preciseness
regarding time, the quickness they respond on messages and in their decision making process. All
these differing views are likely to lead to conflicting demands. When a team is cross-cultural aware,
members do understand the inducements and values of each other better which creates increased
understanding and improved collaboration. Therefore, cross-cultural awareness seems to offset
problems which are likely to occur due to cultural differences. According to Kayworth & Leidner
(2000) cross-cultural aware leaders will “be much more likely to recognize and deal with culturally
based team issues in a more consistent and effective fashion” (p. 192) which also is expected when
there is cross-cultural awareness within the team.
Weisband (2002) found that when members, but team leaders as well, were creating awareness
within the team, successful collaboration outcomes were generated. It seems reasonable to expect
that leaders have an important role in increasing cross-cultural awareness among members of virtual
teams. Because of different cultural backgrounds, team members do not have the same norms and
work procedures and, “under such circumstances, leaders in virtual teams can facilitate learning
about different individuals and cultures represented in the team and make deliberate efforts to build
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trust, cohesion, and a shared understanding of norms and procedures” (Huang et al., 2010, p. 1099).
Also Kayworth and Leidner (2000) stated that it is essential to have a strategy to integrate culturally
diverse team members and to create cross-cultural awareness in order to overcome cultural barriers.
Hofner Saphiere (1996) found in her literature review that “the exchange of cultural information is
central to improving team productivity” (p. 232) and that the way a team deals with differences of
opinion, approaches and beliefs has an effect on team outcomes as well. Furthermore, several
studies found that the cultural composition of virtual teams is important to take into account in
order to develop processes to integrate these culturally diverse team members to improve team
performance (e.g. Maznevski & Chudoba, 2001; Dubé & Paré, 2004). These strategies and processes
are most likely to be implemented by the team leader because he or she possesses a central role
within the team. Finally, Van Ryssen and Godar (2000) found in their research on students and virtual
teams that the effectiveness of these teams was dependent on the ability of the professor to help
students when problems due to cultural differences arised.
Therefore I hypothesize:
H2: Cross-cultural awareness mediates the association of transformational leadership with virtual
team effectiveness.
2.5 Task interdependence
When working in a team a certain level of task interdependence is required. The importance of task
interdependence and the implications of it on group structure and processes have, in the last three
decades, often be highlighted in the literature (Dubé & Paré, 2004). High task interdependence is
present when “there is a task structure in which team members work closely with each other, must
coordinate their activities frequently, and within which the way one member accomplishes her or his
task has strong implications on the work process of other team members” (Hertel, Konradt &
Orlikowski, 2004, p. 6). Interdependent tasks ask for cooperation between the group members
because they depend on each other to accomplish their work (Mitchell & Silver, 1990). This need for
cooperation requires more communication among team members to coordinate and adjust the
activities within the team (Dubé & Paré, 2004). Other effects of high task interdependence are the
(potential) increases of trust, team cohesion and the feeling that an individual’s contribution is
important (Hertel et al., 2004).
It seems reasonable to expect that task interdependence has a moderating effect on the relationship
between cross-cultural awareness and team effectiveness. When task interdependence is low, team
members work less frequently together because they are not dependent on each other to
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accomplish their task(s). Therefore, fewer problems due to cultural differences are expected. Cross-
cultural awareness may be considered to be less important in teams with lower task
interdependence. Therefore, the relationship between cross-cultural awareness and team
effectiveness will be less strong when lower task interdependence is present in the team. On the
opposite, the effect of cross-cultural awareness on team effectiveness is expected to be stronger
when task interdependence is higher because more cooperation is required.
Therefore I hypothesize:
H3: Task interdependence moderates the association of cross-cultural awareness with virtual team
effectiveness; the positive association of cross-cultural awareness with team effectiveness will be
stronger in teams with higher task interdependence compared to teams with lower task
interdependence.
2.6 Conceptual model
In the following conceptual model all the relations explained in the previous paragraphs are
visualized. In sum, the following relations are expected; transformational leaders have a positive
influence on the effectiveness of virtual teams and this relationship is mediated by cross-cultural
awareness. Furthermore, task interdependence moderates the association of cross-cultural
awareness with team effectiveness.
Transformational
Leadership
Cross-Cultural
Awareness
Team Effectiveness
Task
Interdependence
Figure 2: Conceptual model
+
+
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3. Methodological framework
In this chapter, the methodological framework of this research is outlined. Specific attention is paid
to the research design, sample strategy, data collection, measurements, data analysis, and research
quality indicators.
3.1 Research design
The best suited design for this research is the cross-sectional design because multiple cases are used,
data is gathered in a single point of time and is used to examine patterns of association (Bryman,
2008). In this research, which consists of questionnaires, hypotheses about the relations between the
various concepts are tested. These hypotheses are derived from a literature study and therefore, this
research is deductive in nature. The units of analysis are the virtual teams and the units of
observations are the members of these teams.
3.2 Sample strategy
Convenience sampling is used to select organizations (between sample strategy) because all
companies are drawn from the network of the researcher. In total 51 international companies were
approached. An informative email has been set up to contact organizations. When the organization
showed interest, a meeting was arranged in which both parties, the researcher and the organization,
could further discuss the research possibilities within the firm. Only global virtual teams who met the
following requirements were included in the research; the members are geographically separated
from each other, they try to accomplish a specific common goal, have interdependent tasks that
require coordination and the members mainly collaborate via communication and information
techniques and face-to-face interaction between the team members is scarce. Furthermore, there
are at least two different nationalities within the team and there is a formal appointed leader. In
total eleven commercial, multinational organizations with one or multiple global virtual teams were
involved in the research. The questionnaire has been distributed to all members of the teams
available (within sample strategy). In total 20 virtual teams, existing of 236 team members, received
the questionnaire. Of these 236 team members, 166 completed the questionnaire (response rate =
70%). The response rate per team varies from 15% to 100%. Please see appendix E for the specific
response rate per team.
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3.3 Data collection
Data has been collected with the use of a questionnaire (appendix C) and has been used to confirm
or reject the hypotheses. The questionnaire has been distributed to global virtual team members
who are located around the world, have different nationalities and who speak several languages.
English is the language which is dominantly used in global virtual teams, and therefore the researcher
expected that the members of these teams have at least a basic level of English. Therefore, the total
questionnaire has been developed in English. The questionnaire consisted of items which measured
the variables of this research (including the control variables). Furthermore, items from two fellow
students from the master Organisation Studies, Imke Verheij and Malou Lambregts, were included.
Both students conducted research on virtual teams as well and the three master students decided to
gather data together to enlarge their sample size. One questionnaire has been developed which have
been sent to the team members and their leaders. All questions were stated the same and were
applicable for each respondent. In the questionnaire, the team leaders were asked to answer the
questions regarding leadership by keeping in mind their own leadership activities by adding the
following sentence: “In case you are the formal leader of the team, please answer the questions by
keeping in mind your own leadership activities”. The leadership scores are treated with caution.
More details about this can be found in the results section.
Before the questionnaire was distributed to all team members, a pilot questionnaire was conducted.
A test panel of five members, consisting of friends and family of the researcher, received the
questionnaire. They had the opportunity to comment on the questionnaire and it gave a proper
indication of how long was needed to complete the questionnaire. Furthermore, one virtual team
leader who is British in origin took a critical look at the questionnaire (especially at the English
grammar) and gave several recommendations. When the advices of all parties were carried through,
the questionnaire was ready to be sent to all participating virtual teams.
The questionnaire has been digitally distributed to all virtual team members. The tool NETQ Internet
Surveys has been used to place the questionnaire online. Members of seventeen (out of twenty)
teams received an invitation with a personal link to the questionnaire (appendix A). Hence, this was
only possible when all email addresses were known. By sending every participant a personal link, the
researcher could keep an overview of who completed the questionnaire and who did not. Therefore,
the researcher was able to send a reminder (appendix B) to those who did not fulfil the questionnaire
after a certain amount of time. Appendix D provides a logbook with detailed information about the
dates when the invitation, the reminder and eventually a second reminder were sent to the
respondents. The members of the remaining three teams (of which the email addresses were not
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known) received a general link which was forwarded by the team leaders. The researcher composed
an email which the leaders could easily forward to their team members and instructed the leader to
mention the team name to his or her team members, just to make sure that there would not be any
confusion about the team for which the team members had to fill in the questionnaire.
3.4 Measurements
For this research mostly pre-existed items were used to measure the different concepts. This
paragraph elaborates on the measurements of the four concepts and the control variables which are
included in this research. For the specific items, please see the questionnaire in appendix C.
Independent variable – transformational leadership
Transformational leadership consists of five components; (1+2) idealized influence (attributed and
behavioural); (3) inspirational motivation; (4) intellectual stimulation; and (5) individualized
consideration. The most frequently used instrument to measure this leadership style is the
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) (Antokanis, Avolio & Sivasubramaniam, 2003).
Therefore the items to measure transformational leadership originate from this instrument.
According to Antokani et al. (2003), the MLQ is a validated and reliable instrument to assess the nine
factors underlying the Full Range Leadership Theory (this research only incorporated five factors
because transactional and laissez-faire leadership are excluded). The items of the MLQ cannot be
published due to copyright, and are therefore not included in the appendix. Transformational
leadership has been measured with twenty items and a five point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly
disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ has been used. The Cronbach’s alpha of transformational leadership in
this research is .938.
