Impact of Virtual Work Teams on Job Performance in the IT Industry of Sri Lanka

Virtual Work Teams is a team working together from different physical locations using collaborative Information and Communication Technologies. This concept is particularly associated with the IT Industry due to its nature and have become increasingly prevalent in Sri Lanka particularly with the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, with the novelty of virtual work teams in Sri Lanka and the lack of prior studies from the context of Sri Lankan IT Industry a research gap was identified. As an attempt to address this, the study aims to find the impact of virtual work teams on job performance in Sri Lanka's IT industry, considering five independent variables: communication, leadership, empowerment, cohesion, and trust. Conducted as an explanatory, cross-sectional field study with convenient sampling, data was collected via a Google Form questionnaire from a sample of 380 virtual workers out of a population of 34,500. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS, encompassing correlation and regression analyses to test hypotheses. As per the findings, communication presented the strongest positive correlation with job performance, followed by moderately positive correlations for leadership, empowerment, cohesion, and trust. All variables statistically significantly influenced job performance individually, but cohesion did not have a statistically significant impact collectively in multiple regression analysis. Results highlight the importance of making investments in communication tools within virtual teams and also suggests using probability sampling for future research.