Author(s)

Daphna Shwartz-Asher¹, Niv Ahituv²

¹The Technion, Haifa, Israel.
²Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

This article portrays a study where the compliance was measured in virtual vs. face-to-face (FTF) teams¹. To measure the influence of the virtuality level on the team members’ reaction to instructions, an experiment was designed, in which a team task with a set of instructions was given to 150 subjects who participated in virtual or non-virtual (FTF) task solving meetings. The study’s main finding indicates that while the virtual team members showed a high degree of compliance with the directive to distribute the labor among themselves and to appoint a chairperson, the non-virtual team members showed a low degree of compliance. It seems that the use of the “formality” variable may explain the compliance of the virtual team members as opposed to the lower level of compliance among members of the non-virtual teams. The knowledge that communication technology influences the compliance atmosphere is a point that deserves further research.

HRM, Virtual Team, Compliance, Obedience, Experiment

Shwartz-Asher, D. and Ahituv, N. (2019) Comparison between Face-to-Face Teams and Virtual Teams with Respect to Compliance with Directives. Journal of Service Science and Management, 12, 549-571. doi: 10.4236/jssm.2019.12438.