Expertise, trust, and virtual team performance : leveraging team composition for intelligent agent design
Name
1119733487-MIT.pdf
Size
895.08 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
666efed1d641bffb367862296f6a6d5b
Author(s)
Snelgrove, Kailah(Kailah Brianne)
Advisor(s)
Julie A. Shah and Kimberly J. Ryan.
Date Issued
2019
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
With technology-mediated communication becoming more prevalent in modern organizations, research efforts have turned toward mechanisms for improving virtual team performance. One approach considers incorporating intelligent machine agents into teams of humans as a means of influencing behaviors, ultimately leading to better performance outcomes. Such agents would require a robust representation of the factors influencing team performance in order to determine which behaviors are effective for a given context. At present, these factors are not well understood, and additional research is required in order to reliably predict their effects on team performance. In this thesis, we contribute to the virtual team literature by investigating the effects of team composition on performance, including (1) moderating effects on the relationship between team communication and performance, and (2) interaction effects between features of team composition and team performance. To this end, we conducted an experiment in which teams of participants competed in a data science competition. Two features of team composition, domain expertise and dispositional trust, were used as treatment factors for team assignments, and we measured the processes, emergent states, and performance outcomes of each team. Our results indicate that domain expertise moderates the relationship between communication and team performance, and there was evidence to suggest further interaction effects may exist which merit additional study.
Description
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2019
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 97-103).
Subjects
Aeronautics and Astronautics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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