The Impact of Leadership, Trust and Time on Technology Choice by Virtual Teams

This paper describes research relating to collaborative work by an ad hoc virtual team of students at a distance education university in South Africa. Feedback obtained after the task was completed indicates that the adoption of swift trust by at least one team member is required to move the collaboration process forward. The pattern of communication flow of the virtual team is important as it reflects the trust relationships; this was seen to be star shaped with the self-appointed leader, the most trusting team member, in the centre. The swift trust shown by the leader is rapidly followed by knowledge-based trust developed by each team member towards the leader but not towards all other members. It seems possible that low levels of initial trust lead to Perceived Ease of Use being given precedence over Perceived Usefulness when choosing the collaboration technology and this results in sub-optimal task-technology fit. Ad hoc virtual teams should be assisted by implementing strategies for leadership, building trust and for handling time constraints.