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"Is It Already 4 a.m. in Your Time Zone?"

Focus Immersion and Temporal Dissociation in Virtual Teams

Tilburg University, the Netherlands, a.rutkowski{at}uvt.nl

Carol Saunders

University of Central Florida, Orlando

Douglas Vogel

City University of Hong Kong

Michiel van Genuchten

Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands

Using a sample of students (N = 118) engaged in an 8-week project to build an e-book chapter, this study finds that cognitive absorption impacts interpersonal conflict and team performance. In particular, virtual teams with aggregated higher levels of focus immersion and temporal dissociation (dimensions of cognitive absorption) demonstrate higher levels of performance and interpersonal conflict. Furthermore, there is an interaction effect between focus immersion and temporal dissociation that moderates the impact on performance and interpersonal conflict. The teams with aggregated high levels of focus immersion and aggregated low levels of temporal dissociation demonstrated the best performance and lowest levels of interpersonal conflict. The authors also found that individuals with high levels of focus immersion preferred asynchronous communication media, whereas individuals with low levels of temporal dissociation preferred synchronous communication media. The implications are discussed.

Key Words: virtual teams • focus immersion • temporal dissociation • ICT • subjective performance

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