Stacie A. Furst

Virtual team effectiveness: a proposed research agenda

Abstract. Contemporary competitive demands have forced many organizations to increase levels of flexibility and adaptability in their operations. A growing number of such organizations have explored the virtual environment as one means of achieving increased responsiveness. In particular, the use of virtual teams appears to be on the increase. However, the increased use of virtual teams has not been accompanied by concomitant research efforts to understand better the social‐psychological contributors to effective virtual teams. In this paper, we use a model of group effectiveness to propose a possible research agenda examining sources of virtual team effectiveness. Although much of this model offers insights relevant to the virtual environment, differences between groups and teams and between co‐located and virtual environments suggest that modifications and additions to this model may be necessary. We offer a set of research propositions to advance future research on effective virtual teams beyond anecdote and description. Implications of this research agenda for managers of virtual teams and human resource professionals are also discussed.

Employee Resistance to Organizational Change : Managerial Influence Tactics and Leader-Member Exchange

The authors explored the relationship between managerial influence tactics and employee resistance to organizational change. Using attribution theory, the authors developed a series of hypotheses concerning the effects of influence tactics on employee resistance to change and the ways in which these relationships are moderated by leader-member exchange. Results, which are based on multisource data, suggest that employee resistance reflects both the type of influence a manager uses and the strength of leader-member exchange.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Career Outcomes The Cost of Being a Good Citizen

Existing research suggests that relationships among organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), task performance, and individual career outcomes are necessarily positive. The authors question this assumption and hypothesize that in organizations with outcome-based control systems, time spent on OCB comes at a cost to task performance. Building on this idea, the authors propose not only that time spent on task performance is more important than time spent on OCB in determining career outcomes (i.e., performance evaluation, salary increase, advancement speed, promotion) in an outcome-based control system but also that time spent on OCB may negatively impact career outcomes. Results based on archival data from 3,680 employees in a professional services firm lend some support for these ideas. Specifically, time spent on task performance was more important than OCB in determining all four career outcomes. Further, controlling for time spent on task performance, employees who spent more time on OCB had lower salary increases and advanced more slowly than employees who spent less time on OCB. These findings suggest that relationships between OCB and outcomes are more complex than originally thought and that boundary conditions may apply to conclusions drawn about the outcomes of OCB.