Cultural diversity and information and communication technology impacts on global virtual teams: An exploratory study

Modern organizations face many significant challenges because of turbulent environments and a competitive global economy. Among these challenges are the use of information and communication technology (ICT), a multicultural workforce, and organizational designs that involve global virtual teams. Ad hoc teams create both opportunities and challenges for organizations and many organizations are trying to understand how the virtual environment affects team effectiveness. Our exploratory study focused on the effects of cultural diversity and ICT on team effectiveness. Interviews with 41 team members from nine countries employed by a Fortune 500 corporation were analyzed. Results suggested that cultural diversity had a positive influence on decision-making and a negative influence on communication. ICT mitigated the negative impact on intercultural communication and supported the positive impact on decision-making. Effective technologies for intercultural communication included e-mail, teleconferencing combined with e-Meetings, and team rooms. Cultural diversity influenced selection of the communication media.     

Training to improve virtual team communication

Abstract. Organizations are utilizing virtual teams, comprising workgroup members who communicate and collaborate with technology, to accomplish tasks. These teams are geographically distributed and communicate via computer-mediated communication systems (CMCS), and may never or rarely meet face-to-face. Relational links among team members have been found to be a significant contributor to the effectiveness of information exchange in the use of CMCS. In most cases, team members receive little or no training to improve the effectiveness of this form of communication. When training is used, it often focuses on software utilization skills, not on interpersonal communication dynamics. This paper discusses the effect of virtual team communication training on group interactions, especially for enhancing these relational links and thereby improving communication and information exchange in virtual teams. It was found that teams that were given appropriate training exhibited improved perceptions of the interaction process over time, specifically with regard to trust, commitment and frank expression between members. Discussion of the role of training on virtual team processes and outcomes is discussed and future research implications are presented.     

Creativity in virtual teams: Systematic review,synthesis and research agenda

Virtual teams are gaining increasing momentum in contemporary organizations. Although it is becoming clear that virtual teams will play a major role in shaping the future of work, we still know relatively little about their creative performance. Because of the disproportionate focus on conventional, face-to-face working practices, much of the literature remains centred around co-located teams. In this review, we integrate existing research on team creativity and virtual work to identify the relevant factors, processes and contextual conditions that have been shown to influence creativity in virtual teams. We highlight the major challenges that are likely to impede team creativity and assess their relevance to contemporary virtual work practices. We conclude by presenting promising avenues for future research in this area.     

Institutional boundaries and trust of virtual teams in collaborative design: An experimental study in a virtual world environment

Members of virtual teams often collaborate within and across institutional boundaries. This research investigates the effects of boundary spanning conditions on the development of team trust and team satisfaction. Two hundred and eighty-two participants carried out a collaborative design task over several weeks in a virtual world, Second Life. Multigroup structural equation modeling was used to examine our research model, which compares individual level measurement between two boundary spanning team conditions. The results indicate that trusting beliefs have a positive impact on team trust, which in turn, influences team satisfaction. Further, we found that, compared to cross-boundary teams, within-boundary teams exhibited not only higher trusting beliefs and higher satisfaction with the collaboration process but also a stronger relationship between team trust and team satisfaction. These results suggest that trust and group theories need to be interpreted in light of institutional affiliation and contextual variables. An important practical implication is that trust can be fostered in a virtual world environment and collaboration on complex tasks can be carried out effectively in virtual worlds. However, within-boundary virtual teams are preferred over cross-boundary virtual teams if satisfaction with the collaboration process is of the highest priority.     

On teams, teamwork, and team performance: discoveries and developments

OBJECTIVE: We highlight some of the key discoveries and developments in the area of team performance over the past 50 years, especially as reflected in the pages of Human Factors. BACKGROUND: Teams increasingly have become a way of life in many organizations, and research has kept up with the pace. METHOD: We have characterized progress in the field in terms of eight discoveries and five challenges. RESULTS: Discoveries pertain to the importance of shared cognition, the measurement of shared cognition, advances in team training, the use of synthetic task environments for research, factors influencing team effectiveness, models of team effectiveness, a multidisciplinary perspective, and training and technological interventions designed to improve team effectiveness. Challenges that are faced in the coming decades include an increased emphasis on team cognition; reconfigurable, adaptive teams; multicultural influences; and the need for naturalistic study and better measurement. CONCLUSION: Work in human factors has contributed significantly to the science and practice of teams, teamwork, and team performance. Future work must keep pace with the increasing use of teams in organizations. APPLICATION: The science of teams contributes to team effectiveness in the same way that the science of individual performance contributes to individual effectiveness.     

