Journal of Personnel Psychology

Journal of Personnel Psychology Emotion Display Norms in Virtual Teams --Manuscript Draft-Manuscript Number:

JPPSY-D-12-00039R2

Full Title:

Emotion Display Norms in Virtual Teams

Short Title:

Emotion Display Norms in Virtual Teams

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Original Article

Keywords:

Display norms; emotions; virtual teams; global identity

Corresponding Author:

Ella Glikson, M.A. Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, ISRAEL

Corresponding Author Secondary Information: Corresponding Author's Institution:

Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Corresponding Author's Secondary Institution: First Author:

Ella Glikson, M.A.

First Author Secondary Information: Order of Authors:

Ella Glikson, M.A. Miriam Erez, PhD

Order of Authors Secondary Information: Abstract:

Norms for displaying emotions influence how individuals express their feelings and interpret the emotional expressions of others. Prior research found cross-cultural variation of emotion display norms, but primarily examined face-to-face communication and culturally-homogeneous contexts. This study examined perceived emotion display norms for virtual teams, using a sample of 167 MBA students from five countries, who rated the appropriateness of virtually displaying positive and negative emotions for culturally-homogeneous and multicultural teams. Results indicate that display norms call for greater expression of positive emotions and suppression of negative emotions in multicultural versus culturally-homogeneous teams; national identity influence norms for culturally-homogeneous but not multicultural teams, and the strength of norms in multicultural teams is higher among participants with high versus low global identity.

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Emotion Display Norms in Virtual Teams 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Ella Glikson and Miriam Erez Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology Ella Glikson PhD Candidate William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Technion City, Haifa 32000, Israel Office: Cooper 421 Tel (office): +972-4-8292854 Cell: +972-54-6466688 E-mail:[email protected]

Miriam Erez Emeritus Mendes France Professor of Management and Economics William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Technion City, Haifa, 32000, Israel Office: Bloomfield 411a Tel: +972-4-8294461 Email: [email protected]

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Abstract 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Norms for displaying emotions influence how individuals express their feelings and interpret the emotional expressions of others. Prior research found crosscultural variation of emotion display norms, but primarily examined face-to-face communication and culturally-homogeneous contexts. This study examined perceived emotion display norms for virtual teams, using a sample of 167 MBA students from five countries, who rated the appropriateness of virtually displaying positive and negative emotions for culturally-homogeneous and multicultural teams. Results indicate that display norms call for greater expression of positive emotions and suppression of negative emotions in multicultural versus culturally-homogeneous teams; national identity influence norms for culturally-homogeneous but not multicultural teams, and the strength of norms in multicultural teams is higher among participants with high versus low global identity. Keywords: norms, emotions, virtual teams

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Emotions play an important motivational role in organizations in general and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

in teams in particular (Barsade, Brief & Spataro, 2003; Barsade & Gibson, 2012; Elfenbein & Shirako, 2006; Scherer & Tran, 2001). Displayed emotions may have a positive or a negative impact, depending on their valence, the expresser's intentions and the receiver's interpretation (Elfenbein & Shirako, 2006; Van Kleef, 2009). How individuals express and interpret emotions depends to a great extent on emotion display norms (Barsade & Gibson, 2012; Matsumoto, Yoo & Fontaine, 2008), which prescribe rules for the appropriate display of emotions in different social settings. In this study we examine emotion display norms in virtual teams. Cross-cultural research mostly examines emotion display norms in non-work contexts and shows significant differences within these norms across cultures (Eid & Diener, 2001; Matsumoto et al., 2008; Safdar et al., 2009). Organizational research has primarily focused on culturally-homogeneous environment and tested expressions of emotions in service oriented jobs, such as health care and customer service (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Grandey, 2000; Grandey et al., 2010; Diefendorff, Erickson, Grandey & Dahling, 2011). The latter has demonstrated that norms, which strongly restrict the display of felt emotions towards patients and customers, have a negative impact on employees' well-being, producing emotional exhaustion and lowering job satisfaction (Grandey, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Wilk & Moynihan, 2005). Only a few studies have tested cross-cultural differences in emotion display norms and their effects on interpersonal relationships in the work context (Grandey, Fisk & Steiner, 2005; Grandey, Rafaeli, Ravid, Wirtz & Steiner, 2010; Moran, Diefendorff & Greguras, 2012), and there is hardly any research on norms for displaying emotions in culturally-diverse environments.

