Gary Broils, D.B.A. - Dissertation Defense: Virtual Teaming and Collaboration Technology

A D I S S E R T A T I O N P R E S E N T E D I N P A R T I A L
F U L F I L L M E N T O F T H E R E Q U I R E M E N T S
F O R T H E D E G R E E
D O C T O R O F B U S I N E S S A D M I N I S T R A T I O N
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4
U N I V E R S I T Y O F P H O E N I X
VIRTUAL TEAMING AND COLLABORATION
TECHNOLOGY: A STUDY OF INFLUENCES ON
VIRTUAL PROJECT OUTCOMES
Gary C. Broils
02/08/2014
1
VIRTUAL TEAMING AND COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY

Introductions
02/08/2014VIRTUAL TEAMING AND COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY
2
Member Position
Dr. Eric A. Turner, Ed.D. Chair
Dr. Leah P. Hollis, Ed.D. Committee Member
Dr. Andrew Potter, Ph.D. Committee Member
Gary C. Broils Doctoral Candidate

Outline
3
 Introduction
 Problem
 Purpose
 Theoretical framework
 Methodology
 Method and design rationale
 Results
 Significance
 Recommendations

Outline
 Introduction
 Traditional leadership and collaboration
methods have proven ineffective for virtual
teams .
 Lower project success rate for virtual projects
compared to traditional face-to-face projects
(Anantatmula & Thomas, 2010; Arnold, 2008;
Goodbody, 2005; Lee, 2010; Verburg, Bosch-
Sijtsema, & Vartiainen, 2013)
 Virtual teams operate across geographic or
organizational boundaries and use
telecommunication and other information
technologies to collaborate during group tasks.
 This current study examines virtual team
context and the influence of technology on
virtual team collaboration and leadership.
4
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
• Method and design
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations
Dissertation Defense

Outline
 Problem
 Leaders do not know what collaboration
technology is most effective, considering
contextual factors for virtual teams
(Hambley, 2005).
 Project leadership and collaboration among
virtual project team members require particular
techniques to achieve project success
(Bjørn & Ngwenyama, 2009; Hsin Hsin,
Shuang-Shii, & Shu Han, 2011; Lee, 2010; Sadri
& Condia, 2012).
 There is a lower success rate for virtual projects
compared to face-to-face projects because of
challenges specific to the virtual context, such as
use of appropriate technology.
 Less than 30% of virtual projects succeed
(Goodbody, 2005)
5
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

Outline
 Purpose
 The purpose of the current quantitative
correlational study was to explore relationships
between the study’s variables:
 Contextual factors for virtual teams (independent)
 Collaboration technology (independent)
 Virtual project outcomes (dependent)
 The quantitative method and correlational
research design was most appropriate for
achieving the objectives of the study because use
of these statistical methods provides a
systematic way to test relationships among the
study’s variables.
6
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

Outline
 Theoretical framework
 This study had a theoretical background in
organizational behavior and leadership theory.
 Organizational theorists study and apply
knowledge of the actions of people to identify
effective practices within organizations (Newstrom
& Davis, 2002)
 Scholars and researchers study leadership theory to
help people evolve their leadership competencies
 The theoretical basis for the study included the
following:
 Aspects of organizational behavior (scientific
management and systems theory)
 An alternate leadership theory termed substitutes
for leadership theory (SLT)
7
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

Research Question 1
8
 What is the relationship between contextual factors of the virtual team
environment and project outcomes?
 A hypothesis tested the effects of the virtual team environment on
project outcomes.
 H01: There is no statistically significant linear relationship between contextual factors
of the virtual team environment and project outcomes for virtual teams.
 HA1: There is a statistically significant linear relationship between contextual factors
of the virtual team environment and project outcomes for virtual teams.

Research Question 2
9
 What is the relationship between use of collaboration technology by
virtual teams and project outcomes?
 The below hypothesis tested the effects of using different collaboration
technologies on project outcomes.
 H02: There is no statistically significant linear relationship between use of
collaboration technology and project outcomes for virtual teams.
 HA2: There is a statistically significant linear relationship between use of
collaboration technology and project outcomes for virtual teams.

