Virtual Teams: A New Opportunity to Develop a Business (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
This paper explores potential advantages of using virtual teams for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a comprehensive review on various aspects of virtual teams. Based on the standing of the pertinent literatures, attempt has been made to study the aspects by online survey method in Iran and Malaysia. In both countries, SMEs play an important role in their economies, employments, and capacity building. Virtual R&D team can be one of the means to increase SMEs efficiency and competitiveness in their local as well as global markets. In this context, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the effects of virtuality to the growth of SMEs. The study addresses some differences between two countries in engaging virtual research and development (R&D) teams in their SMEs. It is observed that there is a significant difference between the SMEs turnover that employed virtual team and that did not employ the virtual team. The way for further studies and recommend improvements are pr...
Virtual R&D teams and SMEs growth: A comparative study between Iranian and Malaysian SMEs
2010
This paper explores potential advantages of using virtual teams for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a comprehensive review on various aspects of virtual teams. Based on the standing of the pertinent literatures, attempt has been made to study the aspects by online survey method in Iran and Malaysia. In both countries, SMEs play an important role in their economies, employments, and capacity building. Virtual R&D team can be one of the means to increase SMEs efficiency and competitiveness in their local as well as global markets. In this context, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the effects of virtuality to the growth of SMEs. The study addresses some differences between two countries in engaging virtual research and development (R&D) teams in their SMEs. It is observed that there is a significant difference between the SMEs turnover that employed virtual team and that did not employ the virtual team. The way for further studies and recommend improvements are proposed.
Management of Virtual Teams in Work Organizations: Some Inputs from Research
2011
Distributed work supported by New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) is a relevant element in many organizations for the achievement of their goals. Actually, an important number of companies require electronic collaboration among coworkers, providers, clients, “partners”, etc. for the development of their activities both in the production and the service sectors. In recent times, the expansion of the limits of cooperative and/or team work is a reality (Marrone, 2010) that favors the practice of virtual teaming or virtual teams. These become suitable strategies that allow companies to behave more competitively in a clearly decentralized and globalized market (Vartianien and Andriessen, 2008) overcoming temporal, spatial and organizational constraints, which, until the present time, were unavoidable limitations. Virtual teams (VTs) are conceived as groups of people who, despite being geographically dispersed, pursue a shared goal, which becomes more achievable if info...
Virtual Team Working: Current Issues and Directions for the Future
IFIP – The International Federation for Information Processing, 2008
Value networks underpinned by global and localised virtual teams are believed to have high potential for SMEs. Yet, the successful migration to value-added alliances is blended in the right combination of organizational, legal, economic, socio-cultural, and technical factors, and requires further research into innovative business models. These models should leverage existing SME competences and transcend existing virtual collaboration barriers and limitations. Grounded in state-of-the-art literature, the paper identifies current insight for the deficient research in virtual teams and presents them in the form of open research questions.
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE ON FACTORS INFLUENCING VIRTUAL TEAMS -A MULTI LEVEL PRESPECTIVE
Journal of emergingtechnologiesand innovative research, 2019
Virtual teams are an emerging corporate trend in international companies worldwide.Heightened expectations of revenue gain demanded quick reactions to market and geographically scattered clientele of companies have forced organizations to restructure their way of working and out of these needs virtual teams are born. Teams that interact by using technologymediated communication devices and platforms are called Virtual teams. Employees operating in such a setting typically face geographical dispersion among team members various time zones different cultures and possibly a remote leader .Cost savings and enhances efficiency along with quick knowledge transfer and flexibility form the benefit base of virtual teams on the other hand issues are faced concerning communication trust, technology usage clarity of roles and processes motivation and team spirit .Leading virtual teams is demanding as these teams possess similar needs as conventional teams require additional efforts from the team head as face-to-face interaction with and among team members is rare. The paper helps to find the influencing factors for virtual team effectiveness. For the study four factors are been taken i.e., Leadershipstyle, Trust , communication and culture. The study reveals that there is a significant and positive relationship between the variables of study and virtual team performance.
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.
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.
Empirical Evidence on Factors Influencing Virtual Teams-A Multi
2019
Virtual teams are an emerging corporate trend in international companies worldwide.Heightened expectations of revenue gain demanded quick reactions to market and geographically scattered clientele of companies have forced organizations to restructure their way of working and out of these needs virtual teams are born. Teams that interact by using technology— mediated communication devices and platforms are called Virtual teams. Employees operating in such a setting typically face geographical dispersion among team members various time zones different cultures and possibly a remote leader .Cost savings and enhances efficiency along with quick knowledge transfer and flexibility form the benefit base of virtual teams on the other hand issues are faced concerning communication trust, technology usage clarity of roles and processes motivation and team spirit .Leading virtual teams is demanding as these teams possess similar needs as conventional teams require additional efforts from the t...
Fostering virtual teams: what companies could and should be doing
2013
Hitherto, given the technological advances and the increasingly globalized economy, organizations are adopting virtual teams. With e-teams starting to be the rule, it is of companies' interest to make sure teams perform effectively. This study was undertaken to identify what companies could (and should) be doing to improve the chances of success for virtual teams. To accomplish this, eight international managers were interviewed to know the main challenges felt within e-teams. The findings suggest firms should invest on e-leaders' development. Specifically, evidence suggests that having leaders knowing their team personally is crucial. Moreover, communication was the most felt challenge and the model proposes a set of challenges to address this. This research study provides insights for organizations confronted with the challenge of guiding multicultural teams geographically separated as well as academics interested in pursuing virtual team research.
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications
This research ranks effectiveness-related factors of virtual teams. The literature suggests various factors which could motivate or discourage management in using virtual teams versus co-located teams. Forty-eight interviews were done in petrochemical companies in Saudi Arabia. The Echo Method has been employed and eleven factors were identified. Results showed that the participants ranked efficiency and communication as first and second as a motivating factor in adopting the virtual team approach. While, the other three motivating factors which were ranked lower are flexibility, diversity and cooperation. On the other hand, the six discouraging factors (barrier) are miscommunication, scheduling preferences, unreliability of technology, incompetency of staff, varying standards and isolationist tendency. Suggestions were made to counteract the effects of the barrier-inducing factors and enhance the effects of the motivating factors.