CITATION:
Pauleen, D. (Ed) (2004) “Virtual Teams: Projects, Protocols and Processes”. Idea
Group Publishing, Hershey, PA.
Virtual Teams: Projects, Processes and Protocols
Forward
Doug Busch
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Intel Corporation
Preface
David J Pauleen
Victoria University of Wellington
Acknowledgements
Part 1 - Projects
Chapter 1
The multi-faceted nature of virtual teams
Line Dubé and Guy Paré
HEC Montréal
Department of Information Technologies
E-mail: Line.Dube@hec.ca
E-mail: Guy.Pare@hec.ca
Chapter 2
Trust and trust placement process in metateam projects
Walter D Fernández
Queensland University of Technology
E-mail: walter@fernandez-aloy.com
Chapter 3
The impact of external factors on virtual teams:
comparative cases
Andrea Hornett
Penn State Delaware County
Email: axh45@psu.edu or hornetta@yahoo.com
Chapter 4
A virtual team in action – an illustration of a business
development virtual team
Ian Wong & Sandy Staples
Queen’s School of Business
Queen’s University
E-mail: sstaples@business.queensu.ca
Part 2 – Protocols
Chapter 5
Long distance leadership: communicative strategies for
leading virtual teams
Stacey L. Connaughton
Department of Communication
Rutgers University
staceyc@scils.rutgers.edu
John A. Daly
Department of Communication
The University of Texas at Austin
daly@mail.utexas.edu
Chapter 6
Towards integration of artifacts, resources, and processes
for distributed virtual teams
Schahram Dustdar
Information Systems Institute, Distributed Systems Group
Vienna University of Technology
dustdar@infosys.tuwien.ac.at
Chapter 7
Best practices for virtual team effectiveness
Sandy Staples, Ian Wong and Ann Frances Cameron
Queen’s School of Business
Queen’s University
E-mail: sstaples@business.queensu.ca
Chapter 8
Varieties of virtual organizing and their knowledge sharing
strategies
Andrea Hornett
Penn State Delaware County
Email: axh45@psu.edu or hornetta@yahoo.com
Part 3 - Processes
Chapter 9
Working closer
Tammie D. Hertel
Simcon Corporation
Chapter 10
Prelude to virtual groups: leadership roles and technology
variety within investment clubs
Terri L. Griffith
Leavey School of Business
Santa Clara University
tgriffith@scu.edu
Dave Meader
Management Information Systems
Eller College of Business and Public Administration
dmeader@eller.arizona.edu
Chapter 11
Mediating complexity: facilitating relationship building
across boundaries in start-up virtual teams
David J. Pauleen and Lalita Rajasingham
School of Information Management
Victoria University of Wellington
Chapter 12
Trust, rationality and the virtual team
Peter Murphy
Master of Communications Program
School of Information Management
Victoria University of Wellington
Virtual Teams: Projects, Protocols and Processes
Foreword
The seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes described life in the state of
nature as “nasty, brutish, and short”. The quality of life has improved for most of us
since Hobbes made his famous assertion, but our work lives still often seem frantic,
frustrating, and confusing.
In large organizations, very few goals can be reached solely through individual effort.
The complexity of large organizations also prevents most individuals from working
within a single, stable team. Our work leads each of us to be a member of multiple
interlocking teams, focused on different, but related goals. We seem at times to be
caught in a web of organizational structure.
Many organizations have adopted the concept of a “Virtual Team” to help deal with
these challenges. The term usually refers to collections of individuals, brought together
from different departments or organizations, to focus on a specific objective. The
Virtual Team is not the organizational ‘home’ for the participants- it is a structure they
use to accomplish part of their job.
Some of these teams have long lives, existing for many years. Others may arise in
response to a specific problem and dissolve quickly. Virtual Teams include individuals
who know each other well (for better or worse), and individuals who are strangers.
Many teams are contained within a single company or organization, but increasingly
our goals span the boundaries of enterprises, with suppliers, customers and partners
working closely together.
