Content uploaded by Bradford S Bell
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Bradford S Bell on Sep 05, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
http://gom.sagepub.com/
Group & Organization Management
http://gom.sagepub.com/content/27/1/14
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/1059601102027001003
2002 27: 14Group & Organization Management
Bradford S. Bell and Steve W. J. Kozlowski
A Typology of Virtual Teams : Implications for Effective Leadership
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at:Group & Organization ManagementAdditional services and information for
http://gom.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://gom.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
http://gom.sagepub.com/content/27/1/14.refs.htmlCitations:
What is This?
- Mar 1, 2002Version of Record >>
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
GROUP&ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENTBell,Kozlowski/ VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP
A Typology of Virtual Teams
IMPLICATIONS FOR EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
BRADFORD S. BELL
STEVE W. J. KOZLOWSKI
Michigan State University
As the nature of work in today’s organizations becomes more complex, dynamic, and global,
there has been increasing emphasis on distributed, “virtual” teams as organizing units of work.
Despite their growing prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of work unit.
The purpose of this article is to present a theoretical framework to focus research toward under-
standing virtual teams and identifying implications for effective leadership. The authors focus
on delineating the dimensions of a typology to characterize different types of virtual teams. First,
the authors distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams to identify where current knowl-
edge applies and new research needs exist. Second, the authors distinguish among different
types of virtual teams, considering the critical role of task complexity in determining the under-
lying characteristics of virtual teams and leadership challenges the different types entail. Propo-
sitions addressing leadership implications for the effective management of virtual teams are pro-
posed and discussed.
The nature of work in today’s organizations is changing. In recent years,
corporate activity has become increasingly more global, competition from
both foreign and domestic sources has grown dramatically, and there has
been a continued shift from production to service/knowledge-based work
environments (Townsend, DeMarie, & Hendrickson, 1998). In addition,
advances in information and communication technology have enabled a
faster pace of change than in the past and have created jobs that are increas-
ingly more complex and dynamic. In response to these changes, organiza-
tional systems, structures, and processes have evolved to become more flexi-
ble and adaptive. Horizontal organizational structures and team-based work
units have become increasingly more prevalent and, with advances in
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bradford S. Bell, Michigan State
University, Department of Psychology, 129 Psychology Research Building, East Lansing, MI
48824-1117.
Group & Organization Management, Vol. 27 No. 1, March 2002 14-49
© 2002 Sage Publications
14
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
technology, there has been an increasing emphasis on far-flung, distributed,
“virtual” teams as organizing units of work.
Townsend and colleagues (1998, p. 17) defined virtual teams as “groups
of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers that are assem-
bled using a combination of telecommunications and information technolo-
gies to accomplish an organizational task.” In fact, these teams are used to
accomplish a variety of critical tasks. PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has
45,000 employees in 120 countries, uses virtual teams to bring employees
from around the globe “together” for a week or two to prepare work for a par-
ticular client. Whirlpool Corporation used a virtual team composed of
experts from the United States, Brazil, and Italy during a 2-year project
aimed at developing a chlorofluorocarbon-free refrigerator (Geber, 1995).
Virtual teams offer many benefits. 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. There is
little doubt that virtual teams will play a key role in the design of organiza-
tions in the new millennium.
Interestingly enough, although it is clear that virtual teams will play an
important role in shaping future organizations, we know relatively little
about them. Virtual teams have received a great deal of attention in the popu-
lar literature and have recently begun to receive academic attention (e.g.,
Byrne, Brandt, & Port, 1993; Davidow & Malone, 1992; Dess, Rasheed,
McLaughlin, & Priem, 1995); however, this literature has been primarily
descriptive and has focused mainly on the benefits of such teams. As a result,
little attention has been directed toward understanding their potential prob-
lems and challenges, and it is difficult to determine what implications these
teams will have for critical organizational processes. In particular, it is diffi-
cult to ascertain how the unique characteristics of virtual teams affect critical
leadership functions, including performance management and team develop-
ment. There is little current theory to guide research on the leadership and
management of virtual teams.
Although virtual teams offer high flexibility and many other potential
benefits, they also create several leadership challenges. The purpose of this
article is to develop a theoretical framework to improve understanding of this
new form of work unit. Specifically, we focus on delineating the dimensions
of a typology to characterize different types of virtual teams; the dimensions
are then used to draw leadership implications.
Our typology is intended to make two conceptual contributions. First, we
distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams to determine where cur-
rent knowledge applies and where new research efforts need to be focused.
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 15
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Second, and more important, we distinguish among different types of virtual
teams. The literature has tended to treat virtual teams as a single “ideal” type,
yet there are several dimensions or characteristics that vary among and dis-
tinguish different types of virtual teams. We focus on four such characteris-
tics: temporal distribution, boundary spanning, lifecycle, and member roles.
Throughout this discussion, we treat task complexity as a key constraint or
moderator on virtual team design. Virtual teams are created to handle a vari-
ety of tasks that range from the simple (e.g., brainstorming) to the complex
(e.g., command and control). We will argue that virtual teams need to adopt
different characteristics to successfully operate within the constraints that are
imposed by the complexity of their collective task.
This article is organized as follows. The first section introduces overarch-
ing conceptual issues that shape the focus of the typology, its mechanisms,
and its implications. We begin with a consideration of the two major leader-
ship functions that are critical in all teams: performance management and
team development. We then discuss the constraining role of task complexity
on the interdependence of team workflows. Task complexity is a critical con-
straint on the design of all teams (Goodman, 1986). In our typology, task
complexity implicates different characteristics that distinguish different
types of virtual teams.
We develop our typology of virtual teams in the second section. The
typology is divided into two main parts. We begin by delineating the two
characteristics that differentiate virtual teams from conventional teams. We
then discuss four characteristics that distinguish different types of virtual
teams. Following each of these discussions, we posit the implications of
these characteristics for effective leadership in virtual teams. The challenges
that virtual teams present for the performance of the leadership functions are
the focus of the implications drawn from our typology. Propositions are used
throughout the typology to identify distinguishing features of virtual teams
and to highlight key leadership challenges.
LEADERSHIP FUNCTIONS, TASK
COMPLEXITY, AND VIRTUAL TEAMS
THE CHALLENGES OF VIRTUAL TEAMS FOR LEADERSHIP
Most models of group and team effectiveness recognize the critical role of
team leaders, and there is certainly no shortage of leadership models in the lit-
erature. Remarkably, even as teams have increasingly become the primary
building-blocks of organizations, there have been relatively few theoretical
16 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
efforts to specify the functional requirements of team leaders (e.g., Hackman
& Walton, 1986; Kozlowski, Gully, McHugh, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers,
1996; McGrath, 1962). There is, however, a reasonable amount of consis-
tency across these efforts in terms of the important leadership functions that
need to be accomplished. Although different names have been used to
describe these functions, they can be broken down into two primary catego-
ries: (a) the development and shaping of team processes (e.g., Kozlowski
et al., 1996) and (b) the monitoring and management of ongoing team perfor-
mance (e.g., Fleishman et al., 1991; Hackman & Walton, 1986; McGrath,
1962). Note that these approaches to leadership functions generally assume
that team member selection, composition, and task design fall outside the dis-
cretion of the team leader.
With respect to team development, leaders are often faced with the pros-
pect of building a brand-new team. At formation, new teams are merely a col-
lection of individuals. The leader’s functional role is to develop them into a
coherent, seamless, and well-integrated work unit (Kozlowski et al., 1996).
In other instances, ongoing teams experience personnel outflows and inflows
over time. As new replacement personnel are brought into the team, they
need to be socialized and assimilated (Moreland & Levine, 1989). Leaders
are critical to this newcomer assimilation process (Ostroff & Kozlowski,
1992). The developmental functions of team leaders focus on the enactment
of “team orientation” and coaching to establish “team coherence” (Kozlowski
et al., 1996). Team orientation includes factors with motivational implica-
tions, such as promoting shared goal commitment, creating positive affect,
and shaping climate perceptions. Team orientation represents the affective
bonds that connect members to the team and its mission. Team coherence
includes the development of linked individual goals, a repertoire of team task
strategies, and a compatible network of role expectations across team mem-
bers. Team coherence represents team members’ collective bond to task
interdependencies and dynamics and provides the capability for teams to
self-manage (Kozlowski et al., 1996; Kozlowski, Gully, Salas, & Cannon-
Bowers, 1996).
With respect to team performance functions, the leader’s roles are to mon-
itor team members’ behaviors and to take action as needed (Hackman &
Walton, 1986; McGrath, 1962; Roby, 1961). A leader’s first priority is to
monitor the team’s performance and progress toward task accomplishment.
When problems are discovered, the leader must gather information to deter-
mine the nature of the problem and use this information to devise and imple-
ment effective solutions (Hackman & Walton, 1986). Monitoring functions
include vigilance, diagnosing group deficiencies, data-gathering skills, fore-
casting impending environmental changes, and information use in problem
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 17
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
solving. Taking action includes preventing deleterious environmental changes
or their effects, enabling performance situations, providing material resources,
and developing and managing personnel resources (Fleishman et al., 1991;
Hackman & Walton, 1986; Komaki, Zlotnick, & Jensen, 1986; McGrath,
1962; Roby, 1961).
One important characteristic underlying these theoretical efforts to iden-
tify the key functional roles of team leaders is the assumption that the leader
interacts directly with team members in the processes of team development
and performance management (e.g., Fleishman et al., 1991; Hackman &
Walton, 1986; Komaki et al., 1986; Kozlowski et al., 1996; Kozlowski,
Gully, Salas, et al., 1996; McGrath, 1962; Roby, 1961). This underlying
assumption is also characteristic of the emerging literature on self-managing
work teams, which provide these functions on their own in the absence of a
formal leader (e.g., Manz & Sims, 1987).