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Although empirical findings suggest that work-team processes and outcomes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

are highly influenced by team emotional context (for review see Barsade & Gibson, 2012), more research has been done on emotion display norms when communicating with patients and customers than when communicating with coworkers and team members (cf. Diefendorff et al., 2011). Therefore, this research aims to study perceived emotion display norms for virtual teams, and more specifically – for culturally-homogeneous and culturally-diverse virtual teams. Virtual teams are defined as teams in which members coordinate and execute their work predominantly using computer-mediated communication, such as instant messaging, emails, and video calling tools (Kirkman & Mathieu, 2005; Martins, Gilson & Maynard, 2004). Members of virtual teams can be co-located (Kirkman & Mathieu, 2005; Pena, Walther & Hancock, 2007), or geographically dispersed and culturally-diverse (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002). Emerging research on computermediated communication of emotions suggests that virtual teams, similar to face-toface teams, work better when their members share emotion display norms (Barsade & Gibson, 2012), because such norms clarify how emotions should be expressed and interpreted, and they reduce the risk of conflict and errors arising from the misinterpretation of emotion displays (Byron, 2008). Shared emotion display norms could be especially important in culturallydiverse virtual teams, defined as multicultural teams, whose members vary in their cultural and national backgrounds (Connaughton & Shuffler, 2007; Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt & Jonsen, 2009). In comparison to virtual teams, whose members share the same homogenous cultural background, multicultural virtual teams face the challenges of both, coordination among geographically dispersed team members, and of building a shared meaning system that overcomes differences in cultural values and

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norms (Cramton, 2001; Gibson & Gibbs, 2006; Polzer, Crisp, Jarvenpaa & Kim, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

2006). Although these two types of teams are virtual, they differ with respect to their level of cultural diversity, with the former being culturally-homogenous and the later culturally-diverse. This study aims to learn whether these two types of virtual teams differ in how individuals interpret the proper emotional display norms for each one of them. We suggest that individuals from different cultures will have similar interpretations of the proper emotion display norms for multicultural teams. In contrast, we argue that individuals from different cultures will differ in how they perceive the proper set of emotion display norms for their culturally-homogenous teams. Namely, individuals from Germany, for example, will perceive the proper emotion display norms for work-teams consisting of only German people, to be different than how individuals from China perceive the proper emotion display norms for work teams consisting of only Chinese. Next, we further develop this approach by elaborating on emotion display norms in virtual teams, emotion display norms in culturally-diverse virtual teams, and more specifically, on how the social-identity of individuals influence their perceived display norms for virtual culturally-homogenous and culturally-diverse teams.

Display of Emotions in Text-Based Communication Previous empirical research on emotion display norms primarily examined the expression of emotions in face-to-face communication, where the display of emotion is via words, tone of voice, facial expressions and gestures (Diedendorff et al., 2011; Eid & Diener, 2001; Grandey et al., 2010; Safdar et al., 2009). Non-verbal cues offer

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an additional layer of information beyond the verbal expressions that can influence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

how others interpret the meaning of interpersonal communications (Mehrabian, 2007). While some forms of computer-mediated communication, such as video calling, allow similar cues to emotion displays as real face-to-face interactions, much computer-mediated communication is text-based. Non-verbal emotional cues are largely absent in text-based communication, making it more difficult to accurately express and interpret emotions (Byron & Baldridge, 2007). Text-based communication is not completely free of non-verbal expressions, and several types of paralinguistic cues are used extensively in such interactions, including such attributes of written communication as capitalization, spelling, and punctuation (Lea

