IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/han/dpaper/dp-672.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Innovation and Communication Media in Virtual Teams - An Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Grözinger, Nicola
  • Irlenbusch, Bernd
  • Laske, Katharina
  • Schröder, Marina

Abstract

In a novel real-effort setting, we experimentally study the effects of different communication media on creative performance in a collaborative tasks. We find that creative performance significantly decreases when group members communicate via chat instead of face-to-face. However, we find no significant difference between performances of groups that communicate via video conferences as compared to face-to-face. Thus, we provide evidence that barriers to creativity in virtual teams can be mitigated by real-time video conference communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Grözinger, Nicola & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Laske, Katharina & Schröder, Marina, 2020. "Innovation and Communication Media in Virtual Teams - An Experimental Study," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-672, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    • Handle: RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-672
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-672.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David S. Kerr & Uday S. Murthy, 2004. "Divergent and Convergent Idea Generation in Teams: A Comparison of Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Communication," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 381-399, July.
    2. Katharina Laske & Marina Schroeder, 2016. "Quantity, Quality, and Originality: The Effects of Incentives on Creativity," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 07-01, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences.
    3. Nicholas Bloom & James Liang & John Roberts & Zhichun Jenny Ying, 2015. "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 165-218.
    4. Steven J. Kachelmeier & Bernhard E. Reichert & Michael G. Williamson, 2008. "Measuring and Motivating Quantity, Creativity, or Both," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 341-373, May.
    5. Englmaier, Florian & Grimm, Stefan & Schindler, David & Schudy, Simeon, 2018. "The Effect of Incentives in Non-Routine Analytical Team Tasks - Evidence From a Field Experiment," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 71, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Simin He & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2017. "The Sources of the Communication Gap," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 2832-2846, September.
    7. Cason, Timothy N. & Mui, Vai-Lam, 2015. "Rich communication, social motivations, and coordinated resistance against divide-and-conquer: A laboratory investigation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 146-159.
    8. Christiane Bradler & Susanne Neckermann & Arne Jonas Warnke, 2019. "Incentivizing Creativity: A Large-Scale Experiment with Performance Bonuses and Gifts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(3), pages 793-851.
    9. Greiner, Ben & Caravella, Mary & Roth, Alvin E., 2014. "Is avatar-to-avatar communication as effective as face-to-face communication? An Ultimatum Game experiment in First and Second Life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 374-382.
    10. Powell, Walter W. & Giannella, Eric, 2010. "Collective Invention and Inventor Networks," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 575-605, Elsevier.
    11. Katharina Eckartz & Oliver Kirchkamp & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "How do Incentives Affect Creativity?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4049, CESifo.
    12. Hayward P. Andres, 2006. "The Impact of Communication Medium on Virtual Team Group Process," Information Resources Management Journal (IRMJ), IGI Global, vol. 19(2), pages 1-17, April.
    13. Karan Girotra & Christian Terwiesch & Karl T. Ulrich, 2010. "Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 591-605, April.
    14. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri, 2008. "What's in a name? Anonymity and social distance in dictator and ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-35, October.
    15. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    16. Conrads, Julian & Lotz, Sebastian, 2015. "The effect of communication channels on dishonest behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 88-93.
    17. Jeannette Brosig & Joachim Weimann & Axel Ockenfels, 2003. "The Effect of Communication Media on Cooperation," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4(2), pages 217-241, May.
    18. Frohlich, Norman & Oppenheimer, Joe, 1998. "Some consequences of e-mail vs. face-to-face communication in experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 389-403, April.
    19. Hambley, Laura A. & O'Neill, Thomas A. & Kline, Theresa J.B., 2007. "Virtual team leadership: The effects of leadership style and communication medium on team interaction styles and outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 1-20, May.
    20. Daniel K. N. Johnson & Alyn Siripong & Amy S. Brown, 2006. "The Demise of Distance? The Declining Role of Physical Proximity for Knowledge Transmission," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 19-33, March.
    21. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    22. Gary Charness & Daniela Grieco, 2019. "Creativity and Incentives," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 454-496.