As large organizations have become more geographically distributed, the need to work
in distributed Virtual Teams has become commonplace. We often collaborate with
team members located at another campus, in another city or country, or on another
continent. Some of these team members we seldom (or never) meet in person. Along
with the barrier of distance comes the barrier of time; there may be no single time of
day, which fits into the normal working hours of all team members.
I have always found the term “Virtual Team” to be a misnomer. In spite of their often
transitory nature, they are real teams. They face all the challenges of classic team
evolution and in fact often face more difficult problems, because they lack the reward
and authority structures that shape conventional teams. The goals set for Virtual Teams
are often very critical: responding to a crisis in the business; solving a particularly
difficult problem; bringing a highly visible project to completion.
Successful use of Virtual Teams requires team members with appropriate skills and
behaviours, team leaders who know how to quickly assemble an effective team and
manage the evolving dynamics in the group, and an organizational culture that
provides the right context for the team to succeed. Lacking any one of these factors, a
Virtual Team can easily flounder.
I recently heard a respected organizational development consultant cite research
showing that it takes 5 to 7 years to really trust a colleague. The research may well
reflect a fundamental aspect of human nature, but it also is completely inconsistent
with the realities of business in today’s world. We need leadership approaches which
develop an effectively Virtual Team in days or weeks, not months or years.
This book is an important resource for improving the use of Virtual Teams. The case
studies and research results presented give us new insights into the real behaviour of
Virtual Teams, facing real challenges. Our organizations can only benefit from this
deeper understanding, as we use Virtual Teams to solve real problems.
Doug Busch
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Intel Corporation
PREFACE
David J. Pauleen
‘Virtual teams’ is one of the many hot topics in business these days. But unlike a fad,
virtual teams appear to have staying power. Their use in organizations is growing in
concert with globalization, the rise of the knowledge worker, the need for innovation,
and the increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT). While the
use of virtual teams continues to grow, our understanding of how their many unique
characteristics work (or don’t work) together lags far behind (Cramton & Webber,
2000). Both researchers and practitioners are trying hard to correct this situation, and
in this book their best efforts are brought together.
In the thirteen chapters presented here, the authors offer a well-rounded picture of the
current state of virtual team practice and research; that is, what is working and what’ is
still problematic. In addition, the chapters contain invaluable advice on how to manage
the conditions that will facilitate the most effective virtual teams. Virtual team
members, leaders, managers, senior executives in IT, HR and other functional areas as well researchers - can all gain from a careful reading of this book.
The current notion of virtual teams has been around since the mid-1990’s. First
addressed by the practitioner literature (Grenier & Metes, 1995; Lipnack & Stamps,
1997; O’Hara-Devereaux & Johansen, 1994), and then by researchers investigating
primarily student populations (Jarvenpaa, Knoll & Leidner, 1998; Sahay, Sarker &
Lau, 1999; Warkenten & Beranek, 1999), research on virtual teams in organizations
has only emerged in the last few years. As the reader will soon see, researchers are
grappling with everything from defining what makes a virtual team virtual to all the
various team, communication and project processes and protocols that might influence
how well a team works together and accomplishes its tasks, as well as the influence of
organizational policies, technology, and boundary crossing on virtual team dynamics
and effectiveness.
One could make the case that different forms of the virtual team have been around
since the beginning of trade, with the representatives of manufacturers, agents, traders
and buyers exchanging goods and credit over distance using sophisticated protocols
and available technology (Murphy touches upon this notion in Chapter 13). These
days, organizations and management are pretty much using virtual teams by default.
Global and economic pressures have forced new organizations into new competitive
strategies. Almost simultaneously various information and communication
technologies (ICT) were being developed (Coleman, 1997). These developments led to
the use of virtual teams (Moshowitz, 1997). For the most part these teams are thrown
together, in an ad hoc fashion, often without a clear idea of how they might function
effectively or how the surrounding organizations can effectively support them
(Vickery, Clark, & Carlson, 1999). Meanwhile, the virtual team leaders and team
members are in the thick of it, operating ‘from the seat of their pants’ often without the
virtual communication and team skills required for the virtual environment and
without organizational support and often working at odds with organizational policies
that are really appropriate only for traditional organizations (Vickery et al., 1999).