Spears, 1992). Feelings are also widely expressed through the use

of emoticons – graphical icons that express emotions through representations of a human face. However, emoticons are subject to different interpretations, and are highly context-sensitive (Derks, Bos, & Grumbkow, 2007). Thus, although paralinguistic cues enable the expression of emotions, they do not necessarily eliminate the inaccuracy of interpretation problem (Byron & Baldridge, 2007; Derks et al., 2007). Display of Emotions in Virtual Teams The level of virtuality in teams is determined by the degree to which communication among team members is computer-mediated as opposed to face-toface, and it ranges from a very low use of technology for interpersonal interactions to almost a complete dependence on it (Kirkman & Mathieu, 2005). Research suggests that emotions play an important role in face-to-face work-teams by influencing relational ties, and contributing or inhibiting team development and effectiveness

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(Barsade & Gibson, 2012). The dependence on communication technology limits the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

expression of emotion (Dennis, Fuller & Valasich, 2008), but does not eliminate it. Rather, even processes through which emotions are spread among interacting team members can occur in a text-based communication. For example, Cheshin, Rafaeli and Bos (2011) showed that textually expressed emotions affect the feelings of other virtual team members. Virtual teams that work together for a substantial period of time develop display norms through extensive interactions (Köhler, 2010; Postmes, Spears & Lea, 2000). Yet today‟s dynamic and competitive organizational environment often demands the formation of ad-hoc, short-term virtual teams (Vashdi, Erez & Bamberger, in press). Therefore, the norms initially held by team members regarding the appropriateness of emotional expressions could have a great impact on team interactions and processes. When shared by members of a virtual team, emotion display norms may attenuate the misinterpretation of emotions in virtual communication (Byron, 2008). Cultural Diversity in Virtual Teams

The growing literature on diversity in teams has shown that cultural diversity could be valuable for team creativity, innovation and problem-solving by introducing a broader range of ideas, perspectives and networks (Stahl et al., 2009). However, cultural diversity also implies that team members vary in their values, norms, perceptions and even cognitive processes (Connaughton & Shuffler, 2007). Therefore, cultural diversity influences team processes and the way team members interact with each other (Connaughton & Shuffler, 2007; Cramton, 2001; Gibson & Gibbs, 2006; Stahl et al., 2009; van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007).

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The similarity-attraction paradigm (Brewer & Kramer, 1985; Byrne, 1971), 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

asserts that shared national identity in culturally-homogeneous teams serves for establishing positive relationships among team members, a sense of trust and of inclusiveness. In contrast, in multicultural teams the diversity may attract the attention toward differences rather than similarities among team members, resulting in mistrust, poor communication, and conflicts (Hinds & Bailey, 2003; Jehn, Northcraft & Neale, 1999; Stahl et al., 2009; von Glinow, Shapiro & Brett, 2004). The threat of losing their national identity in the presence of members from other cultures sometimes motivates members of multicultural teams to enhance their self-esteem and self-representation through culturally dominant behaviors, which further differentiate them from others, rather than bringing them together (van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Hence, multicultural teams face the challenge of building trust (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999) and a sense of inclusion (Shore et al., 2011), which impacts patterns of information sharing within these teams (Mesmer-Magnus, DeChurch, JimenezRodriguez, Wildman & Shuffler, 2011; Stahl et al., 2009; van Knippenberg, De Dreu & Homan, 2004) and team effectiveness (Cramton, 2001; Gibson & Gibbs, 2006; Hinds & Mortensen, 2005).

Perceived Emotion Display Norms for Culturally-Homogenous and for Multicultural Virtual Teams

Cultural values and norms are shared at different levels of analysis, nested within each other, as shown in Figure 1 (Erez & Gati, 2004; Leung, Bhagat, Buchan, Erez & Gibson, 2005). The multi-level model of culture proposes that the most micro level is the level of individual values and norms. The next level is the group-level, in which individual norms and values are nested; group norms and values are those

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shared by a specific group, and they again are nested within an organizational-level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

values and norms. The organizational level of shared norms and values is nested in the macro level of the national culture. Erez & Gati (2004) proposed that the most macro level of shared values and norms is the global work culture, beyond the national culture. ------Insert Figure 1 about here---In this study, we examine norms held by individuals with regard to expressing emotions in culturally-homogenous and culturally-diverse virtual teams. Following the multi-level model of culture we suggest that the emotion display norms for culturally-homogenous virtual teams and culturally-diverse virtual teams will differ. Emotion display norms for culturally-homogenous virtual teams In culturally-homogenous virtual teams emotion display norms reflect the national culture shared by all team members. However cultures differ in their values (Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 2004), and therefore, we expect to find differences in the emotion display norms for culturally homogenous virtual teams located in different countries. Indeed, previous research showed that emotion display norms of US-Americans emphasize the expression of positive emotions and the suppression of negative emotions, with the goal of making a good impression (Eid & Diener, 2001; Grandey et al., 2005; Safdar et al., 2009). Compared to US-Americans, Israelis are more tolerant of negative emotions (Grandey et al., 2010), while Chinese norms call for suppressing the display of both positive and negative emotions (Eid & Diener, 2001).

