PDF 3

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
2022, VOL. 39, NO. 1, 102–129

https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2021.2023408
The Power of Introverts: Personality and Intelligence in Virtual

Teams
a b c
Alexander S. Dennis , Jordan B. Barlow , and Alan R. Dennis
a
Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA; bOpus College of Business,
University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA; cKelley School of Business, Indiana University,
Bloomington, IN, USA
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Teams have increasingly turned to computer-mediated communica Virtual teams; personality;
tion (CMC) to work when team members cannot all be in the same intelligence; extraversion;
physical space at the same time, leading to the need to better under introversion; computer-
stand what influences group performance in these settings. We know mediated communication;
team performance; group
that team member intelligence and personality affect team perfor performance
mance when teams work face-to-face, but their effects are not yet clear
when teams use text-based CMC, which has different characteristics
than face-to-face communication. We conducted a laboratory study of
61 teams working on a decision-making task using text-based CMC.
We found that team mean extraversion had a large negative effect, and
team mean neuroticism had a medium-sized negative effect on team
performance. Team mean intelligence had no effect. We recommend
that managers consider the effects of extraversion when selecting
team members and focus on selecting more introverted team mem
bers if the team is likely to extensively use text-based CMC. Likewise,
managers should consider extraversion when designing teamwork
processes for virtual teams; if a team has many members who are
high in extraversion, the team should use text-based CMC sparingly.
We also recommend that researchers use extraversion as a control
factor in future research studying text-based CMC because extraver
sion has a large effect on team outcomes and, left uncontrolled, could
increase unexplained error variance and overshadow the focus of the
research study.
Introduction
The increase in remote work, given greater urgency by the COVID-19 pandemic [79],
means that teams often use some form of computer-mediated communication (CMC), such
as email, texting, or Web forums, in addition to or in place of face-to-face communication,
especially when team members are separated by location and/or time [25, 68, 96]. Working
using CMC can lead to challenges for teams [33, 68]. The CMC context has unique
properties, such as parallelism, synchronicity, speed of response, organization, and how
language is used [1, 38], so some individuals may embrace CMC, while others may believe it
does not fit how they work best. Variance exists between teams as well, with some teams
demonstrating great success when using CMC, while other teams struggle [77].
CONTACT Alan R. Dennis ardennis@indiana.edu Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, 1309 E. 10th Street,
HH4100, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 103
The technologies we use to communicate, whether one-on-one or in teams, have evolved

greatly. Even though video and audio communication technologies are becoming more
advanced, we are using text-based CMC more than ever. Texting has now become more
common than phone calls, for both personal use and communicating business needs; over
25 billion text messages are sent each day.1 E-mail is still a preferred method in business
organizations; the average office worker receives dozens of e-mail messages per day.2
Popular collaboration technologies built for organizational team decision-making, such as
Microsoft Teams, are constantly being updated with new instant-message, text conversation
thread, and within-call chat functionalities.3 Meetings held over video in Teams or Zoom
often include a plethora of text chat messages between some or all group members, meaning
text-based CMC is central to team decision-making [39]. Even when meetings are held with
video technology, these meetings are often supplemented, prefaced, or followed with text
communication through e-mails, IMs, or text messages. Characteristics of any form of CMC
can lead teams to develop different norms and working patterns [1, 38, 105].
Team composition has long been known to play a large role in the effectiveness of teams
[17, 82, 87]. A team’s composition affects not only the skills they bring, but the effort they
exert and their ability to work together to solve problems [13, 61]. Although surface-level
differences in team composition (e.g., demographics) can affect team performance, deep-
level characteristics such as personality have been found to have larger impacts [13, 63]. In
face-to-face teams, no deep level characteristics have been more widely studied than
intelligence and personality [17], with these two factors being frequently studied conjointly
[e.g., 13, 75, 83, 85, 108]. Intelligence enables team members to understand the task and
develop solutions, while personality shapes how they communicate solutions and reach
consensus on a team decision. Subsequent research has shown that intelligence and
personality (specifically extraversion and neuroticism) influence team performance when
teams work face-to-face [17, 43, 128], but depending on whether the two are studied
separately or concurrently, the resulting influences can vary [112].
Taken together as a set of traits, intelligence and personality have a medium to large
effect on team performance [10,11, 17]. Media Synchronicity Theory (MST) argues that
text-based CMC differs from face-to-face communications on five theoretical dimensions
(rehearsability, reprocessability, symbols sets, transmission velocity, and parallelism) [38],
which is why some findings from face-to-face research generalize to CMC, but others do not
[40, 53, 105]. Past research on teams working face-to-face shows that intelligence and
personality together have strong effects on performance [13, 17], yet no study has examined
their joint effects on team performance when teams use CMC. Personality and intelligence
may be one reason why past research with virtual teams shows that technology use has
inconsistent effects [40, 53, 105]—the combined effects of intelligence and personality may
overwhelm the effects of the technology. In this study, we investigate the joint effects of
team member intelligence and personality when teams use text-based CMC. Our research
question is:
RQ: Do intelligence and personality influence performance when teams use text-based CMC?
Understanding the combined effects of intelligence and personality when teams use text-
based CMC will show whether these factors are fruitful avenues for future CMC research. It
will also suggest factors that researchers should use as controls in future CMC research that
is not focused on personality or intelligence. Managers are usually good at identifying
104 DENNIS ET AL.
employees who are high or low in certain personality traits [93]; as a result, if these traits
influence team performance, managers can use those characteristics when assigning staff to
teams [48] and when they decide what mix of communication technologies a given team
will use.
We followed past research [17] and designed a laboratory experiment with what Klein
and Kozlowski [78] would refer to as a single-level study, where all predictors and outcomes
are studied at the team level. Student subjects were placed into teams and asked to complete
a hidden profile [116] compensatory decision-making task [117]. Subjects completed
intelligence and personality measures prior to participating in the main task and then
were randomly assigned to work in teams that used text-based CMC for all interactions.
Constructs that were collected at the individual level were aggregated into what Klein and
Kozlowski [78] call “shared constructs” (e.g., team intelligence, team extraversion, etc.), and
performance (a “configural construct”) was measured at the team level, thus allowing for
analysis at the team-level.
Our results show that one personality factor (extraversion) has what Cohen [26] terms
a “large” negative effect on team performance. Teams with higher mean extraversion
performed significantly worse. Each standard deviation increase in a team’s mean extraver
sion reduced decision quality by 20 percent. Interestingly, this is the opposite pattern from
face-to-face communication, where increases in team mean extraversion have been shown
to improve decision quality [17]. Our results also show that neuroticism has what Cohen
[26] terms a “medium” negative effect on team performance. However, team mean intelli
gence failed to have a significant effect on team performance. These effects were robust,
remaining consistent in a model which also included the variance of each of these con
structs, and when considering the interactions of personality with intelligence. Taken
together, this suggests that text-based CMC is a fundamentally different context from face-
to-face communication. Rather than assuming that prior research using teams working
face-to-face can reliably predict results for teams using text-based CMC, our research
illustrates the importance of understanding how the theoretical mechanisms of text-based
CMC interact with extraversion to produce worse performance.
Therefore, we encourage researchers to devote more research to understanding how person
ality influences the outcomes of virtual teamwork. We also encourage researchers not interested
in personality to include a measure of extraversion in team studies to reduce unexplained error
variance—even a short form measure, which can be as simple as two questions [106]. One
reason research may have difficulty finding improvements in decision quality from the use of
collaboration technology [41,42] may be because extraversion creates large unexplained error
variance that overshadows the effects of technology. Likewise, we encourage managers to
consider the extraversion of team members when they select team members for projects and
when they design a team’s work processes. Use text-based CMC sparingly for teams whose
members are predominately high in extraversion, and use text-based CMC frequently for teams
whose members are predominately high in introversion.
Theoretical Background
A team’s composition is critical in predicting team performance [17, 82] because it
determines “the amount of knowledge and skill team members have to apply to the team
task—in terms of both task completion and working interdependently” [17, p. 596].
Research on team member intelligence and personality has continued to grow, with these
factors representing two of the most frequently studied composition variables when pre
dicting team performance [17]. It is important to consider intelligence and personality
simultaneously—results from studying personality and intelligence individually can differ
significantly from when they are examined concurrently [112] because team performance is
a joint function of both [17]. In the following sections, we consider the role of intelligence
and personality in team decision-making. We then provide a brief overview of past research
using CMC.
Intelligence
Individual intelligence (also called cognitive ability [36] or general mental ability [13, 17]) is
the ability to perform cognitive tasks [36, 115]. Individuals with higher intelligence are
better able to consistently perform cognitive tasks well [17], so they are higher performers in
job settings that require cognitive performance: “After hundreds of empirical studies, it is
now clear that cognitive ability is one of the best predictors of individual job performance”
[43, p. 507].
The same ability that enables individuals to perform well on individual cognitive
tasks should also be relevant for similar cognitive tasks that are assigned to teams [17,
43, 118]. Team output is a function of the individual contributions of its members; as
a result, when individual team members produce better outputs, the resulting team
performance should be improved [83]. Therefore, we theorize that teams comprised of
more intelligent people who are higher individual performers should perform better
than teams comprised of less intelligent people who are poorer individual performers
[17, 43, 118].
However, the empirical results measuring these effects have been less conclusive than one
might expect [cf. 19, 42, 52, 86, 127]. Meta-analyses have found modest differences in task
performance due to team member intelligence [17, 43, 118]. The effects of team member
intelligence have often varied greatly from study to study [7, 8, 49]. The inconsistent effects
of intelligence may be because many studies have examined the effects of intelligence
without considering the effects of team member personality, and studying one without
considering the other may lead to different conclusions [112].
Personality
Personality traits are another important individual characteristic influencing team per
formance and are capable of providing incremental predictive validity beyond intelli
gence [12, 17]. The dominant model of personality is the Five Factor Model [93], which
has five key traits: extraversion, neuroticism (i.e., emotional instability), agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and openness to experience, each of which are stable individual
traits [29].
The effects of personality can vary depending on the specific context involved. For
example, extraversion is most beneficial in contexts that involve social interaction [10].
Likewise, neuroticism is important in teamwork contexts [97]. Openness to experience is
frequently seen as beneficial in contexts where adaptability is key [85,86], but it frequently
fails to show a general effect on team performance [17].
106 DENNIS ET AL.
Personality has strong influence on behavior. Often, personality characteristics create