Significant organizational, technological, personal and cultural barriers to the
implementation of virtual teams exist (Grenier and Metes, 1995) and must be
understood before organizations can make the best use of virtual teams.
This book addresses many of these issues in a practical way, supported by
organizational-based research. The reader of these articles will gain a wide-ranging
view of how virtual teams work (or don’t) within organizations, how members and
leaders of such teams are coping (or not), and how the situation can be improved at the
organizational, team, and employee level.
The Structure of the Book
The book is divided into three sections, Projects, Protocols and Processes. However
as the reader will soon see, nothing about virtual teams is so clear-cut. The issues
raised in these projects, protocols and processes sections are all closely linked together,
and hence each of the chapters addresses at least two and often three of these areas.
Part 1: Projects
The first section of the book attempts to give the reader a concrete conceptualisation of
what virtual teams are and how they function in the ‘real’ world of organizations. Most
of the chapters in this section describe project teams and some of the key issues
associated with working virtually in such project environments. These include issues
such as trust and the impact of various organizational factors on virtual team project
performance. Suggestions are made for improving virtual team performance.
Part 2 Protocols
The second part expands on the first section by looking at more specific ways that
virtual team members, leaders and managers can approach important virtual team
concerns. The reader will find a wide range of research-based discussion of virtual
team issues, such as leadership, technology, and knowledge sharing. Specific protocols
for constructive responses to these issues are proposed.
Part 3 Processes
The third section investigates virtual team processes involving leadership,
organizational and employee dynamics. These chapters will help the reader to gain a
greater understanding of such processes with suggestions on how those involved can
effectively manage them. The last chapter is a ‘thought’ piece on the nature of virtual
trust that may well challenge organizational leaders and managers basic assumptions
of what it takes to successfully make the transition to virtual work.
Chapter Summaries
Chapter One, ‘The multi-faceted nature of virtual teams’, serves as an excellent
introduction to virtual teams. Based on an extensive review of the literature and a
series of in-depth interviews with over forty experienced virtual team members and
leaders, the authors identify the key characteristics of virtual teamwork as well as those
characteristics that distinguish various virtual team configurations. They suggest that
researchers must now adopt a multi-dimensional view of virtual teams – a view that
recognizes the diversity of possible virtual team arrangements - in order to adequately
compare empirical findings, build a cumulative tradition in this field of research, and
provide practitioners with a framework to help them manage virtual teams effectively.
Chapter 2, ‘Trust and trust placement process in metateam projects’, takes an in-depth
look at a virtual meta-team project. A metateam is a temporary group composed of two
or more geographically and inter-organizationally dispersed teams, commercially
linked by project-specific agreements and enabled by electronic means of
communication. Metateams have been largely unexplored in the IS literature, but they
are economically important to major corporations and their IT vendors as they promise
to build IT solutions of high complexity, by integrating expertise from different fields
and different organisations and by conquering barriers of time and space. In a global
business environment that demands innovation, flexibility, and responsiveness,
metateams represent a revolution in the way organisations and practitioners do IT
projects. However, as the chapter discusses, managing metateams presents unique
difficulties due to conflicting demands arising from multiple realities and the way in
which effectiveness of the trust placement process significantly affects project
success.
In chapter 3, ‘The impact of external factors on virtual teams: comparative cases’, it is
suggested that while virtual teams are powerful organizing mechanisms, practitioners
and researchers need to pay attention to how corporate organizing structures both
impact and are impacted by virtual work environments. This chapter reports on two
cases where dynamics outside the virtual project teams powerfully affected the teams.
