Trust Relationships in Global Virtual Teams

Academic Paper from the year 2018 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7, University of Tubingen, language: English, abstract: Increasing global expansion in the environment of knowledge-based competition and globally dispersed business landscape, along with technological progress and a fundamental transformation of modern organizations from hierarchical, bureaucratic structures to more organic organizational designs created a conducive environment for the development of global virtual teams (GVTs). Recent academic research revealed that building trust relationships in a virtual context has a positive influence on the team’s performance and effectiveness. Hence, based on the thorough analysis of 117 academic papers, this study conducts a systematic investigation and critical discussion of the academic literature on the topic of genesis, evolution, and maintenance of trust relationships in GVTs. To examine this intriguing topic and to satisfy the research gaps, this paper has two main objectives: firstly, to emphasize the importance of building trust relationships in GVTs and to analyze what factors influence the development and maintenance of interpersonal trust and communication quality in virtual context; and secondly, to summarize the achieved theoretical and practical implications and provide suggestions for the further research.