Dependent variable – team effectiveness
Two components, which are frequently used in former research, have been used to measure team
effectiveness, namely team performance and team member satisfaction. The items that have been
used in the questionnaire originate from the research of Lurey and Raisinghani (2001) who used
these items in a virtual context as well. In their research these two measurements were highly
correlated which confirms that both indicators really measure team effectiveness. Team
performance has been measured with four items (example item: In the past, the team has been
effective in reaching its goals) and member satisfaction with five items (example item: There is
respect for individuals in the team). The five point Likert scale ranged from ‘strongly disagree’ to
‘strongly agree’. The Cronbach’s alpha of team effectiveness in this research is .828.
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Mediating variable – cross-cultural awareness
The eleven items to measure cross-cultural awareness are derived from the ´Assessment of
Intercultural Competence’ (AIC) of Fantini (2006). Fantini (2006) measured awareness as one of the
subcomponents of intercultural competence. Several items have been adapted to fit the context of
this research. The phrasing of the questions has slightly been changed, namely from ‘While in
Ecuador, I realized the importance of…’ into ‘While working in this virtual team, I realize the
importance of…’. Additional small changes were made. For example where in the items of Fantini is
talked about the ‘host culture’, the items for this research mention the ‘diverse cultural background
of team members’ (example item: While working in this virtual team, I realize the importance of
differences and similarities across my own and other cultures present in the team). Responses were
obtained on a five point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. The
Cronbach’s alpha of cross-cultural awareness in this research is .842.
Moderating variable – task interdependence
Task interdependence has been measured with five items which originated from the study of Van der
Vegt and Janssen (2003) (example item: I need information and advice from my colleagues to
perform my job well). They used a seven-point Likert scale ranging from ‘completely disagree’ to
‘completely agree’. However, for this research this Likert scale has been changed into a five-point
Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Most items in the questionnaire had
this Likert scale as well so it would be more convenient for the respondents to have constantly the
same answer possibilities. The Cronbach’s alpha of task interdependence in this research is .801.
Control variables – employee tenure, age, gender, size, face-to-face interaction, business and leisure
experience
It is possible that the findings of this study find effects which are not caused by one of the
independent variables. Therefore this study included several control variables at the individual and at
the team level, to test whether other variables are responsible for the variation.
A control variable at the individual level is employee tenure. When someone has been a team
member for a longer period in time, he or she may become more acquainted with other team
members and it “might influence individual’s overall attitudes toward team members” (Joshi,
Lazarova & Liao, 2009, p. 246). Employee tenure is a continuous variable and the respondents could
indicate in months and years how long they have been working in the team. Furthermore age and
gender are taken into account to control for overall experiences in the team (Joshi et al., 2009). Also
age is a continuous variable and has been asked by an open question “What is your age?”. Gender
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(“What is your gender?”) is a categorical variable and measured with two categories, namely male (0)
and female (1). Two final control variables at the individual level are individual experiences with
other cultures which are divided into; business experiences (e.g. working in culturally diverse teams,
doing business in other countries) and leisure experiences (e.g. travelling around in other countries).
Fantini (2006) found that volunteers developed new awareness when performing volunteer work in
foreign countries. Two statements were developed to measure the extent that the respondents
thought their ability to work with culturally diverse people was improved due to their previous
business and leisure experiences; “I am able to work with culturally diverse people better, due to my
previous experiences in culturally diverse work environments” and “I am able to work with culturally
diverse people better, due to leisure stays in foreign countries (e.g. holidays)”. Both questions could
be answered on a five point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’.
Control variables at the team level are the size of the team and the amount of face-to-face
interactions the team has. The size of the team is taken into account because it “may influence
individual’s attachment to the team” (Joshi et al., 2009, p. 246). The team size is a continuous
variable and no questions regarding team size were included in the questionnaire because the sizes
of the virtual teams were known by the researcher on forehand. Also the level of face-to-face
interaction has been taken into account as a control variable because it is related to team
performance (Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk & Gibson, 2004). To assess the level of face-to-face interaction,
the number of meetings of the entire team in the last year was asked with a single, open question
“How many times did your entire team meet face−to−face in the past year (since April 2010)?”,
derived from the study of Kirkman et al. (2004). This variable is continuous.
3.5 Data analysis
The data which was gathered from the questionnaires has been analyzed in the statistical program
SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The data gained from the questionnaire could easily
be exported from the tool NETQ Internet Surveys to SPSS. The first step was cleaning the data and
checking for missing values and outliers. All questions in the questionnaire were mandatory, so no
missing values were expected. Descriptive statistics were used to provide a better insight in the data
set, normality was assessed and two negatively worded items were reversed to help prevent
response bias (Pallant, 2007).
The second major step in the analysis was factor analysis (Principal Component Analysis) to reveal
underlying constructs of the variables and to check whether the items used in the questionnaire
measured the right factor. Besides the factor analysis on all variables separately, a factor analysis has
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been conducted on all items together to check whether the items loaded on the right variable. Not
all data is suitable for factor analysis and therefore it was important to verify whether factor analysis
is suitable in the data set of this research which has been done with the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure
of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (Pallant, 2007). To determine how
many components per variable should be extracted, Kaiser’s criterion and the screeplot were
consulted. Both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Direct Oblimin) rotations were conducted and the
rotation which provided the best simple structure has been used. Also a reliability analysis has been
executed. A reliability analysis deals with the internal consistency of the scale, so it measures
whether items really measure the underlying construct (Pallant, 2007). According to Pallant (2007)
the most common instrument to measure the internal consistency is the Cronbach’s alpha and
“values above .7 are considered acceptable; however, values above .8 are preferable” (p. 98).
Moreover, the values of the Corrected Item-Total Correlation and Alpha if Item Deleted tables were
consulted.
Because this research attempted to formulate conclusions on team level and data was gathered on
the individual level, it has been necessary to assess whether it was possible to aggregate the
individual data to team level data. Two forms of the Intra-class Correlation Coefficients (ICC’s), ICC(1)
and ICC(2), were calculated to decide upon the appropriateness of the data to be aggregated.
Furthermore, independent-samples t-tests were conducted to decide upon the inclusion of the
scores of the leaders in the aggregated mean and the correlation matrix has been checked.
The last major analysis was the hierarchical multiple regression analysis. First, the moderated
mediation has been addressed with the help of a macro provided by Preacher, Rucker and Hayes
(2007). “A macro is a sequence of commands that define new functions the user can control to
conduct custom analyses” (Preacher et al., 2007, p. 207). The moderator did not show statistical
significance (team level: p = .6921, individual level: p = .4054) which lead to the conclusion that the
indirect effect through the mediator is not conditioned on the moderator. The conceptual model has
been ‘divided’ into two (see figure 3a and 3b) and has been separately analyzed to formulate
conclusions about the several predicted relationships. All regression analyses have been conducted
on team level. Nevertheless, because only 18 teams were involved in this research, a Type II error
(“we fail to reject a null hypothesis when it is in fact false”, Pallant, 2007, p. 205) is likely to occur.
Therefore, the regression analyses have also been conducted on individual level to provide an
indication of the results when the sample size would be larger.
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Figure 3a: part 1 conceptual model Figure 3b: part 2 conceptual model
Part 1. The three steps procedure of Baron and Kenny (1986) has been used to assess the mediating
effect of cross-cultural awareness. According to Baron and Kenny (1986) three regression equations
should be estimated; “(1) regressing the mediator on the independent variable; (2) regressing the
dependent variable on the independent variable; and (3) regressing the dependent variable on both
the independent variable and on the mediator” (p. 1177). Full mediation will occur when
transformational leadership does not influence team effectiveness anymore in the third equation.
When all three requirements were met, the Sobel test has been consulted because it tests whether
the indirect effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable through the mediator
variable is significant (Baron & Kenny, 1986).
Part 2. To assess the moderating effect a new variable has been created, namely the interaction of
cross-cultural awareness and task interdependence. The hypothesis regarding the moderating effect
of task interdependence has been supported if the interaction variable on the dependent variable is
significant (Baron & Kenny, 1986).
3.6 Research quality indicators
Several criteria can be used to assess the quality of social research (Bryman, 2008). The following,
according to Bryman (2008) the most prominent, criteria are explained in this paragraph; reliability,
replication, internal validity, external validity and construct validity.
Reliability
Reliability is “fundamentally concerned with issues of consistency of measures” (Bryman, 2008, p.
149). According to Bryman (2008) the term reliability can be interpreted in three different ways,
namely; stability, internal reliability and inter-observer consistency. The stability can be tested with
the test-retest method. Due to a limited amount of time for this research, a retest of the
measurements was not feasible. Nevertheless, the measurements of the concepts proved to be
Cross-Cultural
Awareness
Team Effectiveness
Task
Interdependence
Transformational
Leadership
Cross-Cultural
Awareness
Team Effectiveness
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reliable in previous research. Cronbach’s alpha has been used to test the internal reliability of the
research. In this research, the Cronbach’s alpha of all variables exceeded .8. The inter-observer
consistency is not applicable in this research because the results of the questionnaire are interpreted
by one researcher.
Replication
According to Bryman (2008) replication in social research is highly uncommon. Nevertheless, all
procedures, measurements and analyses are explained in great detail to enlarge to replicability of
this research.
Internal validity
Internal validity is weak in a cross-sectional design because "it is difficult to establish causal
directions from the resulting data" (Bryman, 2008, p. 46). The composition of the conceptual model
was the result of an extensive literature review which lay the foundation of the hypotheses. This
extensive literature review increased the internal validity of the research.
