Improving Virtual Team Collaboration Paradox Management: A Field Experiment

Margaret M. Luciano (), Jean B. Leslie (), John E. Mathieu (), Emily R. Hoole (), Rebecca Anderson () and Virgil W. Fenters ()
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Margaret M. Luciano: Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
Jean B. Leslie: Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina 27410
John E. Mathieu: School of Business, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269
Emily R. Hoole: Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina 27410
Rebecca Anderson: Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina 27405
Virgil W. Fenters: Lee Business School, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154

Organization Science, 2025, vol. 36, issue 1, 429-451

Abstract: Virtual teams are ubiquitous in the workplace, yet they experience frequent collaboration challenges. Successfully managing the team collaboration paradox, in terms of maintaining a unified team perspective and diverse individual perspectives, presents a potentially important lever to improve virtual team performance. However, scholars have conflicting opinions regarding whether such improvement is possible. We argue that team collaboration paradox management will positively relate to team performance over time and can be improved via a theory-based intervention. This intervention draws from theory on paradoxes for its content (paradoxical thinking) and team development interventions for its structure (general content knowledge, team-specific feedback, action-focused planning). Given the complexity of paradoxes, it is unclear whether a single training session could substantively improve their management; therefore, one intervention condition was comprised of a single training session and the other condition included a follow-up session. Analyzing two waves of multisource quantitative data from a sample of 76 virtual teams from 37 organizations, we find a positive relationship between team collaboration paradox management and team performance at both time periods. We also find that only the intervention condition with the follow-up session, as compared with untreated control teams, significantly improved how well teams managed the collaboration paradox and thereby facilitated subsequent changes in team performance. Supplementary qualitative insights from the intervention sessions illuminate the actions virtual teams took to improve their collaboration paradox management. These results have important implications for the paradox and teams literatures, as well as the managers and members of virtual teams.

Keywords: virtual teams; team performance; collaboration paradox management; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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