Thus, virtual teams present the potential for real challenges to effective
team development and performance management. How can these key func-
tional leader roles be duplicated, substituted, or eliminated given that the
team may be widely dispersed in space and spread across time? To address
these challenges and identify the implications for leadership, it is important
to clearly distinguish the characteristics of traditional and virtual teams and
to distinguish among the different forms that virtual teams may assume.
TEAM TASK COMPLEXITY AND WORKFLOW
Attention to the effects of task complexity on team structure and process is
the major characteristic that distinguishes the emerging literature on work
groups and teams from the broader and more voluminous literature on small
groups. This constraining influence of task complexity on work group struc-
ture and process has been noted by every major literature review and theory
developed over the past decade or so (e.g., Bettenhausen, 1991; Goodman,
1986; Guzzo & Shea, 1992; Kozlowski, Gully, Nason, & Smith, 1999;
Levine & Moreland, 1990). Thus far, task complexity has not received atten-
tion with respect to virtual teams. We believe that task complexity has critical
implications for the structure and processes of virtual teams. We employ it as
a key theoretical mechanism for the derivation of propositions and leadership
implications drawn from the typology.
Van de Ven, Delbecq, and Koenig (1976) described four basic interdepen-
dence arrangements, based on Thompson’s (1967) typology, that character-
ize the workflow processes inherent in different types of team structures. The
least interdependent arrangement is termed pooled/additive because work
18 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
and activities are performed separately by all team members and then com-
bined into a finished product. In the second arrangement, sequential, work
and activities flow unidirectionally from one member to another. The third
arrangement, reciprocal, is characterized by work and activities that flow
back and forth between team members, one by one, over time. In the final and
most interdependent arrangement, intensive, team members must diagnose,
problem solve, and/or collaborate simultaneously as a team to accomplish
their task. These four types of workflow arrangements are illustrated in Fig-
ure 1.
The team workflow interdependencies described above entail several
other associated characteristics, including the task environment, external
coupling, and internal coupling, that have been used to distinguish team task
requirements (Cohen & Bailey, 1997; Kozlowski et al., 1999; McGrath,
1991; Sundstrom, de Meuse, & Futrell, 1990) (see Figure 1). This combined
set of characteristics contributes to our conceptualization of task complexity
as a continuum ranging from low to high complexity. Tasks at the less com-
plex end of the continuum are static and loosely coupled to the external con-
text, with minimal temporal pacing or entrainment requirements (Anacona &
Chong, 1997; McGrath, 1991). Such tasks have weak, asynchronous intramember
linkages; they require minimal collaboration and information sharing among
team members. Low complexity tasks are usually structured by an addi-
tive/pooled or sequential workflow arrangement.
However, as tasks become more complex, they grow increasingly more
dynamic and involve more tightly coupled external linkages. Such tasks are
typically highly entrained temporally, with demanding pacing requirements
for intrateam processes and for the team’s interface with the external context.
Such tasks are quite challenging, with greater levels of synchronous collabo-
ration and information sharing among team members (Kozlowski et al.,
1999). High-complexity tasks are typically structured by reciprocal or inten-
sive workflow arrangements.
The combination of characteristics that comprise task complexity set con-
straints on team structure and process. The nature of team tasks creates
demands that are best resolved by appropriate workflow arrangements,
which creates corresponding demands for coordination, communication, and
intrateam processes (Kozlowski et al., 1999). As a result, we focus on the role
of task complexity as a moderator of virtual team structure and process. In
effect, task complexity sets constraints on the design characteristics of virtual
teams and therefore influences the leadership functions that will be critical
for the team’s effectiveness.
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 19
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
A TYPOLOGY OF VIRTUAL TEAMS
Typologies have been used by several researchers to identify the charac-
teristics that distinguish between different types of conventional work teams.
Should one conceive of virtual teams as simply another category of team type
to be integrated into one of these existing typologies? Certainly, existing
work on virtual teams, which tends to treat them as a single category, might
suggest that the answer is yes. Sundstrom et al. (1990), for example, used dif-
ferentiation, integration, and work cycles to identify four types of work
groups—advice and involvement, production and service, project and devel-
opment, and action and negotiation—that face different demands for effec-
tiveness. Cohen and Bailey (1997) presented a similar typology in their
review of the team and group literature. Are virtual teams just another cate-
gory? We think not.
As we will make clear, virtual teams possess characteristics that distin-
guish them from conventional, face-to-face teams. In particular, members of
virtual teams are not physically proximal. However, the tasks, goals, or mis-
sions they are designed to accomplish are not necessarily different from those
of conventional teams. It is the way they go about accomplishing those tasks,
20 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
Figure 1: Characteristics of Simple Versus Complex Team Workflows
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
and the unique constraints they face, that is different. Thus, we do not view
virtual teams as another discrete category to be fit into an existing typology.
Moreover, given our goal of better understanding virtual teams, we do not see
much conceptual value to extending an existing typology to add a virtual cat-
egory that could be applied to existing team types. Although potentially use-
ful for classification purposes, such an approach would reveal little about the
unique nature of virtual teams. One might conclude that they are much like
conventional teams, but not face-to-face. We believe there are deeper distinc-
tions that can be revealed through an exploration of the dimensions that dis-
tinguish different types of virtual teams.
The typology we develop draws on underlying characteristics in the con-
ceptualization of task complexity that are similar to those used in existing
team typologies (e.g., Sundstrom et al., 1990); thus, there is a conceptual
linkage. Task complexity is used to represent constraints on virtual team
design and, hence, implicates additional underlying dimensions that distin-
guish among different manifestations of virtual teams. Our point is that vir-
tual teams have unique characteristics that make it possible to differentiate
them both from traditional teams and from one another. The typology we
present in this article, therefore, is meant as a first step in identifying several
of the key features that distinguish virtual teams not only from more tradi-
tional work teams but, more importantly, from one another.
The role of typology in scientific development is to help organize and
make sense of complex phenomena. Typology is especially useful in new
areas of inquiry that are little explored and characterized by a variety of
diverse but related phenomena. By creating a schema that establishes simi-
larities and differences, the scientist endeavors to classify the phenomena
into distinct types. Classification, however, is merely the first step. Ulti-
mately, the scientist hopes to identify new and unexplored aspects of the phe-
nomena that are ripe for research. Our use of typology to advance the under-
standing of virtual teams is predicated on this broader goal. Thus, our goal is
not classification per se. Rather, we focus on the use of typology to surface
underlying characteristics that distinguish among virtual teams to identify
research issues.
VIRTUAL TEAMS VERSUS CONVENTIONAL TEAMS
The first section of our typology focuses on the characteristics that differ-
entiate between virtual teams and conventional teams. These characteristics
are present in all virtual teams, and in a sense they are what make these teams
virtual. Figure 2 displays the two characteristics that distinguish virtual and
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 21
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
conventional teams: (a) spatial distance and (b) information, data, and per-
sonal communication.
SPATIAL DISTANCE
The most critical and important feature of virtual teams is that they cross
boundaries of space. Whereas the members of traditional teams work in close
proximity to one another, the members of virtual teams are separated, often
by many miles or even continents (Pape, 1997; Townsend, DeMarie, &
Hendrickson, 1996). The specific distance that separates team members is
not as important as the effect this spatial separation has on how team mem-
bers interact. In contrast to conventional teams, the members of virtual teams
rarely interact in traditional face-to-face fashion and instead use a number of
mediating technologies, such as videoconferencing and e-mail, to maintain
internal links and carry out their work. Although many traditional, localized
teams also communicate through computerized communication media, such
technology is typically used to supplement face-to-face communication.
Therefore, it is the absence of this proximal, face-to-face interaction between
members of virtual teams that makes them virtual and distinguishes them
from more traditional teams.
Eastman Chemical Company, a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak, provides
an example of an organization that utilizes both traditional and virtual teams.
The company consists of between 800 and 900 interlocking teams that criss-
cross the organization (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). Although many of these
teams operate in the traditional face-to-face fashion, the company uses vir-
tual teams to connect employees who are distributed geographically across
22 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
Figure 2: Characteristics That Differentiate Virtual Teams From Conventional Teams
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
various locations, such as the United States, Argentina, Wales, and Hong
Kong. Eastman also uses virtual teams to connect to its numerous suppliers
and customers located throughout the world and as a result is able to conduct
business around the clock.
As the example above illustrates, virtual teams allow organizations to
become more flexible, adaptive, and responsive by enabling them to cross
boundaries of space. Virtual teams can be designed to include the people
most suited for a particular project because there is no longer a need to worry
about traditional concerns of whether members are located in reasonable
proximity to one another or what it will cost to achieve that proximity
(Townsend et al., 1996). Furthermore, virtual teams allow organizations to
respond faster to increased competition because they can quickly harness the
knowledge employees possess, regardless of location. Although these fea-
tures of virtual teams may not be extremely advantageous or even necessary
when dealing with less complex tasks, they become increasingly more criti-
cal as the task a team performs becomes more complex. Complex tasks often
require multiple individuals, each with an area of expertise, to coordinate
their actions, and often this expertise is located outside of an organization.
