Effects of size on physically distributed groups

This paper compares differences in remote collaboration teams based on their size. It found that many of the differences between co-located small or large teams are also true for physically dispersed small or large teams.

"Compared to members of larger teams, we
found that members of smaller teams participated more
actively on the team, were more aware of the goals of the
team, were better acquainted with other team members’
personalities, work roles and willingness to communicate
and reported higher levels of rapport. We also found that
members of larger teams reported that their teams were
more conscientious in coordinating activities such as
preparing meeting agendas compared to responses from
smaller teams."

In general smaller teams seem to have a lot of advantages. All the data collected was self-reported via anonymous surveys. It would be interesting to see ethnographic observations to confirm this. I particularly like the section at the end of this paper that discusses weaknesses of the study - not all papers do this for some reason.

Effects of Team Size on Participation, Awareness, and Technology Choice in
Geographically Distributed Teams, 2002
Erin Bradner, Gloria Mark, Tammie D. Hertel
[full-text pdf]