External validity
The external validity, which is “concerned with the question of whether the results of a study can be
generalized beyond the specific research context”, becomes questionable in this research due to the
fact that non-random methods of sampling were used (Bryman, 2008, p. 33). External validity can be
increased by striving for a maximum number of respondents. Nevertheless, the sample size of this
research can be considered as small which negatively contributes to the external validity.
Construct validity
Construct validity, also named measurement validity, has to do “with the question of whether a
measure that is devised of a concept really reflect the concept that it is supposed to be denoting”
(Bryman, 2008, p. 32). To enhance construct validity, a proper operationalization of the concepts is
needed. This has been done by an extensive literature review which outlined the underlying
constructs. Most items to measure the different variables in this research originate from existing
questionnaires which enhances the construct validity. Factor analysis has been conducted to examine
the underlying constructs. The results of this analysis can be found in the next chapter.
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4. Results
This chapter will present the results of this research and is divided in the following subparagraphs:
preliminary analysis, factor analysis, scale reliability, data aggregation, and the regression analysis.
4.1 Preliminary analysis
The data set, which consists of 166 respondents of 20 global virtual teams, has been checked for
missing values, errors and outliers. A dummy variable has been created for the variable employee
tenure. Respondents received a (0) when they were less than a year part of the virtual team and they
received a (1) if this was longer than a year, following the reasoning of Ahuja and Galvin (2003). They
stated that it takes longer for virtual team members to “enter, learn, and become part of the group”
(p. 171) due to a lack of face-to-face contact compared to conventional teams, in which often a time
frame of six months is used. The item regarding face-to-face interaction has been removed from
further analyses because it showed high variance (e.g. the scores of team 17 ranged from 0 up till
150) between members of the same team. Because the question referred to the frequency the entire
team met face-to-face in the past year (since April 2010), the answers should not show this wide
range. Furthermore, some respondents answered this question with ‘many times’ or ‘often’ which
can be considered as missing data. Finally, two negatively worded items were reversed namely; “I do
not feel my input is valued by the members of the team” and “I have a one-person job; it is not
necessary for me to coordinate or cooperate with others”.
4.2 Factor analysis and scale reliability
The next step in the data processing was the principal component analysis (PCA), which is a data
reduction technique (Pallant, 2007). When there are high intercorrelations among several items
measuring the same construct, the data can be reduced by using a smaller number of components
(Pallant, 2007). In this research PCA has been used to verify the theoretical underlying constructs of
the variables of the conceptual model. Before the PCA was executed, it was checked if the data was
suitable for factor analysis (Pallant, 2007). The data set existed of 166 cases which cannot be
considered as a large data set; hence it should be sufficient for factor analysis. Furthermore, the
KMO’s of all variables were sufficient, ranging from .773 to .913, just like the Bartlett’s test of
Sphericity (p < .05). This information indicated the suitability of the data set for factor analysis.
The team leaders are considered as being full members of the team and not as persons who only
provide directions to their team members. Therefore, their scores on team effectiveness, cross-
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cultural awareness and task interdependence have been taken into account (N = 166). Nevertheless,
the scores of the leaders on transformational leadership were excluded in the factor analysis because
leaders filled these questions in for themselves and can therefore be biased (N = 147).
First a PCA with a fixed amount of four factors (number of variables in the conceptual model) has
been performed with all items included to check whether the items loaded on the right variable. One
item of team effectiveness loaded on another variable and therefore specific attention has been paid
to this item when conducting the PCA per variable. This paragraph will continue with the results of
the PCA for each variable. The reliability of each scale is also provided.
Transformational leadership
According to the literature, transformational leadership consists of five components. Nevertheless
the data set revealed only three components. Also an oblique factor rotation with a fixed number of
five factors did not reveal the underlying theoretical components. Because the items to measure
transformational leadership came from a validated scale and are frequently used in prior research,
the reliability of the underlying theoretical constructs was calculated. All underlying theoretical
constructs showed good internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha’s ranging from .746 to .864. The
correlation matrix showed high correlation between all components, ranging from .529 to .748.
Hence, all five components were clustered into one variable which has a Cronbach’s alpha of .938.
Team effectiveness
According to literature, team effectiveness consists of team performance and member satisfaction.
The factor analyses revealed the same two components as suggested in the literature with the
exception of two items. With the same arguments used before, the researcher decided to look for
the reliability of the existing scales. Cronbach’s alpha of .741 (team performance) and .750 (member
satisfaction) were revealed with a Pearson correlation of .547. The Cronbach’s alpha of the whole
scale is .819 with one item (reversed item of “I do not feel my input is valued by the members of the
team”) with a higher Cronbach’s alpha if Item Deleted. Because this item also loaded on task
interdependence instead on team effectiveness when conducting the PCA on all items, the item has
been removed from the scale. This makes the Cronbach’s alpha .828.
Cross-cultural awareness
The eleven items were submitted to PCA and eigenvalues revealed two components with eigenvalues
exceeding 1, explaining respectively 39.36% and 12.52% of the variance. The original scale of cross-
cultural awareness existed of one component. The components which are revealed through the PCA
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are not logically arranged and therefore the oblique rotation with a fixed number (1) of components
is conducted. This analysis showed that all items have sufficient factor loadings (of .505 and above)
on a single component. The reliability analysis of this component has a Cronbach’s alpha of .842.
Task interdependence
The Kaiser’s criterion of the PCA on task interdependence revealed one component, explaining
58.92% of the variance. The reliability check showed a Cronbach’s alpha of .801 with one item with a
higher Cronbach’s alpha if Item Deleted. Hence, because the whole scale showed a high Cronbach’s
alpha, is validated in prior research and to make this study comparable to other studies using the
same scale, the item has not been excluded from further analysis.
4.3 Data aggregation
This study attempts to formulate conclusions about the effectiveness of virtual teams. Because data
has been gathered on individual level, it is necessary to assess whether these individual scores can be
converted into team level data. To assess if the individual responses can be aggregated to the team
level of analysis, two ICC values, ICC1(1) and ICC(2), were calculated. ICC(1) is an indication of the
within-group agreement of the individual scores. High scores on ICC(1) indicate small within-group
variance (James, 1982). According to James (1982), ICC(1) values in prior research ranged from 0 to .5
with a median of .12. In this research, ICC(1) values of .12 and above will be considered as
appropriate. The second ICC, ICC(2), deals with the between-group agreement and represents the
reliability of means and should be at least .60 (Ostroff & Schmitt, 1993).
The formulas which are presented in Bliese (2000) have been used to calculate the ICC’s scores.
ICC(1) is calculated with the Mean Square between-group (MSB) and Mean Square within-group
(MSW). The MSB and MSW resulted from a one-way random-effects ANOVA model. Also the group
size is included in these formulas. In this research the team size ranged from five up till thirty
members. In case of dramatically differences in group sizes, as is the case in this research, Bliese
(2000) refers to a special formula of Blalock (1972) to calculate the average team size. This formula
has been used to calculate the average team size which is 8.9 in this research. Furthermore, only
teams with a response rate of 50% or higher are taken into account. This meant that in total three
respondents of two teams, team 14 (response rate of 15%) and team 18 (response rate of 20%), are
removed from the sample. This leaves 18 teams, represented by 163 members. The MSB, MSW and
the ICC’s values of each variable can be found in table 1.
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Table 1: Intra-class Correlation Coefficients
Only the scores on transformational leadership are just below the minimum values of ICC(1) and
ICC(2). These values indicate that 11% of the answers provided by the team members are due to
their group membership, with a reliability of means of .50 (ICC (2)). Though these scores are just
below the accepted minimum level, they are not dramatically low and the individual data will be
aggregated to the team level for further analysis.
Because team leaders are considered to be full participating members of the team, there opinion
regarding team effectiveness, cross-cultural awareness and task interdependence is valued. Hence,
to decide whether it was appropriate to include the scores of the leaders in the aggregated mean,
independent-sample t-tests were conducted for these variables. The scores of the leader were
anyhow not included in the aggregated mean of transformational leadership because of the biased
answers provided by the leaders. Five leaders also commented that they found it hard to answer the
leadership questions about themselves and that the answers could be “colored” and “needed to be
taken with some restrictions” (two virtual team leaders). The t-test for Equality of Means for the
variables team effectiveness, cross-cultural awareness and task interdependence showed
significance levels (2-tailed) of respectively .338, .116 and .009. The only significance level below .05
is the one of task interdependence which indicates that there is a statistical significant difference
between the mean score of the leaders and of the team members on this variable and it is not
appropriate to include the scores of the leaders in the aggregated mean.
4.4 Descriptive statistics
As the previous subparagraph outlined, the data has been considered as appropriate for aggregation
to the team level. Therefore, descriptive statistics regarding the teams can now be provided. 18
global virtual teams, operating in ten multinational organizations within seven different industries,
existing of 145 team members and 18 team leaders, were subjected to the regression analyses. The
global virtual teams consisted of 118 male and 45 female respondents with an average of 71% male
within each team. Three out of 18 leaders are female. The average team size is 8.9 (calculated with
the formula of Blalock (1972) as mentioned in Bliese (2000)) with a minimum of 5 and maximum of
30 members. The average age is 39.80 years, with a minimum of 30.80 and a maximum of 48.50
years old. The variable employee tenure ranged from 0 till 1 which indicated that there are teams of
MSB MSW ICC(1) ICC(2)
Transformational leadership .453 .228 .11 .50 Team effectiveness .704 .177 .25 .75 Cross-cultural awareness .649 .185 .22 .72 Task interdependence .875 .294 .18 .66
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which all members work less than a year together and teams of which all members already are more
than one year together. Furthermore, the members of the virtual teams have 32 different
nationalities, representing 6 continents namely; Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and
South America. An overview of the companies, including the industries they work in, and the
characteristics of each virtual team and the specific nationalities can be found in appendix E. This
appendix also shows the response rate per virtual team. The overall response rate (without the two
teams with a response rate below 50%) is 81.7% with a 100% response rate of the team leaders. An
overview of the team-level descriptive statistics and intercorrelations can be found in table 2.
