Abstract
To assess how gender, conscientiousness, and individualism/collectivism affect performance, 110 upper- and graduate-level business students at two American universities were randomly assigned to virtual teams to work on three deliverables over the course of a semester. Results showed that gender was the strongest predictor of non-participation, termed here "deadbeat" behavior. Of the 48 male participants, 27% did not contribute to the first deliverable, 44% did not contribute to the second, and 52% did not contribute to the third. For the 62 female participants, the percentages were 10%, 11%, and 10%, respectively. Conscientiousness and individualism/collectivism did not predict who would become a deadbeat. Although participants were asked to report non-participating team members, of which there were many, only 3 of the 110 participants were reported as deadbeats by a teammate.