patterns of behavior such that people high in a given personality trait tend to behave and
respond to others in similar ways [15, 84]. When entering a new team without prior
established practices, individuals will be faced with the need to jointly shape their team’s
work practices [51, 52]. Individuals’ personalities will shape their initial behaviors in a new
team and how they react to the behavior of others [15, 84]. The central tendency of
members’ behaviors will develop the team’s common behaviors through shared interactions
[51, 58]. Thus, team mean personality traits are highly impactful in forging group norms,
shaping subsequent interactions between members [58].
For example, imagine a case where many team members are high in extraversion, which
is characterized by a tendency towards sociability, gregariousness, action, and excitement-
seeking [12, 93]. If many team members are high in extraversion (i.e., the team has a high
central tendency in extraversion), initial behaviors are more likely to be social and gregar
ious, and the response to those behaviors would be positive, social, and gregarious. The few
team members lower in extraversion are likely to avoid challenging the emerging central
tendency in behavior [12, 93]. Conversely, imagine a case where many team members are
low in extraversion, (i.e., the team has a low central tendency in extraversion). Initial
behaviors are far less likely to be social and gregarious, and the response to social and
gregarious behaviors would be negative. The few team members higher in extraversion will
see the emerging central tendency in behavior and are less likely to challenge it [12, 93].
Past research is fairly conclusive in showing that team mean agreeableness, openness, and
conscientiousness have little to no effect in short duration lab studies [17]. The shortened
duration and artificial nature of lab studies mitigate the impact of these three personality
traits, in part because subjects are less likely to be invested [17]. Neither sufficient time nor
high enough stakes elicit the type of disagreement that agreeableness could help resolve.
Likewise, the tightly bounded nature of lab studies reduces the effectiveness of openness to
experience, and there is less space for the dependability and planning of conscientious
individuals to have an impact [17]. Thus, we follow past research and focus on extraversion
and neuroticism, while controlling for agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness.
Computer-Mediated Communication
The study of teams using technology has a rich history spanning decades [for reviews, see
40, 41, 53, 102, 103]. Raghuram et al. [105] categorize this research into three distinct
clusters. Our research falls into what they call the computer-mediated work cluster. Within
this cluster, decision quality is an important outcome that has received much research
attention [40, 105].
CMC research has long focused on text-based CMC and continues to do so today [3, 34,
55, 76, 101, 105]. This initial focus began, in large part, because text was the first form of
communication that was easily transmitted over computer networks. For much of the early
days of CMC research, CMC meant text-based communication [76, 101, 130]. Over the last
decade or two, CMC has come to include voice and video communication [105], yet text-
based CMC is still prevalent in personal and business use [3, 34].
The social processes associated with collaboration technology and how individual team
members interact can influence team performance [24, 40, 53]. Collaboration technology
research has only recently begun to consider how deeper-level individual characteristics of
team members [105] such as intelligence [6] and personality [120] affect team processes
and outcomes. However, research in CMC has examined intelligence and personality
separately. For example, Barlow and Dennis [8] examined the effects of individual
intelligence on performance across four types of tasks, finding that intelligence predicted
performance only for certain task types. However, the study did not jointly examine
personality.
Intelligence and personality are important because team members are often chosen
based on unique skills they bring to the team, such as functional knowledge or specific
abilities [16], and these characteristics can have meaningful effects on decision quality
[17]. This diversity of information, abilities, and viewpoints can lead to better decisions
[62], but only if teams understand how to use them [111]. Like past research [38], we
assume that team members can trust one another [24] and that there is no deliberate
attempt to deceive [130].
As it stands currently, both scholars and practitioners have an incomplete understanding
of the effects of intelligence and personality in teams using text-based CMC, despite
a plethora of research in face-to-face contexts showing that the two have medium to large
effects on team performance [13, 17, 82]. Text-based CMC and face-to-face communication
have important theoretical differences [38], which is why some results generalize from face-
to-face communication to text-based CMC, but others do not [40, 41, 53, 102, 103]; the
characteristics of the communication medium fundamentally alter what makes team inter
action effective and not effective [40, 53, 105]. Whether the joint effects of team intelligence
and personality found in face-to-face communication translate to teams using text-based
CMC is an important research gap, which this paper aims to address.
Hypothesis Development
We theorize that team performance is a joint function of intelligence and personality.
Intelligence enables individual team members to understand the task and the information
needed to complete that task [8]. Intelligence also improves the ability of team members to
understand each other [7]. In turn, a team’s personality guides how their members interact
with one another [15, 84] and shapes communications and collaboration within teams [13,
14, 120]. Team work is co-constructed [122] and team member communication and
collaboration play a central role in team outcomes [38]. Taken together, a team’s intelli
gence captures its innate ability to understand the task and solve problems, while person
ality drives how well they can apply that ability through their interactions with each other to
reach consensus on a team decision.
Much research has examined individuals interacting in teams [13, 67, 78, 129]. Our focus
is on how factors originating in the individual (i.e., team member intelligence and person
ality) combine to produce a team level outcome (i.e., team performance). Thus we are
studying a “bottom-up” phenomenon [67, 129], where factors at the lower level (individual
characteristics) influence the outcome of interest at the collective level (team performance).
No statistical techniques directly enable constructs at the lower level (e.g., team member
characteristics) to predict outcomes at the collective level (e.g., team performance).
Therefore, researchers often combine the lower level data into measures at the team level
for analysis [17, 67]. Thus, we use team intelligence, team extraversion, and so forth, to
analyze the data in a single level model (i.e., at the collective team level).
108 DENNIS ET AL.
Intelligence
The fundamental theoretical mechanism by which team member intelligence influences
team performance is through individual cognition applied to the task [17]. Team tasks are
more complicated than individual tasks because team members must interact with other
team members to obtain and provide information and to reach consensus on the best
decision [17, 18, 19]. Team performance on many group tasks depend on all team members
examining the information they have, exchanging relevant information, and working
together to reach a decision [116, 117]. Nonetheless, individual intelligence plays an
important role as individuals assess the information that they have and consider how
they can best contribute to team goals.
Team members must also focus their attention and cognition on listening to other team
members or they risk missing information if the information is not stored in a format for
future reference [38, 65]. Face-to-face communication suffers from dual task interference
because team members must both contribute information and attend to information from
other team members, so cognition and performance are impaired [65].
Media Synchronicity Theory (MST) argues that media affect teams in two distinct ways: by
influencing individual team member information processing and by influencing communica
tion among team members [38]. Text-based CMC has high reprocessability, the extent to which
a medium can be reexamined by the receiver, compared to face-to-face communication [38].
Reprocessability enables members to disengage from the discussion and pause to devote
individual cognition to the task without risk of missing information because text-based CMC
communication is recorded and can be read as desired [38, 65]. Thus, text-based CMC enables
team members to pause to devote their undivided attention to the individual information
processing of communication from other team members [38, 65]. They can separate the need to
attend to information from others from the need to cognitively process information internally.
Thus, team members can apply their full intelligence to the task during team discussions. This
could strengthen the effects of intelligence because intelligence now has an unbridled effect.
Alternately, this could weaken the effects of intelligence because taking time to pause
requires less cognitive effort than attempting to consider the comments of one team
member while listening to another [65, 101]. When cognitive effort required to perform
a task is high, those with higher intelligence perform better than those with lower intelli
gence [36]. When the cognitive effort needed is lower, intelligence is less important for good
performance and those with higher intelligence may not perform noticeably better [36].
Few studies have examined intelligence in teams using text-based CMC [74,75]. One
study found a significant effect of intelligence on brainstorming performance, an additive
task [121]. Other studies examining decision-making tasks have found no significant effects
[8] or found effects only when teams used a structured process [7]. We also note that few of
these prior studies has examined the effects of personality and intelligence together, and
considering both together can produce different results than either one alone [112].
To summarize, theory suggests that intelligence should affect team performance when
teams use text-based CMC to work on decision tasks. Empirical studies of CMC present
mixed results, although none of these CMC studies has considered the simultaneous effects
of personality. Thus, we theorize that:
Hypothesis 1 (H1): Team mean intelligence is positively related to performance when teams use
text-based CMC.
Personality
The Five Factor Model of personality defines extraversion as an individual’s tendency towards
sociability, gregariousness, social ascendancy, assertiveness, action, and excitement-seeking
[12, 93]. The key theoretical mechanism for why increased extraversion is linked to team
performance lies in participation; extraverts are more likely to participate—and dominate—in
discussions [59], because social ascendancy and dominance is a key part of extraversion [93].
Extraverts are more likely to display leadership qualities [72, 93] and share information [5]
because they are more willing to speak. At the same time, extraverts frequently dominate
discussions with others [93], suppressing or neglecting ideas that come from introverts and
undermining their performance [59]. In a meta-analysis of 27 studies, Bell [17] concludes that
mean extraversion is positively related to team performance when teams work face-to-face.
Social presence [113], the ability of a media to transmit social cues so that team members
feel the presence of others, is a social construct that is different for CMC. When teams use
text-based CMC, the lack of cues such as tone, body language, and appearance makes it hard
for team members to form a sense of others being present. This, in turn, means traditional
social norms are less salient [47, 57, 69]. Team members are less likely to feel inhibitions and
social pressures to conform and, thus, are more likely to become disinhibited and act
without social constraints; that is, act as their personality drives them [4, 89]. The challenges
that virtual teams face have been theorized to strengthen the relationships between person
ality traits and team performance [68]. Therefore, the effects of personality may be strong
when teams use text-based CMC.
MST argues that text-based CMC provides high parallelism [38], which means team
members do not need to compete for time to speak [38]. Everyone can contribute without
inhibiting or being inhibited by others [38, 95]. The primary theoretical value of extraver
sion seen in teams using face-to-face communication is increased participation, which is
less likely to affect teams using text-based CMC, as participation is naturally more equal in
this setting [95]. The differences in participation between introverts and extraverts are
minimal in a text-based CMC context [95], in part because extraverts cannot dominate and
suppress introverts [38].
MST also theorizes that text-based CMC has high rehearsability and low transmission
speed [38]. Introverts display no more anxiety than extraverts when using text-based CMC
[110], in part because this medium does not have as significant a pressure for instant
responses, which allows them the necessary time for reflection and shaping of their speech
[110]. Written messages can be rehearsed (i.e., revised and edited) before sending [38],
reducing the importance of off-the-cuff communication that favors extraverts [94].
At the team level, extraversion will shape the team’s dynamics [14], leading to two
implications for teams using text-based CMC. First, extraverts’ desires for social dominance
within teams [29, 92] will be at least partially thwarted with text-based CMC because the
technology will impair their ability to dominate others [95]; the high parallelism in text-
based communication [38] means they will be unable to prevent others from contributing
[95]. Second, individuals high in extraversion are more prone to seek out social interactions
at the cost of team performance [14], so teams high in extraversion are more likely to engage
in social interaction, distraction, and communications not focused on the task. Extraverts
find text-based CMC less natural, viewing it as restrictive and perceiving the quality of
communication to be lower [2, 44], thus harming their ability to contribute.
110 DENNIS ET AL.
In contrast, teams high in introversion could thrive when using text-based CMC [2]. For
decision-making tasks that are compensatory hidden profile tasks, the active involvement of
all team members improves performance [116], and text-based CMC better enables the
involvement of all members, especially introverts [95]. Introverts’ natural tendency towards
introspection [22] would not be overwhelmed by more dominant extraverts. Introverts are
more willing to listen to others’ opinions and ideas, taking them into account when making
decisions [59]. Introverts tend to act more deliberately, carefully considering the factors
involved rather than getting caught up in the passions of the moment [73, 91]. The speech
used by introverts is typically more precise and richer in information [66], but the benefits
of this are not as easily witnessed in teams working face-to-face where introverts are often
spoken over [17]. In a text-based CMC environment where introverts are not dominated by
extraverts, these same tendencies enable more introverted teams to excel. The medium of
communication is conducive to the more methodic approach favored by introverts, allow
ing the team to benefit from their increased fluency of communication [2].
The net result of the high parallelism, high rehearsability, and low transmission speed of
text-based CMC [38] is that introverts find it freeing and are more comfortable expressing
themselves [2]. Thus, we theorize that the benefits of extraversion seen in face-to-face
communication (greater participation) will not transfer to text-based CMC; therefore,
previous empirical findings of higher performance from more extraverted teams will not
generalize to CMC. Thus:
Hypothesis 2a (H2a): Team mean extraversion is negatively related to team performance when
teams use text-based CMC.
Neuroticism, the inverse of emotional stability [93], is an individual’s propensity to