These cases, both based on studies of real project teams operating inside corporations,
highlight the desirability of understanding virtual teams in context. While external
factors are not unique to teamwork, their role has not been explored in depth in
research on virtual teams. Dynamic forces outside teams seem more difficult to
anticipate and identify when team members are working virtually. These powerful but
invisible dynamics can be frustrating to virtual team leaders and members. This
chapter concludes that, contrary to initial expectations, virtual teams are not replacing
traditional forms of organizing. They are co-existing with traditional forms and
dynamics such as business drivers, hierarchies, departments, strategic priorities, and
business needs. This co-existence can be fraught with conflict.
The final chapter of the first section takes an in-depth look at a virtual team in action.
It describes the characteristics of a project-based virtual team. Although there is some
empirical research on virtual teams, little research has focused on describing the
practical application of a virtual team in the organizational environment. This chapter
describes the task and goals of the team, how it handled virtual challenges and used
information technology to bridge distance, and how it functioned within its
organization. Specifically the task of the team, team composition, team beliefs, team
processes (e.g. coordination, communications, and sharing of information),
organizational context, and the effectiveness of the team are described. The chapter
concludes with a summary of characteristics of successful virtual teams.
Part 2 begins with the book’s first chapter on virtual leadership. ‘Long distance
leadership: communicative strategies for leading virtual teams’ draws on data
from a series of in-depth interviews with project leaders, senior managers, and
executives of six global organizations and illustrates what virtual team leaders
perceive to be effective communicative tactics in virtual settings. Specifically,
it explores tactics related to two leadership challenges commonly cited in the
academic and popular press: 1) overcoming virtual team members’ feelings of
isolation—feelings of disconnectedness, lack of cohesiveness, and limited
identification with the virtual team leader and/or the organization; and, 2)
building and maintaining trust. The chapter also presents some strategies for
managing cross-cultural communication issues and offers tips on the use of
communication technologies in distanced settings.
In the last decade, business processes have changed across various dimensions (e.g.
flexibility, interconnectivity, coordination style, autonomy) due to market conditions,
organizational models, and the usage scenarios of information systems. Virtual teams
are under heavy pressure to increase time-to-market of their products and services, and
lower their coordination costs. Chapter 6, argues that a fundamental need for
distributed virtual teamwork is to have access to contextual information, i.e. to see a
“knowledge trail” of who did what, when, how, and why. This chapter discusses
underlying conceptual issues and presents in some detail one particular implemented
information system (Caramba) that supports the integration of artifacts, resources, and
business processes for virtual teams.
Chapter 7, ‘Best practices for virtual team effectiveness’ argues that although
working in geographically-distributed teams is becoming more widespread in
organizations today, how to do so effectively is not yet fully understood. The purpose
of this chapter is to improve the understanding of what makes virtual teams effective.
This is done by identifying the best practices that members of virtual teams should
follow, the best practices for leaders and sponsors of virtual teams, and the best
practices for the organizations that the virtual teams are a part of. Best practices in
these categories are drawn from three major sources: (1) empirical evidence from case
studies of six existing virtual teams; (2) the business press and academic literature
related to virtual teams; and, (3) traditional team (i.e. collocated) literature and
telecommuting literature (i.e. research on virtual work at the individual level). The
chapter concludes with implications for organizations and potential research directions.
Chapter 8, ‘Varieties of virtual organizations and their knowledge sharing systems’
provides analysis of the differences between virtual teams and communities of
practice, and links two growing phenomena: virtual organizing and knowledge sharing
(knowledge management), based on empirical work from both fields of research. By
integrating various types of virtual organizing with corresponding knowledge sharing
systems, this chapter provides a framework that virtual team leaders, members and
consultants can use to improve management of virtual endeavors. This chapter
suggests that calling nearly everything a “community of practice” creates unrealistic
expectations for spontaneous organizing and knowledge sharing. Indeed, the managers
of virtual project teams have organizing challenges that are very different from
stewardship of communities of practice. Practitioners who are struggling with “onesize-fits-all” prescriptions for virtual work or knowledge management can use this
chapter’s three generalized types to develop communications and management
strategies appropriate for the unique cultures found in each of the various combinations
of virtual organizing and knowledge sharing.