Virtual teams allow organizations to access this expertise regardless of where
it may be located. It is important to note that these benefits associated with
dispersed work groups are not guaranteed. As we discuss later in the article,
the ability of a virtual team to operate effectively depends a great deal on the
match between the task demands and the communication technology used by
the team. For example, if a task is very complex and requires a great deal of
information exchange and group decision making, e-mail will not provide an
effective means of communication between team members and a process loss
will result. However, if the communication technology used by the team
meets the demands of the task, a dispersed work group can offer many advan-
tages over a team whose members are colocated.
Proposition 1: We propose that the more specialized the expertise underlying the
collective task a team needs to perform, the greater the likelihood that it will
not be found in a proximal location. Virtual teams provide organizations with
the means of accessing unique, highly specialized expertise that is distributed
in space.
INFORMATION, DATA, AND PERSONAL COMMUNICATION
The ability of virtual teams to be distributed across space is relevant to the
second differentiating feature of virtual teams, technological mediation. In
recent years, a number of advanced communication technologies have been
introduced into the business world. Although e-mail is probably the most
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 23
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
common and most used example, other more complex and interactive com-
munication technologies, such as videoconferencing, groupware, and project
management software, are growing in popularity (Geber, 1995). Together
with some more common modern appurtenances, such as telephones and fax
machines, these communication technologies have helped to transform the
basic structure of work teams. They allow individuals to communicate and
share information and data regardless of their location in time and space, and
are the primary means by which the members of virtual teams interact.
Sun Microsystems, a highly decentralized organization consisting of six
independent “operating companies,” has been operating in cyberspace since
its 1982 inception (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). The company uses virtual
teams, or as they call them “Sun Teams,” for a number of different purposes.
Some of these virtual teams are created to handle a particular project or prob-
lem and disband when a solution is a reached. Other Sun Teams are more per-
manent and are used to connect team members located in the company’s dif-
ferent sales regions, including North America, Japan, and Europe. All of
these teams operate through the company’s extraordinary information infra-
structure, which generates more than 1.5 million e-mail messages a day
(Lipnack & Stamps, 1997).
In traditional teams, such complex linking technologies are often not nec-
essary (or are supplemental) because team members communicate primarily
through face-to-face contact. However, because virtual team members are
distributed across space, communication technologies provide the means to
link members together and are absolutely critical. Although the specific com-
munication technologies a virtual team employs depends to some extent on
an organization’s resources, the choice should be dictated by the nature of the
task the team is performing.
As discussed earlier, less complex tasks often require minimal communi-
cation and collaboration between team members. Team performance is either
an additive function of individual performance or the result of unidirectional
interfaces between team members (Tesluk, Mathieu, Zaccaro, & Marks,
1997). In these situations, asynchronous communication media, such as
e-mail or screensharing, will usually be sufficient because the need for recip-
rocal communication and interdependence is minimal. In recent years, a
number of studies have examined the effects of computer-mediated commu-
nication and group-decision support systems (e.g., Kahai, Sosik, & Avolio,
1997; Sosik, Avolio, & Kahai, 1998; Sosik, Avolio, Kahai, & Jung, 1998) on
group processes and effectiveness. This research has shown that asynchron-
ous communication is very effective with respect to less complex tasks that
are essentially independent, such as idea generation (Dennis & Valacich,
1993; Gallupe, Biastianutti, & Cooper, 1991; McGrath, 1984; Valacich,
24 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Dennis, & Connolly, 1994). In fact, asynchronous communication is often
superior to synchronous communication for less complex tasks because
“production blocking” effects, which are caused by only one person being
able to talk at a time, are eliminated.
As tasks become more complex, they necessitate more precise forms of
coordinated effort. Team members’ roles become highly interdependent and
the need for well-orchestrated teamwork, reciprocal communication, and
feedback is essential. Communication and collaboration demands increase
dramatically, and information richness becomes critical (Hollingshead, McGrath,
& O’Connor, 1993). For example, Straus and McGrath (1994) compared the
performance of face-to-face groups on three tasks of differing complexity to
that of computer-mediated groups that utilized a fairly simple computerized
bulletin board system. They found that there were no differences between
face-to-face and computer-mediated groups in effectiveness on the lower
complexity tasks, an idea-generation task and an intellective task. However,
face-to-face groups did perform significantly better than computer-mediated
groups on a more complex judgment task. Research has shown that synchro-
nous communication is superior to asynchronous communication for com-
plex tasks that require a great deal of information sharing and collaborative
decision making (Daly, 1993; Farmer & Hyatt, 1994; Hollingshead et al.,
1993). These technologies maintain information richness and facilitate deci-
sion making by allowing team members to communicate in a more interac-
tive fashion. Thus, it is necessary for virtual team members to adopt synchro-
nous communication media, such as videoconferencing or groupware, when
dealing with complex tasks.
Proposition 2: Virtual teams performing less complex tasks are expected to be
able to effectively manage their information and collaboration requirements
with asynchronous communication media. As virtual teams perform more
complex, dynamic, and challenging tasks, however, they are expected to be
more likely to adopt synchronous, or tightly linked, communication media to
facilitate collaboration, information richness, and group decision making.
GENERAL IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP FUNCTIONS
As we have described above, the key characteristics of virtual teams that
distinguish them from conventional teams are (a) the spatial distance between
team members that restricts face-to-face communication and (b) the resulting
use of technological communication to connect team members. Each of these
characteristics impedes the two primary leadership functions, performance
management and team development. The ability of leaders to monitor team
member performance and to implement solutions to work problems is
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 25
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
severely restricted by the lack of face-to-face contact within these teams. It is
also difficult for virtual team leaders to perform typical mentoring, coaching,
and developmental functions. How do leaders of virtual teams monitor team
member performance and progress toward task accomplishment? How do
the leaders of virtual teams develop and mentor team members?
The challenge for virtual team leadership is that these functions must be
accomplished by substitutes and by distributing the functions to the team
itself. For example, the members of virtual teams are usually chosen for their
expertise and competence and often for their prior virtual team experience.
They are expected to have the technical knowledge, skills, abilities, and other
attributes to be able to contribute to team effectiveness and to operate effec-
tively in a virtual environment. Thus, the need for virtual team leaders to
monitor or develop team members may not be as crucial. In addition, it is
important for virtual team leaders to distribute aspects of these functions to
the team itself, in effect, making it more of a self-managing team (Manz &
Sims, 1987). Leaders will need to implement a system in which team mem-
bers will be able to regulate their own performance as a team (Kozlowski
et al., 1996).
To accomplish this, virtual team leaders need to provide a clear, engaging
direction (Hackman & Walton, 1986) along with specific individual goals.
Clear direction and goals enhance individual self-regulation and enable team
members to monitor their own performance, gather their own feedback, and
evaluate their own performance (Kozlowski, 1998; Smith, Ford, & Kozlowski,
1997). Although this is relevant in all teams, virtual team leaders need to be
more proactive and structuring. Virtual team leaders need to develop mecha-
nisms and processes that become reinforced by the team members them-
selves to regulate team performance patterns (Zaccaro & Burke, 1998).
One way virtual team leaders can do this is by developing appropriate
habitual routines early on in the team’s lifecycle (Gersick & Hackman,
1990). Habitual routines operate automatically and perpetuate existing pat-
terns of behavior, unless some extraordinary event occurs. Leaders can
develop habitual routines by prespecifying desired routines (e.g., standard
operating procedures), training members in the desired routines, and provid-
ing motivational incentives sufficient to ensure compliance with them (Gersick
& Hackman, 1990). Team member self-regulation can also be enhanced by
leaders who set explicit objectives, create a clear mission, and develop an
appropriate climate or tone (Kozlowski et al., 1996). Leaders can also set
forth rules and guidelines that specify appropriate team member behavior.
For example, computer-mediated communication tends to lead to more unin-
hibited individual behavior, such as strong and inflammatory expressions
(Siegel, Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & McGuire, 1986; Straus & McGrath, 1994;
26 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Weisband, 1992). Therefore, virtual team leaders may need to develop standard
operating procedures that specify appropriate and inappropriate computer-
mediated communication.
Virtual team leaders also need to closely monitor any changes in environ-
mental conditions. Because virtual team members are distributed, they are
less aware of the broader situation and the dynamics of the overall team envi-
ronment. So, as external conditions change, such as modified task specifica-
tions, a new deadline, or changes in the team’s goals, leaders need to facilitate
adaptive and appropriate changes within their team. And finally, virtual team
leaders need to motivate team members to commit strongly to the overall
team effort and need to facilitate team coherence, especially under high-
intensity conditions (Hackman & Walton, 1986; Kozlowski et al., 1996;
Kozlowski, Gully, Salas, et al., 1996; McGrath, 1962; Zaccaro & Burke,
1998). Team coherence, which is characterized by seamless group processes,
is facilitated by developing linked individual goals, creating a repertoire of
team task strategies, and building a compatible network of role expectations
across team members (Kozlowski et al., 1996).
Proposition 3: We propose that the ability of virtual team leaders to perform key
leadership functions is limited by the distribution of team members across
space and the consequent lack of face-to-face contact. Thus, effective virtual
team leaders are expected to be more likely than leaders of traditional teams to
create structures and routines to substitute for the functions and to distribute
the leadership functions to the team. They are also expected to be more likely to
create self-managing teams by providing direction and specific goals, monitor-
ing environmental conditions, updating/revising goals and strategies as envi-
ronmental contingencies warrant, and facilitating collaboration and cohesion
among team members.
