How team feedback and team trust influence information processing and learning

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How team feedback and team trust influence information processing and learning in virtual teams: A moderated mediation model
Authors: Vicente Peñarroja ⇑, Virginia Orengo, Ana Zornoza, Jesús Sánchez, Pilar Ripoll

The aim of this study was to test a moderated mediation model in which the indirect effect of team feedback on team learning through group information processing was moderated by team
trust. In the following pages, we discuss the results obtained according to the hypotheses formulated. We found that group information elaboration and team learning were positively related to virtual teams. This result supported
Hypothesis 1. The theoretical approach that considers groups as
information processors (Hinsz et al., 1997) argues that information
processing at the group level involves information, ideas, and cognitive
structures that are shared, and are being shared, among the
team members. In the present study, we focused on group information
elaboration to reflect the degree in which team members have
collectively shared and elaborated available information within the
team. Recent research has shown that groups make decisions of
higher quality when they exchange and integrate distributed information,
and not merely base their decision on a common ground
(van Ginkel & van Knippenberg, 2008). We found that group information
elaboration is also relevant for team learning in virtual
teams. When team members shared and used distributed information
to solve the task, the team experienced an increment of team
learning. Therefore, in line with Edmondson’s (1999) findings,
obtaining and processing task-related information also facilitates
the learning process of detecting errors, reflecting on results, and
adapting to the environment in virtual teams.
Team feedback did not have a significant indirect effect on team
learning via group information elaboration in virtual teams. Thus,
Hypothesis 2 was not supported. However, team feedback had a
significant direct effect on team learning. On the one hand, the
direct effect of team feedback on group information elaboration
and, in turn, its indirect effect on team learning may be conditioned
to the values of other variables. Previous research has
already found that the effect of team feedback in virtual teams
can be conditioned by other variables. For example, Geister et al.
(2006) found that the effect of team feedback on motivation and
satisfaction was conditioned to the level of motivation of virtual
team members such that this effect was significant in less motivated
members. On the other hand, the significant direct effect of
team feedback on team learning suggests that there may be other
mediators involved in this relation besides group information elaboration.
More research on this is needed.
Supporting Hypothesis 3, our results provide empirical evidence
to a moderated mediation model of the effects of team feedback in
virtual teams. Extending previous research on team feedback in
virtual teams (Geister et al., 2006; Shepherd et al., 1996), our
results suggest that information processing and leaning improves
when they receive feedback about their actual performance and
their processes, but when team trust is high. When virtual team
members receive information about their results and processes
combined with a period of reflection, they are more aware of
whether the strategy they are following to complete the task is
adequate or has to be re-adjusted. However, our findings showed
that team feedback enhanced virtual teams’ information processing
and learning when a high climate of trust within the team
existed. The relevance of team trust for this relationship may be
due to the social nature of information processing at the team
level. According to social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), social
exchanges differ from economic exchanges in that there are not
specific obligations prescribed in advance. In these circumstances,
trust becomes essential because exchanges are based on expected
and actual returns (Staples & Webster, 2008). Furthermore, virtual
team collaboration adds a particular character to this situation
because traditional forms of monitoring and control are not available
(Wilson et al., 2006), making trust even more necessary.
Based on this, the moderated mediation model indicates that
team trust facilitates team members to share ideas, opinions, and
reflections of problems encountered during task execution more
openly, and act on the basis of the information provided by team
members (Rusman et al., 2010). In sum, the moderated mediation
model tested in this study reveled that team trust played a significant
role in the study of the effects of team feedback on information
processing and learning in virtual teams.