Running Head: Trust in Virtual Teams 1

Trust in Virtual Teams

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Barriers to effectiveness of virtual teams

Of the five barriers to virtual teams, lack of trust is the greatest barrier to the team

effectiveness for various reasons. On the first instance, trust generally constitutes a dyadic

relationship between one entity which is trusting as well as the person to be trusted. At the level

of virtual teams, such two entities are composed of numerous members drawn from diverse

backgrounds (Breuer, Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2016). Such diversity when combined with lack of

trust renders the virtual teams a mere formality and not a true reflection of sincerity of debates as

the members of virtual teams are likely to trade suspicion at the peril of the success of the

organizations leading to a lack of evidence based debate.

Secondly, trust in virtual teams improves the ability of the people in understanding that

every individual in the team is influenced by the expectations, actions as well as judgment of the

other virtual members of a team. Even though building trust is a toll order in working teams, it is

of greater challenge in virtual teams (Breuer, Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2016). Working in the cloud,

to be precise, requires certain characteristics that even make it difficult to exhibit any level of a

trusting relationship. The reason is that there are higher risks of conflicts resulting from late

responses and underrated elements, reduced social clues occasioned by limited opportunities for

social control or even poor event understanding (Breuer, Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2016).

Cumulatively, such barriers make a trusting relationship hard to come by and thus a greater

hindrance to the effectiveness of the virtual teams.

Trust has also been suggested to predict the outcomes in an organization set up. The

general team trust is also attributed to the team related attitudes, processing of information in

such outfits as well as the general performance. Additionally, team trust is highly significant in
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virtual team interactions when compared to the face-to-face teams (Breuer, Hüffmeier & Hertel,

2016). This is a further demonstration of the fact that a lack of trust will increase the risk as well

as uncertainties when electronic communication is involved. Its lack will, thus, translate into

intense suspicion and shelving of relatively important information that needs to be deliberated

upon and concluded.

Virtual teams is also prone to greater risk of trust destruction as it is characterized by lies

of omission, commission, failure to fulfill promise or even exposing the staff to a random and

unexpected reorganization of work. When a trusting relationship cannot be attained in the face-

to-face interactions, it means that such a condition is even worse in virtual communication

(Breuer, Hüffmeier & Hertel, 2016). The implication is that the employees will make little to no

positive contribution on some of the critical policy formulation in the organization leading to

stagnation. It is also important to note that lack of trust in virtual teams will reduce the general

commitment towards achieving the objectives that have been proposed during virtual team

debates. The general effect is a reduced productivity and lower revenue leading to failure.

Avoiding information overload

To avoid information overload, the basic course of action to take is the reduction of the

wok overload on the members of a team and instead maintain a consistent level of production. It

is also important to prioritize and distinguish information which reduces the burden of team

reporting. Most importantly, it is important to permit a direct communication on a single subject.

The reason is that having a clear understanding of the various people one works with reduces the

chances of misunderstanding of messages (Klitmøller & Lauring, 2013).

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References

Breuer, C., Hüffmeier, J., & Hertel, G. (2016). Does trust matter more in virtual teams? A meta-

analysis of trust and team effectiveness considering virtuality and documentation as

moderators. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(8), 1151.

Klitmøller, A., & Lauring, J. (2013). When global virtual teams share knowledge: Media

richness, cultural difference and language commonality. Journal of world business, 48(3),

398-406.