This section of our typology focuses on two characteristics that differenti-
ate virtual teams from more traditional teams. The first, spatial distance,
allows virtual teams to gather the expertise needed for a task regardless of
where it is located. This is a critical feature when dealing with complex tasks
because such tasks require highly specialized expertise that is rarely found in
the same location. The second characteristic, computer-mediated communi-
cation, enables virtual team members to work together closely even though
they are dispersed across multiple locations. As virtual teams perform more
complex tasks, they will need to adopt more synchronous communication
media that provide greater information richness. Although these two features
of virtual teams offer many benefits, they also present numerous challenges
for those charged with conducting performance management and developmental
functions within such teams. Because the leaders of virtual teams cannot
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 27
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
directly monitor or interact with their team members, they need to create a
self-managing team by distributing leadership functions to the team and cre-
ating structures and routines that enhance team member self-regulation. In
the next part of our typology, we turn our attention to four dimensions that
distinguish different virtual teams. We then discuss their implications for
effective leadership.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF VIRTUAL TEAMS
The discussion above addressed the two characteristics that distinguish
virtual teams from conventional teams. Now we would like to turn our atten-
tion to dimensions or characteristics that differentiate virtual teams. The
focus of our typology is on the underlying conceptual dimensions that distin-
guish alternative types of virtual teams, not on classifying the types per se.
The literature on virtual teams has tended to treat these teams as a single
type—distributed in space and linked by mediating technology. However,
there are several other key characteristics that vary across these distributed
work groups, yielding many possible types of virtual teams. Our approach in
this section is analogous to that recommended by Levine and Moreland
(1998), who suggested identifying dimensions that make a set of people more
or less “groupy,” rather than searching for criteria that distinguish groups
from nongroups (see also, Kozlowski et al., 1999). In this section, we discuss
several characteristics that help to characterize a team as either more or less
virtual to highlight the variety of forms virtual teams can assume. As shown
in Figure 3, we have identified the following four characteristics that are use-
ful for distinguishing among the different types of virtual teams: temporal
distribution, boundary spanning, lifecycle, and member roles. We present
these characteristics in a circular arrangement to show that a particular team
is defined by a combination of these characteristics. Although we make no
claim that these characteristics are exhaustive, we believe they capture most
of the diversity encompassing different types of virtual teams.
Because our purpose is to draw distinction, our discussion focuses largely
on the extremes. Nevertheless, it is helpful to think of each of these character-
istics on a continuum. At one end lies the “ideal type” or prototypical virtual
team that is typically discussed in the literature. It is distributed across time,
spans numerous functional, organizational, and cultural boundaries; is short-
lived; and is composed of members who each possess multiple roles in differ-
ent virtual teams. At the other end is the virtual team that possesses many
characteristics typical of conventional teams. This type of virtual team is
temporally entrained, has less permeable boundaries, has a continuous
28 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
lifecycle, and is composed of members who have singular roles. As can be
seen in Figure 3, where a particular virtual team falls along the continuum
depends on the complexity of the task it performs. Although we will discuss
the extreme ends of this continuum to better characterize virtual team distinc-
tions, it is important to recognize that there are many virtual team alterna-
tives. The key, however, is to understand the dimensions of these teams, not
to focus on rigid typological classification. In the following sections, we dis-
cuss these distinguishing characteristics and examine how they are affected
by the task the team performs.
TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION
A great deal of literature has defined virtual teams as work groups that
transcend boundaries of both space and time. This is understandable because
the former often implicates the latter. The ability of virtual teams to cross
boundaries of time is made possible by their use of technological communi-
cation media and is often one of their most salient and important assets. This
quality allows a virtual team to operate around the clock and enables individ-
uals to complete their portion of the work almost anytime. However, not all
virtual teams distributed across space are also distributed across time. To
provide a relatively simple example, consider a virtual team composed of
individuals all located in a relatively confined geographical area, such as city
or state. Although this team can be considered virtual because its members
are distributed across various locations and do not interact in a face-to-face
fashion, all members of the team are colocated in time. A more complex
example is provided by ground controllers, distributed around the world,
who monitor space shuttle operations in real time. Although the members of
these teams are not colocated, they are temporally synchronized or entrained
(Ancona & Chong, 1996). That is to say that the team interactions necessary
to yield effective performance require temporal bounding (see McGrath,
1991).
When determining whether a virtual team is entrained by real time or is
distributed across time, it is important to consider the technology the team
employs. Certain forms of synchronous communication technologies, such
as videoconferencing, allow virtual teams to interact in real time even though
great distances and time zones separate team members. Whereas other, asyn-
chronous forms of communication technology, such as e-mail, result in
greater temporal distribution, even when team members are colocated in
time.
NCR Corporation, for example, uses a high-speed, continuously available
audio/video/data link to connect its virtual team members located throughout
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 29
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
the United States (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). There are two to three confer-
ence rooms at each location that are equipped with a video camera, a 32-inch
television for seeing people at the other end, an electronic overhead projector
that projects foils onto the television screen, and a PC monitor for informa-
tion sharing and distribution. Each of the locations is connected by an open
lease line, which means that team members can sit down and have a meeting
whenever they want. The arrangement has been very successful because it
allows team members to operate in real time even though they are geographi-
cally separated and creates the feeling of one team rather than several distrib-
uted teams (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997).
Whether a virtual team operates in distributed or real time is dictated by
the complexity of the tasks the team performs and the resulting workflow
arrangements. As teams move from additive/pooled workflow arrangements
to more reciprocal or intensive interdependencies, the need for real-time
communication increases. In pooled/additive or sequential workflow arrange-
ments, the task is usually one in which each member of the team can perform
his or her work with relative independence from the other members of team.
Each individual contributes incrementally to overall task completion. Team
members still work together, but each individual team member’s perfor-
mance is more or less a function of his or her efforts and does not depend as
much on the performance of others. This allows the team to operate effectively
across time and minimizes the need for real-time communication media.
30 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
Figure 3: Characteristics That Distinguish Different Virtual Teams
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
In reciprocal or intensive workflow arrangements, however, team mem-
bers’ roles are more interdependent. Work activities flow back and forth
between team members who must collaborate to accomplish the team’s task.
Situations in which dynamic, external links are critical to team effectiveness
also necessitate more complex workflow arrangements. These complex
workflow arrangements facilitate the social integration that is necessary for a
group to move from additive to interactive collaboration (Moreland, Levine,
& Wingert, 1996). In air traffic control teams, for example, Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) traffic controllers are tightly coupled to various exter-
nal groups, such as airline pilots and dispatchers, FAA traffic managers who
monitor conditions (such as severe weather), and the FAA’s Air Traffic Con-
trol Systems Command Center (ATCSCC), which provides numerous ser-
vices, such as approving route changes. In these situations, it is often neces-
sary to implement real-time communication technologies to facilitate decision
making, collaboration, coordination, and integration among team members
and between the team and external groups.
Proposition 4: The need for virtual teams to operate in real time (vs. distributed
time) is expected to become more critical as tasks become more complex,
workflow arrangements become more reciprocal and intensive, and situations
require dynamic, external links. The ability of virtual teams to operate effec-
tively in distributed time is expected to increase as tasks become less complex,
workflow arrangements become more additive and sequential, and situations
are less dynamic with looser external links.
BOUNDARY SPANNING
Virtual teams often cross many different boundaries. Two of these bound-
aries, space and time, were discussed above; however, virtual teams can also
span functional, organizational, and cultural boundaries. Although conven-
tional teams are often defined by such boundaries, the ability of virtual teams
to cross boundaries enables them to be more adaptive, flexible, and respon-
sive. It also allows virtual teams to access the most qualified individuals for a
particular project and perform their functions from around the world.
Whereas conventional teams are typically limited to the resources avail-
able within the organization, virtual teams can and often do cross organiza-
tional boundaries to access the most qualified individuals for a project. It is
most often the search for the “right people,” those with needed expertise or
experience, that leads an organization to create a virtual team (Lipnack &
Stamps, 1997). These individuals may be independent consultants or experts,
members of support organizations (or even competitors), or may be members
of the same organization located in different divisions or plants. Each of these
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 31
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
individuals performs a different function that is necessary for the team’s suc-
cess. NCR Corporation, for example, uses virtual teams to connect to not
only its many internal groups but also its many partners and customers,
including Intel and Microsoft (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). The members of
these teams work together in designing, engineering, manufacturing, and
marketing NCR’s products.
As virtual teams expand across organizational boundaries, they are more
likely to cross cultural boundaries as well. These teams are very common in
multinational companies that need to overcome geographical barriers (Merrick,
1996). Hewlett-Packard, for example, created its worldwide distributed
product information management system to allow its virtual teams to func-
tion across global distances and 24-hour timeframes (Lipnack & Stamps,
1997). Although the ability of these teams to cross cultural boundaries has
many benefits, it also offers many challenges.
As teams cross cultural boundaries, differences in language, tradition, and
cultural values may make effective communication more difficult. These sit-
uations may necessitate “richer” communication media to better convey
meaning between team members. However, there may also be differences
across cultures concerning the communication and information technologies
available and individuals’ familiarity with these technologies. Using groups
from the United States and Singapore, El-Shinnawy and Vinze (1997) exam-
ined whether the effects of computer-mediated communication on decision-
making processes and outcomes differ across cultures. Contrary to their
expectations, they found that negative effects of computer-mediated commu-
nication were more pronounced in the groups from the United States, result-
ing in fewer novel and valid comments and less persuasive arguments. The
authors concluded that the effects of computer-mediated communication
were not as great in the Singaporean group because technology is so central in
their society (El-Shinnawy & Vinze, 1997). Different cultures have also been
shown to vary on a number of value dimensions, such as individualism,
uncertainty avoidance, and power distance (Hofstede, 1980, 1991). Within a
particular culture, these dimensions play an important role in determining
how work is conducted and how people interact, which may make effective
cross-cultural work arrangements more difficult to establish.
