Individual Factors in Virtual Teams: A TIP Theory Perspective

In the pursuit of rapid software development, globally distributed information systems development teams are a growing phenomena in many organization. In order to be successful, these teams must have members who will be high degree of unity and are satisfied upon completion of the project. In order to test some possible factors that may be important in distributed team selection we must first understand individual’s contribution to the team. McGrath’s Time, Interaction and Performance (TIP) Theory is proposed as a framework to evaluate possible individual characteristics which may influence a member’s satisfaction and unity in development projects. This preliminary cross-sectional study tests TIP Theory while also identifying possible factors that may lead to increased group unity and group satisfaction. Implications for the selection of distributed development teams are discussed.