Influence and Political Processes in Cyberspace

Abstract

The ways team members choose to influence each other and the political processes that take place within the team have important implications for the team’s effectiveness. We present an exploratory investigation of the ways both phenomena occur in global virtual teams. Based on interviews with team members and managers, combined with existing knowledge of these processes, we present a preliminary model that includes familiarity, team centrality and task focus as variables mediating the relationship between the multicultural and virtual aspects of the teams and the use of influence and politics. Our findings also suggest that the use of hard influence tactics and political actions is milder in global virtual teams in relation to collocated teams.