4.5 Regression analysis
Hierarchical regression analyses have been conducted to test whether the formulated hypotheses
can be confirmed. Because hypotheses are formulated after an extensive literature search the
independent variables are entered in an order which is based on these theoretical grounds.
4.5.1 Assumptions
Multiple regression analysis makes several assumptions about the data which needed to be checked
before starting with the analyses. The first assumption deals with the sample size. Pallant (2007)
refers to several scholars who define guidelines about the required number of cases. Stevens (1996;
in Pallant, 2007) recommend at least 15 respondents per predictor to have reliable outcomes and
Tabachnick and Fidell (2007; in Pallant, 2007) provides a formula which is: N > 50 + 8m (m is the
number of independent variables). For the hierarchical regression, 163 respondents were used.
Nevertheless, the scores of these 163 were aggregated which leaves only 18 teams. Therefore, this
research does not fulfil both sample size requirements and the chance on significant results is low.
Second, the data has been checked for multicollinearity. Multicollinearity occurs when there is a high
correlation (> .9) between the independent variables (Pallant, 2007). The VIF and Tolerance values
received attention when conducting the analysis. Table 2 shows that, besides the relationship
between transformational leadership and team effectiveness, it is not likely to find significant results
concerning hypothesis 2 and 3. The third assumption is concerned about outliers and finally, several
graphs have been consulted to check for normality and linearity.
None of the control variables are significant correlated with the dependent variable. Furthermore,
several regressions are conducted including the control variables but none of the control variables
were found to be significant. Therefore, and due to the fact that N is very limited, the researcher
decided to leave out all of the control variables to increase the power of the models and to decrease
the chance on a Type II error.
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Table 2: Team-Level Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations
**. Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed).
Variables N Min Max Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1) Age 18 30.80 48.50 39.7968 5.56645
2) Gender 18 .00 .60 .2862 .18549 .188
3) Team size 18 5 30 12.06 8.069 -.279 -.077
4) Employee tenure 18 .00 1.00 .4908 .35021 .073 .363 .047
5) Experiences business 18 3.30 4.60 3.9817 .36029 .351 .107 -.234 -.192
6) Experiences leisure 18 2.20 3.83 3.1191 .43325 .635** .339 -.071 .064 .281
7) Transformational
leadership
18 3.51 4.36 3.7703 .24127 .195 .047 -.401 .098 -.104 -.234
8) Team effectiveness 18 3.44 4.47 3.8612 .24739 -.228 .093 -.278 -.011 .347 -.347 .502*
9) Cross-cultural
awareness (CCA)
18 3.49 4.38 3.8731 .28694 .267 .453 -.485* .188 .527* .242 .207 .417
10) Task
interdependence (TI)
18 3.61 4.60 4.1833 .28084 .243 .119 -.479* -.309 .548* .102 .333 .499* .582*
Valid N (listwise) 18
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4.5.2 Team-level analysis
The first hypothesis, which stated that transformational leadership is positively associated with team
effectiveness, has been tested with a linear regression analysis (table 3). This analysis shows an R
Square of .252 which means that 25.2% of the variance in team effectiveness is explained by
transformational leadership. The adjusted R Square, which is better estimate when small samples are
involved (Pallant, 2007), is .205. The model reached statistical significance (F = 5.379, p = .034). This
indicates that transformational leaders have a positive effect on the effectiveness of virtual teams.
Therefore, hypothesis 1 can be confirmed.
Table 3: Regression analysis of transformational leadership and team effectiveness
Model B Std. Error Beta T Sig.
1 (Constant)
Transformational leadership
1.922
.514
.838 .222
.
.502
2.294
2.319
.036
.034
Dependent variable: team effectiveness (N=18)
The second hypothesis stated that cross-cultural awareness partly mediates the association of
leadership with team effectiveness. According to Baron and Kenny (1986), two additional steps
(besides the regression of the dependent variable on the independent variable) are required to test
this mediation. First, transformational leadership should be significant related to cross-cultural
awareness. The results of this regression equation can be found in table 4. The model has an R
Square of .043 and an adjusted R Square of -.017 and did not reach statistical significance (F =.716, p
= .410). Therefore, this requirement for mediation is not fulfilled and hypothesis 2 can already be
rejected.
Table 4: Regression analysis of transformational leadership and cross-cultural awareness
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant)
Transformational leadership
2.945
.246
1.099
.291
.
.207
2.680
.846
.016
.410
Dependent variable: cross-cultural awareness (N=18)
Hence, the second additional step to address mediation is also performed which meant regressing
team effectiveness on cross-cultural awareness with transformational leadership included in the
regression equation (table 5). This model has an R Square of .354 and an adjusted R Square of .268.
Both predictors did not reach statistical significance.
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Table 5: Regression analysis of transformational leadership, cross-cultural awareness and team effectiveness
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant)
Transformational leadership Cross-cultural awareness
1.090 .445 .282
.967 .217 .183
. .434 .328
1.127 2.046 1.545
.277 .059 .143
Dependent variable: team effectiveness (N=18)
The directions of the coefficients in the previous two steps are as expected. Nevertheless, they
remain insignificant. Only the direct effect of transformational leadership on team effectiveness
reached statistical significance. Unfortunately, the other two requirements are not met and
therefore the regressions do not hold the required conditions of Baron and Kenny (1986). This result
is consistent with the non-significance of the correlations between the variables.
Hypothesis 3, which stated that task interdependence moderates the association of cross-cultural
awareness with team effectiveness, is the last hypothesis which has been tested. An interaction
variable of cross-cultural awareness and task interdependence was created. The Tolerance and VIF
scores indicated the presence of multicollinearity with Tolerance scores below .10 and VIF scores
exceeding 10 in the second model. Therefore, z-scores of each variable were calculated (table 6).
Cross-cultural awareness and task interdependence were entered in the first step (model 1) and the
interaction variable was entered in the second step (model 2). Both models did not reach statistical
significance (model 1; F = 2.823, p = 1.801 / model 2; F = 1.801, p = 0.193) and none of the variables,
including the moderation, are significant predictors of team effectiveness. Hypothesis 3 is rejected.
Table 6: Regression analysis of the moderation effect (z-scores)
Model 1 2
Variables B S.E. Beta B S.E. Beta
Constant
7.133E-16 .214 .046 .265
Cross cultural awareness (CCA)
.192 .271 .192 .244 .326 .244
Task interdependence (TI) .387 .271 .387 .349 .305 .349 Interaction variable (CCA x TI)
-.083 .268 -.083
R
2 .273 .273
Adjusted R2 .177 .124
R2
change .273 .005 F change 2.832 .096
*. Significant at the .05 level – Dependent variable: team effectiveness (N=18)
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The main conclusions of this research, and the confirmation and rejections of the hypotheses, are
based on the regression analyses which were conducted on the aggregated data set. Hence, it is very
hard to find significant results with only 18 cases due to the chance on Type II error. Therefore, the
same analyses were conducted on the individual data set as well (perception of the members on the
various concepts), to provide an indication of the results when the data set would be larger.
4.5.3 Individual-level analysis
The correlation coefficients between transformational leadership, team effectiveness, cross-cultural
awareness and task interdependence appeared to be significant (please see appendix F: individual-
level descriptive statistics and intercorrelations). Three control variables are significant correlated
with the dependent variable, namely; size, business experiences and leisure experiences. Since size is
a typical team variable and because team membership is ignored in the individual-level analysis, the
effects of size will be overestimated. Therefore, size has not been included the following analyses.
The control variables business and leisure experiences have been included in the analyses to control
for their effects. To test the direct effect (hypothesis 1) and the mediating effect (hypothesis 2), the
scores of the leaders are excluded from the analysis (N = 145). Their scores will be included when
testing the moderating effect (hypothesis 3) (N = 163).
First, the relationship between transformational leadership and team effectiveness has been
investigated after controlling for the influence of business experiences and leisure experiences (table
7). Both models did reach statistical significance (model 1; F = 7.222, p = .001 / model 2; F = 21.212, p
= .000). The second model explained an additional of 29.6% of the variance in team effectiveness and
showed that transformational leadership is a significant predictor of team effectiveness.
Table 7: Regression analysis of transformational leadership and team effectiveness
*. Significant at the .05 level – Dependent variable: team effectiveness (N=145)
Model 1 2
Variables B S.E. β B S.E. β
Constant
3.568 .184 . 1.950 .291 .
Business experience .138 .042 .266* .116 .037 .223* Leisure experience -.095 .037 -.209* -.079 .033 -.172* Transformational leadership
.444 .066 .470*
R
2 .092 .311
Adjusted R2 .080 .296
R2
change .092 .219 F change 7.222* 44.741*
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Regressing cross-cultural awareness on transformational leadership also resulted in significant
outcomes. In the first model, both control variables were entered and transformational leadership
was entered in the second model. Both models reached statistical significance (model 1; F = 3.549, p
= .031 / model 2; F = 6.095, p = .001). As table 8 shows, transformational leadership is a significant
predictor of cross-cultural awareness.
