Big-Five and Global Virtual Team Performance

Research on Big-Five personality traits in explaining team performance is based on variance-based approaches and explores the net effects of personality traits on team performance to determine the best solution. The present study shifts the focus from the analysis of the net effects of team personality to the exploration of necessary and sufficient combinations for team performance and offers an empirical analysis of the configurations of team personality compositions associated with global virtual team (GVT) performance. We perform a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis on a data set of 16,629 individuals nested within 3,598 GVTs who participated in X-Culture, an international business consulting project in which teams consult on international business projects that were evaluated by multiple stakeholders, including academics and business professionals. The results showed that team personalities do not function independently; rather, they cooperate to produce high levels of team performance. The results further revealed that different team personality configurations can be equally effective in achieving the same outcome and that team personality elevation, rather than diversity, is more relevant for achieving the outcome. The discussion focuses on outlining the reasons and implications of these findings, as well as contributions and future directions for designing teams and managing teamwork.