research-article

Trust in virtual teams: solved or still a mystery?

Authors:

Alanah Mitchell,

Ilze ZigursAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems, Volume 40, Issue 3

Pages 61 - 83

https://doi.org/10.1145/1592401.1592407

Published: 30 July 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Trust was one of the most prominent topics of early research in virtual teams, highlighted by the emergence of the theory of swift trust. As researchers continue to study this topic, it is important to understand what problems have been solved as well as what aspects of trust in virtual teams remain a mystery. We address this goal by presenting an in-depth analysis of existing research on trust in virtual teams. We review theories, methods, tasks, technologies, and major outcome themes from 42 empirical studies over an eleven-year period from 1997 through 2007. The analysis reveals gaps and areas for future research, including the need for additional theorizing, broader use of methods, deliberate interventions that enhance trust, and continuing evolution of the trust concept.

References

[1]

Alavi, M., & Carlson, P. (1992). A review of MIS research and disciplinary development. Journal of Management Information Systems, 8(4), 45--62.

Digital Library

[2]

Alexander, P.M. (2002). Teamwork, time, trust and information. Proceedings of the Annual Research Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists (SAICSIT) on Enablement Through Technology, pp. 65--74.

Digital Library

[3]

Alge, B.J., Ballinger, G.A., & Green, S.G. (2004). Remote Control: Predictors of Electronic Monitoring Intensity and Secrecy. Personnel Psychology, 57(2), 377--410.

[4]

Alge, B.J., Wiethoff, C., & Klein, H.J. (2003). When does the medium matter? Knowledge-building experiences and opportunities in decision-making teams. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91(1), 26.

[5]

Aubert, B.A., & Kelsey, B.L. (2003). Further Understanding of Trust and Performance in Virtual Teams. Small Group Research, 34(5), 575--618.

[6]

Baier, A. (1986). Trust and antitrust. Ethics & Behavior, 96, 231--260.

[7]

Beranek, P.M. (2005). A comparison of relational and trust training techniques for virtual team communication: How much training is enough. Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 1--10.

Digital Library

[8]

Blomqvist, K. (2002). Partnering in the dynamic environment: The role of trust in asymmetric technology partnership formation: Acta Universitatis Lappeenrantaensis.

[9]

Bos, N., Olson, J., Gergle, D., Olson, G., & Wright, Z. (2002). Effects of four computer-mediated communications channels on trust development. CHI Letters 4(1), 135--140.

Digital Library

[10]

Brennan, R.L., & Prediger, D.J. (1981). Coefficient Kappa: Some Uses, Misuses, and Alternatives. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 41, 687.

[11]

Brown, H.G., Poole, M.S., & Rodgers, T.L. (2004). Interpersonal Traits, Complementarity, and Trust in Virtual Collaboration. Journal of Management Information Systems, 20(4), 115--137.

Digital Library

[12]

Carlson, J.R., & Zmud, R.W. (1999). Channel Expansion Theory and the Experiential Nature of Media Richness Perceptions. The Academy of Management Journal, 42(2), 153--170.

[13]

Chang, K.T. (2004, December). Transactive memory and trust networks in computer-supported teams. Proceedings of the 1st iKMS International Conference on Knowledge Management, pp. 1533--1546.

[14]

Chudoba, K.M., Wynn, E., Lu, M., & Watson-Manheim, M.B. (2005). How virtual are we? Measuring virtuality and understanding its impact in a global organization. Information Systems Journal, 15(4), 279--306.

[15]

Corbitt, G., Gardiner, L.R., & Wright, L.K. (2004, January). A Comparison of Team Developmental Stages, Trust and Performance for Virtual versus Face-to-Face Teams. Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04), p. 10042b

Digital Library

[16]

Costa, A.C. (2003). Work team trust and effectiveness. Personnel Review 32(5), 605--672.

[17]

Cummings, L.L., & Bromley, P. (1996). The organizational trust inventory (OTI): Development and validation. In T.R. Tyler & R.M. Kramer (Eds.), Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research (pp. 302--330). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

[18]

DeRosa, D.M., Hantula, D.A., Kock, N., & D'Arcy, J. (2004). Trust and leadership in virtual teamwork: A media naturalness perspective. Human Resource Management, 43(2/3), 219--232.

