Study goals
To investigate how psychological distancing, advocated in the CLT, acts in organizational structures and, more specifically, in temporary and distributed structures, such as project teams, answering the question: "How does psychological distance affect the behavior of components of distributed teams?"
Relevance / originality
The CLT promoted a new understanding of cognitions and behaviors in the marketing area about decision making in the fields of consumer behavior The originality of the present study is to research the CLT and its implications in temporary and distributed teams.
Methodology / approach
An RSL was used using the method recommended by Pollock and Berge (2018). Eighty-one articles obtained from the Web of Science and Scopus databases were analyzed. Each of the steps was detailed to ensure methodological robustness and to enable its replication.
Main results
The different dimensions of psychological distance interact in unexpected ways, promoting different levels of behavior and mental constructions, especially in the components of temporary and distributed teams (project teams) Knowing how to use the CLT will promote greater probability of project sucess.
Theoretical / methodological contributions
Demonstrated that the CLT made possible to obtain new knowledge about important phenomena in organizations and their influence on organizational processes, that psychological distance and the level of interpretation can contribute to improving the understanding of psychological phenomena, such as: engagement, commitment.
Social / management contributions
By providing a more nuanced explanation of how the dimensions of distance work, the CLT equips project practitioners to optimize the positive effects it causes and to reduce or eliminate the negative effects that the various psychological distances promote.