¶ … team have to address the challenges and leverage the opportunities associated with operating as this particular type of virtual team Multinational virtual teams allow organizations to benefit from the cultural knowledge conveyed to the base organization from interacting with employees from local businesses without some of the costs of transferring members of the organization abroad. Organizational members can be mobile "any place, any time, anywhy" in a virtual team without leaving behind family, friends, and familiarity (Collings, Doherty, Luethy, & Osborn 2011, p.364). However, this is also one of the challenges of a virtual team. Because the members are not actively forced to make a cultural adjustment because they are not expatriates, they can ignore the need to make cultural accommodations or appreciate cultural nuances and differences (between low-context cultures like the U.S. And high-context cultures like Thailand). Just as with a formal transfer to a foreign nation, preparation is key. "Where there is a lack of support for the softer skills, the impact of culture shock for the person…can profoundly color their experience and their career outcomes" (Collings, Doherty, Luethy, & Osborn 2011, p.365). In fact, to some degree even more support for the development of such soft interpersonal skills...
People are often very defensive about their biases. Simply disseminating knowledge about the culture "may or may not be adequate to understand the actions of others and guide the behaviors of an expatriate. Expatriates may or may not be aware of their knowledge limitations" (Haslberger, Brewster, & Hippler 2011, p. 337). Training for the assignment should involve role-plays, discussions of cultural differences in a specific fashion, and preparing people for encounters in a hands-on rather than a theoretical fashion. Rules such as meeting frequency and timetables should be defined so the team has a clear series of goals to work toward in a collective fashion.
Virtual Team Coordination Communication is more difficult for a virtual team because relationships are more geographical distributed, more asynchronous, temporary, more multicultural, and more likely to extend outside the organization (Kokko, Mar 2007). Collocated teams are demographically located, members have usually worked together for a period of time and already know each other, which help to build relationships, and meetings are face-to-face interaction. Virtual teams may not have face-to-face interactions, which
When portals are designed to the specific requirements of Web 2.0 design objectives, companies with virtual teams are finding they can attain higher levels of shared task ownership as well. This is because there are significantly greater levels of trust overall throughout an organization based on the collective contributions of every member of a virtual and in-office team when they share their knowledge and information together (Mancini, 2010). Portals
Team Leadership Virtual Communication and Team Leadership In "So far, so good: Even physical distance can't stop your employees from going above and beyond" author Robert McGarvey considers the growing popularity of virtual teams and considers the factors necessary to making a virtual team successful. The article provides useful information on the potential benefits of virtual teams that could assist community groups or organizations in considering how they operate. The article also
Articles Compared The author of this brief report has been tasked with comparing and contrasting two articles that are about the same subject. The general topic that is in question would be virtual teams. The drill-down sub-topic that will be the focus of this report will be the traits, norms, values and patterns of people and how this leads to alignment or discord in virtual teams. One of the two articles
The U.S., Army Logistics Network has defined specific pricing and costing levels by rank, and strives to push accountability and responsibility as far down the chain of command as possible. As nearly every officer who acts as a buyer within the purchasing and procurement teams has been trained on the fundamentals of accrual-based costing, cost-based accounting, supplier management and supply chain planning, each is given a set of metrics
Team Norms," author Karten (2003) discussed the importance of social norms in improving performance in teams within a business organization. Technically, Karten defined it as a concept "that concern(s) how team members will interact, communicate, and conduct themselves as members of the team" (par. 1). Moreover, team norms are reinforced primarily in groups with specific characteristics, such as those who are known to have high perceived social cohesion and
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