[19]

DeSanctis, G., & Gallupe, R.B. (1987). A foundation for the study of group decision support systems. Management Science, 33(5), 589--609.

Digital Library

[20]

Deutsch, M. (1958). Trust and suspicion. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2(3), 265--279.

[21]

Dub&#233;, L., & Par&#233;&#233;, G. (2004). The multi-faceted nature of virtual teams. In D. J. Pauleen (Ed.), Virtual teams: Projects, protocols, and processes: Idea Group Publishing.

[22]

Edwards, H.K., & Sridhar, V. (2005). Analysis of Software Requirements Engineering Exercises in a Global Virtual Team Setup. Journal of Global Information Management, 13(2), 21--42.

[23]

Gallie, E.-P., & Guichard, R. (2005). Do collaboratories mean the end of face-to-face interactions? An evidence from the ISEE project. Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 14(6), 517--532.

[24]

Giddens, A. (1990). The Consequence of Modernity. Oxford: Polity.

[25]

Giffin, K. (1967). Interpersonal trust in small-group communication. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 53(3), 224--235.

[26]

Henttonen, K., & Blomqvist, K. (2005). Managing distance in a global virtual team: The evolution of trust through technology-mediated relational communication. Strategic Change, 14(2), 107--119.

[27]

Holton, J.A. (2001). Building trust and collaboration in a virtual team. Team Performance Management 7(3/4), 36--47.

[28]

Iacono, C.S., & Weisband, S. (1997). Developing trust in virtual teams. Proceedings of the 30th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-30), pp. 412--420.

Digital Library

[29]

Jarvenpaa, S.L., Knoll, K., & Leidner, D.E. (1998). Is anybody out there? Antecedents of trust in global virtual teams. Journal of Management Information Systems, 14(4), 29--75.

Digital Library

[30]

Jarvenpaa, S.L., & Leidner, D.E. (1999). Communication and trust in global virtual teams. Organization Science, 10(6), 791--815.

Digital Library

[31]

Jarvenpaa, S.L., Shaw, T.R., & Staples, D.S. (2004). Toward contextualized theories of trust: The role of trust in global virtual teams. Information Systems Research, 15(3), 250--267.

Digital Library

[32]

Keim, T., & Weitzel, T. (2005). An integrated approach to online partnership building. Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 1--10.

Digital Library

[33]

Kelley, H., & Michela, J. (1980). Attribution theory and research. Annual Review of Psychology, 31, 457--501.

[34]

Khazanchi, D., & Zigurs, I. (2006). Patterns for effective management of virtual projects: Theory and evidence. International Journal of E-Collaboration, 2(3), 25--49.

[35]

Kuo, F., & Yu, C. (2002). A study of trust in virtual group. Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, pp. 381--395.

[36]

Law, K.S., Wong, C.-S., & Mobley, W.H. (1998). Toward a taxonomy of multidimensional constructs. Academy of Management Review, 23(4), 741--755.

[37]

Lazaric, N., & Lorenz, E. (1998). Trust and Economic Learning. Northampton: Bookcraft.

[38]

Lewicki, R.J., & Bunker, B.B. (1996). Developing and Maintaining Trust in Work Relationships. In R.M. Kramer & T.R. Tyler (Eds.), Trust in Organization: Frontiers of Theory and Research (pp. 114--165): Sage Publications, Inc.

[39]

Lewicki, R.J., McAllister, D.J., & Bies, R.J. (1998). Trust and distrust: New relationships and realities. Academy of Management Review, 23, 438--458.

[40]

Lind, M.R. (1999). The relationship between trust and cohesion in temporary knowledge work teams. Proceedings of the Americas Conference on Information Systems, pp. 859--861.

[41]

Lipnack, J., & Stamps, J. (1997). Virtual teams: Reaching across space, time, and organizations with technology. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Digital Library

[42]

Mark, G. (1998). Building virtual teams: Perspectives on communication, flexibility and trust. SIGGROUP Bulletin 19(3), 38--41.

Digital Library

[43]

Martins, L.L., Gilson, L.L., & Maynard, M.T. (2004). Virtual Teams: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From Here? Journal of Management Education, 30(6), 805--835.

[44]

Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H., & Schoorman, F.D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709--734.