Although most virtual teams cross functional, organizational, and/or cul-
tural boundaries, the permeability of these boundaries depends on the nature
of the tasks the team performs and varies across different types of virtual
teams. When tasks are on the less complex end of the continuum, the need to
establish stable internal and external linkages, a common set of procedures,
and fixed membership is less critical. In these situations, members of virtual
teams are able to frequently cross new boundaries with few consequences for
32 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
team performance. However, as tasks become more complex, the boundaries
virtual teams cross become less permeable. Complex tasks require tightly
coupled internal and external linkages, established operating procedures, and
therefore more stable team membership. For these tasks, it is important for a
virtual team, once established, to have less permeable boundaries. If these
boundaries are constantly changing, the ability of the team to perform coher-
ently may be negatively affected. This is not to say that complex tasks limit
virtual teams to fixed boundaries but rather that these boundaries, once
crossed, are more likely to be relatively less permeable over time to limit dis-
ruptions to intrateam processes.
Proposition 5: Virtual teams often cross functional, organizational, and/or cul-
tural boundaries. However, the degree to which these boundaries, once crossed,
are permeable is expected to depend on the nature of the tasks the team per-
forms. When tasks are more complex, requiring established operating proce-
dures and more stable relationships, a virtual team’s boundaries are expected
to remain less malleable over the team’s lifecycle. However, when tasks are on
the less complex end of the continuum, personnel inflows and outflows cause
less disruption to team processes and established operating procedures are less
critical, and a virtual team’s boundaries are expected to be more permeable
over the team’s lifecycle.
LIFECYCLE
Virtual teams have variable lifecycles. The prototypical virtual team is
characterized by a discrete lifecycle. Virtual teams are often created to solve
a particular problem or to perform a specific task, and when the job is com-
pleted the team disbands. Such teams allow organizations to quickly deploy
and redeploy their resources to accommodate constantly changing and
unique customer requirements. In addition, virtual teams are often character-
ized by dynamic membership as people come and go as they complete their
specific tasks. As a result, an individual’s tenure in a virtual team is often
much shorter than it would be in a more conventional team. This is especially
true when a virtual team is composed of many outside experts or consultants.
It is important to recognize that there are also virtual teams that possess a
more continuous lifecycle. This is often the case when an organization uses
virtual teams to connect to its outside partners, such as suppliers and
customers.
The lifecycles of virtual teams are largely determined by the nature of
tasks these teams perform. Less complex tasks can be handled using more
pooled/additive and sequential workflow arrangements. When these arrange-
ments are used, individuals can flow in and out of the team as they are needed,
with little or no impact on overall team performance. The need to develop
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 33
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
cohesion and collaboration among team members is minimal and the degree
of familiarity among team members is often not critical. However, when a
task is more complex and involves more reciprocal or intensive workflow
arrangements, collaboration and integration among virtual team members is
critical. Team members’ roles are interdependent, making it more difficult to
introduce new team members and more detrimental when existing team
members leave. For example, the virtual team that worked to develop the
chlorofluorocarbon-free refrigerator for Whirlpool Corporation worked together
for 2 years, with relatively few changes in team membership (Geber, 1995).
The need for the members of the team to think, act, and feel like a group,
rather than a loose and shifting collection of individuals, was so critical to the
success of this difficult project that the team met face-to-face every 4 months
or so to discuss the project and allow team members to bond. In these
instances, effective team performance depends on familiarity among team
members and well-established role networks (Kozlowski et al., 1999). Such
teams benefit from a more stable team membership and a more continuous
lifecycle.
Proposition 6: When the tasks a virtual team performs are complex and challeng-
ing, the team is expected be more likely to maintain a stable team membership
and develop a more continuous lifecycle. When tasks are less complex and
challenging, however, a virtual team is expected to be able to function effec-
tively with a dynamic team membership and a more discrete lifecycle.
MEMBER ROLES
Virtual teams provide the capability for more flexible organizational
responses, which means that the roles attributed to virtual team members will
often be substantially more dynamic than in traditional settings (Townsend
et al., 1998). Virtual teams draw the necessary skills for a particular project
from a pool of workers whose diverse skills most appropriately fit the project
and task requirements. To quickly tackle a particular project or situation, vir-
tual team members may be required to perform numerous tasks and hold vari-
ous roles. As a result, virtual team members will need to be adept at adapting
to a variety of team situations.
Although multiple roles facilitate more flexible organizational responses,
they can also create conflicts and ambiguity (Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman,
1970). These effects have been found in studies on matrix organizations,
which attempt to increase the capacity for information handling and decision
making by establishing formal, lateral channels of communication that sup-
plement existing hierarchical channels (Davis & Lawrence, 1977; Galbraith,
34 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
1973; Hrebiniak & Joyce, 1984). Studies have suggested that these new
channels complicate decisions concerning delegation by making responsibil-
ities unclear or ambiguous. The result is often increased role conflict and
ambiguity and negative effects on work attitudes such as job satisfaction and
involvement (Butler, 1973; Reeser, 1969). Similar effects may be found
when the members of virtual teams hold multiple roles.
Although the members of prototypic virtual teams hold multiple roles, it is
important to acknowledge situations in which virtual team members possess
more singular roles. When tasks are less complex, the roles of virtual team
members are more interchangeable. Many individuals within the pool of
available workers can perform each of the required tasks. Less complex tasks
also typically involve asynchronous workflow arrangements, which allow
team members to hold multiple roles independent of other team members.
However, when tasks are more complex and challenging, they require greater
levels of training, specialization, and expertise. As a result, there are only a
few select individuals who can perform the required tasks, and they are likely
to have a single, fixed role. Complex tasks also involve synchronous workflow
arrangements, which require clearly defined team member roles and a
well-established role network.
Proposition 7: Virtual team members often hold multiple roles both within and
across different virtual teams. However, we propose that as the tasks a virtual
team is required to perform become more complex and challenging, requiring
greater levels of expertise and specialization, a higher premium is expected to
be placed on synchronous workflow arrangements and the roles of individual
team members will be more likely to be clearly defined, fixed, and singular.
Under conditions of low task complexity, however, there is minimal interde-
pendence among team members and more asynchronous workflow arrange-
ments are expected to be adopted. In these situations, we expect that a virtual
team’s members can hold multiple roles without compromising the effective-
ness of the team.
IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP
As we discussed above, there are four characteristics that distinguish
among different types of virtual teams: (a) temporal distribution, (b) bound-
ary spanning, (c) lifecycle, and (d) member roles. Each of these characteris-
tics can be thought of as a continuum, with one end representing the
prototypical virtual team and the other representing characteristics typical of
more traditional teams but also possible in virtual teams. Below, we discuss
how each of these characteristics affects leadership functions in virtual
teams.
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 35
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Temporal distribution. When virtual teams operate in real time and are
connected by synchronous communication technologies, leaders are able to
better perform critical performance management functions. They can recog-
nize and diagnose problems as they happen and are equipped to take immedi-
ate corrective action. Thus, rich, synchronous communication media and
temporal entrainment allow virtual team leaders to manage team perfor-
mance much like leaders of more conventional teams. However, when virtual
teams are distributed across time or utilize asynchronous communication
media, it is more difficult for leaders to execute performance management
functions. The information leaders receive is delayed and decoupled from
events, forcing them to act reactively. Because leaders of temporally distrib-
uted work groups have more difficulty monitoring and managing team per-
formance as it happens, they need to be proactive. This will require leaders of
temporally distributed work groups to devote additional resources to explic-
itly structuring performance management activities. They need to anticipate
problems and provide clear direction and goals to help team members regu-
late their own performance. They should incorporate reviews and other feed-
back opportunities into their team management structure to ensure that team
members receive regular performance updates. Because temporally distrib-
uted team members are also more likely to become detached from the overall
team environment, it is important for leaders to monitor the environment and
inform team members of any important changes. Leaders should design
backup plans to provide temporal buffering under changing environmental
conditions. This buffering allows the leader to modify team and individual
goals and enables team members to adapt their roles and behaviors to the new
situation (Kozlowski et al., 1996).
Proposition 8a: We assume that as virtual teams become temporally distributed,
the information leaders receive is more likely to be degraded and delayed,
making it more difficult for them to perform critical performance management
functions. In these situations, effective virtual team leaders are expected to be
more likely to be proactive in the creation of explicit structures that help the
team manage its performance. They are also expected to be more likely to
focus attention on anticipating problems, providing clear direction and goals to
allow team members to regulate their own performance, and enabling team
members to adapt to changing environmental conditions.
When virtual teams are distributed across time, it is also more difficult for
leaders to perform team development functions. However, tasks that allow
team members to operate across time usually involve less intensive forms of
collaboration and interdependence. In these situations, leader developmental
functions may not be as critical. On the other hand, leader developmental
36 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
functions become extremely critical as coherence and collaboration become
necessary for team success. In these instances, virtual teams need a real-time
focus that enables leaders to effectively perform critical developmental func-
tions. Leaders need to determine how to develop team coherence through
communication technologies. They need to evaluate the degree to which
coherence is required for team success and choose communication media
based on these requirements. For example, when it is important for team
members to have opportunities to bond, it is necessary for leaders to choose
real-time communication media that maintain information richness. When
coherence is extremely critical to team success, leaders may need to bring
team members together for face-to-face meetings at designated project mile-
stones (Geber, 1995; Lipnack & Stamps, 1997).
Proposition 8b: We assume that leader developmental functions will be more crit-
ical when virtual teams operate in real time. Effective virtual team leaders are
expected to be more likely to determine how to use communication technolo-
gies to provide team members with necessary developmental experiences.
