Modeling the factors determining a virtual team’s decision-making

Abstract

Virtual teams (VTs) are becoming increasingly popular in organizations due to their significant benefits, such as improving performance and efficiently achieving objectives. While VTs have many advantages, they also face many challenges that, if not addressed, may prevent them from delivering the desired results. Decision-making is an important issue hindering the effectiveness of VTs. Organizations may fail in implementing successful strategies when there are improper decisions among team members. Research is lacking in understanding decision-making in VTs in the Middle East, especially in such situations as the Covid-19 pandemic. The Middle East has been overlooked despite such studies being conducted in the United States and Europe. In the Middle East, VTs have some behavioral characteristics which make specific scientific solutions necessary. To gain scientific knowledge of Middle East specificities, this study is carried out in the region, taking UAE as a representative case. The objective of this research is to create a model for enhancing VT decision-making by evaluating the factors affecting decision-making in VTs in the Middle East. The methodology used is a literature review, survey methods, expert evaluation, and structural equation modeling. The results showed that (1) decision-making is positively correlated with information sharing, trust, Transformational Leadership, Culture Intelligence, and task conflict, (2) decision-making is negatively correlated with Relationship Conflict (3) Language showed no correlation with VT decision-making. The findings of this study serve as a step toward future research into factors useful for improving VT-associated decision-making.