Table 8: Regression analysis of transformational leadership and cross-cultural awareness
Model 1 2
Variables B S.E. β B S.E. β
Constant
3.267 .195 . 2.340 .340 .
Business experience .080 .045 .150 .068 .043 .126 Leisure experience .062 .039 .132 .072 .038 .152 Transformational leadership
.254 .078 .261*
R
2 .048 .115
Adjusted R2 .034 .096
R2
change .048 .067 F change 3.549* 10.701*
*. Significant at the .05 level – Dependent variable: cross-cultural awareness (N=145)
The last step to address mediation is regressing team effectiveness on cross-cultural awareness with
transformational leadership included in the regression equation. Again, both control variables were
entered in model 1 and cross-cultural awareness and transformational leadership were entered in
the second model. Both models (model 1; F = 7.222, p = .001 / model 2; F = 18.184, p = .000) and all
variables reached statistical significance (table 9).
Table 9: Regression analysis of transformational leadership, cross-cultural awareness and team effectiveness
Model 1 2
Variables B S.E. β B S.E. β
Constant
3.568 .184 . 1.526 .329 .
Business experience .138 .042 .266* .104 .037 .200* Leisure experience -.095 .037 -.209* -.092 .032 -.201* Cross-cultural awareness .181 .071 .187* Transformational leadership
.398 .068 .422*
R
2 .092 .342
Adjusted R2 .080 .323
R2
change .092 .250 F change 7.222* 26.548*
*. Significant at the .05 level – Dependent variable: team effectiveness (N=145)
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All conditions of Baron and Kenny (1986) to establish mediation are met; transformational leadership
had a significant effect on team effectiveness, transformational leadership showed to affect cross-
cultural awareness and cross-cultural awareness affected team effectiveness when transformational
leadership was included in the regression as well. The Beta weight of transformational leadership on
team effectiveness also decreased when cross-cultural awareness was included namely from .470 to
.422. Because transformational leadership remained to be significant in the last equation, no full
mediation occurred. Hence, the small decrease might indicate a partial mediation. The Sobel test is
consulted to test whether the indirect effect of transformational leadership on team effectiveness,
through cross-cultural awareness, is significant. The p-value of the Sobel test is .387 and does not
support the mediating role of cross-cultural awareness.
Finally, the moderating effect of task interdependence on the relationship of cross-cultural
awareness with team effectiveness has been tested (table 10). The interaction variable of cross-
cultural awareness and task interdependence, which has been entered in the third step (model 3), is
not found to be significant and therefore the moderating effect of task interdependence on the
association of cross-cultural awareness and team effectiveness cannot be proved.
Table 10: Regression analysis of the moderation effect (z-scores)
Model 1 2 3
Variables B S.E. β B S.E. β B S.E. β
Constant 1.366E-15
.076 . 1.431E-15
.068 . .016 .071 .
Business experience
.244 .077 .244* .134 .072 .134* .124 .073 .124
Leisure experience
-.175 .077 -.175* -.176 .071 -.176* -.172 .071 -.172*
Cross-cultural awareness (CCA)
.258 .073 .258* .276 .075 .276*
Task inter-dependence (TI)
.298 .073 .298* .287 .074 .287*
Interaction variable (CCA x TI)
-.060 .066 -.066
R
2 .074 .259 .270
Adjusted R2 .063 .240 .247
R2
change .074 .185 .004 F change 6.429* 19.685* .870
*. Significant at the .05 level – Dependent variable: team effectiveness (N=163)
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5. Conclusion
This study examined the role of transformational leadership, cross-cultural awareness and task
interdependence in virtual teams in an attempt to answer the following research question:
To what extent 1) is transformational leadership related to the effectiveness of virtual teams, 2) is this
relationship mediated by cross-cultural awareness, and 3) is the association of cross-cultural
awareness with team effectiveness moderated by task interdependence?
This study provided support for the first part of the research question because it found a positive
significant effect of transformational leadership on virtual team effectiveness (hypothesis 1) or in
other words, when leaders show a high degree of transformational leadership, virtual teams will be
more effective. This effect has been found on team level (β = .502) as well as on individual level (β =
.470) and indicates the importance of a transformational leader within virtual teams.
To test the second part of the research question, the mediating role of cross-cultural awareness on
the association of transformational leadership with virtual team effectiveness has been analyzed
(hypothesis 2). This research did not prove the mediating role of cross-cultural awareness, not on
team level and not on individual level. Nevertheless, additional analyses on individual level showed
that cross-cultural awareness is significant influenced by transformational leaders (β = .261) and has
an effect on virtual team effectiveness as well (β = .187).
Finally, the moderating effect of task interdependence on the association of cross-cultural awareness
with team effectiveness (hypothesis 3) has not been found, not on team level and not on individual
level. However, the results on individual level indicated that task interdependence has a positive
direct effect on team effectiveness (β = .298). This finding suggests that when virtual team members
are highly interdependent from each other to accomplish their tasks, the team will be more effective
compared to virtual teams with lower task interdependence.
In sum, no additional hypotheses were confirmed when analysing the data on individual level. Hence,
several direct relationships, as explained above, showed to be significant.
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6. Discussion
This chapter shed light on the relationship between transformational leadership, team effectiveness,
cross-cultural awareness and task interdependence. Furthermore, the measurements and analyses
are reflected upon, limitations of this research provided and recommendations for future research
formulated. Finally, several managerial implications are outlined.
6.1 Theoretical implications
This research contributes to the virtual team literature by investigating leadership within a virtual
context with data that has been gathered in multiple virtual teams of several organizations.
Furthermore, this research is an answer on existing literature which stated that it is important to
overcome cultural differences within teams. Hence, cross-cultural awareness, which has been
indicated as an important aspect of virtual teams (Kayworth & Leidner, 2000), has hardly been
researched in a virtual context before. Therefore, a feature of this study was the focus on
behavioural aspects within virtual teams, with special attention to the cultural diversity of a team.
This study extends our knowledge about an interesting phenomenon called virtual teams. A
phenomenon which is, and will be a very regular way of working within organizations.
The association of transformational leadership with virtual team effectiveness
This research provides evidence that transformational leadership is a significant predictor of team
effectiveness (hypothesis 1), which is in line with the consulted literature. The relationship was found
with a limited amount of cases (N = 18) which indicates the strength of the association. Kayworth and
Leidner (2002) stated that virtual team leaders have to deal with other complexities and face
different challenges than leaders in conventional teams. “Leaders cannot simply lead the virtual team
exactly the same as if it were face-to-face” (Hambley et al., 2007b, p. 56). Hence, the results of this
study support the research of Davis and Bryant (2003) who found that transformational leaders are
not only successful in conventional teams but that this leadership style can also be extended to a
virtual context. This study proved that leaders who perform high degrees of transformational
leadership are able to effectively manage virtual teams and with that it seems that transformational
leaders are able to overcome the conceivable complexities within these teams.
The mediating role of cross-cultural awareness
This research did not prove the mediating role of cross-cultural awareness on the association of
transformational leadership with team effectiveness (hypothesis 2), not on team-level and not on
individual-level. Though, on individual level a significant relationship of transformational leadership
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on cross-cultural awareness was found and cross-cultural awareness also affected team effectiveness
when transformational leadership was included in the regression. These effects were small but they
indicate that cross-cultural awareness does play a role in virtual teams and leaders should pay
specific attention to it. These analyses on individual level support the research of Kayworth and
Leidner (2000) who indicated that it is important to develop a strategy to integrate culturally diverse
team members. Additionally, the findings of this research also indicate that cross-cultural awareness
influences the effectiveness of a team and therefore it seems that cross-cultural awareness within a
team helps to overcome problems which might arise due to cultural differences, such as
communication barriers (Blackburn et al., 2003), varying work habits (Blackburn et al., 2003) and
differences in decision making (Shachaf, 2008). That these findings were not found on team level and
that no mediation was proved with the Sobel test can be due to the power of this research and the
Type II error which is likely to occur in small sample sizes.
On individual-level, transformational leadership explained 6.7% of the variance in cross-cultural
awareness. Because this is only a small amount and because this research also found a relationship
between cross-cultural awareness and team effectiveness, it is interesting to look for additional
aspects which might explain cross-cultural awareness.
Kealey and Protheroe (1996) stated in their study on cross-cultural training programs for expatriates
that “it is one thing to be aware of cultural differences and possess knowledge of how to behave in
another culture, it is another thing to be able to demonstrate those understandings in one’s
behaviour overseas” (p. 153). According to Fantini (2006), intercultural competence exists of four
components; awareness, knowledge, attitude and skills. This study only incorporated cross-cultural
awareness because it is the cognitive part of intercultural competence and is, according to Fantini
(2006), the most important one for cross-cultural development. Also Chen (1997) stated that
“intercultural awareness (cognitive) is the foundation of intercultural sensitivity (affective) which, in
turn, will lead to intercultural competence (behavioural)” (p. 4). So awareness can be seen as a
fundamental aspect and as an important starting point when developing intercultural competence.
Hence, Kealey and Protheroe (1996) indicated that this does not automatically mean that cross-
cultural awareness can be converted into successful behaviour within a multicultural environment.