This will likely involve evaluating the degree of coherence required for team
success and choosing appropriate communication media based on these
requirements.
Boundary spanning. When virtual teams cross boundaries, leaders are
faced with a number of new challenges. One very salient challenge for lead-
ers is determining how best to manage the performance of team members
who span different functional areas, organizations, and/or cultures. Leaders
need to assess how individual and team self-regulation methods translate
across different boundaries. It will be difficult for leaders to adopt a universal
strategy. Instead, they may need to tailor their actions to coincide with a par-
ticular team member’s orientation. Differences in power distance, uncer-
tainty avoidance, and other values across cultures (Hofstede, 1980, 1991)
require leaders to determine the most appropriate behaviors for a particular
situation. Leaders who attempt to relate to the worldview of the different
members of their virtual team will be better able to individualize their perfor-
mance management actions.
Proposition 9a: As virtual teams span different functions, organizations, and cul-
tures, we propose that effective leaders will need to assess how individual and
team self-regulation methods translate across these different boundaries.
Under these conditions, virtual team leaders are expected to be more likely to
consider contextual factors when performing critical performance management
functions. They are also expected to be more likely to identify what factors
(e.g., differences in cultural dimensions or values) are relevant and to tailor
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 37
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
their performance management functions based on relevant individual differ-
ences across the team.
Team developmental functions are also more challenging as virtual teams
are distributed across different organizations, cultures, and functions. It is
more difficult for leaders to create a well-orchestrated team when individuals
do not share similar values or possess a common set of work procedures. To
overcome these problems and to facilitate coherence among team members,
Graen and Wakabayashi (1994) suggested that leaders need to implement a
leadership structure that builds a unique, or “third,” culture. At the core of
this leadership structure is a network of working relationships based on
strong bonds of mutual respect, trust, and obligation between individuals at
all levels (Graen, 1996). The goal is to empower all employees and link them
together so that they are “insiders” in the team. This structure ensures that
individuals will put the team’s interest above self-interest and should help to
facilitate cohesion among individuals drawn from across multiple bound-
aries (Bridges, 1986; Buono, Bowditch, & Lewis, 1985). Virtual team lead-
ers also need to engage in functions such as boundary spanning and buffer-
ing. The leader spans boundaries to link the dispersed team members to
needed information and resources and buffers the team from shocks and dis-
turbances that can disrupt its work. These functions, along with the creation
of a third culture, allow a virtual team leader to enact a boundary around an
entity that has no tangible boundaries.
Proposition 9b: We propose that team developmental functions will be more chal-
lenging when virtual teams are distributed across multiple boundaries. In these
instances, effective virtual team leaders are expected to be more likely to build
a unique team culture by developing bonds of mutual respect, trust, and obliga-
tion between team members at all levels.
Lifecycle. The lifecycle of a virtual team has implications for the leader’s
performance management functions. Just as team members often work
together better when they have been together longer, it is easier for virtual
team leaders to lead when they have been with the group for an extended
period of time. Leaders need to provide goals, structures, and norms to help
team members manage their own performance. In continuous teams, leaders
have the ability to establish these standards and are able to manage perfor-
mance over time. Furthermore, leaders are better able to manage the team’s
performance because they are able to more easily recognize deviations from
established operating patterns.
It is more difficult for leaders to establish structures and norms in virtual
teams with more discrete lifecycles. The lack of firmly established operating
38 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
patterns also makes it much more difficult for leaders to recognize problems
and determine appropriate, corrective actions within these teams. When a
virtual team has a discrete lifecycle, the leader’s primary role is to keep the
team members on track so that they can finish a project or accomplish their
tasks quickly and effectively. Gersick (1988) showed that teams typically
exhibit long stable periods of inertia followed by midpoint transitions charac-
terized by dramatic progress. Leaders of discrete lifecycle teams need to
facilitate an early transition period by providing clear direction and team and
individual goals.
Proposition 10a: When virtual teams have more discrete lifecycles, we propose
that it will be more difficult for leaders to establish operating patterns that help
team members regulate their own performance. Therefore, effective leaders of
these teams are expected to be more likely to provide clear direction and team
and individual goals to facilitate an early transition to performance.
When a virtual team is characterized by a short lifecycle or dynamic mem-
bership, team development functions are also difficult. Leaders have a lim-
ited amount of time during which they can perform these functions and often
have to focus on only the most critical issues. Developmental functions in
these situations are more basic. Leaders need to quickly foster effective
working relationships between team members but should not be concerned
about establishing long-term relationships. When a virtual team has a more
continuous lifecycle, a leader’s team-development functions become even
more critical. In these situations, the leader must establish long-term, effec-
tive working relationships among team members that can be sustained
throughout the team’s more lengthy tenure. In addition, virtual teams typi-
cally adopt a more continuous lifecycle when performing more complex and
challenging tasks. Such tasks require more reciprocal or intensive workflow
arrangements and necessitate a high degree of integration and collaboration
among team members. By setting forth a clear team mission and developing
role networks among team members, leaders play a critical role in establish-
ing these more complex workflow patterns.
Proposition 10b: When a virtual team is characterized by a more discrete
lifecycle, we propose that it will be more difficult for a leader to perform criti-
cal team development functions. Effective leaders of these teams are expected
to be more likely to focus on only the most critical issues, such as quickly estab-
lishing working relationships between team members. When a virtual team is
characterized by a more continuous lifecycle, a leader’s team development
functions are expected to be even more critical. Under these conditions, effec-
tive leaders are expected to be more likely to establish long-term, effective
working relationships among team members and to facilitate the development
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 39
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
of complex workflow arrangements that are necessitated by the more complex
tasks these teams perform.
Member roles. As team members hold multiple roles within and across
different virtual teams, a leader’s performance management functions become
much more difficult. Team members who hold multiple roles are more likely
to experience role ambiguity and role conflict (Rizzo et al., 1970). Multiple
roles lead to indistinct boundaries and role ambiguity. Team members are
uncertain of their role in the team, and other team members’ expectations of
an individual are often inappropriate. Conflicts between multiple role expec-
tations and individuals’ abilities to satisfy such expectations cause role over-
load and negative work attitudes (Joyce, 1986). To counteract this, leaders
need to clearly specify each team member’s role in the team. It is important
for leaders to convey this information to all team members so individuals are
aware of their role in the team and also the roles of others. When individuals
hold multiple roles across different virtual teams, role conflict is inevitable.
Team members often get called away for other, higher priority teams.
Leaders need to design backup plans in case team members are forced to
leave. For example, leaders can line up “alternates” for critical team mem-
bers. Team members with multiple roles are also more likely to experience
time conflicts. Leaders need to clearly specify how much time each team
member will be required to commit to the team.
Proposition 11a: As team members hold multiple roles within and across different
virtual teams, role ambiguity and role conflict are expected to make leader per-
formance management functions more challenging. To manage virtual team
performance, effective leaders are expected to be more likely to clearly specify
each team member’s role within the team, design backup plans in case team
members are called away to other teams, and clearly specify how much time
each individual is expected to commit to the team.
As team members hold multiple roles across different virtual teams, lead-
ers’ developmental functions also become difficult to perform. It is more
challenging for leaders to create a coherent and well-orchestrated team if per-
sonnel are constantly flowing into and out of the team. It is also difficult to
create integration if team members are not clear on what their job entails or
what the roles of others are. Thus, it is important for leaders to clearly define
team members’ roles and the role networks within the team (Kozlowski et al.,
1999). When the tasks a virtual team performs become more difficult and
complex, it is even more critical for leaders to develop clearly defined team
member role networks. Well-established role networks help to facilitate
well-coordinated interdependence and help team members operate effectively
40 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
together. Leaders establish these complex role networks by providing each
team member with a singular, defined, and fixed role. By clearly establishing
each team member’s role, the leader facilitates the development of the recip-
rocal and intensive workflow arrangements that are required for more com-
plex and challenging tasks.
Proposition 11b: As team members hold multiple roles across different virtual
teams, leaders’ developmental functions are expected to be more difficult to
perform. To create coherence and interdependence among team members,
effective leaders are expected to be more likely to specify not only individual
team member roles but also the interrelationships between the roles of team
members. These functions are expected to be even more critical as teams per-
form more complex and challenging tasks, requiring more reciprocal and
intensive workflow arrangements. Effective leaders are expected to be more
likely to establish clearly defined role networks by providing each team mem-
ber with a singular, fixed, and defined role within the team.
DISCUSSION
As the nature of work in today’s organizations becomes increasingly more
complex, dynamic, and global, there is a growing need for flexible and adap-
tive organizational systems, structures, and processes. Horizontal or flat
organizational structures and team-based work units have become increas-
ingly more prevalent, and, with advances in technology, there has been a
growing emphasis on far-flung, distributed, virtual teams as organizing units
of work. Although virtual teams will play a key role in the design of organiza-
tions in the new millennium, we know relatively little about them and their
implications for effective leadership.
THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
The purpose of this article was to further the understanding and research
of this new form of work unit. We developed a typology that focused on the
characteristics of virtual teams. Although typology is often used to create a
taxonomy, we see little value in classification per se. Rather, our goal was to
surface the underlying dimensions of virtual teams to distinguish virtual
teams from conventional teams and to explore different manifestations of
virtual teams. The object of our typology was to make salient differences, and
our discussion was often based on extreme representations of forms. Although
these ideal types help to uncover differences, they may not map well to “fuzzier”
natural entities. Hence, we believe that our focus on identifying distinguishing
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 41
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
characteristics, in contrast to classification, has more theoretical and research
value for understanding this emerging form of work organization.
