Teams, Virtual

Conceptual Overview

The use of virtual teams in organizations results from the confluence of two trends: the trend toward mediated interaction in organizations and the trend toward the use of teams as the building blocks of organizations. The use of computer-mediated interaction in corporate settings has reached a stage where information and communication technologies can be used to coordinate complex tasks, to exchange information, and even to share experiences. At the same time, companies have found the benefits of using teams for many different types of tasks. The benefits of virtual teams come from their members' use of information and communication technology, especially computer-mediated communication, to overcome one of the chief limitations of teamwork—the need for copresence. To understand the development of the concept of virtual teams, it is necessary to understand the development of computermediated communication in organizations, the development of teamwork in organizations, and how virtual teams bring these two concepts together.

Mediated interaction is one of the features of the modern corporation. The size of these organizations prevents its members from carrying out all their interactions face-to-face. Instead, managers and employees need to rely on multiple media for communication. The use of these media and the research on them have gone through three distinct stages. In the first stage, documented in studies such as JoAnne Yates's Control Through Communication, managers and employees [Page 1534]used information and communication technology mostly to convey limited amounts of information. These media were paper-based and were mostly used as a one-way communication channel—order forms, production schedules, and management reports allowed mediated interaction and coordination, but only of the simplest kind.

In the second stage, documented in studies such as Lynne Markus's Electronic Mail as a Medium of Managerial Choice, managers and employees used information and communication technologies such as electronic mail to convey information, to exchange ideas, and to coordinate medium-complexity tasks. These media established one-to-one and one-to-many channels across which communication flowed back and forth. However, these media were still not used for more complex tasks that entailed more demanding coordination challenges.

In the third stage, documented in studies of opensource software teams such as Roy Fielding's Shared Leadership in the Apache Project, all the members of an organization used information and communication technology such as electronic mail and other Webbased communication technologies to enact complex interactions and jointly create and share ideas and information. These media are no longer channels, but spaces of action and interaction capable of housing very complex work tasks.

This trend of increasingly complex mediated interaction in organizations joined the diffusion of teamwork as the building block of organizations. The use of formal teams in organizations can be classified into four stages. In the first stage, teamwork was seen as an inefficient feature of organizations, which had to be eliminated. In his Principles of Management, Frederick Taylor proposed that employees should be individualized into scientifically designed roles. In the name of efficiency, employees should carry out an individualized and specialized function in the assembly line where materials were converted into finished products. Teams diluted accountability and thus weakened managers' ability to enforce prescribed rules, procedures, and goals.

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