Trust in Virtual Teams: an empirical investigation of social networks during the Covid-19 pandemic

One of the major controversies generated by the concept of social capital concerns the relationship between social networks and trust. This binomial becomes indissoluble to understand the spark of human relationships. Trust ties represent the fundamental hub to understand the effective functioning of human relations within a social network. Nevertheless, what happens when it is fully translated into a virtual context? This contribution presents an empirical investigation of trust building within Virtual Teams (VTs) during the current Covid-19 pandemic, outlining the concept in its theoretical and analytical dimensions. After a preliminary introduction of the topic and an explorative literature review, a virtual focus group conducted on the students of a Master’s degree of the University of Salerno will be conducted, addressing the trust relationships during the Covid-19 emergency in total absence of FtF communication. Empirical data resulting from the social network analysis will be extracted and compared to the variables that influenced the emersion of links, with reference to density and centrality of the social network. Furthermore, to compare and understand how the bonds of trust and esteem have evolved in the VT, two months later the same questionnaire will be administered to the same sample of students, which results will be discussed.