Another origin of cross-cultural awareness is given by Lee Kelley and Sankey (2008) who stated that
cultural awareness comes with experience. This study incorporated two control variables (on
individual-level) regarding previous experiences with culturally diverse others, divided into business
experiences and leisure experiences. In the individual-level regression analyses in which team
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effectiveness was included, both control variables reached statistical significance which indicated
that previous experiences with other cultures is important to control for. Interesting to note is that
leisure experiences showed a significant negative effect. An explanation for this might be that people
when they are on holiday in foreign countries have only superficial contact with local people and
therefore develop prejudices which influences their behaviour within virtual teams. Hence, this
might be over-simplified reasoning.
The moderating role of task interdependence
The results of this research could not confirm that task interdependence has a moderating effect on
the association between cross-cultural awareness and team effectiveness (hypothesis 3). Hence,
interesting to note is that a direct positive effect of task interdependence on team effectiveness was
found when performing the individual analyses. This finding indicates that virtual teams are more
effective when members are more dependent from each other with regards to their tasks. This
finding is supported by the research of Hertel et al. (2004). They investigated the effect of
management practices, of which task interdependence was one, on virtual team effectiveness and
found a significant positive effect as well. Hertel et al. (2004) gave the following explanation: “When
task interdependence is high and one’s own poor performance would inhibit the work of other team
members, persons should feel that their personal contribution is highly indispensable for the team’s
success. This in turn should increase the motivation of the team member and lead to higher
effectiveness of the whole team” (p. 7). This reasoning differs slightly from the reasoning which has
been used to explain the moderating role of task interdependence on the association of cross-
cultural awareness with team effectiveness. The moderating role was expected due to an increase in
communication and cooperation in teams with higher task interdependence. The explanation of
Hertel et al. (2004) focuses more on the increased motivation of team members.
6.2 Reflection upon the measurements and analyses
When submitting the data to the PCA and when analysing the data, several remarkable results were
found. This subparagraph will reflect upon these findings.
Despite of the fact that a well validated instrument was used to assess transformational leadership,
the underlying theoretical constructs were not revealed when conducting PCA. Antokani et al. (2003)
listed several studies that also failed to reveal the underlying constructs of which some revealed
fewer components. In this particular study, also less components were revealed which indicates that
the discriminant validity (the operationalization of one component is similar to the operationalization
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of another component) of the MLQ is low (Antokani et al., 2003). The results of the PCA on
transformational leadership in this study support this criticism on the MLQ.
When analysing the data regarding leadership, it was very remarkable that often multiple team
members indicated themselves as being the leader of the team. A criterion for the participating
teams was that each team had a formal appointed leader which makes this finding notable. It might
indicate that informal leaders are present within the virtual team. Furthermore, especially in larger
teams, subgroups may be evident to this finding. Hence, this research did not take subgroups into
account. The fact that in this research multiple group members indicated themselves as being the
leader of the team suggests that future research on virtual team leadership should pay attention to
the possibility of subgroups or informal leaders.
The ICC scores of transformational leadership were .11 (ICC(1)) and .50 (ICC(2)). Higher ICC values
were expected because all members (should have) referred to the same leader when answering the
leadership questions. This can also be expected due to the fact that the following sentence was
included in the questionnaire: “As a member of *team name] please refer to [name team leader] as
your team leader”. Hence, the scores indicated that team members perceived their leader in varying
ways because there is quite some variance in the scores. This can be explained by several reasons.
First, the subcomponent ‘individualized consideration’ might clarify this finding. ‘Individualized
consideration’ indicates that transformational leaders pay specific attention to each individual and
his or her needs; every team member is treated as an individual and might therefore develop their
own unique opinion regarding the team leader. Another explanation of the variance in the
perception of the virtual team members about their team leader can be found in one of the
characteristics of virtual teams. Within virtual teams, the number of (face-to-face) group meetings is
limited and members mainly communicate via technology mediated communication media.
Therefore, individual contact between a team member and the leader is more likely to occur which
might result in differing perceptions about the leader.
A final interesting comment regarding leadership is that only 17% of the leaders (3 out of 18) in this
research were female. Though gender was taken into account as a control variable and did not affect
the dependent variable significantly, more balanced samples are recommended.
Cross-cultural awareness has been measured with a scale which has been adapted from another
study and which has not been used in a virtual context before. Factor loadings of .505 and above and
a Cronbach’s alpha of .826 indicated that the scale is appropriate when examining cross-cultural
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awareness in virtual teams as well. Nevertheless, the factor loadings in this research are not as high
as in the original study and the items to measure cross-cultural awareness can be perceived as being
difficult and long. Therefore, future research should try to simplify, adapt and develop these items so
they better fit virtual team research. A first step has been made with this research.
To decide upon the inclusion of the scores of the leader in the aggregated mean, independent-
sample t-test were performed. The results of this analysis indicated that there was a statistical
significant difference between the mean score of the team members and the mean score of the team
leaders regarding task interdependence. When studying this finding more closely, it is notable that
the mean of the leader was in 14 out of 18 teams higher compared with the mean of all team
members together. This indicated that leaders are more dependent of other team members to
accomplish his or her task, compared to the interdependence perceived by the team members.
Leaders are considered to be successful when the team is effective which might explain this finding.
The team is only successful when the team members perform their job well which makes a team
leader very dependent on the team members, and maybe even more dependent than members with
other members.
6.3 Limitations and recommendations for future research
Several limitations of this research have to be addressed. Furthermore, several findings of this
research can provide as a starting point for future research and recommendations are formulated.
First, due to the non-random method of sampling the results of this research cannot be generalised
beyond the specific research context. Because the researcher had a limited amount of time to
conduct the research in, and because no budget was available, this sampling method was the only
way to gather data within the amount of time given. The generalization of the results are also
questionable because they are based on a relatively small sample size (N = 18). Such a small sample
size will more likely lead to a Type II error. Future research should use a larger sample size to improve
the power of the analysis which might result in more significant results.
Second, the design of this research is cross-sectional. A limitation of this design is that causal
relations from the data are hard to establish (Bryman, 2008). Therefore, a recommendation for
future research is to use a longitudinal research design. Conducting research with this design will
provide more insight in causal relationships between variables.
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A third limitation is the length of the questionnaire. The questionnaire covered the subjects of three
different studies conducted by three master students. This was done, as mentioned before, to
enlarge the sample size of these studies. A down size of bringing items of three research subjects
together was that the questionnaire gained a substantial length. This might have influenced the
quality of the data. It might also have had a negative effect on the response rate. Nevertheless, in the
case of this study this latter negative influence can almost be neglected because only 10 out of 236
persons who received the questionnaire started the questionnaire but did not complete it.
Furthermore, the English language used in the questionnaire can be perceived as being difficult by
non native speakers. The level of English of the participants was not known by the researcher but the
researcher assumed they all had a reasonable level of English because of their membership in a
virtual team.
Fourth, no control variables were included in the regression analysis on team-level. This has been
decided upon to increase the power of the regression analysis and to decrease the chance on a Type
II error. Additionally, none of the control variables correlated significantly with the dependent
variable which also might be a result of the limited sample size. Hence, future research should take
the suggested control variables into account because they are potential important control variables.
Regarding control variables it is also important to note that the question regarding face-to-face
contact “How many times did your entire team meet face-to-face in the past year (since April 2010)”
was misinterpreted by many respondents. The question was meant to measure the frequency of real
psychical contact. Nevertheless, the answers given on this question often showed a wide range
within the same team. Because members are all over the world, it may be possible that subgroups of
each team met each other more often and people filled in the frequency they met with these
subgroups. Another reason that this question is differently understood is that team members could
have indicated a video conference call as face-to-face contact as well because in video conference
calls members do see each other; hence it is not real physical contact. Therefore, future research on
virtual teams should formulate this question differently because the same problems are likely to
occur. The meaning of face-to-face contact has to be explained to prevent misinterpretations.
Several recommendations for future research are already given. Hence, this study can be extended in
some other ways as well. Because research regarding cultural diversity within virtual teams is still in
its infancy, there are several interesting roads for future research. This research only incorporated
cross-cultural awareness, one component of intercultural competence. Hence, it would be
interesting to combine the different components (awareness, knowledge, attitude, skills) in one
research and investigate the relationships between them and the relation of it on team effectiveness.
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Additionally, a feature of virtual teams is that the team members predominantly communicate with
the use of technological mediation communication media. Another recommendation for future
research is to study whether and which communication media can best be used when virtual teams
are culturally diverse and through which medium cross-cultural awareness can best be developed.
Furthermore, it would be interesting to pay attention to the level of cross-cultural awareness of the
team leader and how this influences his or her leadership style and the cooperation among culturally
diverse team members. It would be interesting to include personal traits, such as character and
intelligence, in these studies because it seems reasonable that these traits will influence how people
deal with other cultures and how they perform within a virtual team. This might result in
recommendations about the selection procedure for virtual team members. Hopefully this research
can serve as a starting point for these studies and inspired other scholars to further deepen our
understanding of successful behaviour within culturally diverse virtual teams.
6.4 Managerial implications
Based on the results of this research, several managerial implications can be formulated. An
important finding of this research is that transformational leaders have a positive influence on the
effectiveness of virtual teams. Therefore, organizations should keep this in mind when selecting
virtual team leaders. A possible way of doing that is to incorporate a test regarding leadership styles
in the application procedure. Interesting to know for virtual team leaders is that transformational
leadership consists of five underlying constructs. In order to increase their transformational
leadership style, so simultaneously increase team effectiveness, leaders should study these
constructs and also apply it in their daily work within the virtual team.