Virtual teams can be distinguished from conventional teams in terms of
their (a) spatial proximity and (b) communication technologies. Different
manifestations of virtual teams can be distinguished in terms of their (a) tem-
poral distribution, (b) boundary spanning, (c) lifecycle, and (d) roles. These
dimensions were used to formulate theoretical propositions concerning both
the nature of virtual teams and implications of virtual teams for key leader-
ship functions of (a) performance management and (b) team development.
Where a virtual team lies on the distinguishing dimensions is largely deter-
mined by the complexity of its task. Less complex tasks enable virtual teams
to be distributed in time and have permeable boundaries, short lifecycles, and
multiple, fluid roles for members. These characteristics are descriptive of the
prototypic virtual teams. More complex tasks are more likely to entail virtual
teams that operate in real time and have less permeable boundaries, continu-
ous lifecycles, and singular roles; characteristics that are descriptive of dis-
tributed action teams (Sundstrom et al., 1990) or distributed decision-making
teams (Kozlowski et al., 1999). Thus, virtual team forms, and implications
for leadership functions, are deeply entwined around the complexity of the
task the team performs.
When tasks fall at the less complex end of the continuum, work is typi-
cally organized in an additive or sequential fashion, and interdependence and
collaboration among team members is not as critical to team success. Under
these conditions, the characteristics associated with the prototypical virtual
team are most likely to emerge. The additive or sequential nature of work
allows team members to operate effectively across space and time and orga-
nizational, functional, and cultural boundaries. Because integration and col-
laboration among team members is not as critical to team success, the team
can also possess a more discrete lifecycle, team membership can be more
dynamic, and members can hold multiple roles with little or no disruption to
team processes.
However, when tasks become more complex and challenging, work is
arranged in a more reciprocal or intensive fashion and a high degree of inte-
gration and collaboration among team members is required. Under such con-
ditions, a virtual team’s characteristics are more likely to be similar to those
typical of conventional action teams (Sundstrom et al., 1990) or distributed
decision-making teams (Kozlowski et al., 1999). Team members will need to
operate in real time to facilitate the exchange of rich and detailed informa-
tion. The reciprocal or intensive workflow arrangements will also require the
team to have less permeable boundaries, a more continuous lifecycle, a more
stable membership, and members who hold more defined, fixed, and singular
42 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
roles. All these factors will play a critical role in building the role networks
that facilitate the integration and collaboration between team members that is
required for more complex tasks.
Just as task complexity determines the characteristics a virtual team will
assume, these characteristics have implications for important leadership
functions. As we described earlier, leaders perform two critical functions in
teams, monitoring the team’s performance and facilitating team develop-
ment. Where the dimensions of a particular virtual team fall on the continuum
has implications for both the nature and importance of these two leadership
functions. A leader’s performance management functions will be most criti-
cal when dealing with the more prototypical virtual team. In these situations,
team members are temporally distributed and cross multiple boundaries. As a
result, the information leaders receive will be temporally delayed and
decoupled from events. Leaders will therefore need to devote additional
resources to explicitly structuring performance management activities. In the
prototypical virtual team, team leaders are also faced with managing the per-
formance of constantly changing members, who also often hold multiple
roles, and need to do so within the team’s typically short lifecycle.
In contrast, a leader’s team development functions will become critically
important when a virtual team assumes characteristics more typical of action
teams or distributed decision-making teams. The rich, synchronous commu-
nication and temporal entrainment in such teams should better enable such
teams to self-manage and self-regulate their performance, placing less
emphasis on the leader’s performance management function. However, the
leader will need to develop long-term, effective working relationships among
team members that can be sustained throughout the team’s more lengthy
lifecycle. Because such virtual teams typically emerge when dealing with
more complex tasks, leaders will be faced with the challenge of creating
clearly defined role networks to facilitate cohesion among team members.
This can be accomplished by employing rich communication media and
helping team members to enact well-defined singular roles. After a leader
establishes these effective and sustainable workflow patterns, his or her per-
formance management duties should be less important.
RESEARCH AND PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS
Our framework is a point of departure, not a finished product. We have
established a conceptual foundation for the dimensions of the typology and
have derived propositions. The next step is to evaluate the propositions. More
specifically, the propositions addressing the distinguishing characteristics
for different forms of virtual teams, and the constraining, moderating influence
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 43
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
of task complexity, are most relevant to elaborating understanding of virtual
teams and have the most salient implications for virtual team leaders. Thus,
these characteristics should be the primary research focus. Future theory and
research efforts should also explore the operational issues surrounding lead-
ership in virtual team environments. For example, organizations or virtual
team leaders will need to create infrastructures that facilitate information
sharing, work planning and assignment allocation, feedback and review,
information processing, decision making, and dispute adjudication. It is
important for future research to focus attention on understanding how virtual
team leaders design and implement these and other management systems.
In addition, the interaction between communication technology and task
type on team processes and effectiveness is another area that we feel deserves
future attention. Past research on this issue has used, almost exclusively, sim-
ple asynchronous forms of computer-mediated communication, such as bul-
letin board systems. Future research would benefit from studies that employ
today’s advanced synchronous technologies, such as videoconferencing and
groupware. It would also be beneficial to examine how groups using these
advanced forms of communication technology perform on complex dynamic
tasks, such as real-time group decision-making simulations. Past research in
this area has found that computer-mediated groups do not perform as well as
face-to-face groups on complex tasks; however, these differences may disap-
pear when the technology utilized provides the capability for information-
rich communication.
Descriptive studies that examine the role of leaders in virtual teams is
another valuable research approach. We have derived propositions regarding
the implications of virtual teams that are theoretically consistent with our
typology. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no naturalistic
studies that directly examine the problems leaders of different types of virtual
teams face. The current literature on virtual teams is saturated with stories
and descriptions of different types of dispersed work groups. Surprisingly,
there has been little focus on the role of leaders in these teams. Descriptive
studies on the role of leaders in virtual teams may help to provide a qualitative
validation of the typology and can provide a foundation for additional theo-
retical and research development in the area.
Although we recognize it is a bit premature, we offer some practical impli-
cations of our model. First, one implication for virtual team leaders, regard-
less of virtual team type, is the need for delegation and facilitation skills.
How the task is delegated and managed from afar is quite different at the
extremes of the model, but the necessity to distribute leadership functions
across team members is a common theme. It is important to select leaders
44 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
capable of, and oriented toward, “distal” leadership. Second, where the prop-
ositions call for different approaches to accomplish leader functions, we can
and ought to develop training programs and structured supports to inculcate
key functional leadership skills.
CONCLUSION
Virtual teams are here, and they are here to stay. They offer many benefits
to organizations striving to handle a more demanding work environment but
also present many challenges and potential pitfalls. We have uncovered and
discussed many of the challenges throughout this article. The next step is to
address these challenges with more focused and detailed research. We hope
the typology represents a small first step toward the development of theoreti-
cally based and application-relevant virtual team principles.
REFERENCES
Ancona, D., & Chong, C. (1996). Entrainment: Pace, cycle, and rhythm in organizational behav-
ior. In B. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 19, pp.
251-284). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
Bettenhausen, K. (1991). Five years of group research: What we have learned and what needs to
be addressed. Journal of Management,17, 345-381.
Bridges, W. (1986). Managing organizational transitions. Organizational Dynamics,15, 24-33.
Buono, A. F., Bowditch, J. L., & Lewis, J. W. (1985). When cultures collide: The anatomy of a
merger. Human Relations,38, 477-500.
Butler, A. (1973). Project management: A study of organizational conflict. Academy of Manage-
ment Journal,16, 84-102.
Byrne, J., Brandt, R., & Port, O. (1993). The virtual corporation. Business Week,8, 98-102.
Cohen, S. G., & Bailey, D. E. (1997). What makes teams work: Group effectiveness research
from the shop floor to the executive suite. Journal of Management,23, 239-290.
Daly, B. L. (1993). The influence of face-to-face versus computer-mediated communication
channels on collective induction. Accounting, Management, and Information Technologies,
3, 1-22.
Davidow, W. H., & Malone, M. S. (1992). The virtual organization. New York: HarperCollins.
Davis, S. M., & Lawrence, P. R. (1977). Matrix. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Dennis, A. R., & Valacich, J. S. (1993). Computer brainstorms: More heads are better than one.
Journal of Applied Psychology,78, 531-537.
Dess, G., Rasheed, A., McLaughlin, K., & Priem, R. (1995). The new corporate architecture.
Academy of Management Executive,9, 7-20.
El-Shinnawy, M., & Vinze, A. S. (1997). Technology, culture, and persuasiveness: A study of
choice-shifts in group settings. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,47,
473-496.
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 45
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Farmer, S. M., & Hyatt, C. W. (1994). Effects of task language demands and task complexity on
computer-mediated work groups. Small Group Research,25, 331-366.
Fleishman, E. A., Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Levin, K. Y., Korotkin, A. L., & Hein, M. B.
(1991). Taxonomic efforts in the description of leader behavior: A synthesis and functional
interpretation. Leadership Quarterly,2(4), 245-287.
Galbraith, J. R. (1973). Designing complex organizations. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Gallupe, R. B., Biastianutti, L., & Cooper, W. H. (1991). Unblocking brainstorms. Journal of
Applied Psychology,76, 137-142.
Geber, B. (1995). Virtual teams. Training,32, 36-40.
Gersick, C. J. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group develop-
ment. Academy of Management Journal,31, 9-41.
Gersick, C.J.G., & Hackman, J. R. (1990). Habitual routines in task-performing groups. Organi-
zational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,47, 65-97.
