Improving Virtual Team Effectiveness: A Recipe for Sweet Loren's

Abstract

Our study is designed to contribute to the growing body of research on remote work, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, by investigating the key characteristics that drive virtual team effectiveness within a fully remote organization. The focus of our study is improving virtual team effectiveness within Sweet Loren’s, a company that produces allergen-free foods while operating as a fully remote organization with team members geographically dispersed across multiple locations and time zones. Our study seeks to address three critical questions related to virtual team effectiveness: What are the key characteristics of effective virtual teams? How do those key characteristics apply to fully remote organizations? And how can Sweet Loren’s improve virtual team effectiveness as a fully remote organization? Utilizing a mixed methods approach, our study incorporates artifact analysis, empathy interviews, team observations, formal employee interviews, and surveys. We use data from qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys to investigate the influence of leadership on virtual team effectiveness. We developed our conceptual framework to measure the impact of high-quality LMX on the key characteristics emerging from our qualitative analysis: communication, trust, knowledge sharing, and employee perceptions of virtual team efficacy and effectiveness. Through interviews and surveys, we measure employee perceptions of the characteristics contained within our conceptual framework. Despite positive perceptions of virtual team efficacy, the findings suggest that low perceptions of high-quality LMX and communication diminish virtual team effectiveness, even when employees have higher perceptions of trust and knowledge sharing within a fully remote organization. Our findings suggest opportunities for future research, such as studying the effect LMX has on turnover intent, attrition, and retention, the frequency of in-person experiences on virtual team effectiveness, and any interaction effects between communication, trust, and knowledge sharing as moderated by high-quality LMX. Our study also suggests an opportunity for the development of a new leadership theory designed specifically for leaders driving team effectiveness within fully remote organizations.