Research teams are often dispersed across geography and organizational boundaries. While prior work has recognized that dispersed teams face coordination challenges, it is not clear how dispersion affects team process efficiency outcomes, such as the speed with which team efforts come to a resolution. Process efficiency outcomes are important because, if the performance benefits associated with working in dispersed teams have a trade-off cost in terms of efficiency, then the net performance benefits from working in such teams may be seriously diminished or even reversed. Prior work has also tended to focus on successful outcomes, which may lead to deficits in our understanding of coordination challenges in dispersed teams. To better comprehend process efficiency, we examine 5,250 teams that work together in an open standard setting, and where the time to resolution of both successful and failed projects is observable. We find that teams that are organizationally or geographically dispersed are fast at reaching success, but fail more slowly than non-dispersed teams. Our interpretation of these disparate outcomes is that the endogenous processes that make dispersed teams more likely to on average select higher potential projects have a second order effect of making it harder for dispersed teams to abandon failing projects. We argue that slow failure has important implications for research & development efforts given the opportunity cost of tying up resources in research teams.

研究团队通常分散在不同的地理位置和组织范围内。尽管先前的工作已经认识到分散的团队面临协调挑战，但不清楚分散如何影响团队流程效率的结果，例如团队努力达成解决方案的速度。流程效率结果很重要，因为如果与分散团队工作相关的绩效收益在效率方面需要权衡取舍，那么在此类团队中工作的净绩效收益可能会严重减少甚至逆转。先前的工作也倾向于将重点放在成功的成果上，这可能导致我们对分散团队中的协调挑战的理解不足。为了更好地理解流程效率，我们研究了5250个团队，他们在开放的标准环境中一起工作，并且可以观察到解决成功和失败项目的时间。我们发现，在组织或地理位置上分散的团队取得成功的速度很快，但失败的速度要比未分散的团队慢。我们对这些不同结果的解释是，使分散的团队平均更有可能选择较高潜力的项目的内在过程具有第二种效果，这使分散的团队更难以放弃失败的项目。我们认为，考虑到占用研究团队资源的机会成本，缓慢的失败对研发工作具有重要意义。但是失败的速度要比不分散的团队慢。我们对这些不同结果的解释是，使分散的团队平均更有可能选择较高潜力的项目的内在过程具有第二种效果，这使分散的团队更难以放弃失败的项目。我们认为，考虑到占用研究团队资源的机会成本，缓慢的失败对研发工作具有重要意义。但是失败的速度要比不分散的团队慢。我们对这些不同结果的解释是，使分散的团队平均更有可能选择较高潜力的项目的内在过程具有第二种效果，这使分散的团队更难以放弃失败的项目。我们认为，考虑到占用研究团队资源的机会成本，缓慢的失败对研发工作具有重要意义。