Research Question 3
10
 How do contextual factors of the virtual team environment and use of
collaboration technology influence project outcomes?
 A hypothesis tested the effects on project outcomes from elements of
the virtual team environment combined with use of different
collaboration technologies.
 H03: There is no statistically significant linear relationship between contextual
factors of the virtual team environment and use of collaboration technology on project
outcomes for virtual teams.
 HA3: There is a statistically significant linear relationship between contextual factors
of the virtual team environment and use of collaboration technology on project

Outline
 Methodology
 The process of selecting subjects in the study
included recruitment of project managers and
team members with direct experience working
on a virtual team or a recent observation of a
virtual team using e-mail announcements.
 The study employed quantitative methods to
capture information from study participants
who can provide relevant perspectives about
virtual projects and collaboration technology.
 Analysis of open-ended question data used the
manifest coding content analysis technique to
identify emergent themes based upon the
frequency that words appear in the responses.
11
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

Outline
 Method and design rationale
 Correlational research was most appropriate for
this quantitative analysis because the study
examined relationships between variables of
interest (Leedy & Ormrod, 2010).
 Descriptive statistics
 Linear multiple regression analysis
 The review of literature identified…
 Knowledge gaps related to the specific problem of a
low success rate for virtual projects
 The need to further explore how collaboration
technology influences the relationship between
contextual factors for virtual teams and project
outcomes
12
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

Relationship Model
13

Method and design rationale (con’t)
14
 The target population were persons in the United States and worldwide
with direct experience on a virtual team or a recent observation of a
virtual team.
 This study used personal characteristic sampling focused on persons
who share a specific characteristic of direct experience working on a
virtual team or a recent observation of a virtual team.
 Power analysis results for achieving a 95% confidence interval from the
population indicated a minimum of 55 surveys are needed to test all
hypotheses based on formulas derived by G*Power 3 (Faul, 2010).

Method and design rationale (con’t)
15
 The sample in the current study included survey responses of 73
respondents from the target population of project leaders and virtual
team members worldwide.
 Prospective participants invited to take part in the study acknowledged
an informed consent statement advising that participation was
voluntary and their agreement to participate is consent.
 The lack of an existing survey required custom development of
instrumentation solely for the purpose of the study to capture relevant
data from participants addressing the research questions
 Pilot study
 Instrument reliability and validity tests

Outline
 Results
 Results identified a general relationship trend
between some individual contextual factors of
the virtual team environment and project
 Statistical p-values for both facilitation type (p =
0.03) and facilitator experience (p = 0.04) indicate
they statistically significantly predict virtual project
outcomes (p < 0.05)
 The data reflects a general relationship between
use of different collaboration technologies and
project outcomes for virtual teams.
 Of different collaboration technologies, document
management tools (p = 0.04), blogs (p = 0.02), and
social networking (p = 0.02) statistically
significantly predict virtual project outcomes based
on their p-values
16
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

Results (con’t)
17
 Statistical analysis identified a general relationship between contextual
factors of the virtual team environment combined with use of different
collaboration technologies and project outcomes for virtual teams.
 The overall p-value for the model for interactions between configuration and
collaboration technology (p = 0.03) significantly predicted virtual project outcomes
 The relationship was supported by the following interactions:
Interaction Sig. (p-value)
Configuration and use of document management tools 0.03
Configuration and use of blogs 0.01
Configuration and use of social networking 0.03

Results (con’t)
18
 Statistical significance testing for each of the individual independent
variables based on p-values show the following interactions statistically
significantly predict virtual project outcomes:
Interaction Sig. (p-value)
Culture and use of blogs 0.01
Culture and use of social networking 0.02
Language and use of blogs 0.02
Language and use of social networking 0.01
Face-to-face interaction and use of blogs 0.01
Face-to-face interaction and use of social networking 0.01
Dispersal and use of blogs 0.03
Dispersal and use of social networking 0.04

Hypothesis Testing
19
 Significance level was used to test the null hypotheses. The null hypothesis was
rejected if a regression model’s results indicated at least one of the independent
variable’s p-values located in the “Sig.” column on the coefficients table was less
than .05.

Results (con’t)
20
 For each of the posed research questions, content analysis supported
rejecting the null hypothesis.
 Participant comments indicated that strong leadership contributed to
their project’s outcome.
 Participants said use of collaboration technology, or lack of use of
technology, has considerable influence on project outcomes.
 Study participants indicated technical solutions are an integral part of
virtual team collaboration and communication.

