Strengthening team identification in virtual teams: the leader's perspective

Virtual Teams

To investigate the issue at hand, the author's methodology was to set up the study with four virtual team leaders from four international organizations. The investigator then conducted face-to-face interviews, observed the leaders communicating via the technology that they use in their day-to-day work, and recorded parts of the text-based communication that team leaders engaged in. Because of the nature of the investigation, a qualitative research methodology was considered the most appropriate to use in this case (Swanson and Holton, 2005)

The author's analysis was based upon the purpose of the investigation, to understand the situations and contexts around the communications of virtual team leaders with their team members. For this reason, the author used no pre-existing theoretical framework, but instead directly examined the data from interviews, observations, and recordings. The coding process was then promoted by comparing new codes with previous incidents, which made it possible to discover the code properties. The author then used these to create subcategories, in which some of the former categories were integrated and redefined.

These analyses then served to reveal the virtual team leaders' identification-promoting tactics, by means of patterns to strengthen team members' identification with the team. This strategy therefore served well to match the purpose of the study, which was to identify patterns by which team leaders communicated and strengthen the team spirit among their team members they work with.

It was found that team members used four main categories to foster identification among their virtual team members; 1) catering for the individual, 2) positive feedback, 4) attention to common goals, and 4) team activities and face-to-face meetings.

Because the study emphasized the importance of communication in promoting team identification within the teams investigated, the methodology proved appropriate to obtain relevant results. This implies that team leaders therefore need very strong and clear communication skills in order to reach the goal of team identification, and by association to create more effective working within the teams themselves.

An important limitation of the study was that team members and their experiences of team leadership were not included in the study. A team leader's perception of effective communication may, for example, not be experienced in the same way as a team member receiving the communication. On the other hand, the results of effective team work appear to imply that certain categories of communication are experienced as more effective than others. A limitation of the qualitative research methodology is the fact that opinions are by nature arbitrary. This is particularly so since only the leadership sector of the work situation was interviewed.