Cultural Diversity, Perceived Work Atmosphere, and Intragroup Conflict in Global Virtual Teams: Findings from a Laboratory Experiment

In this paper we focus on the relationships among cultural diversity, perceived work atmosphere, and intra-group conflict in global virtual teams. We report the findings of a laboratory experiment that was conducted involving the subjects who were geographically dispersed. The participants used IBM's Lotus Sametime to perform a group task. The findings of the study reveal that in virtual teams, task conflict overshadows relationship conflict; the cultural heterogeneity of the team members influences their perception of the work atmosphere, which in its turn aggravates task conflict in the teams. We also find that Intra-group conflict adversely affects team members' satisfaction and collaborative conflict management style has a moderating effect on this relationship.