Story Behind Success: Challenges and Issues in Globally Distributed Teams (original) (raw)
Related papers
Communication and collaboration processes in global virtual teams
2002
Virtual teams are increasingly global, creating challenges for communication and coordination due to greater distances, multiple time zones, and cultural differences. A longitudinal research program investigating communication and collaboration in globally distributed engineering design teams is described. A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods reveals a number of insights into the inner workings of a series of global virtual teams. We focus on teams' media and collaborative tool usage patterns, and the effect of media use on such group processes as their awareness of remote teammates' activities, the quality of teams' social interactions, teams' abilities to develop trust, and the extent to which teams developed solutions that they found to be satisfactory. Finally, we explored cultural influences on virtual team practices.
Empirical Study of Communication Structures and Barriers in Geographically Distributed Teams
Conway's law asserts that communication structures of organisations constrain the design of the products they develop. This law is more explicitly observable in geographically distributed contexts because distributed teams are required to share information across different time zones and barriers. The diverse business processes and functions adopted by individual teams in geographically distributed settings create challenges for effective communication. Since the publication of Conway's law, a significant body of research has emerged in its relation to the communication structures. When it comes to software projects, the explicit observation about Conway's law has produced mixed results. The research reported in this study explores the communication structures and corresponding challenges faced by teams within a large geographically distributed software development organisation. The data was collected from relevant documents, a questionnaire and interviews with relevant stakeholders. The findings suggest that Conway's law is observable within the communication structures of globally distributed software development teams. The authors have identified the barriers and challenges of effective communications in this setting and have investigated the benefits of utilising an integrated system to overcome these challenges.
Enabling knowledge creation in far-flung teams: best practices for IT support and knowledge sharing
2004
This paper provides an insight into how companies faced with hypercompetitive environments are leveraging their globally dispersed knowledge resources through far-¯ung teams. Far-¯ung teams are virtual teams that are multi-unit/multi-organizational, multifunctional, globally dispersed and conduct their interdependent activities mainly through electronic media with minimal or no face-to-face interactions. A multi-phase multi-method study of 55 successful far-¯ung teams. The ®rst phase followed a highly successful far-¯ung team over a period of ten months. The second phase involved survey participation from members of several far-¯ung teams in multiple companies across multiple industries. Distinct communication and knowledge sharing norms emerge in successfuly far-¯ung teams. Four different types of IT support are required for task coordination, external connectivity, distributed cognition and interactivity. The communication and knowledge sharing norms that emerged can be used to test impact on failure/success of other far-¯ung teams. The impact of each of the four disctinct types of IT support has to be taken into account when studying far-¯ung teams. Teams have to achieve a strategic ®t between task characteristics, team composition and information technology support to overcome the barriers to knowledge sharing and successful creation of new knowledge in extreme environments faced by far-¯ung teams. This paper takes an extensive multi-methodology empirical approach to exploring successful farung teams. It provides a theoretical model for future research on far-¯ung teams.
Role of Manager in Geographically Distributed Team: A Review
Journal of Management, 2019
Geographically Distributed Team is a team where members are dispersed in different locations across the globe and collaborate together to achieve a common goal. Such kind of team have the characteristics of both virtual team and global team. The team members work from far flung locations and relying heavily on computer mediated communication tools to interact and to collaborate with each other. The members work in different time zones and are culturally diverse. Managing such distributed team requires a different set of competence than a collocated team. The team leader or manager not only have to manage a team who may have never met or worked with each other before but also have different cultural orientation, working style, values and behaviours. This paper reviews research studies highlighting the managerial challenges of geographically distributed teams as faced by team leaders/ managers and also discuss managerial roles and behaviours that have been found to be effective in overcoming those challenges and to build an effective distributed team.
Can Computer Mediated communication be effective in globally distributed projects
ijera.com
In distributed projects, proper communication and co ordination between teams always plays a major role in the success of a project. In this global setting, teams can interact with each other, either by FTF (Face to Face) interaction or CMC (Computer Mediated Communication). This paper focuses on the process of computer-mediated communication discussing its pros and cons.
Managing geographically dispersed teams: from temporary to permanent global virtual teams
Built and Natural Environment …, 2012
The rise and spread of information communication technologies (ICT) has enabled increasing use of geographically dispersed work teams (Global Virtual Teams). Originally, Global Virtual Teams were mainly organised into temporary projects. Little research has focused on the emergent challenge for organisations to move towards establishing permanent Global Virtual Teams in order to leverage knowledge sharing and cooperation across distance. To close this gap, this paper will set the scene for a research project investigating the changed preconditions for organisations. As daily face-to-face communication is not the basis for developing manager-subordinate, as well as member-member relations, the development of teams to work together efficiently and effectively in a virtual setting has often been neglected. Part of this discussion are the changed parameters in relation to increasing global competition; a new generation of self-lead digital natives, who are already practising virtual relationships and a new approach to work, and currently joining the global workforce; and improved communication technologies.
Advances in International Management
As multinational firms and major offshore outsourcing companies develop experience with global work, their globally distributed teams face the challenge of collaborating intensely without the common interaction advantages associated with collocated work. This chapter analyzes the sources of intense collaboration. It then introduces strategies that organizations have developed to reduce the intensity of collaboration (sequentializing work, using mediating artifacts, modularity), or to enable intense teamwork (real time contact, boundary spanners). Strategy properties and deployment opportunities and constraints are indicated in order to equip managers and researchers with a framework for handling or analyzing globally distributed teamwork.
Distances in Geographically Distributed Team: A Review
Distributed team is a group of people collaborating together virtually from different locations, different time zones and are culturally diverse from each other. Such team have the characteristics of both virtual team and culturally diverse team and is termed as Geographically Distributed Team (GDT). Members of geographically distributed team (GDT) experiences different forms of distances while working together as team both in terms of objective distance based on physical location and subjective distance based on perception. Since the members are located in different continents and working at different time zones they heavily rely on computer mediated communication tools to collaborate.Being distant from each other members experiences a unique set of challenges compared to traditional collocated team which hinders collaboration. The most commonly highlighted issues are related to absence of social ties, distorted flow of information, misunderstanding, misperception and miscommunication. The inability to observe each other work and lack of spontaneous communication due to physical distance builds in perceptual distances among members. The cultural differences among the members being from different nationality, values, beliefs, work style and languages adds to the complexity of working together as a team. Several research studies have looked into both positive and negative effect of distances on team effectiveness. This paper examines the various forms of distances experienced by individuals working in a distributed teams, how it has been measured and the challenges posed by it in GDT.
Spatial and Temporal Boundaries in Global Teams
IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2007
While spatial boundaries include the geographic differences among team members (e.g., different cities), temporal boundaries include the workday differences among team members (e.g., different time zones). In global teams, members have to deal with both spatial and temporal boundaries, since their co-workers are often located in cities within and across time zones. For global team members with high spatial boundaries and low temporal boundaries (e.g., different cities in the same time zone), synchronous communication technologies such as the telephone and instant messenger provide a means for real-time interaction. However, for global team members with high spatial boundaries and high temporal boundaries (e.g., different cities in different time zones), asynchronous communication technologies such as e-mail and web software provide a way to interact intermittently. Using social network data from 625 team members (representing 5986 pairs) across 137 global teams in a multinational semiconductor firm, we explore the impact of spatial and temporal boundaries on coordination delay. We also illustrate how member awareness can reduce coordination delay, thus increasing the likelihood of better global team performance.