Who benefits from virtual collaboration? The interplay of team member expertness and Big Five personality traits

This research integrates transactive memory systems (TMS) theory and the Big Five personality traits model to examine the performance dynamics of dyadic teams in virtual collaborative problem-solving (CPS). The study investigates how individual expertness, Big Five personality traits, and the diversity of these attributes within teams influence both team and individual performance gains from virtual collaboration. Analyzing 377 dyadic teams (754 individuals) on an online collaborative task, the results show that dyads with high expertness diversity had greater performance gains. Dyads where both members scored low on agreeableness showed the most significant improvement. Individually, low-expertness members paired with high-expertness teammates showed the greatest performance gain. The integrated framework provides a nuanced understanding of how individual attributes and team dynamics contribute to successful virtual CPS outcomes.

Mengxiao Zhu, Chunke Su, Jiangang Hao, Lei Liu, Patrick Kyllonen, Alina von Davier