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As described earlier, cross-cultural research in this area has focused primarily 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

on the display of emotion in non-work settings. In the work setting, emotion display norms have chiefly been examined in culturally-homogeneous contexts, and primarily regarding expectations on employees as part of their in-role job performance (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Grandey, 2000; Diefendorff et al., 2011). Grandey et al., (2010) found significant differences in expectations vis-à-vis displays of emotion among service representatives in four countries: France, Israel, Singapore and the United States. For instance, participants in the U.S. faced the highest expectations to express happiness and suppress anger, while expressions of anger were more accepted in Israel and France. However, while overall expressions of anger were somewhat acceptable toward coworkers and even supervisors, in all four cultures it was expected that anger toward customers was almost completely suppressed. Building on these findings, Grandey and her colleagues suggested that norms for displaying emotions toward customers are not related to the national level of culture, but are shaped by the globalization process and can be seen as globally accepted norms. Consistent with the social identity and social categorization theories (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) we suggest that the national identity of individuals will influence their perceived emotion display norms for their respective culturally-homogenous team. Therefore, we hypothesize: Hypothesis 1a: Individuals holding different national identities will differ in their perceptions of proper positive and negative emotion display norms for their respective culturally-homogenous teams.

Emotion display norms for multicultural virtual teams

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Unlike culturally-homogenous virtual teams, multicultural virtual teams are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

nested in the most macro-level of the global work culture, which crosses national boundaries (Connaughton & Shuffler, 2007; Kasper-Feuhrer & Ashkanasy, 2001). Multicultural team members represent a mosaic of cultural perspectives and norms. However, forming a team requires sharing norms that will enable them to create a sense of inclusion and acceptance (Earley & Mozakowski, 2000), that will further enhance their mutual understanding (Huber & Lewis, 2010) and will enable them to overcome conflicts and mistrust (Hinds & Mortensen, 2005; Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999). We propose that individuals' respective national identity should not influence their perceived display norms for multicultural virtual teams. Rather, we expect that individuals from different cultures will share similar emotion display norms for multicultural virtual teams, to enable team members to unite around shared display norms, regardless of the emotion display norms in their own respective cultures. We hypothesize: Hypothesis 1b: Individuals holding different cultural identities will not differ in their perceptions of proper positive and negative emotion display norms for multicultural virtual teams. Display norms of positive and negative emotions for culturally-homogenous and multicultural virtual teams The dynamic character of the global work context, in which multicultural teams are embedded (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999; Shokef & Erez, 2006) requires constant adjustments for sustaining functionality. Values and norms guide individuals and groups to adjust to their environment. By delineating whether an act will be

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considered good or bad, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable, shared values and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

norms strengthen adaptive behavior and reduce the occurrence of maladaptive behavior that may jeopardize the realization of individual and group goals (Hechter & Opp, 2001; Opp, 2001).

According to Opp (2001), the emergence of norms depends on the perception of their instrumentality for achieving a shared goal. Thus, emotion display norms for multicultural teams should promote the shared goals of cooperation, trust and inclusiveness among team members (Gibson & Gibbs, 2006; Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999; Shore et al., 2011). One way to achieve these goals is through the display of positive emotions, such as enthusiasm and optimism (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999). By expressing positive emotions, team members can communicate intentions such as cooperation (Mehu, Grammer, & Dunbar, 2007; Stouten & De Cremer, 2010) even in text-based interactions (Cheshin et al., 2011).

