Virtual teams are increasingly
common in today's organizations, yet they often make poor decisions.
Teams that interact using text-based collaboration technology typically
exchange more information than when they perform the same task
face-to-face, but past results suggest that team members are more likely
to ignore information they receive from others. Collaboration
technology makes unique demands on individual cognitive resources that
may change how individual team members process information in virtual
settings compared to face-to-face settings. This experiment uses
electroencephalography, electrodermal activity, and facial
electromyography to investigate how team members process information
received from text-based collaboration during a team decision-making
process. Our findings show that information that challenges an
individual's prediscussion decision preference is processed similarly to
irrelevant information, while information that supports an individual's
prediscussion decision preference is processed more thoroughly. Our
results present neurological evidence for the underlying processes of
confirmation bias in information processing during online team
discussions. © 2014 M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

collaboration technology; electroencephalography; information processing bias; NeuroIS; virtual teams