This www.shrm.org article content was sent to you by: Denise M. Montoya SPHR
Teams Series Part III: Global Virtual Teams
8/1/2004
Fast Fact
By 2010, 70% of the U.S. population will spend
10 times longer per day interacting virtually.
Source: From “Virtual team interaction” by R.
Emelo and L. M. Francis, October 2002, T & D,
56, 10, pp. 17-20.
Definition
Global virtual team—a team that spans boundaries of time, geography,
culture and nationality, uses various information and communication
technologies, and brings to its work distributed expertise.
Introduction to Global Virtual Teams
Between a growing global economy and the shift from production
orientation to a knowledge and service orientation, organizations
increasingly seek avenues that offer greater flexibility to remain
competitive. One of the most commonly quoted advantages of global
virtual teams is the ability of an organization to leverage competencies
and skills from all parts of the world. As a result of this great diversity of
experience and skills, these teams are often considered to have the
capability to solve very complex problems and open up possibilities for
substantial process creativity and innovative solutions. Global virtual
teams typically are assigned to projects that are aligned with an
organization’s strategic goals and may be short-term (less than 12
months) or long-term in their expected timeframe for completion (see
Figure 1). By using virtual teams, companies can take advantage of
competitive synergies that teamwork offers along with the advancements
in information and communication technologies.
Figure 1: Benefits of Global Virtual Teams
Short-term company benefits
• Brings the best and brightest talent
to address a particular problem
Local responsiveness
• Demonstrates interest in local
views
• Improves understanding of local
perspectives
Long-term company benefits
• Organizational learning and
leadership development
• Promotes knowledge transfer and
innovation
• Helps form social capital networks
• Provides training ground for future
leaders
Source: Adapted from Global Organizational Effectiveness & Employee
Development, by Society for Human Resource Management, 2003.
Characteristics of Global Virtual Teams
Global virtual teams have a number of characteristics in common.
Typically, team members are located in different countries and often
speak different languages. Culturally, they may differ as well—from
different regions, nationalities and ethnic groups to differing
organizational cultures. They may work for the same organization or
represent a group of organizations. They have a shared mission and
vision and are held accountable to accomplish their goal. Individual team
members bring a diverse mix of experience, competencies and skills to
the group. They communicate via various forms of technology, and their
project may be long- or short-term, often defined by the relationship to
the organization’s strategic objective.
Advantages of Global Virtual Teams
From the organization’s viewpoint, global virtual teams offer
organizations additional options over traditional teams to remain
competitive in this fast-moving global economy, such as accessing talent
across the globe, using synergies, costs savings (e.g., travel) and
access to low-wage resources through globalization. As with traditional
teams, global virtual teams bring together people with diverse
backgrounds, thus increasing the potential of innovative ideas and
solutions. Through the use of technology, organizations can use global
virtual teams to enhance knowledge transfer. From the employee
viewpoint, global virtual teams offer employees options for work/life
balance by offering various work schedules.
Challenges of Global Virtual Teams
Global virtual teams face a number of unique challenges:
• Establishing Trust: In contrast to traditional teams, the
members of global virtual teams have a significant challenge to
establish trust due in great part to the lack of face time, working
in different locations and time zones, speaking different
languages and coming from different cultures. There are three
stages of trust—or the evolution of belonging— for global
teams: 1) members participate because of duty; 2) members
interact based on shared knowledge and concepts (knowledgebased trust); and 3) members engage based on empathy and
shared values (the third stage is characteristic of the trust level
of successful global teams).
• Time: Virtual teams may work synchronously or in “real time”
(at the same scheduled time) or asynchronously (accessed any
time from stored information, such as e-mail).
• Culture: There may be significant cultural diversity among the
team members, including differences in regional, national and
organizational cultures.
• Language: For virtual teams that are multicultural, language
can be a significant issue, particularly when for some members
English is their second or third language. Consequently, these
team members may not feel as comfortable making
contributions. There may be cultural contexts of communication
that change the meaning of messages or translation issues in
written documents.
• Humor: As humor is not universal (and does not translate well
in e-mails), it is perhaps best to avoid online humor.
Challenges for the Global Virtual Team Leader
Team leaders of global virtual teams deal with different team dynamics
than those of a traditional team—from time zones and different work
styles/work etiquette to different languages and different cultural
viewpoints (see Figure 2). Their challenge is mixed: to create a sense of
shared vision and knowledge, the feeling of trust, belonging and rapport
among team members, as well as shared space (having access to the
same information around the world). To ensure the team operates as a
group regarding different technologies, team leaders need to make
certain that all members understand how to use the various technologies
utilized by the group, as people tend to not use technology that they do
not understand. In the virtual environment, team managers must also
trust that individuals are working without direct face-to-face supervision.
Solid experience in conflict resolution is recommended to successfully
manage and address the complex dynamics of a global virtual team.