Furthermore, cultural differences are important within virtual teams and leaders should not ignore
the differences because several problems are likely to occur as a consequence of these differences.
Therefore, he or she should stimulate learning about the different cultures present in the team. He
or she should focus on the differences but also on the similarities of the culturally diverse members.
Finally, virtual team leaders can influence the effectiveness of the team by enhancing task
interdependence among team members. When members are dependent on other team members to
accomplish their own task(s) more cooperation is required, information needs to be shared and
members instil a sense of responsibility. Therefore, the team work has to be designed in such a way
that members need each other in order to accomplish his or her task.
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Appendices
Appendix A: Invitation questionnaire
Appendix B: Reminder questionnaire
Appendix C: Questionnaire
Appendix D: Logbook data gathering
Appendix E: Characteristics of the participating organizations and teams (incl. nationalities)
Appendix F: Individual-Level Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations
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Appendix A: Invitation questionnaire
Dear Mr. / Ms. [surname], This message includes the official invitation for the questionnaire concerning the research 'leadership in virtual teams'. The study stresses virtual teams and is initiated by two Master students Organization Studies, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Virtual teams are becoming commonplace within and between organizations1. Virtual teams are defined as “teams whose members use technology to varying degrees in working across locational, temporal, and relational boundaries to accomplish an interdependent task”2. Interestingly enough, although it is clear that virtual teams grow in popularity, we know relatively little about them3. Therefore, it is essential to do more research on virtual teams in order to increase our understanding of them3. Recently you have been informed regarding this study by [contact person/company name], who also support our study. Your team participates in this research and it is of viable essence that all members will fill in the questionnaire. Filling in the questionnaire takes approximately 20 minutes, please take your time and consider the questions carefully. The results and managerial implications of this research will be reported to [company name]. To enter the questionnaire, please click on the blue hyperlink below which will direct you immediately to the questionnaire.
[link] One important thing that we would like to stress is that all data will be treated strictly confidential. The deadline for filling in the online questionnaire is the [date]. We would like to thank you for your effort beforehand and wish you the best with filling in the questionnaire. With kind regards, Malou Lambregts ([email protected] ) Karin In der Maur ([email protected] ) P.S. should you deal with any difficulties regarding entering or filling in the questionnaire please notify this to our email addresses.
1 Connaughton, S. L., & Shuffler, M. (2007). Multinational and multicultural distributed teams: a review and future agenda.
Small Group Research, 38, 387–412 2 Martins, L.L., Gilson, L.L. and Maynard, M.T. (2004). Virtual Teams: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From
Here? Journal of Management. Vol. 30 (6), p. 805-835. 3 Bell, B. S., & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2002). A Typology of Virtual teams: Implications for Effective Leadership. Group &
Organization Management, 27(1), 14-49.
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Appendix B: Reminder questionnaire
Dear Mr. / MS [surname], Recently we have sent you an invitation for taking part in our research by filling in a questionnaire. We are very interested in your opinion regarding several aspects of working in a virtual team. It is important that each team member that participates in this research completes the questionnaire in full to establish a clear understanding of how virtual teams work together. Your team will benefit when more questionnaires are completed in order to get a more accurate analysis. Management will receive a report with managerial implications and general findings. We would like to stress that the data will kept strictly confidential and anonymous. Should you not have had the occasion to fill in the questionnaire we kindly ask you to go to the following link. If you already started with filling in the questionnaire, but did not have the opportunity to finish it, you will automatically continue with the remaining questions.
[link]
We would like to stress that this week is the final week for filling in the questionnaire. The questionnaire will remain open until the [date]. We would like to thank you very much in advance for your time and effort to fill in the questionnaire. In case you have any difficulties in getting directed to the correct questionnaire, please notify us in order to be of any kind of assistance. You can contact us via our e-mail addresses stated below. With kind regards, Malou Lambregts ([email protected] ) Karin In der Maur ([email protected] )
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Appendix C: Questionnaire
The questionnaire has been conducted with the tool NETQ Internet Surveys. To present this questionnaire properly in this thesis, the questionnaire has been converted to fit this word document.
INTRODUCTION Dear virtual team member, The information concerning this research will be used for research purposes only and will not be distributed to others. A virtual team in this questionnaire refers to your own virtual team; [name virtual team]. Please answer the questions from your perspective as a participant of your virtual team. Your answers will be kept strictly confidential and will be anonymous. Completing the questionnaire will take approximately twenty minutes of your time. The deadline for filling in the questionnaire is [date].
This questionnaire is divided into five sections:
1. Personal information 2. Culture 3. Team processes 4. Technological mediated communication 5. Leadership
Thank you very much for participating! Warm regards, Imke Verheij Malou Lambregts Karin In der Maur Ps: For additional information regarding several underlined concepts, please place your cursor on the concept and a window with the definition will pop up.
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PERSONAL INFORMATION This section consists of general questions about you and your team. 1. What is your gender? 2. What is your age? 3. What is your nationality? 4. What is your native language? 5. What language is dominantly used during meetings and conferences? 6. In which country do you work? 7. In which city do you work? 8. For how long are you a member of this team? For example, if you are a member for 1 year and 7 months, please fill in a 1 in the box beneath year(s) and a 7 in the box beneath month(s). Another example, if you are a member for 4 months, please fill in a 0 beneath year(s) and a 4 beneath month(s). I am a member of this team for … year(s) … month(s) 9. Are you the leader of the team?
Yes No 10. What is your functional background?
Marketing / Sales
Manufacturing
Engineering
Human resources
Finance
Research & Development
ICT
Quality Assurance
Other (please do not use abbreviations), namely …………………………….. 11. How many times did your entire team meet face−to−face in the past year (since April 2010)?
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CULTURE One of the characteristics of a virtual team is that the members of the team are geographically dispersed. The greater the geographical distance between team members, the more likely it is that members have different national cultures. In this section, statements are made concerning cross−cultural awareness and cultural values. 12. In how many culturally diverse teams have you worked before? 13. For how long have you been working in culturally diverse virtual teams? I have been working in culturally diverse virtual teams for … year(s) … month(s) 14. To what extent do you agree with the following two statements?
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree
nor agree
Agree
Strongly
agree
I am able to work with culturally diverse people better, due to my previous experiences in culturally diverse work environments.
I am able to work with culturally diverse people better, due to leisure stays in foreign countries (e.g. holidays).
15. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements regarding cross−cultural awareness. While working in this virtual team, I realize the importance of:
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree
nor agree
Agree
Strongly
agree
differences and similarities across my own and other cultures present in the team.
modifying my interactions (behavior) when cooperating with culturally diverse team members.
how team members with another cultural background view me and why.
being a ‘culturally conditioned’ person. A person who has habits and preferences directly related to my culture.
cultural diversity between the team members (which results in different styles of cooperating, communicating, decision making, etc).
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dangers of generalizing individual behaviors as representative of the whole culture.
my choices and their consequences (which make me either more, or less, acceptable to my fellow team members).
my personal values that affect my approach to ethical dilemmas and their resolution.
my team members’ reaction to me that reflect their cultural values.
how my values and ethics are reflected in specific situations.
varying cultural styles and language use, and their effects in social and working situations in the virtual team.
16. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements about cultural values.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree
nor agree
Agree
Strongly
agree
I prefer structured situations to unstructured situations.
I tend to get anxious easily when I don't know an outcome.
I feel stressful when I cannot predict consequences.
I prefer broad guidelines to specific instructions.
I would not take risks when an outcome cannot be predicted.
I believe that rules should not be broken for mere pragmatic reasons.
I don't like ambiguous situations.
17. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements which also concern cultural values.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree
nor agree
Agree
Strongly
agree
Only those who depend on themselves get ahead in life.
To be superior, a person must stand alone.
If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.
What happens to me is my own doing.
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In the long run, the only person you can count on is yourself.
I prefer to work with others in a group rather than working alone.
Given the choice, I would rather do a job where I can work alone than do a job where I have to work with others in a group.
Working with a group is better than working alone.
People should be made aware that if they are going to be part of a group then they are sometimes going to have to do things they don’t want to do.
People who belong to a group should realize that they’re not always going to get what they personally want.
People in a group should realize that they sometimes are going to have to make sacrifices for the sake of the group as a whole.
People in a group should be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the group’s well−being.
TEAM PROCESSES In this section you are requested to give your opinion about several overall statements that are made about team effectiveness, conflict, shared understanding and task interdependence in the team. 18. The following questions ask you for information about the overall performance of your team and the level of satisfaction of the team members.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree
nor agree
Agree
Strongly
agree
In the past, the team has been effective in reaching its goals.
The team is currently meeting its business objectives.
When the team completes its work, it is generally on time.
When the team completes its work it is generally within the budget.
There is respect for individuals in the team.
I do not feel my input is valued by the members of the team.
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Team members’ morale is high in the team.
I enjoy being a member of this team.
In the future, I would be interested in participating in another virtual team.
19. Please answer the following questions regarding conflict.
Never
Rarely
Occasionally
A moderate amount
A great
deal
How frequently are there conflicts about ideas in the team?
How much conflict about the work you do is there in the team?
How often do people in the team disagree about opinions regarding the work being done?
To what extent are there differences of opinion in the team?
How much friction is there among members in the team?
How much are personality conflicts evident in the team?
How much tension is there among members in the team?
How much emotional conflict is there among members in the team?
