Comparative Analysis of Communication, Team Cohesion, Flexibility, and Productivity in Virtual and In-person Project Management: Evidence from Germany

Abstract

The study compares virtual and in-person project management based on major dimensions such as communication, team cohesiveness, flexibility, work-life balance, and efficiency. With the shift to remote work, understanding the dynamics of communication, team cohesion, flexibility, and productivity in these environments has become crucial for organisations. The study employed a cross-sectional comparative research design to administer a questionnaire to 420 participants in Germany. The study used Mann-Whitney U Tests to test the two environments. The Mann-Whitney U Test found a statistically significant difference between the in-person and virtual groups (U=329, p = 0.002), showing that in-person teams communicate more often than virtual groups with a large effect size (r=−0.536). The analysis of team-building activities found that virtual teams engage more frequently than in-person teams, with a much larger effect size (p=0.024, r=-0.830). Moreover, the results regarding privacy show a statistically significant difference between the virtual and in-person project management environments (p = 0.002, r=0.534), implying that in-person project management environments provide a higher level of privacy than virtual environments. The study concludes that structured communication and team-building activities in a virtual environment enhance trust and collaboration among team members. Organisations are recommended to promote greater communication in virtual teams, address methods for forming virtual teams, address privacy issues in virtual workplaces, encourage work flexibility to reduce working pressure and work on schedules and collaboration of traditional in-person teams.