respond with negative emotions to threat, frustration, and loss [88]. The theoretical
mechanisms that link higher neuroticism to lower team performance are reduced team
coordination and worsened team atmosphere [100]. Neuroticism is expressed through
insecurity, poor emotional control, and anxiety [93]. This negative response means that
individuals who are high in neuroticism exhibit greater distress [60] and lower satisfaction
[88]. As a result, performance of more neurotic people suffers in jobs that require inter
personal interaction [97].
Theory suggests that neuroticism would have similar effects when teams use CMC. The
additional stress associated with working in a virtual team could strengthen the negatives
associated with neuroticism [68]. Neurotic individuals tend to exhibit more anxiety and
discomfort when using technology [80, 81], so using text-based CMC can present sub
stantial challenges to them. Emotions can be contagious, so when one neurotic team
member experiences a negative reaction in response to a problem, the reaction is liable to
spread to others, especially those high in neuroticism who respond poorly to negative
emotions [119]. Teams high in neuroticism will feed off of one another, leading to an
atmosphere of higher stress and anxiety [13, 107,]. This, in turn, can lead to tense working
environments that make teams less likely to develop good working patterns [13, 123], as the
individuals have likely developed an anxious approach to work and, lacking countervailing
influences, replicated the approach in their team. Conversely, when teams are low in
neuroticism, even if one member were to experience a negative reaction to an event,
other team members would be less likely to respond poorly, allowing the team to develop
and maintain a more constructive approach to teamwork [107, 108].
Social support can buffer individuals against the negative consequences of neuroticism
[27]. However, MST argues that text-based CMC is low in the range of symbol sets, the
number of ways a medium allows information to be encoded (e.g., text, audio, visual), [38],
making it difficult to express emotion and provide social support when using text-based
CMC [38]. This increases the fragmentation and isolation of employees who use text-based
CMC [126, 127].
In summary, teams higher in neuroticism are less capable of working together effectively
[13]. A meta-analysis shows that teams with a higher mean neuroticism demonstrate lower
performance [17]. The negative effects of higher mean neuroticism are likely to be exacer
bated by text-based CMC [38, 80, 81]; as a result, we would theorize the negative effects of
team neuroticism will generalize to situations when teams use text-based CMC. Thus:
Hypothesis 2b (H2b): Team mean neuroticism is negatively related to team performance when
teams use text-based CMC.
Method
Participants
Participants were 235 undergraduate students from two large US university business
schools. Students were randomly organized into 61 teams of three or four members.
About 42 percent were female.
Task and Performance Measures