Figure 2: Guidelines to Improve Global Teams
• Select the right people for the global team—with the right skills, complementary
roles and motivation to participate.
• Ensure that personal time is spent on establishing trust and building the team
relationship.
• Establish clear direction and project goals.
• Keep communication constant and current.
• Balance the needs of the global team members with other jobs responsibilities
when setting schedules and determining assignments.
• Recognize member contributions.
• Reinforce the social capital networks developed through teamwork.
• Periodically bring the global team together in different locations throughout the
project.
Source: Adapted from Global Organizational Effectiveness & Employee
Development, by Society for Human Resource Management, 2003.
Virtual Technology
It can be a daunting task for employees who never see and/or meet
each other to effectively communicate and share information on an
ongoing basis. The expansion of virtual technology provides many
communication tools for global virtual teams. Virtual communication and
information sharing can be accomplished using a number of vehicles,
such as e-mail, intranets and the Internet, video conferencing,
teleconferencing, webcasts, shared electronic whiteboards and
groupware (e.g., Lotus Notes).
Team Roles
Extensive research regarding team roles reveals that effective teams
display a balance among the team members, specifically regarding the
strengths and characteristics of each individual. 1 According to this
research, there are nine team roles, each offering both unique
contributions along with limitations. For example, the team role “plant” is
someone who is creative, imaginative, unorthodox and can solve difficult
problems. However, this individual may also ignore incidentals and be
too preoccupied with his or her own concerns to communicate
effectively. In contrast, an example of another team role is the
“implementer” who is disciplined and reliable with conservative habits,
but may be inflexible and slow to respond to new possibilities. The
diversity of the different team roles exemplifies the nature of global
virtual teams (and teams in general), whereby each individual brings
both strengths and weaknesses to the group.
Evaluation of Global Virtual Teams
Typically, virtual teams are evaluated once or twice a year. Teams may
be evaluated during their project or at the completion of the project.
Team members may be evaluated in three different ways: 1) self-
evaluation—assessing their own work based on criteria set by
management or by the team; 2) peer evaluation—each team member
examines the other members based on established criteria (these
evaluations may be used by management to reward individual work);
and 3) management evaluation—assessing the team as a whole.
Management evaluations may include the following criteria:
• Regular attendance at team meetings.
• Quality and timeliness of individual work.
• Percentage of effort in completing the project.
• Attitude toward team members and the project.
• Ability to plan project and help keep team on track.
• Willingness to help other team members.
• Creating an enjoyable work environment.
Literature and Research
• Global Virtual Teams: What Impacts Their Design and
Performance? 2
Based on a review of the state-of-the-art research on the
relatively new organizational phenomenon known as global
virtual teams, as well as the literature of traditional teams, the
authors identified strategic objectives, work characteristics and
situational constraints on team structure and their relationship to
global virtual team performance (see below). Their work
contributes to the literature of theory building regarding global
virtual teams, which is in its infancy.
Dimensions of Strategic Objectives
• Leverage competencies and
skills
Dimensions of Work Characteristics
• Workflow and task uncertainty
• Innovation
• Task complexity and difficulty
• Flexibility
• Cost saving
Dimensions of Performance
Measures of Situational Constraints
• Traditional measures
• Tolerance for cost variance
• Knowledge creation
• Tolerance for schedule variance
• Employee satisfaction
• Tolerance for errors
• Tolerance for increased effort
• Getting It Together: Temporal Coordination and Conflict
Management in Global Virtual Teams 3
With greater competitive pressure on organizations today, firms
are increasing their use of global virtual teams. The key
question is how to create virtual teams that work effectively.
Virtual teams cannot rely on traditional social cues and
mechanisms used by traditional teams that help establish
rapport and trust in teams (e.g., information communication—
coffee breaks, lunch with colleagues, meetings after office
hours). Past research has suggested that team members may
withhold information because of evaluation apprehension or
conformity to majority pressures. In this study, one of the
hypotheses was that the use of a temporal coordination
mechanism could improve the performance of virtual project
teams by alleviating the negative effect of avoidance conflict
management behavior.
Researchers conducted an experiment with 175 graduate
students living in the United States and Japan. The team
members were organized in five-person teams in four research
sites in the two countries. They communicated using an
asynchronous (carried out in different times) communication
technology (that is, Lotus Notes, which assists with
asynchronous work by organizing entries into main topics and
responses, time stamping each message and identifying the
author). The study results showed that the way virtual teams
manage internal conflict is a crucial factor to their success. In
this case, temporal coordination appeared to counteract
tendencies to watch and wait because Lotus Notes identified
individual contributions and thus helped moderate the impact of
avoidance conflict management behavior on team performance.
• Situational Leadership: Managing the Virtual Project Team 4
One of the results of conflicting and diverse demands on virtual
project leaders is the apparent increase of the situational
approach regarding the relationship of specific circumstances
and project leadership. This research considered the following
questions regarding possible situational control by project
managers:
1) What are the implications of project changeability (e.g.,
team member changes) on the manager’s perception of
control?
