Virtual Team Performance Factors: A Systematic Literature Review

What constitutes a successful virtual team or not is of great importance considering their widespread use in business. Despite this, the failure rate of virtual teams remains relatively high compared to non-virtual teams. This study conducted a literature review that analysed 135 articles from peer-reviewed English journals. The results were coded into groups of factors and the impact of these groups on performance and their status in literature were determined. It was found that beneficial interpersonal characteristics such as empathy or behavioural flexibility were the most commonly identified positive factors in virtual team performance, followed by trust, and the appropriateness of functionality and richness of communication technology used by the team. The most significant failure factors in virtual teams were found to be the effects of geographic and temporal dispersion, the effects of cultural diversity, and negative leadership qualities such as bias.