[45]

Misztal, B.A. (1996). Trust in Modern Societies. Oxford: Polity.

[46]

Nandhakumar, J., & Baskerville, R. (2001, June). Trusting online: Nurturing trust in virtual teams. Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS-09), pp. 188--194.

[47]

Nandhakumar, J., & Baskerville, R. (2006). Durability of online teamworking: Patterns of trust. Information Technology & People, 19(4), 371--389.

[48]

Orkilowski, W.J., & Iacono, C.S. (2001). Research commentary: Desperately seeking the 'IT' in IT research -- A call to the theorizing the IT artifact. Information Systems Research, 12(2), 121--134.

Digital Library

[49]

Pauleen, D.J. (2003/2004). An inductively derived model of leader-initiated relationship building with virtual team members. Journal of Management Information Systems, 20(3), 227--256.

Digital Library

[50]

Piccoli, G., & Ives, B. (2003). Trust and the unintended effects of behavior control in virtual teams. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 365--395.

Digital Library

[51]

Pinsonneault, A., & Caya, O. (2005). Virtual teams: What we know, what we don't know. International Journal of E-Collaboration, 1(3), 1--16.

[52]

Poole, M.S., Siebold, D.R., & McPheer, D. (1985). Group decision-making as a structurational process. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 71(1), 74--102.

[53]

Powell, A., Piccoli, G., & Ives, B. (2004). Virtual teams: A review of current literature and directions for future research. The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 35(1), 6--36.

Digital Library

[54]

Rietjens, B. (2006). Trust and reputation on eBay: Towards a legal framework for feedback intermediaries. Information & Communications Technology Law, 15(1), 55--78.

[55]

Rousseau, D.M., Sitkin, S.B., Burt, R.S., & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 393--404.

[56]

Sarker, S., Valacich, J.S., & Sarker, S. (2001). An exploration of trust in virtual teams using three perspectives.

[57]

Serva, M.A., & Fuller, M.A. (2004). The effects of trustworthiness perceptions on the formation of initial trust: Implications for MIS student teams. Journal of Information Systems Education, 15(4), 383--395.

[58]

Tan, B., Wei, K., Huang, W., & Ng, G. (2000). A dialogue technique to enhance electronic communication in virtual teams. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 43(2), 153--165.

[59]

Warkentin, M., & Beranek, P.M. (1999). Training to improve virtual team communication. Information Systems Journal, 9(4), 271--289.

[60]

Webster, J., & Watson, R.T. (2002). Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly, 26(2), xiii--xxiii.

Digital Library

[61]

Zand, D. E. (1972). Trust and Managerial Problem Solving. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, 229--239.

[62]

Zheng, J., Bos, N., Olson, J.S., & Olson, G.M. (2001). Trust without touch: Jump-start trust with social chat. CHI Short Talks, 293--294.

Digital Library

[63]

Zheng, J., Veinott, E., Bos, N., Olson, J.S., & Olson, G.M. (2002). Trust without touch: Jumpstarting long-distance trust with initial social activities. CHI Letters, 4(1), 141--146.

Digital Library

[64]

Zigurs, I., Buckland, B.K., Connolly, J.R., & Wilson, E.V. (1999). A test of task-technology fit theory for group support systems. The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 30(3/4), 34--50.

Digital Library

[65]

Zigurs, I., & Khazanchi, D. (2008). From profiles to patterns: A new view of task-technology fit. Information Systems Management, 25(1), 8--13.

Digital Library

[66]

Zolin, R., Hinds, P.J., Fruchter, R., & Levitt, R.E. (2004). Interpersonal trust in cross-functional, geographically distributed work: A longitudinal study. Information and Organization, 14, 1--26.

