Improving performance of virtual team: Lessons learned from online game players

With the advantage of bridging over geographical and time restriction, virtual team has been utilized by companies to make the best use of talents from different domains and areas to accomplish various objectives. However, it is always a challenging task to build up a perfect condition for virtual teams to generate outstanding performance. The current study collected data from online game players, which are considered a special type of virtual team, to understand the operational issues during the process of achieving goals. The major objective is to figure out relationships among different factors that are supposed to affect the performance of virtual teams. The results are: (1) The trust among virtual team members has positive influences on team cooperation; (2) The cohesion of virtual team has positive influences on team cooperation; (3) Team cooperation of virtual team has positive influences on team performance; (4) Communication among virtual team members would decrease the influence of team cooperation on team performance. Managerial implication and future direction are provided at the end of the current study.