The expression of positive emotion and the suppression of negative emotions seem to be instrumental to the effectiveness of both types of virtual teams, culturallyhomogenous and culturally-diverse teams. The evidence for such effects could be found in the literature on face-to-face teams as well. For instance, West, Patera and Carsten (2009) examined the impact of team-level positivity on team processes and found a relationship between team-level optimism and team-level cohesion, cooperation and satisfaction. Equally, the expression of negative emotions in teams shifted attention toward intra-group relations, distracting team members from focusing on task-relevant issues (Cole, Walter & Bruch, 2008; Grawitch, Munz & Kramer, 2003).

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However, we argue that the expression of positive emotions and the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

suppression of negative emotions should be even more crucial in multicultural virtual teams than in culturally-homogenous virtual teams. Culturally-homogenous teams enjoy the advantage of cultural similarity, which does not exist in the culturallydiverse teams. According to the similarity-attraction theory, people are likely to develop positive relations to the extent that they perceive that they are similar to each other in preferences, attitudes, values and norms (Byrne, 1971). Shared group identity, such as national identity, has been found to induce positive evaluations and liking for other individuals (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Furthermore, culturally-homogenous teams share the same cultural values and norms that enable them to have a better understanding of each other (Stahl et al., 2009), as compared to culturally-diverse teams that do not share the same cultural values and norms.

For these reasons, the effect of emotion display norms that strengthen expressions of positive emotions and suppress expressions of negative emotions should be even stronger in multicultural virtual teams than in culturally-homogenous teams. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 2a: The display norms of positive emotions will be significantly higher for multicultural virtual teams than for the respective culturally-homogenous virtual teams.

Hypothesis 2b: The display norms of suppression of negative emotions will be significantly higher for multicultural virtual teams than for the respective culturallyhomogenous virtual teams.

Display Norms and Social identity - National and Global

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Social identity theory asserts that individuals derive some of their self1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

concept from their sense of belonging to certain groups that are meaningful to them (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and that national identity is an important source of the selfconcept (Ashmore, Deaux & McLaughlin-Volpe, 2004). Although the strength of national identity may vary among individuals (Jetten, Postmes & McAuliffe, 2002), empirical research shows that when national identity becomes salient, it activates a shared set of beliefs, values, norms, attitudes, behaviors, and cognitive processes associated with belonging to a particular national group (Hogg & Reid, 2006; Zhou, Morris & Benet-Martinez, 2008). Just as national identity is developed by experiencing a sense of belonging to a national culture, Arnett (2002) suggested that individuals who have profound experience in the global context develop a sense of belongingness to others in this global context, which has the characteristics of a global culture, marked by particular practices and styles. . This sense of belongingness, defined as a global identity, emerges in addition to the national identity. Adjusting the concept of global identity to the organizational context, Shokef and Erez (2006) defined it as an individual‟s sense of belonging to and identification with groups operating in the global work environment. Put differently, the global work environment provides common ground for individuals who work in teams and organizations which are culturally-diverse and geographically dispersed (Erez & Shokef, 2006; 2008). In such a context, acceptance of diversity is a key cultural value that facilitates trust and cooperation, and enhances a sense of belonging (Erez & Gati, 2004; Erez & Shokef, 2006; 2008). Empirical research suggests that a sense of identity with members of other cultures is a key factor that enables a smooth adaptation to the global, multicultural environment (Gelfand, Lyons & Lun, 2011) and that enhances the effectiveness of

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multicultural teams (Lisak & Erez, 2009). We suggest a reciprocal relationship 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

between the strength of an individual‟s sense of global identity and the degree to which that individual shares values and norms with others of different nationalities, such that a stronger global identity will lead to more shared norms and values, and more shared norms and values will facilitate the emergence of a stronger global identity. We propose that the norms and values that comprise the global culture include norms regarding the display of positive and negative emotions in virtual communication. Thus, we hypothesize: Hypothesis 3: Agreement on the perceived emotion display norms for multicultural virtual teams will be higher for individuals with a high rather than low sense of global identity Method Participants We conducted a survey among 167 MBA students from five business schools in five countries: China (42 participants), Germany (31), Italy (34), Israel (40) and the United States (20). All the students were participating in a cross-cultural management course at their business schools, which involved a multicultural management project. The five countries have been shown to differ on key cultural values, including power distance (China high – Israel low), individualism (North America high – China low), masculinity (Italy high – Israel low), uncertainty avoidance (Israel high – North America low), and long-term orientation (China high – Germany low) (House et al., 2004). One third of the participants (34%) were females; this proportion did not differ significantly across the nationalities. The average age of all participants was 28. The