Goodman, P. S. (1986). Designing effective work groups. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Graen, G. B. (1996). At last, a production system that works and allows everyone to be an
insider. Applied Psychology an International Review,45, 130-135.
Graen, G. B., & Wakabayashi, M. (1994). Cross-cultural leadership-making: Bridging Ameri-
can and Japanese diversity for team advantage. In H. C. Triandis, M. D. Dunnette, & L. M.
Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 415-446).
New York: Consulting Psychologist Press.
Guzzo, R. A., & Shea, G. P. (1992). Group performance and intergroup relations in organiza-
tions. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational
psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 269-313). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologist Press.
Hackman, J. R., & Walton, R. E. (1986). Leading groups in organizations. In P. S. Goodman &
Associates (Eds.), Designing effective work groups. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. Berkshire, UK:
McGraw-Hill.
Hollingshead, A. B., McGrath, J. E., & O’Connor, K. M. (1993). Group task performance and
communication technology: A longitudinal study of computer-mediated versus face-to-face
work groups. Small Group Research,24, 307-333.
Hrebiniak, L. G., & Joyce, W. F. (1984). Implementing strategy. New York: Macmillan.
Joyce, W. F. (1986). Matrix organization: A social experiment. Academy of Management Jour-
nal,29, 536-561.
Kahai, S. S., Sosik, J. J., & Avolio, B. J. (1997). Effects of leadership style and problem structure
on work group process and outcomes in an electronic meeting system environment. Person-
nel Psychology,50, 121-146.
Komaki, J. L., Zlotnick, S., & Jensen, M. (1986). Development of an operant-based taxonomy
and observational index of supervisory behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology,71,
260-269.
Kozlowski, S.W.J. (1998). Training and developing adaptive teams: Theory, principles, and
research. In J. A. Cannon-Bowers & E. Salas (Eds.), Decision making under stress: Implica-
tions for training and simulation (pp. 115-153). Washington, DC: APA Books.
Kozlowski, S.W.J., Gully, S. M., McHugh, P. P., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (1996). A
dynamic theory of leadership and team effectiveness: Developmental and task contingent
leader roles. In G. R. Ferris (Ed.), Research in personnel and human resource management
(Vol. 14, pp. 253-305). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
46 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Kozlowski, S.W.J., Gully, S. M., Nason, E. R., & Smith, E. M. (1999). Developing adaptive
teams: A theory of compilation and performance across levels and time. In D. R. Ilgen &
E. D. Pulakos (Eds.), The changing nature of work and performance: Implications for staff-
ing, personnel actions, and development (SIOP Frontiers Series). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kozlowski, S.W.J., Gully, S. M., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (1996). Team leadership
and development: Theory, principles, and guidelines for training leaders and teams. In
M. Beyerlein, D. Johnson, & S. Beyerlein (Eds.), Advances in interdisciplinary studies of
work teams: Team leadership (Vol. 3, pp. 251-289). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
Levine, J. M., & Moreland, R. L. (1990). Progress in small group research. Annual Review of
Psychology,41, 585-634.
Levine, J. M., & Moreland, R. L. (1998). Small groups. In D. T. Gilbert & S. T. Fiske (Eds.), The
handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, 4th ed., pp. 4150-4169). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
Lipnack, J., & Stamps, J. (1997). Virtual teams: Reaching across space, time, and organizations
with technology. New York: John Wiley.
Manz, C. C., & Sims, H. P. (1987). Leading workers to lead themselves: The external leadership
of self-managing work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly,32, 106-128.
McGrath, J. E. (1962). Leadership behavior: Some requirements for leadership training. Wash-
ington, DC: U.S. Civil Service Commission.
McGrath, J. E. (1984). Groups: Interaction and performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
McGrath, J. E. (1991). Time, interaction, and performance (TIP): A theory of groups. Small
Group Research,22, 147-174.
Merrick, N. (1996). Remote control. People Management,2, 40-41.
Moreland, R. L., & Levine, J. M. (1989). Newcomers and oldtimers in groups. In P. Paulus (Ed.),
Psychology of group influence (2nd ed., pp. 143-186). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Moreland, R. L., Levine, J. M., & Wingert, M. L. (1996). Creating the ideal group: Composition
effects at work. In E. H. Witte & J. H. Davis (Eds.), Understanding group behavior: Small
group processes and interpersonal relations. Understanding group behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 11-
35). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ostroff, C., & Kozlowski, S.W.J. (1992). Organizational socialization as a learning process: The
role of information acquisition. Personnel Psychology,45, 849-874.
Pape, W. R. (1997). Group insurance: Virtual teams can quickly gather the knowledge of even
far-flung staff. Inc.,19, 29.
Reeser, C. (1969). Some potential human problems of the project organization. Academy of
Management Journal,12, 459-467.
Rizzo, J. R., House, R. J., & Lirtzman, S. I. (1970). Role conflict and ambiguity in complex orga-
nizations. Administrative Science Quarterly,15, 150-163.
Roby, T. B. (1961). The executive function in small groups. In L. Petrullo & B. M. Bass (Eds.),
Leadership and interpersonal behavior. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston.
Siegel, J., Dubrovsky, V., Kiesler, S., & McGuire, T. W. (1986). Group processes in computer-
mediated communication. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,37,
157-187.
Smith, E. M., Ford, J. K., & Kozlowski, S.W.J. (1997). Building adaptive expertise: Implica-
tions for training design. In M. A. Quinones & A. Ehrenstein (Eds.), Training for a rapidly
changing workplace: Applications of psychological research (pp. 89-118). Washington,
DC: APA Books.
Sosik, J. J., Avolio, B. J., & Kahai, S. S. (1998). Inspiring group creativity: Comparing anony-
mous and identified electronic brainstorming. Small Group Research,29, 3-31.
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 47
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Sosik, J. J., Avolio, B. J., Kahai, S. S., & Jung, D. I. (1998). Computer-supported work group
potency and effectiveness: The role of transformational leadership, anonymity, and task
interdependence. Computers in Human Behavior,14, 491-511.
Straus, S. G., & McGrath, J. E. (1994). Does the medium matter? The interaction of task type and
technology on group performance and member reactions. Journal of Applied Psychology,
79, 87-97.
Sundstrom, E., de Meuse, K. P., & Futrell, D. (1990). Work teams: Applications and effective-
ness. American Psychologist,45, 120-133.
Tesluk, P., Mathieu, J. E., Zaccaro, S. J., & Marks, M. (1997). Task and aggregation issues in the
analysis and assessment of team performance. In M. T. Brannick, E. Salas, & C. Prince
(Eds.), Team performance assessment and measurement (pp. 197-224). Mahwah, NJ: Law-
rence Erlbaum.
Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Townsend, A. M., DeMarie, S. M., & Hendrickson, A. R. (1996). Are you ready for virtual
teams? HR Magazine,41, 122-126.
Townsend, A. M., DeMarie, S. M., & Hendrickson, A. R. (1998). Virtual teams: Technology and
the workplace of the future. Academy of Management Executive,12, 17-29.
Valacich, J. S., Dennis, A. R., & Connolly, T. (1994). Idea generation in computer-based groups:
A new ending to an old story. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,57,
448-467.
Van de Ven, A. H., Delbecq, A. L., & Koenig, R. (1976). Determinants of coordination modes
within organizations. American Sociological Review,41, 322-328.
Weisband, S. P. (1992). Group discussion and first advocacy effects in computer-mediated and
face-to-face decision making groups. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Pro-
cesses,53, 352-380.
Zaccaro, S. J., & Burke, C. S. (1998). Team versus crew leadership: Differences and similarities.
In R. J. Klimoski (Chair), When is a work team a crew-and does it matter? Symposium con-
ducted at the 13th annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psy-
chology, Dallas, TX.
Bradford S. Bell, M.A., is a doctoral student in the industrial/organizational psychology
program at Michigan State University. His major interests focus on developing training
systems that can enhance individual, team, and organizational effectiveness. He is par-
ticularly interested in the impact of technological innovations on training effectiveness
and team development, and his research has examined how organizations can use tech-
nology to develop and support the adaptive capabilities of individuals and teams. He has
written several journal articles and book chapters, including a review of the literature on
work groups and teams in organizations (with S.W.J. Kozlowski) that will appear in the
Comprehensive Handbook of Psychology: Industrial and Organizational Psychology
(Vol. 12). He received his B.A. in psychology from the University of Maryland at College
Park (1997) and his M.A. in industrial/organizational psychology from Michigan State
University (1999). He will receive his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2002 and
will pursue a career in academia.
48 GROUP & ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Steve W. J. Kozlowski, Ph.D., is a professor of organizational psychology at Michigan
State University. His major interests focus on organizational innovation and change and
on the processes by which people adapt to novel and challenging situations. His theory
and research span organizational downsizing, technological innovation, continuous
learning, leadership, team development, climate, and socialization. His current research
program is focused on team development, training, and effectiveness, with a goal to
develop techniques that enhance the adaptive capabilities of individuals and teams. He
is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and
Organizational Psychology. He serves, or has served, on the editorial boards of the
Academy of Management Journal,Human Factors,Journal of Applied Psychology, and
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and he is incoming associate
editor for the Journal of Applied Psychology. He received his B.A. in psychology from
the University of Rhode Island (1976), and his M.S. (1979) and Ph.D. (1982) degrees in
organizational psychology from The Pennsylvania State University.
Bell, Kozlowski / VIRTUAL TEAMS AND LEADERSHIP 49
by guest on February 19, 2013gom.sagepub.comDownloaded from