To assess team performance, we focus on the quality of decisions made by teams performing
multicriteria decision-making tasks using text-based CMC, specifically selecting one or
more alternatives from a set of already identified options. Decision-making tasks (e.g.,
personnel selection, project selection) are commonly assigned to teams because teams have
access to more information than any one individual acting alone [62]. One long-standing
line of research has demonstrated the common information problem, where teams focus on
common information known to all team members at the start of a discussion and have
difficulties integrating unique information known to only a few members, with these
difficulties greatly impairing performance [37, 111]. This problem occurs in both face-to-
face team interaction [116] and many forms of CMC [37, 111]. Overcoming this problem
requires groups to gather and synthesize information from different team members [116].
Much of our theorizing regarding the effects of personality and intelligence focuses on their
effects on members’ willingness and ability to speak up and be listened to, making this type
of task an appropriate situation to test our hypotheses. Therefore, we used the college
admissions task, a compensatory [117] hidden profile task [116]. A hidden profile task is
a task in which each team member first considers a set of incomplete information, and then
the team comes together to make a final decision. Incomplete information includes both
common information, known to every team member, and unique information, known to
only a subset of team members [116]. No information contradicts any other information.
The college admissions task has been used in research studies for decades [54, 64, 131].
Team members were each given a set of information about eight hypothetical candidates
112 DENNIS ET AL.
applying to a university. Participants were then asked to decide which candidates to admit
and which to deny. Teams could admit at most four of the eight candidates and were given
20 minutes to make their decision. Most teams chose to admit four candidates, but some
admitted three and rejected five.
Teams communicated using only the chat function of Google Hangouts, which is
a commonly used text-based CMC tool and a tool used in previous CMC research [21].
Google Hangouts has two parts. A large window at the top of the screen displays all user
comments in chronological order, and a smaller window at the bottom allows users to type
comments. Generic Google accounts were used for the study (e.g., teammember.a1) to
ensure that individuals were anonymous.
Teams received one point for each correct decision (admit or deny), resulting in
a performance score ranging from zero to eight. The correct decision for each of the
candidates was based on the criteria for admitting students at the university and validated
by university admissions officers. The college admissions task is appropriate for the
participants because students are familiar with the criteria relevant to being admitted to
the university [54, 64, 131].
Independent Variables
We used the team mean value for all independent measures. As discussed above, the
measurement of individual characteristics should match the group task; the task was
a compensatory task, making team mean more appropriate than team minimum, max
imum, or variance [35]. For this reason, most prior research on individual characteristics in
teams has used team mean [17]. Using the team mean enables our results to be easily
compared to previous studies in this research stream. Table 1 shows a summary of scales
and measurement approaches.
Individual intelligence is the ability of an individual to perform well across a variety
of cognitive tasks [43, 128]. Participants completed the Wonderlic Personnel Test
(WPT), a cognitive ability exercise that has been validated by academic researchers
[45, 46] and used in numerous studies [20, 114, 128]. The version of the WPT used in
this study (WPT-Q) consists of 30 questions to be answered in a period of 8 minutes.
Because the WPT items are proprietary, we cannot include the items used in our
experiment. However, Wonderlic provides sample questions.4 For each team, the mean
score was calculated.
The Big Five Personality constructs were measured using items from John et al. [70, 71].
These items have been extensively validated in prior research over the last 30 years and
represent a consensus by dozens of researchers as appropriate measures of these personality
constructs. For all scales, subjects were presented with a series of items and asked whether
they agreed that they were someone who exhibited the trait using a scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The extraversion subscale consists of 8 items, with
a sample item of “I see myself as someone who is talkative.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this
scale was .88. The neuroticism subscale consisted of 8 items, with a sample item of “I see
myself as someone who worries a lot.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .79. Table 2
presents an exploratory factor analysis showing that the items for extraversion and neuroti
cism each loaded on their respective factors with minimal cross loadings. The team mean
was used for each of these.
Table 1. Variables and measurement strategies.

