Friends and Enemies Within: The Roles of Subgroups, Imbalance, and Isolates in Geographically Dispersed Teams
Name
SSRN-id1096188.pdf
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198.36 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
4225bc8c693442c5ab2317cc9f549c07
Author(s)
Boyer O'Leary, Michael
Mortensen, Mark
Date Issued
February 1, 2008
Publisher
Cambridge, MA; Alfred P. Sloan School of Managment, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Series/Report no.
MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper;4689-08
Abstract
Research regarding geographically dispersed teams (GDTs) is increasingly common and has
yielded many insights into how spatio-temporal and socio-demographic factors affect GDT functioning
and performance. Largely missing, however, is research on the effects of the basic geographic
configuration of GDTs. In this study, we explore the impact of GDT configuration (i.e., the relative
number of team members at different sites, independent of the characteristics of those members or the
spatial and temporal distances among them) on GDT dynamics. In a quasi-experimental setting, we
examine the effects of configuration using a sample of 62 six-person teams in four different one- and twosite
configurations. As predicted, we find that configuration significantly affects team dynamics –
independent of spatio-temporal distance and socio-demographic factors. More specifically, we find that
teams with geographically-based subgroups (defined as two or more members per site) have significantly
less shared team identity, less effective transactive memory, more conflict, and more coordination issues.
Furthermore, in teams with subgroups, imbalance (i.e., the uneven distribution of members across sites)
exacerbates these effects; subgroups with a numerical minority of team members report significantly
poorer scores on the same four outcomes. In contrast, teams with geographically isolated members (i.e.,
members who have no teammates at their site) outperform both balanced and imbalanced configurations.
Subjects
geographically dispersed teams
subgroups
team dynamics
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1090.0434
