Team trust in conventional and virtual teams: A study in Asia Pacific region

Numerous scholars concentrate on the influences of team trust in team cooperation and performance. However, there is the lack of studies to discuss the question of what different effects of team trust on team effectiveness between conventional and virtual teams. The purpose of this paper aims at addressing this hole in the literature by investigating how dissimilar team working environment, conventional face-to-face and virtual setting, can affect the relationship between team trust and team effectiveness. By the use of two-phase mixed research method, this study found that building interpersonal trust between team members is important to improve team effectiveness of conventional teams; by contrast, developing institutional trust within a team is essential for virtual teamwork. Understanding of how to build team trust more quickly in different working environments can help business practices to increase the operational efficiency; for example, this study suggests that making clear team norms, rules, and guidance could be useful strategies to enhance team trust and effectiveness when a team works in the virtual environment.