Factor Scale Aggregation Approach
Team mean intelligence Wonderlic Personnel Test: 30 questions Measured at individual level; team
converted to a 0-50 scale mean
Team mean extraversion Big 5 Personality items from John et al. 1991 Measured at individual level; team
Team mean neuroticism [70], used with 7-point Likert ranging from mean
Team mean agreeableness “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”
Team mean conscientiousness
Team mean openness
Team mean social sensitivity Reading the Mind in the Eyes test: 0-36 scale Measured at individual level; team
based on 36 questions that can be answered mean
correctly or incorrectly [9]
Team decision quality Single performance score on college admissions Measured at team level
task: 0-8 scale based on correct or incorrect
admission decision for 8 candidates.
Proportion female Self-report of gender Measured at individual level;
proportion of team
In general, team mean agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness have little to no

consistently significant effects in short duration lab studies [14] but may influence
individuals’ interactions using CMC [56, 90], so we included them in our analyses for
control purposes. All three showed adequate reliability: agreeableness (.78), conscientious
(.76), and openness (.74). Table 2 shows the items for these three scales generally loaded
together, but there are some cross loadings. The items for these factors are well-
established in past research; because the items are designed to capture six sub-
constructs for each Big Five Factor [70, 71], it is not surprising that they may not load
well. We included all items to ensure construct validity; dropping items would mean that
one or more of the six sub-constructs was not included in the construct. The team mean
was also used for these.
Past research on intelligence has also examined two other characteristics: the proportion
of females in the team and social sensitivity [8, 49, 128]. Past research suggests that the
percentage of females can influence performance [128] with social sensitivity fully mediat
ing the effect of gender composition on performance [128]. We included both for control
purposes. Proportion of females was the proportion of members in each team who reported
their gender as female. Social sensitivity is the ability to perceive and understand the feelings
and viewpoints of others, measured using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test [9], a 36-
item measure that consists of selecting the emotion displayed in photographs of eyes. We
collected social sensitivity and used it as a robustness check because it is theoretically
challenging to argue that the ability to read the emotions in eyes is useful in a text-based
CMC environment where team members are unable to see each other’s eyes. As in past
research, the team mean score was used [128].
Procedures
Prior to reporting to the lab for the experimental session, subjects were required to
individually complete a 30-minute online survey. This survey contained the WPT
intelligence test, as well as a Qualtrics survey measuring social sensitivity and the Big
Five personality traits. Once subjects arrived at the computer lab where the hidden
profile task took place, they were randomly assigned to teams of 3–4 members. At
114 DENNIS ET AL.
Table 2. Factor loadings.

Factor
1 2 3 4 5
Extra1 0.808 0.111 0.075 -0.012 -0.003

Extra6 0.740 -0.048 -0.232 0.141 -0.118
Extra11 0.564 0.288 0.270 0.173 -0.050
Extra16 0.589 0.328 0.186 0.284 0.097
Extra21 0.798 -0.070 -0.104 0.059 -0.220
Extra26 0.483 0.244 0.349 -0.275 -0.019
Extra31 0.727 -0.055 -0.145 -0.063 -0.375
Extra36 0.779 0.171 0.196 0.106 0.048
Neuro4 -0.186 0.103 -0.201 -0.356 0.452
Neuro9 -0.099 -0.330 -0.293 0.045 0.505
Neuro14 0.020 -0.001 0.195 -0.264 0.540
Neuro29 0.009 0.088 0.058 -0.243 0.560
Neuro19 -0.110 -0.114 0.055 0.007 0.703
Neuro24 -0.042 -0.126 -0.320 0.017 0.460
Neuro34 -0.017 -0.331 -0.224 0.023 0.476
Neuro39 -0.325 0.027 0.011 0.058 0.643
Agree2 0.021 -0.081 -0.078 0.621 -0.164
Agree7 0.099 0.281 0.199 0.458 0.072
Agree12 -0.029 -0.034 0.020 0.612 -0.274
Agree17 0.086 0.240 0.144 0.522 0.140
Agree22 0.120 0.169 0.276 0.510 0.147
Agree27 0.199 -0.199 -0.054 0.549 -0.255
Agree32 0.095 0.329 0.248 0.599 0.187
Agree37 -0.082 -0.022 -0.099 0.679 -0.289
Agree42 0.416 0.248 0.296 0.448 0.071
Con3 0.119 0.165 0.638 0.129 -0.058
Con8 -0.076 -0.275 0.371 0.311 -0.331
Con13 0.050 0.223 0.696 0.174 -0.033
Con18 -0.168 -0.244 0.369 0.201 -0.243
Con23 0.028 -0.181 0.320 0.178 -0.435
Con28 0.005 0.216 0.573 0.049 0.043
Con33 0.059 0.100 0.670 0.066 -0.035
Con38 0.052 0.080 0.645 -0.053 -0.095
Con43 -0.111 -0.286 0.303 -0.027 -0.381
Open5 0.244 0.631 0.156 -0.040 -0.135
Open10 0.094 0.641 0.183 0.182 0.022
Open15 -0.032 0.560 0.238 -0.081 0.017
Open20 0.167 0.677 0.075 0.136 -0.042
Open25 0.133 0.580 0.086 -0.057 -0.167
Open30 -0.029 0.601 -0.037 0.200 0.084
Open35 0.067 0.220 -0.252 -0.044 -0.318
Open40 0.109 0.677 0.172 0.041 -0.012
Open41 0.011 0.200 -0.280 0.235 -0.070
Open44 -0.078 0.573 -0.177 -0.010 0.019
Note: For the specific personality items we used, please see: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~johnlab/bfi.php
any given time, 2–5 teams were simultaneously completing the hidden profile task.
Subjects were not informed which other participants in the session were members of
their team, and the individual members of each team were dispersed throughout the
lab to prevent any non-text communication between members. Participants sat at
individual workstations where they could not see the computer screens of other
participants. The teams performed the decision-making task. Once the team was
finished, each individual team member completed a survey soliciting demographic
variables. Procedures and tasks were refined during pilot sessions, with minor adjust
ments made to improve clarity.
Our research design—specifically, examining CMC groups without a face-to-face

