In a League of Their Own

Project management is fraught with challenges, particularly for teams that are distributed and interact online. Conflict between subgroups is one challenge that may occur during the course of a project. Using social identity theory, this research explores how subgroups arising from individuals' shared work histories impact a project team. A massive multiplayer online role-playing game provided the context for our exploration. Results suggest that there are positive and negative consequences to project team members with shared work histories. Our findings have implications for practice and suggest potential opportunities for future research.