Global Multi-Teaming: A Theoretical Model of its Effects on Team Performance

Global multi-teaming—participating in multiple globally distributed team collaborations concurrently—is ubiquitous in MNCs, but little is known about its effects on team performance. This study integrates the previous literature on global teams and multi-teaming to conceptualize global multi-teaming as a team compositional feature and proposes its effects on team performance. Our model describes how different aspects of global multi-teaming may decrease team performance by complicating the creation of shared understanding in the team. We also suggest that the negative effects of global multi-teaming may be mitigated by members’ prior global multi-teaming experience. This study extends the literatures of global teams and multi-teaming by introducing the notion of global multi-teaming and explaining its effects on team performance.