comparison—has been commonly used in prior studies of the effects of personality in
face-to-face teams [see 17] and in text-based CMC studies of the effects of team
intelligence on team performance [e.g., 8]. Like this research before us, we did not
include any “control groups.” Our focus is solely on what happens when teams use
text-based CMC.
Results
The data were analyzed using linear regression (a specially generalized linear model in SPSS)
because the outcome variable is a score. Table 3 shows the descriptive statistics, and Table 4
presents the multiple regression results. Cohen [26, p. 413] says it is reasonable “to define
a ‘medium’ R2 (or partial R2) of .15 when several IVs [independent variables] are involved.”
Thus, we conclude this model with R2 = .185 explains a medium amount of variance.
H1 argued that team intelligence was positively related to team performance. The results
show that team mean intelligence did not significantly affect team performance (F(1,53) =
2.56, p = .115). The effect size (partial η2) was .046, which Cohen [26] terms small. We
conclude that H1 is not supported.
H2a argued that team mean extraversion was negatively related to team performance. The
results show that team mean extraversion significantly reduced performance (F(1,53) =
8.35, p = .006). The effect size was close to what Cohen [26] terms large (partial η2 = .136).
H2a is supported.
H2b argued that team mean neuroticism was negatively related to team performance, and
the results support this (F(1,53) = 4.97, p = .030), with a medium effect size [26] (partial η2
= .086). H2b is supported.
None of the personality factors included as control variables had a significant effect on
team performance. All non-significant factors had small effect sizes, with partial η2 ranging
from .00 to .04. The results show that greater proportion of females (F(1,53) = 4.12, p = .047)
led to higher performance (see Table 4), with a medium effect size.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics.

Factor Mean Std Dev
Team decision quality 5.05 1.58
Team mean intelligence 35.72 3.46
Team mean extraversion 4.67 1.01
Team mean neuroticism 3.61 0.80
Team mean agreeableness 5.10 0.84
Team mean conscientiousness 5.24 0.86
Team mean openness 4.63 0.78
Proportion female 0.43 0.25
116 DENNIS ET AL.
Table 4. Analysis results for team decision quality.

Factor Coefficient F-value p-value Partial η2
Constant 2.966 2.47 0.067 .061
Team mean intelligence 0.110 2.56 0.115 .046
Team mean extraversion -1.025 8.35 0.006** .136
Team mean neuroticism -0.865 4.97 0.030* .086
Team mean agreeableness 0.275 0.30 0.587 .006
Team mean conscientiousness 0.302 0.40 0.530 .007
Team mean openness 0.720 1.71 0.196 .031
Proportion female 1.943 4.12 0.047* .072
N 61
R2 18.5 percent
Note: *p < .05. **p < .01.
Robustness Checks
We conducted three robustness checks. First, because social sensitivity has been used to
explain why the percentage of females in a team is important, we replaced the percentage of
females with team mean social sensitivity and redid the analysis. Social sensitivity was not
significant (F(1,53) = 0.55, p=.464) and its effect size was small (partial η2 = .010). Thus, the
proportion of females had significant effects, but these effects were not mediated by social
sensitivity.
Second, because the variance of team personality characteristics can affect team perfor
mance in face-to-face teams [17, 98] and in teams using CMC [120], we conducted
a robustness check which included team variance for all personality variables and intelli
gence in addition to team means. Klein and Kozlowski [78] note that even when team mean
is the most appropriate aggregation, variance cannot be fully captured using team mean
values alone because a team with extremes in any factor is equivalent statistically to a team
where all team members fall near the mean. Thus, team variance may be important in
addition to the team mean.
The robustness check including team variance produced the same statistical conclusions
as the team means model in Table 4. Team mean extraversion retained its effect, signifi
cantly reducing performance with a medium effect size (F(1,47) = 4.39, p = .043, partial η2
= .085). Likewise, team mean neuroticism retained its effect, significantly reducing perfor
mance with a medium effect size (F(1,47) b = 4.47, p = .040, partial η2 = .087). Team mean
intelligence remained not significant (F(1,47) = 2.64, p = .111, partial η2 = .053). Proportion
female remained significant (F(1,47) = 4.79, p = .034, partial η2 = .092). Team extraversion
variance (p = .139), team neuroticism variance (p = .925), and team intelligence variance (p
= .852) all had no significant effects on team performance. No other personality factors were
significant (mean or variance).
Third, we examined the interaction of intelligence with the five personality traits, because
team performance may be influenced by intelligence and personality acting jointly. We used
the standardized versions of the personality and intelligence factors due to potential for
multicollinearity with interactions of continuous variables [99]. This robustness check
produced the same statistical conclusions as the model in Table 4. Team mean extraversion
retained its effect, significantly reducing performance (F(1,48) = 6.12, p = .017, partial η2
= .113). Likewise, team mean neuroticism retained its effect, significantly reducing perfor
mance (F(1,48) = 4.96, p = .021, partial η2 = .094). Team mean intelligence remained not
significant (F(1,48) = 1.05, p = .311, partial η2 = .021). The proportion of females remained
significant (F(1,48) = 4.39, p = .041, partial η2 = .084). None of the other main effects or
interaction effects were significant.
Post-hoc Analysis of Team Discussions

