"Is it already 4 a.m. in your time zone"? Focus immersion and temporal dissociation in virtual teams

    Authors

    A. F. Rutkowski; C. Saunders; D. Vogel;M. Van Genuchten

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Small Group Res.

    Keywords

    virtual teams; focus immersion; temporal dissociation; ICT; subjective; performance; COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION; FACE-TO-FACE; DECISION-MAKING; EFFECTIVENESS; INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY; INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES; CONFLICT-MANAGEMENT; COGNITIVE-ABILITY; IDEA GENERATION; TASK; PERFORMANCE; Psychology, Applied; Management; Psychology, Social

    Abstract

    Using a sample of students (N=118) engaged in an 8-week project to build an e-book chapter, this study finds that cognitive absorption impacts interpersonal conflict and team performance. In particular, virtual teams with aggregated higher levels of focus immersion and temporal dissociation (dimensions of cognitive absorption) demonstrate higher levels of performance and interpersonal conflict. Furthermore, there is an interaction effect between focus immersion and temporal dissociation that moderates the impact on performance and interpersonal conflict. The teams with aggregated high levels of focus immersion and aggregated low levels of temporal dissociation demonstrated the best performance and lowest levels of interpersonal conflict. The authors also found that individuals with high levels of focus immersion preferred asynchronous communication media, whereas individuals with low levels of temporal dissociation preferred synchronous communication media. The implications are discussed.

    Journal Title

    Small Group Research

    Volume

    38

    Issue/Number

    1

    Publication Date

    1-1-2007

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    98

    Last Page

    129

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000243864300004

    ISSN

    1046-4964

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