Title: Investigating the efficacy of techniques affecting information exchange in virtual teams

Authors: Ananth Chiravuri

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, College of Business and Economics, UAE University, P.O. Box 15551, Al Ain, UAE

Abstract: It still remains a challenge for members of a virtual team to share or exchange information with one another. This is despite the benefits of information sharing on a team's performance, which include overcoming bias and making better decisions. One of the primary reasons for the lack of information exchange might be the difficulty of a team member in eliciting their unique information, which remains tacit. This study aims to examine this issue by testing the efficacy of two cognitive based techniques: Delphi and Repertory Grid, in eliciting such unique information. Our results indicate that groups using either technique (Delphi and Repertory Grid) elicited more unshared/unique information than the control group that was using none. But more importantly, our findings indicate that the Repertory Grid technique helped capture more unique information from members of a virtual team than the Delphi technique.

Keywords: information sharing; virtual teams; RepGrid; Delphi method; biased information sharing.

DOI: 10.1504/JGBA.2018.093206

Journal for Global Business Advancement, 2018 Vol.11 No.1, pp.110 - 125

Received: 24 Mar 2018
Accepted: 10 Apr 2018
Published online: 13 Jul 2018 *

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