Peer Evaluation and Team Performance in Global Virtual Teams

Drawing on the scanty literature on the impact of peer evaluation systems on group-level dynamics and performance outcomes, we explore the impact of a peer evaluation system on students assigned to complete a group project in global virtual teams (GVTs). We employ a quasi-experiment in which the project is implemented under two conditions over two sequential iterations. In the first condition, students do not receive any peer review feedback during the duration of the project while in the second condition, students completed detailed peer reviews of their team members and received feedback weekly. This study assesses the effect of frequent peer reviews on team-level motivation, participation, activity, productivity, effort, and overall team performance using multi-source data. Results suggest that when frequent peer reviews are used in GVTs, teams show: 1) a higher level of group effort; 2) lower level of average productivity and motivation; 3) no clear evidence of improved team performance. Therefore, results cast doubts on the validity of frequent peer evaluation as an educational tool as it fails to reach its main objective of superior team performance and generates some negative internal dynamics.