2) In what way(s) do the criteria for performance (e.g.,
time, performance quality, budget) relate to leader
personality and the degree to which the situation allows
the leader to exercise control and influence?
3) Can a manager change his or her style to match the
situation
This research considered various situational elements, such
technology, internal and external partnerships, time and
geographical dispersions, and project objective complexities
with the project manager’s natural leadership inclinations.
These questions were tested in a pilot survey and in interviews
with more than 200 project managers employed in the United
States and Europe in clinical research organizations. The author
points out that team changes require the project manager to
alter the equilibrium of the leader-member relationship and
positional power and to assess the implications of inter-group
dynamics as well as variations of individual task structure.
Further, environmental shifts have an impact on well-planned
projects, thus raising the stakes to simply keep on top of
unanticipated changes.
The results indicate that variables such as choice of project and
team, team changes within the organization, project duration
and team size can exert significant influences on the project
leader’s perception of control. This perception, in turn, may
likely affect the project leader’s view of apparent difficulty
regarding project objectives. For example, task-motivated
leadership for short projects (less than 12 months) may be
effective in regard to team performance. The study suggests
that there are ramifications for maintaining balance between the
project manager and other project stakeholders. The
observations drawn are exploratory, and more research is
required to determine the extent of the virtual platform and
group dynamics on the project manager and the project itself.
In Brief
Clearly, the use of global virtual teams will continue to increase as
organizations seek alternatives to create competitive advantage. The
primary challenge for global virtual teams is not which technologies to
use but rather how to get people from different parts of the globe to work
together in harmony, share a common vision and successfully
accomplish their goal. As the research shows, the team leader is the key
to motivating the global virtual team and effectively bringing together this
diverse multicultural workforce. By expanding the training of current and
potential global virtual team leaders, HR can contribute to the success of
global virtual teams.
Resources
American Society for Training & Development (ASTD): www.astd.org
Duarte, Deborah L., & Tennant Snyder, Nancy. Mastering Virtual Teams (Second
Edition): www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787958581.html
Gibson, Christina B., & Cohen, Susan G. (Eds.). Virtual Teams That Work: Creating
Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness:
www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787961620.html
Nerimo, Jill. Creativity in Virtual Teams: Key Components for Success:
www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787971146.html
Virtual Teams Bibliography, John Hopkins University: www.jhu.edu/~hr1/humanserv/virtualteams.html
Sources
Adler, N. J. (2002). International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior
(4 th edition) . Cincinnatti, OH: South-Western College Publishing.
Anderson, F. F., & Shane, H. M. (2002). The impact of netcentricity on
virtual teams: The new performance challenge. Team Performance
Management, 8, ½, 5-13.
Belblin, R. (1981). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail.
London: Heineman.
Britt Roebuck, D., & Clarence Britt, A. (2002, Fall). Virtual teaming has
come to stay—Guidelines and strategies for success. Southern Business
Review, 28, 1, 29-40.
Emelo, R., & Francis, L. M. (2002, October). Virtual team interaction. T &
D, 56, 10, 17-20.
Fulton, M. L. (2002, April). Working virtuality. Searcher, 10, 4, 50-55.
Society for Human Resource Management. (2003). Global
Organizational Effectiveness & Employee Development. Alexandria, VA:
Society for Human Resource Management.
Lee-Kelley, L. (2002). Situational leadership: Managing the virtual project
team. The Journal of Management Development, 21, 5/6, 461-477.
Marmer Solomon, C. (2001, June). Managing virtual teams. Workforce,
80, 6, 60-65.
Marquardt., M. J., & Horvath, L. Global Teams. Palo Alto, CA: DaviesBlack Publishing.
Montoya-Weiss, M., Massey, A. P., & Song, M. (2001, December).
Getting it together: Temporal coordination and conflict management in
global virtual teams. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 6, 12511263.
Prasad, K., & Akhilesh, K. B. (2002). Global virtual teams: What impacts
their design and performance? Team Performance Management, 8, 5/6,
102-113.
Also in this Series: Teams
Part I: Teams—Just the Basics
Part II: High-Performance Teams
Endnotes
1
Belblin, R. (1981). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail.
London: Heineman.
2
Prasad, K., & Akhilesh, K. B. (2002). Global virtual teams: What impacts
their design and performance? Team Performance Management, 8, 5/6,
102-113.
3
Montoya-Weiss, M., Massey, A. P., & Song, M. (2001, December).
Getting it together: Temporal coordination and conflict management in
global virtual teams. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 6, 12511263.
4
Lee-Kelley, L. (2002). Situational leadership: Managing the virtual
project team. The Journal of Management Development, 21, 5/6, 461477.
Author: Nancy R. Lockwood, MA, SPHR, GPHR, SHRM Research
Department