To what extent do people take the arguments in the team personally?
How much jealousy or rivalry is there among the members in the team?
20. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements concerning shared understanding.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree
nor agree
Agree
Strongly
agree
Within this team, members are able to take a hint from each other.
Within this team, we need little explanation to get a message through.
Team members have a shared understanding of what the team is supposed to do.
It is not clear how we will accomplish the task.
Our team works together in a well−coordinated fashion.
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Our team has very few misunderstanding about what to do.
Most of the time we do things right the first time.
We accomplish the task smoothly and efficiently.
21. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements about task interdependence.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree
nor agree
Agree
Strongly
agree
I have a one−person job; it is not necessary for me to coordinate or cooperate with others.
I need information and advice from my colleagues to perform my job well.
I need to collaborate with my colleagues to perform my job well.
My colleagues need information and advice from me to perform their jobs well.
I regularly have to communicate with colleagues about work−related issues.
TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIATED COMMUNICATION 22. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements with reference to TMC.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither disagree nor agree
Agree
Strongly agree
I have access to all of the information I need to perform my work.
The team is equipped with adequate tools and technologies to perform our task.
Team members are in contact with one another on a regular basis in order to conduct routine business.
Team members are in contact with one another on a regular basis for social, or non−business, purposes.
The electronic methods we use to communicate with one another are effective.
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23. Please indicate the frequency with which you use the following tools for exchange business information.
Never / Not
applicable
Less than once a month
Once a month
Once a week
A few times a week
Daily
Personal Telephone Call
Voice Mail
Fax
E−mail
Group Telephone Conference
Video Conference
Shared Database/Groupware
Standard/Express Mail Delivery
Other; (please specify)
LEADERSHIP You have arrived at the last section of this questionnaire. Just a few more questions to go! This section consists of questions about leadership. Leadership is recognized to be a critical factor for virtual team success. In this section a leader is referred to the individual, formal and final responsible member of the virtual team. In your case you can refer to [name team leader] as your team leader.
24. Please indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements. In case you are the formal leader of the team, please answer the questions by keeping in mind your own leadership activities. These items are not allowed to be published due to copyright.
FINISHING UP This is the end of the questionnaire. Thank you very much for taking the time to complete this questionnaire!
If you have any comments, please add them below:
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REGARDING UNDERLINED CONCEPTS Leader: The leader is referred to the individual, formal and final responsible member of the virtual
team.
Cross-cultural awareness: People’s ability to notice other cultures and meanwhile empathize how
and why people from other cultures feel and act, compared with his or her own standpoint.
Cultural values: Values are an integral part of every culture. Values tell people what is good,
important, useful, desirable, et cetera and influence individual behavior. Values answer the question
of why people do what they do. Over time, they become the roots of traditions that groups of people
find important in their day-to-day lives.
Team effectiveness: The degree that teams are “able to produce high quality output (i.e. products
and services)”4 and the level of member satisfaction.
Shared understanding: In teams, members are working towards a common goal. To do so, “team
members should have a shared understanding (general state of agreement) about what they are
trying to achieve (their goals), how they will achieve them (work and group processes), what they
need to do (their tasks) and what each team member brings to the team task (member knowledge,
skills and abilities)” 5.
Task interdependence: Members in a team are, up to a certain level, interdependent of each other
because they have to work with each other and coordinate their activities. Furthermore, “the way
one member accomplishes her or his task has strong implications on the work process of other team
members”6.
Technological mediated communication (TMC): Communication that involves a process by which “a
message, or communication, is transmitted via some technological form or medium”7.
4 Piccoli, G., Powell, A. and Ives, B. (2004). Virtual teams: team control structure, work processes, and team effectiveness.
Information Technology & People. Vol. 17 (4), p. 359-379. 5 Gibson, C. B., & Cohen, S. G. (2003). Virtual teams that work: Creating conditions for virtual team effectiveness. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 6 Hertel, G., Konradt, O. And Orlikowski, B. (2004). Managing distance by interdependence: Goal setting, task
interdependence, and team-based rewards in virtual teams. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. Vol. 13 (1), p. 1-28 7 Pavlik, J.V. & McIntosh, S. (2004). Converging media: An introduction to mass communication. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
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Appendix D: Logbook data gathering
Company Team Size Invitation Nr resp. t1 Reminder 1 Nr. resp. t2 Reminder 2 Deadline Extended deadline
Nr resp. total
Response Rate
A 1 7 30-03-2011 8 11-04-2011 9 18-04-2011 15-04-2011 22-04-2011 6 86%
2 7 30-03-2011 11-04-2011 18-04-2011 15-04-2011 22-04-2011 5 71%
3 30 18-04-2011 13 26-04-2011 27 03-05-2011 29-04-2011 06-05-2011 20 67%
4 12 18-04-2011 26-04-2011 03-05-2011 29-04-2011 06-05-2011 7 58%
5 21 26-04-2011 11 03-05-2011 X X 06-05-2011 X 17 81%
6 11 28-04-2011 5 03-05-2011 X X 06-05-2011 X 9 81%
B 7 7 04-04-2011 5 11-04-2011 11 X 15-04-2011 X 6 86%
8 5 04-04-2011 11-04-2011 X 15-04-2011 X 5 100%
C 9 19 30-03-2011 13 11-04-2011 18 18-04-2011 15-04-2011 22-04-2011 16 84%
10 9 30-03-2011 11-04-2011 18-04-2011 15-04-2011 22-04-2011 6 67%
D 11 28 07-04-2011 10 18-04-2011 12 26-04-2011 20-04-2011 06-05-2011 15 54%
12 5 12-04-2011 1 18-04-2011 5 X 20-04-2011 X 5 100%
E 13 12 07-04-2011 4 18-04-2011 9 26-04-2011 20-04-2011 29-04-2011 9 75%
14 13 07-04-2011 1 18-04-2011 1 26-04-2011 20-04-2011 29-04-2011 2 15%
F 15 7 08-04-2011 3 18-04-2011 6 26-04-2011 20-04-2011 29-04-2011 7 100%
G 16 5 20-04-2011 5 X 5 X 29-04-2011 X 5 100%
H 17 20 15-04-2011 4 26-04-2011 10 03-05-2011 29-04-2011 06-05-2011 12 60%
I 18 5 19-04-2011 0 26-04-2011 1 03-05-2011 29-04-2011 06-05-2011 1 20%
J 19 5 31-03-2011 3 14-04-2011 5 20-04-2011 15-04-2011 22-04-2011 5 100%
K 20 8 19-04-2011 6 25-04-2011 8 x 25-04-2011 x 8 100%
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Appendix E: Characteristics of the participating organizations and teams(incl. nationalities)
Nationality Respondents Nationality Respondents
Dutch 64 Costa Rican 1 Filipino 2 Swedish 6 Chinese 2 Welsh 1 American 14 Saudi 2 Irish 4 Portuguese 2 Indian 27 Danish 1 Singaporean 3 Turkish 1 Thai 1 Norwegian 1 English 8 Chilean 1 Venezuelan 2 French 1 Brazilian 1 Czech 1 Polish 1 Spanish 1 Belgian 4 Australian 2 Motswana 1 Korean 1 German 3 Russian 1 Swiss 1 Italian 2
Company Industry Team Size Response rate
Male Female Age min.
Age max.
Nationalities (nr)
A Financial 1 7 86% 4 2 35 56 6 2 7 71% 3 2 35 55 3 3 30 67% 15 5 24 58 3
4 12 58% 6 1 24 44 2
5 21 81% 13 4 24 43 2
6 11 81% 8 1 31 55 4
B Food 7 7 86% 3 3 25 56 3
8 5 100% 5 0 31 40 3
C Transport 9 19 84% 14 2 21 50 4
10 9 67% 6 0 39 61 4
D ICT 11 28 54% 7 8 30 52 11
12 5 100% 2 3 33 56 4
E ICT 13 12 75% 6 3 27 46 7
14 13 15% due to low response rate, excluded from regressions analyses
F Financial 15 7 100% 3 4 30 58 5
G Manufacturer 16 5 100% 3 2 23 38 4
H Energy 17 20 60% 10 2 24 52 3
I Technology 18 5 20% due to low response rate, excluded from regressions analyses
J Manufacturer 19 5 100% 4 1 36 54 3
K Energy 20 8 100% 6 2 32 60 3
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Appendix F: Individual-Level Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations
Variables N Min Max Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1) Age 163 21 61 38.85 9.707
2) Gender 163 0 1 .28 .448 -.056
3) Team size 163 5 30 15.90 8.821 -.142 -.001
4) Employee tenure 163 0.00 1.00 .4908 .50146 .030 .025 .082
5) Business experience 163 1.00 5.00 3.92 .896 .071 -.037 -.147 -.118
6) Leisure experience 163 1.00 5.00 3.09 1.068 .179* .131 -.041 -.010 .188*
7) Transformational
leadership
163 1.50 5.00 3.732 .50868 .020 .080 -.203** .090 .080 -.091
8) Team effectiveness 163 2.67 5.00 3.837 .47064 -.103 -.023 -.200* -.042 .220** -.187* .464**
9) Cross cultural
awareness (CCA)
163 2.55 5.00 3.790 .48362 .125 .165* -.280** .068 .201* .151 .268** .324**
10) Task
interdependence (TI)
163 1.80 5.00 4.146 .59590 .064 .107 -.327** -.101 .195* -.061 .168* .362** .269**
Valid N (listwise) 163
**. Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed).