    23. Bruno S. Frey & Iris Bohnet, 1999. "Social Distance and Other-Regarding Behavior in Dictator Games: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 335-339, March.
    24. Michèle Belot & V. Bhaskar & Jeroen van de Ven, 2012. "Can Observers Predict Trustworthiness?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 246-259, February.
    25. Sanjiv Erat & Uri Gneezy, 2016. "Incentives for creativity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 269-280, June.
    26. Ostermaier, Andreas & Uhl, Matthias, 2020. "Performance evaluation and creativity: Balancing originality and usefulness," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    27. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    28. Thomas A. O’Neill & Samantha E. Hancock & Katarina Zivkov & Nicole L. Larson & Stephanie J. Law, 2016. "Team Decision Making in Virtual and Face-to-Face Environments," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 995-1020, September.
    29. Reinhard Selten, 1998. "Axiomatic Characterization of the Quadratic Scoring Rule," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 43-61, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zakaria Babutsidze & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2021. "Nonverbal content and trust: An experiment on digital communication," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(4), pages 1517-1532, October.
    2. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Henderson, Austin, 2018. "Experimental methods: Measuring effort in economics experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 74-87.
    3. Alain Cohn & Tobias Gesche & Michel André Maréchal, 2022. "Honesty in the Digital Age," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 827-845, February.
    4. Ben Greiner & Werner Güth & Ro’i Zultan, 2012. "Social communication and discrimination: a video experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(3), pages 398-417, September.
    5. Anna Lou Abatayo & John Lynham & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2018. "Facebook-to-Facebook: online communication and economic cooperation," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(11), pages 762-767, June.
    6. Julian Conrads & Tommaso Reggiani, 2017. "The effect of communication channels on promise-making and promise-keeping: experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 12(3), pages 595-611, October.
    7. Florian Englmaier & Stefan Grimm & Dominik Grothe & David Schindler & Simeon Schudy, 2024. "The Effect of Incentives in Nonroutine Analytical Team Tasks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(8), pages 2695-2747.
    8. Zakaria Babutsidze & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2019. "Digital Communication and Swift Trust," Post-Print halshs-02409314, HAL.
    9. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Koukoumelis, Anastasios & Levati, M. Vittoria & Weisser, Johannes, 2012. "Leading by words: A voluntary contribution experiment with one-way communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 379-390.
    11. He, Simin & Offerman, Theo & van de Ven, Jeroen, 2019. "The power and limits of sequential communication in coordination games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 238-273.
    12. Englmaier, Florian & Grimm, Stefan & Schindler, David & Schudy, Simeon, 2018. "The Effect of Incentives in Non-Routine Analytical Team Tasks - Evidence From a Field Experiment," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 71, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    13. Brosig-Koch, Jeannette & Heinrich, Timo & Sterner, Martin, 2023. "Bilateral communication in procurement auctions," MPRA Paper 117612, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Heinrich, Timo & Brosig-Koch, Jeannette, 2015. "Promises and Social Distance in Buyer-Determined Procurement Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112892, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Zultan, Ro’i, 2012. "Strategic and social pre-play communication in the ultimatum game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 425-434.
    16. Alexander Morell, 2014. "The Short Arm of Guilt: Guilt Aversion Plays Out More Across a Short Social Distance," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_19, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised Dec 2016.
    17. Florian Englmaier & Stefan Grimm & Dominik Grothe & David Schindler & Simeon Schudy, 2021. "The Value of Leadership: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 9273, CESifo.
    18. Morell, Alexander, 2019. "The short arm of guilt – An experiment on group identity and guilt aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 332-345.
    19. Natalia Montinari & Michela Rancan, 2018. "Risk taking on behalf of others: The role of social distance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 81-109, August.
    20. Simin He & Theo Offerman & Jeroen van de Ven, 2017. "The Sources of the Communication Gap," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 2832-2846, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Creativity; Communication; Laboratory Experiment; Real-effort; Complex Problem Solving; Innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-672. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Heidrich, Christian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwhande.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.