sharing of knowledge. This means that employees were motivated by rewards such as promotions or bonuses in order to share knowledge in an organisation (Minbaeva et al 2012).
At MindTree, Communities of practice are essential parts of the organisation and reflect the socio-technical approach to knowledge management. Community meetings offer employees a chance to interact on a one-on-one basis to discuss, compare and brainstorm new ideas and trends. The leaders of these communities who facilitate discussions are known as champions. A Community Maturity Model tracks its evolution from interest at the most basic level (comprising a few people just openly sharing ideas) to capacity building (applying the knowledge to create and innovate new
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On the technological front, building trust, sharing experiences and managing conflicts may be difficult with virtual teams. Differences in time zones and lack of face-to-face interactions may also pose a challenge.
In order to deal with these challenges, Mindtree could work on making participation in CoPs extrinsically/intrinsically rewarding. As discussed above they could apply knowledge acquired through social networks to organisational decision making in order to measure its success (Soo et al 2002). In the case of virtual interactions, they could build an environment of psychological safety wherein the resolution of conflict may be easier. They could also make optimal use of time during virtual meetings by setting agendas before hand and discussing relevant points during interactions (Cordery et al 2009).
Building Organisational Capital
Organisational capital stems form the culture and values systems within an organisation. As has been discussed so far, human and social capital revolve around active employee participation in interpersonal interaction, learning and knowledge sharing. In order to sustain these effectively, employees within an organisation must be skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, also known as a Learning Organisation (Garvin et al 2008). Researchers have proposed three building blocks of such an institution. The first one is ‘a supportive learning environment’, which comprises factors
Due to the change many organizations realize the need for offices in various geographical locations. Therefore, the concern is how to ensure that employees located off-site are constantly connected to their counterparts. Virtual teams were developed to answer the call to ensure the ability to stay tied to the main office of any organization. As one can see a learning organization at times it may encounter difficulty in ensuring that virtual teams are learning according to the guidelines as set forth by the learning organization (Boone, 2015). A simple way to fix these issues are to ensure that communication is consistent, through the use of technology and employees are given the chance to build relationships with their virtual team members, team empowerment is necessary for virtual teams to be involved in the decision making process. Because of the diverse backgrounds of the virtual teams conflicts will arise and a leader must determine ways of handling these conflicts. Also, barriers involve the geographical, time, cultural/language, communication can be handled at each individual level and proper enhancements as needed will aid in ensuring that the team remains viable and productive. For example, cultural differences can be handled by ensuring that employees are trained to comprehend what is or not acceptable to each
During the last decade, organizations have been working more with technology making it their master. Technology is not only about new equipment; it is mostly about new ideas and techniques used. Virtual team is a new approach used today. Virtual groups or teams have been used from parent to keep contact with teacher to corporations to create new international business relationships. How far can virtual team be more efficient than face to face relationships? Society incorporates this method to different activities not only at work, so virtual team seems more beneficial these days. If we are going to incorporate virtual teams to our system, we have to know its advantages and disadvantages, and how it can affect our organization.
| Employees in geographically dispersed locations can work together in virtual teams using video, e-mail, and the Internet.
These groups rely on technology to communicate with one another and to accomplish the tasks allocated by the organization. One benefit of a virtual team is that they use technology and this can help increase efficiency and productivity of the members. The virtual teams also assist in the development of intellectual capital. The composition of the virtual groups helps improve quality as well as the outcome. The other benefit is the efficiency of communication. Some of the challenges include the distance between the members. The significant distance may dilute leadership, weaken human relations as well as amplify dysfunction. Virtual teams are hard to manage especially when it comes to goal setting, task distribution, coordination and member motivation. Virtual organizations rely on trust that the other members will fulfill their roles since it is not possible to monitor them closely (Hoppe, 2011). The virtual teams may face some internet challenges such as slow internet or disconnection. This problem can be handled through the use of alternative methods of communication such as mobile phones. While making a virtual team, the team members should address all challenges which may hinder communication by coming up with all possible substitutes of means of communication. These organizations rely heavily on the internet for video conferencing and sending emails. However, when the internet fails, they
Virtual Team on the other hand is a group of people working across time, space, and organizational boundaries which communication links are strengthened by the internet. It should be noted that virtual teams can also mean individuals spread across different cultures and languages. (“Virtual Team - Origin, Definition and its Scope,” 2016). More so, this team of geographically dispersed professionals working together as a unit despite distance are committed to achieving a single objective, holding one another mutually accountable.
The essence of this article is noting the fact that virtual teams are only going to be effective when technology is involved. When virtual teams first started, there wasn’t much effective meeting technology available, but now there
Undoubtedly, MindTree most influences the power of its community of communities in order to excel the power of knowledge sharing and collaboration
A virtual team is the network of diverse individuals in multiple locations working in this evolving economy. Challenges the team faces include isolation feeling, lack of trust, unclear goals, direction and priorities, and lack of engagement all due to no face-to-face contact. Therefore, Associates may leave the company through attrition. In the Marketplace simulation our team will make effort to have face-to-face meetings. We will focus on input from each team member and ensure everyone feels they are contributing to the team.
Al-Ani, Ban, Agnes Horspool, and Michelle C. Bligh. 2011. “Collaborating with 'virtual strangers': Towards developing a framework for leadership in distributed teams.” Leadership 7 (3): 219-249. Doi: 10.1177/1742715011407382
Globalisation has led to many changes in the international marketing and global advertising industry. Many international companies have projects spanning a variety of nationalities, involving great geographical distances and a range of time zones. In this scenario, companies are forced to make virtual teams - which are comprised of members who are located in more than one physical location (Peters and Manz, 2007). This virtual team trait has fostered extensive use of a variety of forms of computer-mediated communication that enable geographically dispersed members to coordinate their individual effort and inputs (Attaran, 2002). In addition, commitment to a virtual team goal may be further complicated by the single or coherent line of
1.What it mean by “communities of practice” in the context of knowledge management? Why is important to have “proven/best practices”? What are the basic functions of communities and associated examples? What are the approaches that make the “communities of practice” work for ConocoPhillips, Fluor, and Schlumberger? (p61-64)
Hastings, R. (December 3, 2008). Set Ground Rules for Virtual Team Communications. SHRM Online. Retrieved August 8, 2011 from http://www.shrm.org .
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).
A technologic approach to Knowledge Management has a much higher initial cost, is inherently more scalable, and can handle a much greater transaction volume than an unassisted knowledge worker. Technology in support of Knowledge Management isn’t necessary or even optimal in every instance. Technologies supportive of Knowledge Management can be applied successfully to organizations of any size; extensive investments in technology are generally practical only in medium-size to large companies. Perhaps the most significant way technology enables the KM process is that it can provide virtual meeting space for communities of practice.
Markus, M. L., Manville, B. & Agres, C. E. (2000) What makes a virtual organization work? Sloan Management Review 42(1) pp. 13-26.