Part 3 begins with ‘Working closer’ which takes a compelling look at how employees
are responding to the organizational use of virtual teams. As the author points out, it is
likely that employees will work on a virtual team at some point in their careers.
However, the chapter’s findings question how effectively organizations, training, and
technology support the needs of virtual teams and urge that organizations
communicate what collaborative and knowledge sharing behaviors are expected,
establish reward and recognition systems that reinforce those behaviors, ensure
employees have the skills and tools required to fulfil those expectations, and develop
managers that role model and reinforce the desired behaviors. The chapter also
considers the function of technology in virtual teams and concludes that collaborative
technologies must also become more self-managing, provide more compelling
asynchronous capabilities, and cater to individuals who may simultaneously be part of
many teams.
In Chapter 10, ‘Prelude to virtual groups: leadership and technology in semivirtual groups’, a study of 76 more and less virtual investment clubs examines
the relationships between communication technologies used for club business
(from face-to-face to more highly technologically enabled media), group
leadership role behaviors, and club portfolio value. The results are very
interesting with more and less virtual clubs benefiting from different forms of
leadership behaviors. Clubs using fewer technologies seem to benefit from a
greater focus on socioemotional role (communication) behaviors, while the
opposite is found in clubs using more technologies. The effect for procedural
role behaviors (agenda setting and the like) appears to run in the opposite
direction: clubs using more technologies seem to benefit from a greater focus
on procedural role behaviors, while the opposite is found in clubs using fewer
technologies. Practitioners will need to take into account both the obvious and
subtle differences between groups with more and less virtual characteristics.
Chapter 11 is also on the theme of leadership It provides findings that the reader can
compare and contrast with those of the proceeding chapter and Chapter 5.
‘Mediating complexity: facilitating relationship building across boundaries in start-up
virtual teams’ reports on part of a field study of New Zealand-based virtual team
leaders working with boundary spanning virtual teams. The chapter looks at boundarycrossing issues (organizational, cultural, language, time and distance) from a team
leaders’ perspective, and reports on the significant way crossing boundaries can affect
relationship building. It then discusses ways that virtual team leaders and organizations
can improve team leaders’ and members’ virtual skills in mediating communication
across boundaries with available ICT.
Finally, the last chapter, ‘Trust, rationality and the virtual team’ takes an indepth look at the issue of trust in virtual teams. Virtual teams need trust in
order to function, as it is an efficient way of gaining group cooperation. As the
author explains, online, trust is more effective than instruction or authority or
status in getting people who are largely strangers to one another to work
together. However, trust is not a simple quality. The kind of trust that is the
cement of distance relations of a global or virtual kind is different both from
the type of trust that binds face-to-face interactions and from the procedural
kind of trust that operates in regional or national organizations of a traditional
managerial kind. This chapter looks at the ways in which trust between virtual
team members is generated, and theorizes that “trust between strangers” is
optimally generated when persons are allowed to self-organize complex orders
and create objects and processes of high quality. The chapter also looks at the
kinds of personalities that are best suited to working in a virtual collaborative
environment and concludes that persons who prefer strong social or procedural
environments will be less effective in a virtual environment. In contrast, selfsteering (“stoic”) personality types have characteristics that are optimally
suited to virtual collaboration.
As the reader will now be aware, although virtual teams are assuming a greater role in
the life of organizations and employees, many critical issues and processes remain
under-researched and even undiscovered, presenting practitioners and researchers with
unexpected difficulties and challenges. Those working in and with virtual teams are
trying to navigate new and uncharted terrain without maps and little in the way of
guidance. This book’s broad-ranging discussion of key virtual team protocols and
processes presented in real organizational contexts should help light the way for both
practitioners and researchers, hopefully ensuring a smoother trip and a more effective
use of virtual teams.
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