Measuring group efficacy in virtual teams - New questions in an old debate

Group efficacy has received renewed attention in the group literature. Although the relationship between group efficacy and group performance is well established, debate continues on how best to measure the construct. Although most research has explored this issue using collocated groups, this article examines the measurement of group efficacy in virtual teams and explores why some measurement methods may be more appropriate for use in noncollocated groups. Fifty-three senior-level university students involved in virtual team projects were administered questionnaires over the course of their project. As theorized, data analyses revealed that group efficacy beliefs reached by consensus were significantly higher than those measured by surveys administered to individual virtual team members. In addition, support for the greater predictability of an aggregated method over a group consensus method was demonstrated. Follow-up analyses show that group outcome perceptions were significantly related to team performance. Implications and future research are discussed.