Virtual Teams in Higher Education: A Review of Factors Affecting Creative Performance

Many studies have shown how teams improve their effectiveness and efficiency when a composition and skills balance is properly managed. Creativity has been an ignored variable, especially in virtual contexts. Contextual factors provoke significant differences between traditional team work and the virtual team work. Some authors suggest that virtual environment can achieve higher levels of creativity due to greater openness, flexibility, diversity and access to information compared to traditional conditions. However, building trust and team cohesiveness in virtual structures could be more difficult and creative performance can be affected, decreasing innovative solutions. We focus our study in critical aspects of creative performance that should be taking into consideration in emerging eLearning collaborative processes in higher education.