Cited By

Wei FHwang BZainal NZhu H(2024)Trust, Team Effectiveness, and Strategies: A Comparative Study between Virtual and Face-to-Face TeamsJournal of Construction Engineering and Management10.1061/JCEMD4.COENG-14522150:7Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1061/JCEMD4.COENG-14522
Sajadi ADamevski KChatterjee PBavota GHao D(2023)Interpersonal Trust in OSS: Exploring Dimensions of Trust in GitHub Pull RequestsProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results10.1109/ICSE-NIER58687.2023.00010(19-24)Online publication date: 17-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE-NIER58687.2023.00010
Wahl IWolfgruber DEinwiller S(2023)Mitigating teleworkers' perceived technological complexity and work strains through supportive team communicationCorporate Communications: An International Journal10.1108/CCIJ-05-2023-006129:3(329-345)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-05-2023-0061
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Trust in virtual teams: solved or still a mystery?
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management

Recommendations

Monitoring and Trust in Virtual Teams
CSCW '16: Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

This study was conducted to determine whether monitoring moderated the impact of trust on the project performance of 57 virtual teams. Two sources of monitoring were examined: internal monitoring done by team members and external monitoring done by ...
Virtual teamwork training: factors influencing the acceptance of collaboration technology

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that influence the acceptance of electronic collaboration technology by higher education students and that influence their predicted usage of the technology for virtual team collaboration. The ...
Interpersonal Traits, Complementarity, and Trust in Virtual Collaboration

Trust has been a focus of research on virtual collaboration in distributed teams, e-commerce, e-learning, and telemedicine. Central to several models of trust and virtual collaboration is user's disposition to trust. This construct, however, has ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems

ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems Volume 40, Issue 3

August 2009

103 pages

ISSN:0095-0033

EISSN:1532-0936

DOI:10.1145/1592401

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2009 Authors.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 July 2009

Published in SIGMIS Volume 40, Issue 3

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

48
Total Citations
View Citations
2,221
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)71
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)8

Reflects downloads up to 23 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Wei FHwang BZainal NZhu H(2024)Trust, Team Effectiveness, and Strategies: A Comparative Study between Virtual and Face-to-Face TeamsJournal of Construction Engineering and Management10.1061/JCEMD4.COENG-14522150:7Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1061/JCEMD4.COENG-14522
Sajadi ADamevski KChatterjee PBavota GHao D(2023)Interpersonal Trust in OSS: Exploring Dimensions of Trust in GitHub Pull RequestsProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results10.1109/ICSE-NIER58687.2023.00010(19-24)Online publication date: 17-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE-NIER58687.2023.00010
Wahl IWolfgruber DEinwiller S(2023)Mitigating teleworkers' perceived technological complexity and work strains through supportive team communicationCorporate Communications: An International Journal10.1108/CCIJ-05-2023-006129:3(329-345)Online publication date: 15-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-05-2023-0061
Kanthawongs P(2022)Factors Affecting Intention to Lead of Young Leaders in the Virtual Teams2022 7th International Conference on Business and Industrial Research (ICBIR)10.1109/ICBIR54589.2022.9786412(461-465)Online publication date: 19-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICBIR54589.2022.9786412
Montaudon-Tomas CPinto-López IAmsler A(2021)Virtual Collaboration in Remote Project ManagementRemote Work and Sustainable Changes for the Future of Global Business10.4018/978-1-7998-7513-0.ch006(73-95)Online publication date: 2021
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-7513-0.ch006
Griggs ARickel ELazzara EFrederick Embry-Riddle C(2021)Face-to-Face and Online Friendships: Examining Differences in Trust and Distrust Based on ModalityProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/107118132064131864:1(1333-1337)Online publication date: 9-Feb-2021
https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181320641318
Ferreira-Lopes LElexpuru-Albizuri IBezanilla M(2021)Developing business students’ intercultural competence through intercultural virtual collaboration: a task sequence implementationJournal of International Education in Business10.1108/JIEB-06-2020-0055ahead-of-print:ahead-of-printOnline publication date: 25-Jan-2021
https://doi.org/10.1108/JIEB-06-2020-0055
Mitchell A(2021)Collaboration technology affordances from virtual collaboration in the time of COVID-19 and post-pandemic strategiesInformation Technology & People10.1108/ITP-01-2021-000336:5(1982-2008)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2021
https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-01-2021-0003
Travica B(2020)GroupomaticsInforming View of Organization10.4018/978-1-7998-2760-3.ch003(82-124)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-2760-3.ch003
Kroeger FRacko GBurchell B(2020)How to create trust quickly: a comparative empirical investigation of the bases of swift trustCambridge Journal of Economics10.1093/cje/beaa04145:1(129-150)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2020
https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beaa041
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents