Can Social Ties Undermine Virtual Team Performance? Evidence from an Online Team-Based Game

Intra-team social ties have crucial impacts on team performance. This paper studies if/how the value of social ties depends on their locations using data from an online team-based game called League of Legends. On the individual level, we consider the externality of teammates’ social ties. On the team level, we consider how the effects of social ties depend on their owners’ relative capabilities. We find that (1) a focal member can perform worse when her teammates have more social ties; (2) the most or least capable members’ social ties can improve team performance while the medium capable member’s social ties can undermine team performance. We show that social ties can affect resource allocation, which serves as the main mechanism behind these effects.