The Impacts of Relational and Trust Development Training on Virtual Teams: An Exploratory Investigation

Virtual teams are becoming common place in many organizations. These teams are geographically distributed and communicate via computer-mediated communication systems. Two factors have been shown to affect virtual team communications, the development of relational links and the amount of trust between team members. However, most virtual team members do not receive training on how to effectively promote the development of relational links or trust. This paper reports on a study on the effects of relational link and trust development training on group interactions. Fortyeight teams interacted to solve a series of tasks over an eight-week period. Training on establishing relational links and trust was developed from previous literature and administered to selected teams. Surveys measuring trust and relational links were administered initially and after each task. The analysis of these measurements indicates that groups receiving training did develop higher levels of relational links and trust than teams not receiving training.