Results (con’t)
21
 A limitation of the current study was no consensus exists among
researchers or professionals for measuring project success (PMI,
2008).
 Of the projects examined in the current study (n = 62), the percentage of responses
indicating agreement or strong agreement that the project achieved its desired
outcome was quality of product and project (85.48%), timeliness (74.19%), budget
compliance (69.35%), and level of customer satisfaction (80.64%).
 These proportions of seemingly successful projects did not align with statistics which
indicate a success rate for projects is between 28% and 40% (Morris, 2008).
 Results of the current study, in contrast to prior research of project success rates,
confirm the continual problem of how to objectively and consistently measure project
outcomes.

Outline
 Significance
 Results provide insight into how the setup of
virtual teams and use of tools for collaboration
influences the outcome of virtual projects.
 While some prior studies examined team
leadership and collaboration among team
members in both face-to-face and virtual
projects, little research has focused on the
effects of collaboration technology on virtual
teams and project outcomes.
 This study extends the existing body of
literature through exploration of the different
types of collaboration technology and most
effective team configurations for virtual
projects.
22
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

Significance (con’t)
23
 From this study, leaders of virtual projects may inform their decision-
making toward virtual teaming and use of appropriate collaboration
technology considering the virtual team context.
 Discoveries in the current study can serve as valuable information to
decision makers, planners, and team leaders using collaboration
technology in virtual projects when evaluating team configuration
alternatives and use of collaboration technology to improve the success
rate of virtual projects.

Outline
 Recommendations
Further research should include:
1. Replicating the study with a larger sample
and expanded scope for contextual factors of
the project environment.
2. Replicating the study adding gender to the
demographic data collected.
3. A cross-cultural study involving participants
from countries outside the United States.
4. Challenging the project success paradigm to
evolve from traditional measures of project
outcomes.
24
• Introduction
• Problem
• Purpose
• Theoretical
framework
• Methodology
rationale
• Results
• Significance
• Recommendations

QUESTIONS?
VIRTUAL TEAMING AND COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY 02/08/2014
25
Thanks for your attendance!

References
Anantatmula, V., & Thomas, M. (2010). Managing global projects: A structured approach for better
performance. Project Management Journal, 41(2), 60-72. doi:10.1002/pmj.20168.
Arnold, G. (2008). Examining the relationship between leadership style and project success in virtual
projects (Doctoral dissertation). Available from Dissertations & Theses @ University of Phoenix.
(Publication No. AAT 3345049).
Bjørn, P., & Ngwenyama, O. (2009). Virtual team collaboration: Building shared meaning, resolving
breakdowns and creating translucence. Information Systems Journal, 19(3), 227-253.
doi:10.1111/j.1365-2575.2007.00281.x.
Faul, F. (2010). G*Power Version 3.1.3. Retrieved April 2, 2012, from http://www.psycho.uni-
duesseldorf.de/abteilungen/aap/gpower3
Goodbody, J. (2005). Critical success factors for global virtual teams. Strategic Communication
Management, 9(2), 18-21. (Document ID: 834466711).
Lee, M. (2010). E-leadership for project managers: A study of situational leadership and virtual project
success (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Digital Dissertations and Theses Database.
Hambley, A. (2005). Virtual team leadership: The effects of leadership style and communication
medium on team interaction styles and outcomes (Doctoral dissertation, University of Calgary,
Canada). Available from ProQuest Digital Dissertations and Theses Database.
02/08/2014
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References
Hsin Hsin, C., Shuang-Shii, C., & Shu Han, C. (2011). Determinants of cultural adaptation,
communication quality, and trust in virtual teams' performance. Total Quality Management &
Business Excellence, 22(3), 305-329. doi:10.1080/14783363.2010.532319.
Leedy, P. D. & Ormrod, J. E. (2010). Practical research: Planning and design (9th ed.). UpperSaddle
River, NJ: Pearson.
Morris, R. A. (2008). Stop the insanity of failing projects. Industrial Management, 50(6), 20-25.
Newstrom, J. W., & Davis, K. (2002). Organizational behavior (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Higher
Education.
Project Management Institute. (2008). A guide to the project management body of knowledge:
PMBOK® guide (4th ed.). Newton Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Sadri, G., & Condia, J. (2012). Managing the virtual world. Industrial Management, 54(1), 21-25.
Verburg, R. M., Bosch-Sijtsema, P., & Vartiainen, M. (2013). Getting it done: Critical success factors for
project managers in virtual work settings. International Journal of Project Management, 31(1), 68-79.
02/08/2014
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