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Virtual Teams
Virtual teams are gaining in popularity in today’s global, technologically advanced business environment. They help companies leverage their global expertise and knowledge, promote broader participation in decision making, take advantage of time differences to get more work done (e.g., following the sun), and lower travel costs. However, reaping these benefits presents unique challenges. This entry describes these challenges and addresses factors and the life cycle that must be managed to overcome the challenges and make virtual teams effective. It concludes with research insights. Virtual teams may be defined as two or more people who (a) work together interdependently with mutual accountability for achieving common goals, (b) do not work in either the same place and/or at the same time, and (c) must use electronic communication technology to communicate, coordinate their activities, and complete their team’s tasks. Initially, virtual teams were seen as the opposite of conventional, proximate teams who meet face-to-face. However, this binary view of a team as either virtual or not is rather simplistic, and researchers are now struggling to assess the degree of virtuality of teams, which typically includes some combination of points b and c above.
Fundamentals
Virtual teams, which are alternatively called distributed and geographically dispersed teams, frequently face three major challenges to a greater extent than proximate teams: communication, technology, and team diversity challenges. Communication challenges stem from the use of lean media that make it difficult for members to convey nuances and ambiguity in their messages. Virtual members need to learn to work with new technologies, and organizations must ensure adequate technological support for virtual teams. Finally, many virtual teams are composed of members who come from different national, societal, and organizational cultures. A challenge for members and leaders in diverse virtual teams is to deal effectively with different languages and cultures.
The virtual team literature draws from a wide range of disciplines including organizational behavior, human resources, communication, psychology, and information systems. Early virtual team studies relied heavily on findings from prior research on teams, small groups, group support systems, and computer-mediated communications. Defining a team as a single, identifiable phenomenon (i.e., virtual or not) meant that much early research used lab experiments with student subjects to compare proximate teams with virtual teams. While early studies surfaced challenges faced by virtual teams, they provided only limited insights about how to deal with these challenges. Further, several thorough reviews of the literature noted the contradictory findings of these early studies. The remainder of the early research tended to be anecdotal and descriptive of team characteristics, costs, benefits, and challenges.
Inputs-Processes-Outputs (IPO) Models
Broadly defined, inputs-processes-outputs (IPO) models often focus on combinations of factors of virtual team inputs, processes, and outputs. Inputs include team composition, culture, task, and training; processes include a heavy focus on communicating, collaborating, building trust, resolving conflicts, building relationships, leading, and more recently on knowledge sharing; outputs include performance, team member satisfaction, and team well-being. Virtual team research to date has combined two or three of these factors at a time. Typical studies might look at how various types of conflict reduce team member satisfaction or how various collaboration strategies enhance knowledge sharing and decision quality. In total, research based on IPO models suggests that all of the inputs and processes mentioned above are important factors in improving virtual team outputs.
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