Modelling the characteristics of virtual teams' structure (original) (raw)
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Virtual teams in organizations
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Organizations continue to widely adopt virtual teams as a primary way to structure work and the recent growth in utilization has outstripped theory and research on virtual teams. The explosive growth in virtual team use by organizations and the inherent challenges of virtual teams highlight the need for theory and research to inform organizations in designing, struc-turing and managing virtual teams. Therefore, the purpose of this special issue is to (a) advance theory and research on virtual teams, (b) offer new directions for research on the topic, and (c) contribute to efforts to enhance the effectiveness of virtual teams in organizations. Toward this end, in this introduction we provide a brief overview of virtual teams and present an input-process-output framework to contextualize and organize the eight papers appearing in this special issue. Virtual teams are work arrangements where team members are geographically dispersed, have limited face-to-face contact, and work interdependently through the use of electronic communication media to achieve common goals. Virtual teams connect knowledge workers together over time and distance to combine effort and achieve common goals (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002). Over the past several decades, there has been an explosive growth in organizations' use of virtual teams to organize work and this trend is expected to only continue in the future. For example, a recent survey of 1372 business respondents from 80 countries found that 85% of the respondents worked on virtual teams and 48% reported that over half their virtual team members were members of other cultures (RW 3 CultureWizard, 2016). The growth is attributable to factors including globalization, distributed expertise, organizations' need for rapid product development and innovation, and improved networking and collaboration technologies that support e-collaboration (Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2005; Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008). The use of virtual team structures holds great promise as virtual teams can do things collectively that collocated teams cannot. Some advantages of virtual teams include: the ability to assemble teams that maximize functional expertise by including professionals who are geographically dispersed, enabling continuous 24/7 productivity by using different time zones to their advantage, lowering costs by reducing travel, relocation and overhead, and sharing knowledge across geographic boundaries and organizational units and sites. In spite of the advantages of virtual teams, research has demonstrated that virtual teams present a number of challenges compared to co-located teams. Some disadvantages include communication and collaboration difficulties, low levels of media richness compared to co-located teams, potentially lower team engagement by team members, difficulties in creating trust and shared responsibility among team members, isolation, high levels of social distance between members, and challenges in monitoring and managing virtual teams.
Comparative Study of Traditional and Virtual Teams
2017
The paper presents two kinds of cooperating teams: traditional and virtual, and proposes a new measure of the team virtuality level. Some representative teamwork characteristics, such as team member competencies, team diversity, leadership, and team decision-making are analyzed and compared depending on the degree of virtuality. Moreover, the team climate as one of the team performance measures is also analyzed and compared in virtual and traditional teamwork conditions. The considerations show that the virtuality level is crucial for virtual and face-to-face team comparison, virtual and hybrid team analysis and answering the question how to improve online collaboration processes and performance.
2005
Based on Cohen's [4] model of traditional teams, the effectiveness of members of six virtual teams were investigated. Case studies in three different industries were conducted. Thirty-nine team members, along with the teams' manager/sponsor, were interviewed. Previously published analysis of this data [18]investigated patterns between various team input factors and the resultant virtual team member attitudes (i.e., satisfaction and motivation). In this study, the relationship between input factors and a team member's perception of team performance was examined. Positive patterns were found between team performance and interpersonal skills, team size, team turnover, team potency, team spirit, and innovations. In order to fully understand virtual team effectiveness, the results of both this performance study and the previous attitudes study are discussed. Taken as a whole, this research program has important implications for organizations with virtual teams and the researchers who study this new work.
Nature of virtual teams: a summary of their advantages and disadvantages
Management Research News, 2008
PurposeThis paper aims to extend knowledge about virtual teams and their advantages and disadvantages in a global business environment.Design/methodology/approachBased on a literature review and reported findings from interviews with experts and practitioners in the field, the paper has identified and discussed the advantages and problems associated with creating and managing virtual teams.FindingsIn today's competitive global economy, organizations capable of rapidly creating virtual teams of talented people can respond quickly to changing business environments. Capabilities of this type offer organizations a form of competitive advantage.Originality/valueBy identifying the advantages and problems associated with virtual teams, organizations will be better able to successfully establish and manage such teams.
A conceptual model to improve performance in virtual teams
SA Journal of Information Management, 2016
Background: The vast improvement in communication technologies and sophisticated project management tools, methods and techniques has allowed geographically and culturally diverse groups to operate and function in a virtual environment. To succeed in this virtual environment where time and space are becoming increasingly irrelevant, organisations must define new ways of implementing initiatives. This virtual environment phenomenon has brought about the formation of virtual project teams that allow organisations to harness the skills and knowhow of the best resources, irrespective of their location.Objectives: The aim of this article was to investigate performance criteria and develop a conceptual model which can be applied to enhance the success of virtual project teams. There are no clear guidelines of the performance criteria in managing virtual project teams.Method: A qualitative research methodology was used in this article. The purpose of content analysis was to explore the lit...
Virtual team effectiveness: A proposed research agenda
Information Systems Journal, 1999
Contemporary competitive demands have forced many organizations to increase levels of flexibility and adaptability in their operations. A growing number of such organizations have explored the virtual environment as one means of achieving increased responsiveness. In particular, the use of virtual teams appears to be on the increase. However, the increased use of virtual teams has not been accompanied by concomitant research efforts to understand better the socialpsychological contributors to effective virtual teams. In this paper, we use a model of group effectiveness to propose a possible research agenda examining sources of virtual team effectiveness. Although much of this model offers insights relevant to the virtual environment, differences between groups and teams and between colocated and virtual environments suggest that modifications and additions to this model may be necessary. We offer a set of research propositions to advance future research on effective virtual teams beyond anecdote and description. Implications of this research agenda for managers of virtual teams and human resource professionals are also discussed.
From Ordinary to Virtual Teams: a Model for Measuring the Virtuality of a Teamwork
Virtual teams and teamwork have been researched as a group level phenomenon as well as a new emerging type of organisational form. As most of the modern teams use to some extent virtual teamwork the question raises - how to measure the degree of virtuality of the teamwork used (v-score)? The current paper presents a communication based approach model that enables to develop a typology of virtual teams by joining ordinary- and virtual teams into one model and also describing all the middle forms of teams in between those two pure types of teams.