VIRTUAL TEAMS

VIRTUAL TEAMS

Today’s globalized environment, as businesses are expanding their operations globally, the establishment of virtual teams are gradually becoming essential. Powell, Piccoli and Ives, 2004 defines virtual teams as, groups of individuals with physically scattered, geographically, culturally and organizationally diverse, time dispersed personnel brought together by information technologies to accomplish the given chores.

Cascio and Shurygailo, 2003 have classified virtual teams in to four categories depending on number of managers and location as; teleworkers, remote team (A single manager of a team distributed across multiple location), matrixed teleworkers (Multiple manager of a team at one location) and matrixed remote teams(multiple managers across multiple locations).

As mentioned by Bergiel, Bergiel and Balsmeier  (2008), having virtual teams drastically reduces the travel time and cost for the firm and increases flexibility where members can work simultaneously in multiple teams. While most of the communication can be done via virtual channels it helps members to contribute from dispersed locations without unnecessary travel to face-to-face meetings. Zaccaro 2003, says virtual teams have a Xgreater possibility to get talents globally, they have larger talent pool from various geographical locations.  

Though virtual teams have many advantages, there are plenty of management challenges. According to an executive survey of Economist Intelligence Unit 2009, one-third of virtual teams are assumed to be poorly managed. There are practical hindrances in running virtual teams effectively.  As they work in different geographical, time differences impact negatively in work coordination. There is a high possibility for misunderstanding and conflicts to arise where individuals cannot have face to face communication.  Therefore building trust, social bonds, and collaboration are critical within the team. Moreover, culture and linguistic differences also a challenge for virtual team managers. Culture influences attitudes, values, and norms of each individual, thus attitude towards authority also widely differs between members.  Further, Economist Intelligence Unit survey 2012, found that firms are facing financial challenges to have well-built IT infrastructure.

The failed 1998 merger of two car manufacturers, Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG and the American Chrysler Corporation, provides a clear picture of the economic costs of cultural conflict. Several commentators have suggested that Daimler’s formal and hierarchical structure clashed irreconcilably with Chrysler’s more relaxed and less differential approach, resulting in defections of key personnel and the eventual breakdown of the relationship.(Nader, Ahamed, and Zahari,2009)

in order to HR managers will need to find adequately dependable data and analytics to make comprehensive strategic business decisions to minimize the risk. As shown in figure 1, HR professional must try different techniques to make the virtual team effective and efficient.

Eg: General Electrics have over 90,000 worldwide. The teams were struggling with communicating effectively across global workforce. To resolve this issue, they invested in learning and development programs for its managers and employees. Through a virtual classroom, teams learned how to work together to achieve shared goals with collaborative e-learning and quizzes on initial virtual teamwork concepts.

REFERENCES

Bergiel, B., Bergiel, E. and Balsmeier, P. (2008). Nature of virtual teams: a summary of their advantages and disadvantages. Management Research News, 31(2), pp.99-110.

Cascio, W. and Shurygailo, S. (2003). E-Leadership and Virtual Teams. Organizational Dynamics, 31, pp.362-376.

Economist Intelligence Unit (2009). Managing virtual teams Taking a more strategic approach. [online] Available at: http://graphics.eiu.com/upload/eb/NEC_Managing_virtual_teams_WEB.pdf [Accessed 5 Jun. 2018].

Lepsinger, R. (2015). 3 Companies With High-Performing Virtual Teams. [online] Linked in. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-companies-high-performing-virtual-teams-rick-lepsinger [Accessed 5 Jun. 2018].

Nader, A., Ahmed, S. and Zahari, T. (2009). Virtual Teams: a Literature Review. Australian Journal of Ba ic and Applied Sciences, [online] 3(3). Available at: http://cogprints.org/7814/1/2653-2669.pdf [Accessed 19 Jun. 2018].

Powell, A., Piccoli, G. and Ives, B. (2004). Virtual teams. ACM SIGMIS Database, [online] 35(1), pp.6-36. Available at: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=968467 [Accessed 19 Jun. 2018].

The Economist. (2000). The DaimlerChrysler emulsion. [online] Available at: https://www.economist.com/brief/2000/07/27/the-daimlerchrysler-emulsion [Accessed 5 Jun. 2018].

The Economist Intelligence  Unit (2012). “Competing across borders,” [online] Available at: (http://www.economistinsights.com/search/node/competing%20across%20borders). [Accessed 5 Jun. 2018].

Zaccaro, S. and Bader, P. (2003). E-Leadership and the Challenges of Leading E-Teams:. Organizational Dynamics, [online] 31(4), pp.377-387. Available at: http://web.lib.aalto.fi/en/oa/db/SCIMA/?cmd=listget&id=250471&q=%40author%20Zaccaro%2C%20S.%20J.&p=1&cnt=7 [Accessed 19 Jun. 2018].