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Israeli and Chinese participants were significantly older (average age 31.5) than the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Italians, Germans and Americans (average age 25). Procedure We asked the participants to respond to an online questionnaire on emotion display norms. Participants were asked to indicate what they considered appropriate display norms for five positive and five negative emotions when using instant messaging to communicate with team members in two types of teams: culturallyhomogenous and multicultural virtual teams. All participants were asked first about virtual culturally-homogenous and then about virtual multicultural teams. We focused on instant messaging because it is regarded as more similar to face-to-face communication than any other text-based medium, based on its high synchronicity, transmission velocity (the speed at which the medium can deliver a message), and parallelism (the number of simultaneous transmissions that can effectively take place) (Dennis, Fuller & Valasich, 2008). The online questionnaire also included demographic measures, such as gender and age, and measures of national and global identity. Measures National identity was assessed by one self-report item. This was a categorical variable which consisted of five national identities: American, Chinese, German, Israeli and Italian. Global identity was measured using the Global Identity Scale, developed and validated by Erez and Shokef (Erez &Gati, 2004; Shokef & Erez, 2006). This measure consists of five items that measure the degree to which the individual perceives

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himself/herself as belonging to the global context (e.g., “I relate to people from other 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

parts of the world as if they were close acquaintances/associates”). Items were answered on a 7-point Likert scale (1=not at all; 7=very much). The reliability coefficient (alpha) for this measure was .84. Emotion display norms were measured using the questionnaire developed by Eid and Diener (2001), slightly modified to suit the context of the current study. The opening line indicated the type of team referred to. For homogeneous teams the opening line read "While working in a local team (with people from your home country)…", and for multicultural teams: "While working in a multicultural team (with people from other countries")…. The line continued: "…when chatting online with your teammates, to what extent is it appropriate to express the following emotions when you experience them". Responses were given on a 7-point Likert scale (1=not at all; 7=to a great extent). Cronbach's alpha was 0.89 for the positive and 0.93 for the negative emotions. We asked the participants to rate the appropriateness of displaying five positive and five negative emotions selected from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) of Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988): happiness, excitement, contentment, hope and pride (positive affect) and anger, shame, disappointment, worry and guilt (negative affect). We chose these particular emotions for several reasons. First, according to Scherer and Tran (2001), these emotions reflect different functional classes with regard to their impact on team processes such as learning (approach – hope; achievement – pride, contentment; deterrence – worry; withdrawal – shame, guilt; antagonism – anger). Second, they represent emotions with high and low levels of arousal (Russel, 1980) (high – excitement, anger; low – contentment, disappointment). Third, past research indicates that display norms for

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these emotions differ between cultures (Eid & Deiner, 2001; Matsumoto et al., 2008). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Finally, these emotions can be expressed and identified using computer-mediated communication (Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010). Agreement on perceived emotion display norms for multicultural teams was measured by calculating the variance (squared standard deviation) between participants' ratings. Higher variance indicated lower agreement, i.e., lower strength of the norm.

Results Following the PANAS model (Watson et al., 1988) we tested for norms regarding the display of positive and negative emotions separately. Both factors showed high internal consistency. Table 1 summarizes the means, standard deviations and alpha coefficients of the study variables. ----Insert Table 1 about here--National Identity and Emotion Display Norms Hypotheses 1a and 1b suggested that individuals holding different national identities will differ in their perceptions of emotion display norms for their respective culturally-homogeneous virtual teams, but not for multicultural virtual teams. To test these hypotheses we conducted two analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs), with participants' national identity as a categorical independent variable, age and gender as covariates, and the average score on both positive and negative display norms for homogeneous and multicultural virtual teams as the dependent variables.

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The results showed a significant effect of national identity on the perceived 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

display norms for homogeneous teams, supporting Hypothesis 1a (F(4,160)=3.70, p