As a post-hoc analysis to better understand the reasons underlying these patterns, we
examined the transcripts of the team interactions to determine if teams with higher levels
of extraversion or neuroticism communicated with one another in a different manner than
those lower in extraversion or neuroticism. To do this, transcripts of each team’s commu
nication were coded using five categories from Putnam [104]’s categories of group interac
tions. The first category was procedural direction, messages that request or provide
information about how the team is to work (e.g., agendas, work steps). The second category
was group goals, which are contributions that clarify the goals and objectives the group is
trying to achieve. We included messages that clarified importance of information (e.g., SAT
is more important than major) in this category. The third category was task implementa
tion, which are messages that request or offer plans and implementation of actions. We
coded messages concerned with seeking or providing task information as task implementa
tion because they represented the key component in performing the task. The fourth
category was summaries and integrations, which are contributions that link prior com
ments together and those that summarize prior comments. The fifth category was digres
sions, which are messages that were not task related.
Two research assistants who were not aware of the hypotheses independently coded the
team transcripts. They were first trained on the coding scheme and then coded ten
transcripts to ensure the initial inter-rater reliability was adequate. They then coded the
remaining transcripts. The inter-rater reliability across all transcripts was adequate
(Cronbach’s alpha of .94).
Given the propensity for extraverts to engage in social interactions with others [12, 93],
we expected that teams higher in extraversion would engage in more digressions compared
to teams lower in extraversion. At the same time, introverts’ tendency toward listening to
and engaging with others’ comments [59] suggests that teams lower in extraversion would
engage in more summaries and integration. The post-hoc analyses found that teams higher
in extraversion had a lower proportion of summaries and integrations (F(1,56) = 5.56, p
= .022) and a higher proportion of digressions (F(1,56) = 4.20, p = .045). Thus, teams higher
in extraversion were less likely to link together the information provided by other team
members and pull together the group’s thinking. Instead, they were more likely to digress
from the focal topic to discuss unrelated issues (e.g., small talk about length or interest level
in the task at hand or joking about how to let down a candidate that would not be admitted).
Teams with higher mean neuroticism had a lower proportion of task implementation
comments (F(1,56) = 5.93, p = .018). Teams higher in neuroticism, characterized by
a propensity to anxiety [93] and concern over mistakes [124] would likely find it more
difficult to advance to the stage of sharing information and making decisions out of fear of
making the wrong choice.
There were no significant differences due to the proportion of females.
118 DENNIS ET AL.
Discussion
We examined the effects of team intelligence, extraversion, and neuroticism on team
performance when teams used text-based CMC. We found that teams with lower extraver
sion and lower neuroticism had higher performance, while intelligence had no effect. The
results for team mean extraversion are reversed from past research when teams commu
nicate face-to-face, although the neuroticism finding matches well to this past research [17].
We believe there are five important findings from these results.
First, personality has a significant effect when teams use text-based CMC. We found that
extraversion had a large negative effect on team performance. When members communicate
by typing, participation is relatively equal [95]; therefore, extraversion has few benefits; those
who excel at dominating spoken conversations no longer dominate when everyone can type.
Introverts prefer using text-based CMC [2]; they display no more anxiety than extraverts
when using text-based CMC, and they are comfortable expressing themselves [2].
Second, our post-hoc analysis showed that extraverted teams engaged in more frequent
diversions and made fewer summary and integration comments. This pattern may be due to
lower social presence [113] and the decreased saliency of social norms [47, 69]. In a situation
with weaker social norms, extraverts defaulted towards their natural tendency: sociability and
social ascendancy [93]. Great sociability means that extraverts are more friendly, cheerful,
talkative, and gregarious than introverts [31, 93], which played out as more digressions.
The more interesting difference for teams with greater extraversion is the lower number
of summary and integration statements. One attribute of extraverts is social ascendancy—a
desire for dominance, and a propensity to take charge, assert control, and lead others [30,
93]. Thus, teams higher in extraversion had more dominant individuals interested in
asserting their point of view, with less attention to information and opinions from others.
Information from others is a key part of successful team decision making [116], especially
when teams use CMC [37], so lower information integration leads to poorer decisions
[111]. In contrast, introverts have a tendency towards attending to and engaging with
others’ comments [59]. This took the form of an increase in summaries and integration,
which led to better decisions.
Third, we found that neuroticism had a medium-sized negative effect on team perfor
mance. Neuroticism is the propensity to respond with negative emotions to threat, frustra
tion, and loss [88] and a lack of emotional stability [93]. As with extraversion, the weaker
social norms of teams using text-based CMC enable neurotic team members to act accord
ing to these innate habits. When work does not go as planned, individuals high in neuroti
cism are more likely to respond negatively and be less likely to focus on the task at hand
[93]. Faced with a set of uncertain choices, neurotic individuals frequently seek to avoid
making a decision out of fear of making the wrong choice [109], as demonstrated by the
fewer task implementation comments in our experiment transcripts. The unwillingness to
commit to and implement a course of action inhibits teams’ abilities to move forward,
harming decision quality.
Fourth, team mean intelligence was not significant. Its effect size was between small and
medium, so even if the use of a larger sample found it to be significant, its effects would be
noticeably less important than extraversion or neuroticism. Thus, one challenge in virtual
teamwork going forward is how to enable teams to better utilize team members’ intelligence.
Finally, the proportion of females significantly increased team performance with

a medium effect size. Past research suggests that this increased performance is because
females have greater social sensitivity [128], but our robustness checks ruled out social
sensitivity as an explanation. Thus, we conclude that females bring something else to team
discussions, separate from ability and personality traits as measured by the Five Factor
Model [93].
Contribution to Research
Taken together, these findings make two key theoretical contributions to the study of
personality and intelligence in teams. First, we show that one aspect of team person
ality generalizes from face-to-face communication to text-based CMC and one does
not. By exploring the impact of the Five Factor model within the setting of teams
using text-based CMC, we challenge the generalizability of some past findings from
teams communicating face-to-face. Specifically, contrary to previous studies which
have found that higher team mean extraversion is beneficial in teams that work face-
to-face (e.g., [10, 17]), our findings show that this effect is inverted in teams using
text-based CMC. At the same time, we found that the effect of team mean neuroticism
was consistent across communication mediums. By doing this, we bring the person
ality and CMC literatures together.
Second, we contribute to the theory by demonstrating that team mean intelligence
failed to influence performance for teams using text-based CMC, after controlling for
personality. Theory and prior empirical research both suggested that team mean
intelligence has a smaller effect for compensatory decision making tasks [17] because
performance is also strongly affected by the interaction among team members—inter
action that is guided by personality [15, 84]. Our paper adds to a growing body of
literature that has found only modest effects of intelligence for teams performing
compensatory decision making tasks, whether face-to-face [17] or using CMC [8], as
well as the mixed findings on the effects of intelligence on virtual team performance in
general [8, 74].
Limitations and Future Research

