- To qualify to be a virtual team, either some or all team members would not be physically in the same location. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not in the same country or city, more about whether they meet each other physically on a daily basis. Even though they don’t have to be, most of virtual teams are across countries.
- Motivation to work in virtual teams: Half own choice and half the context in which the job is placed in.
- Personal motivation and advantages of the team: One can access different expertise and capabilities across the country/continent, which one might not have access to within the office or location. Also, Sometimes there is gain in efficiency. Yet, there is also a lack in efficiency around the fact that
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The main challenges is to adapt the communication, how to adapt their performance management which each individual depending on the culture.
- For newer generations (people who have already worked abroad & have been used to work in cross-cultural teams) adapting to different cultures is done automatically and common sense. One knows a bit of cultural dimensions of each of the countries and one is familiar with the working styles of other countries so can one can adapt a little bit, when interacting with them.
- For people who have been only within a British business with British people for a long period of time, this common sense is less. They have to force themselves to adapt to change the communication style and to change how they measure performance. This is one of the main challenges.
- When these people manage virtual teams, they often try to flatten /level the differences of the team members. This usually leads to the team members feeling like they are being forced to work in a particular (different) style or communicate in a different style, which is not their style and might not be suitable in the context. Therefore the efficiency of these virtual teams brings frustrations and a lot of times, managers are not very efficient in getting things
The levels of motivation within a team can be affected both positively and negatively in a variety of different ways.
So as two secondary problems I would name high tendency to developing conflicts due to diversity of the team members and discrepancies in their perceptions of what should be done and how. Careful diversity management along with steps to prevent too much conflict and keep it at a healthy level are needed to ensure the team members are can work cohesively and productively as a result.
Is anyone out there? A Guide to Virtual Team Working and Leadership’.Training Reference, viewed October 2011
The experience gained from working in this virtual team has shown me the importance of collaboration. Instructions were given by Ronie after discussion. I often found that my ideas were implemented in part or in whole and we all had (limited by the distance, time differentials and the limited time available) input into both the construction and finalisation of the
Self-managed virtual teams rely on technologically-based networking, connecting team members who may not be in close proximity. Self-managed virtual teams can also be cost-effective, as remote communication is less expensive than travel. Because of the increasing utilization of virtual teams, especially within the healthcare industry, and the relative newness as a method of organizational structure, this research aims to explore how leadership styles impact the virtual structure. Virtual teams often differ from face-to-face interactions; as such, there are unique challenges to be addressed, as team members may not establish factors such as trust that they would in a face to face setting (Hoch & Kozlowski, 2014). There may also be less collaboration on specific tasks. To resolve these issues, the specific research question to be asked is: What leadership style would produce the best outcomes in an organization that utilizes virtual teams, specifically within the health insurance
With the advent of cheap and effective information communications technology, the use of "virtual teams" is increasing in many industries. Virtual teams are created on a need basis in order to combine people for a certain project. (Andres, 2002) The major concept is making use of different employees who are not present in a single geographical location and uniting them on a single project. We will look in to the project known as Country Capital Works Program (CCWP) that was undertaken by the New South Wales Police Force in Australia. This project consisted of a virtual team that was created with existing personnel for a certain purpose. This project goes on to confirm that virtual project teams can be created if the need arises. As it can be understood, the lack of face to face communication can lead to a lot of problems. Along with looking at the advantages of virtual teams, their disadvantages will be looked at as well.
The challenges of virtual team collaboration are numerous and significant. However, several organizational best practices exist, which companies can employ to maximize virtual team development and collaboration. By applying these practices, organizations can overcome virtual team challenges, such as time, distance, size, diversity, communication, and specialization. The organizational best practices fall into four primary categories, namely Executive support, HR Practices, Leadership Strength, and Team Structure (Gratton & Erickson, 2007).
Ebrahim, A., Shamsuddin, A. & Taha, Z. (2009). Virtual Teams: A Literature Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Science, 3(3), 2653-2669.
Implementation of the virtual teams have implications at different aspects as well as levels of the organization. Here, I will discuss the implication in detail.
Research on this topic is relatively new, therefore; the research is ongoing to arrive at the destination (B.Arnett, 2008). Arnett argued in this respect and for this reason, there are still many areas researchers need to investigate and touched to complete the research on this perspective (B.Arnett, 2008).Since the world is moving towards the concept of globalization, the importance of virtual teams increases. A communication, on the other hand, is also imperative to support this new modernized world because message transference is vital in this respect. The marketplace also requires that the communications means should match the frequency of message transference to create the balance. The endorsement came from another researcher in this respect; “Simple transmission of information from point A to point B is not enough; the virtual environment presents significant challenges to effective communication” (Walvoord, 2008).
Compared to live or face to face management, in which team leaders see each other personally, online team management is quite challenging because team members are within virtual boundaries. This implies that members may not have the adequate level of seriousness in doing a task or work. As a result, team members may not be able to unleash their fullest potential, unlike those who work offline.
Virtual team – is a group of individuals who work through communication technology it can be any type of team that communicates digitally rather than in person.
According to Lisa McQuerrey, there are several advantages of teamwork effectiveness like Group Dynamic, Mutual Support, Collective Efforts, Utilizing Strengths, Developing Effective Teams. According to Aaron Marquis, it mentioned that’s how important of teamwork effectiveness in organization like Problem Solving, Communication, Cohesion and Learning.
In a good team the experience of team members would improve and ideas would be shared.
The second advantage I am going to discuss is that group members all motivate one another. In order to provide evidence for this statement it is necessary to re-examine one of the theories mentioned earlier; Group norms (Guirdham, 1995). Guirdham suggests that every team member is encouraged to adopt these four norms which encourages stronger bonds between the team members and can convert simple group members into friends. This therefore leads to an environment in which everybody gets along.