Cultural diversity in semi-virtual teams: A multicultural esports team study

Song Lin (), Zhengda Xu () and Zhenzhen Xie ()
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Song Lin: Central University of Finance and Economics
Zhengda Xu: Beijing Technology and Business University
Zhenzhen Xie: Tsinghua University

Journal of International Business Studies, 2023, vol. 54, issue 4, No 7, 718-730

Abstract: Abstract How does cultural diversity influence the performance of semi-virtual teams? We use the prism of esports and insights from virtual identity research and social categorization theory to determine the effect on semi-virtual teams in which member interaction is not necessarily mediated or constrained by physical world sociocultural norms. The common ground that has developed in esports results in a superordinate, culture-free gamer identity that transcends the virtual and physical worlds, and thus multicultural teams can enjoy the benefits of diverse knowledge without suffering unduly from social disintegration when gamer identity is salient – a reality challenged less in the virtual world than in the physical one. We conduct an empirical study using data from 4035 League of Legends games played by 102 multicultural teams from 2017 to 2020. Our results show that cultural diversity improves the quality of team strategy when gamer identity becomes more salient, and that that may come about when players are intensely exposed to the game world, when they play with many different virtual characters, and when they play at home court.

Keywords: cultural diversity; superordinate identity; semi-virtual groups; social categorization theory; esports (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1057/s41267-023-00611-4

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