This study has the normal limitations of lab studies. The sample was undergraduate
business students, who are future managers and professionals but who may differ from
current managers and professionals. Student samples are appropriate for testing the
ories about phenomena that are theorized to hold true across the population [28], such
as personality and intelligence. We studied a short task, which is typical of lab studies
but may lead to different conclusions than longer tasks in the field [17]. Our study was
also limited to only one type of CMC—a text-based chat. Other types of CMC with
other media capabilities (e.g., audio, video) are likely to have different results. One
other limitation is that when aggregating factors to the team level using the mean,
some of the nuance based on variance can be lost [78]. However, the mean was the
most appropriate aggregation method theoretically for our constructs, and our robust
ness check did not indicate that variance played an important role.
120 DENNIS ET AL.
Notwithstanding these limitations, we believe the study has four implications for future
research. First, we need additional research to dig deeper into why teams higher in
introversion performed better when using text-based CMC. Our post-hoc analyses suggest
it has to do with better summation and integration of the information from others, but we
need more research to better understand this, as well as how the differences in situational
strength, social norms, and patterns of communication affect the influence of extraversion
in CMC. This includes examining the potential mediating mechanisms and considering
what other factors could moderate this relationship. We encourage scholars to consider
what other “known” factors may behave differently in teams utilizing CMC, as our findings
further support the idea that prior research using face-to-face teams cannot be directly
applied to teams using CMC.
Second, past research with groups using face-to-face communication shows that team
mean intelligence influences team performance [17] but initial research with groups using
CMC found mixed effects [7, 8]. The link between team mean intelligence and performance is
weaker for compensatory tasks [35] because interaction among team members strongly
influences the results—interaction that is shaped by the personalities of team members [17].
Our findings add to the growing body of research (e.g., [8, 105]) that suggests team mean
intelligence has little impact in teams using CMC. We need more research and theory to better
understand why using text-based CMC decouples team performance from the intelligence of
its members.
One answer may lie in the fundamental nature of text-based CMC. We noted that text-
based CMC has high reprocessability [38], which enables team members to pause to attend
to the information from others [65]. Taking time to pause requires less cognitive effort than
attempting to consider the comments of one team member while listening to another [65,
101]. When tasks require less cognitive effort, intelligence is less important for high
performance [36]; thus, by lowering the cognitive effort needed, text-based CMC may
lower the importance of intelligence. Our participants were U.S. university students, who
tend to have higher intelligence than non-university students [23]; thus, once intelligence
reaches a certain level, additional intelligence may not be critical to team performance on
some tasks.
Future research could also examine the effects of intelligence on CMC performance using
a wider range of cognitively differentiated tasks. It is possible that the task selected for this
research did not sufficiently stretch team members cognitively and, as a result, intelligence
did not matter; in this case, working on a more cognitively demanding task could cause
intelligence to affect performance. By conducting research with a wide range of cognitively
differentiated tasks, scholars would be better able to understand if this is the cause of the
decoupling of team performance from members’ intelligence, or if there is some other
unknown mechanism driving this (lack of) relationship.
Third, past research on team intelligence has often focused on social sensitivity and the
proportion of females in the team [128]. We found significant effects due to the proportion
of females, but our post-hoc analysis found no effects due to social sensitivity. Thus, in the
context of text-based CMC, we conclude that social sensitivity (the ability to read the
mind in the eyes) is not an important factor. Other research on teams using CMC has
also found different behaviors and team outcomes due to the gender composition of teams
[e.g., 111]. Little of this research has simultaneously considered the effects of personality.
Research suggests potential systematic differences exist between males and females,
differences that are heavily shaped by culture and role expectations [32, 50, 125]. Therefore,
we encourage researchers investigating the effects of gender or intelligence to simulta
neously consider the effects of personality.
Finally, the effects of personality on performance are large when teams use text-
based CMC, so they have the potential to outweigh the effects of other factors, such as
treatments. Thus, an important implication for any future research on teams using
text-based CMC is that personality (especially extraversion) should be controlled for to
reduce unexplained error variance. One way to control for personality is to use
a repeated measures design, where each team is its own control. Another is to include
a few questions on extraversion and neuroticism for use as controls to reduce unex
plained error variance.
Implications for Practice

We believe that this research has three implications for practice. Fortunately, individual
traits can be informally assessed in the workplace with reasonable accuracy [93]; extraverts
are usually easy to recognize.
First and foremost, choose communication media carefully. Our research shows that
teams low in extraversion do better using text-based CMC. Thus, for teams comprised of
mostly introverts, plan to use text-based CMC as much as possible to enable the team to
achieve better performance. Likewise, the reverse is true; for teams comprised of mostly
extraverts, use text-based CMC sparingly.
Second, when selecting team members for virtual team projects that are likely to involve
much text-based CMC, consider selecting those likely to do well in the text-based CMC
environment. Team members low in neuroticism are likely to do well in any communica
tion environment, but for virtual teams, strive to select more introverts than extraverts.
Finally, professionals should note that team intelligence does not play a role in the
performance of tasks when using text-based CMC. The traditional approach of using the
brightest individuals on a team to boost performance is not supported by the data.
Conclusion
As remote work becomes more common [79] and teams increasingly utilize CMC, it is crucial
that we understand how the characteristics of the media used can shape the ability of teams to
work together effectively. We theorized that because of differences in the media’s theoretical
dimensions, the effect of some team characteristics may be different when teams use text-based
CMC. We found that greater extraversion and neuroticism impair performance when teams use
text-based CMC, while intelligence has little effect. We conclude that the text-based CMC
context enables introverts to better participate and encourages the quiet, reflective communica
tion that introverts prefer [22]. Managers should consider the personality of their teams before
heavily using text-based CMC. While more introverted teams would likely perform well in the
CMC setting, teams higher in extraversion would instead see lower performance.
Notes
1. https://www.textrequest.com/blog/how-many-texts-people-send-per-day/
122 DENNIS ET AL.
2. https://www.nexalearning.com/blog/bid/24544/six-startling-statistics-about-email-use
3. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/instant-messaging
4. https://wonderlic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/WPT-REnglishSampleQuestions.pdf
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Alexander S. Dennis (asdennis@umd.edu) is a Ph.D. student at the Robert H. Smith School of
Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. Before beginning his doctorate work, he
received a B.A. in Behavioral Economics from Indiana University and worked as a consultant at
Bain & Company for several years. His main research interests are the effects and the development of
identity and remote work.
Jordan B. Barlow (jordan.barlow@stthomas.edu) is an assistant professor of business analytics in the
Opus College of Business at University of St. Thomas (Minnesota). He received his Ph.D. from the
Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. His two main research interests are collaboration
(collective intelligence, CMC, and virtual group work) and behavioral IS security. He has published
research in Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, Journal of the AIS, Group
Decision and Negotiation, Information & Management, and other journals. Dr. Barlow has also
presented his work at several leading conferences.
Alan R. Dennis (ardennis@indiana.edu; corresponding author) is Professor of Information Systems
and holds the John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana
University. His research focuses on three main themes: team collaboration; fake news on social
media; and information security. Dr. Dennis has published more than 150 research papers, and has
won numerous awards for his theoretical and applied research. His research has been reported in the
popular press almost 1000 times, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Atlantic, CBS,
Canada’s CBC and CTV, UK’s Daily Mail and Telegraph, Australia’s ABC, France’s Le Figaro,
South Africa’s Sowetan Live, Chile’s El Mercurio, China Daily, India’s Hindustan Times, and
Indonesia’s Tribune News, and many other well-known outlets. He is a Fellow and Past President
of the Association for Information Systems.
ORCID
Alexander S. Dennis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5648-0037
Jordan B. Barlow http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3843-415X
Alan R. Dennis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6439-6134
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JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

2022, VOL. 39, NO. 1, 102–129

The Power of Introverts: Personality and Intelligence in Virtual

The technologies we use to communicate, whether one-on-one or in teams, have evolved

Personality has strong influence on behavior. Often, personality characteristics create

Neuroticism, the inverse of emotional stability [93], is an individual’s propensity to

Task and Performance Measures

Table 1. Variables and measurement strategies.

In general, team mean agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness have little to no

Table 2. Factor loadings.

Extra1 0.808 0.111 0.075 -0.012 -0.003

Our research design—specifically, examining CMC groups without a face-to-face

Table 3. Descriptive statistics.

Table 4. Analysis results for team decision quality.

Post-hoc Analysis of Team Discussions

Finally, the proportion of females significantly increased team performance with

Limitations and Future Research

Implications for Practice

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