FACE-TO-FACE TEAMS VS. VIRTUAL TEAMS: EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN EMOTIONS, CONFLICT AND PERFORMANCE

Abstract

In the context of the international health crisis related to COVID-19 and the development of telecommuting, this article seeks to better understand the role of virtual (vs. face-to-face) nature of teams in the relationship between emotions, conflicts, and team performance. A quantitative study was conducted using a database consisting of 139 teams of five master’s level students (i.e., 695 individuals), 81 of which are virtual, engaged in a business management simulation. Beyond the direct influence of emotions and conflicts on team performance, we propose the hypothesis that these relationships are contingent on the virtual nature of teams and thus explore the moderating role of this variable. Our study shows that the virtual nature of teams negatively moderates the positive influence of positive emotions on team performance. On the other hand, the virtual nature of teams does not influence the relationship between negative emotions and team performance, nor that between organizational conflict and team performance.