How do different types of intragroup conflict affect group potency in virtual compared with face-to-face teams? A longitudinal study

The number of organizations using teamwork is increasing. In this context, group potency has emerged as a key construct in group research. Moreover, in the last decades, information and communication technologies (ICT) have allowed organizations to form virtual teams. Consequently, a considerable amount of research has analysed the functioning of virtual teams. We focus on intragroup conflict as a relevant antecedent of potency in computer-mediated communication groups. Specifically, the aim of this research is to examine the role of ICT in the relationship between intragroup conflict and group potency in a longitudinal study. A laboratory experiment was carried out comparing 44 groups working in two communication media (face-to-face and computer-mediated communication). The groups developed a project over a one-month period. The results show that communication media play a moderator role between intragroup conflict (relationship and task conflict) and group potency. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Improving the Effectiveness of Virtual Teams by Adapting Team Processes

Results are presented from a study on virtual teams and whether appropriate early training can positively influence their effectiveness. Sixteen teams that worked together for periods ranging from three months to three years were studied. Team processes that emerged naturally from long-duration teams were formalized and taught to shorter duration teams. These shorter duration teams comprised three different cohorts, each of which received different levels of training. It was found that the adoption of formal procedures and structured processes significantly increased the effectiveness of virtual teams. Tasks that lend themselves to a structured approach were most effectively accomplished during virtual meetings, whereas face-to-face interactions were better for relatively unstructured, discussion intensive tasks. The performance of a virtual team was significantly improved when team processes were adapted to the affordances of the CMC environment. It is shown that this adaptation can occur very rapidly if teams are trained on the technology as well as on work processes that best exploit it.     

Perceived job effectiveness in coopetition: A survey of virtual teams within business organizations

This study establishes a model by drawing from key postulates and findings under coopetition to explain the formation of perceived job effectiveness in team collaboration. In the proposed model, perceived job effectiveness is influenced directly by knowledge sharing, cooperative attitude, and competitive conflict, while knowledge sharing is influenced by cooperative attitude and competitive conflict. Accordingly, perceived job effectiveness is influenced indirectly by shared value, perceived trust and perceived benefit via the mediation of cooperative attitude and competitive conflict. Empirical testing of this model, by investigating personnel in information technology (IT) organizations, confirms the applicability of coopetition in virtual teams. The test results indicate that all the model paths except one (linking shared vision and competitive conflict) are significant. Finally, managerial implications and limitations of the research are provided.     

Group development in virtual teams: An experimental reexamination

Virtual teams are thought to be experienced differently and to have poor outcomes because there is little or no face-to-face interaction and a tendency for virtual team members to use different communication techniques for forming relationships. However, the expanding use of virtual teams in organizations suggests that virtual teams in real world contexts are able to overcome these barriers and be experienced in much the same way as face-to-face teams. This paper reports the result of an experiment in which virtual teams participated in an exercise where they completed an information-sharing task ten times as a team. The results suggest that, contrary to one-shot, ad hoc virtual teams, longer-lived virtual teams follow a sequential group development process. Virtual team development appears to differ from face-to-face teams because the use of computer-mediated communication heightens pressure to conform when a virtual team is first formed, meaning trust is most strongly linked with feeling that the team was accomplishing the task appropriately. As the virtual teams developed, trust in peers was more strongly linked with goal commitment. Once the teams were working together effectively, accomplishing the task appropriately was the strongest link with trust in peers. I suggest that virtual team managers should cultivate virtual workspaces that are similar to those proven to work in face-to-face contexts: (1) teams should have clear, specific goals, (2) members should be encouraged or even required to communicate with each other, and (3) team members should feel that they might work with the other team members again.     

Assessing Online Learning Ability From a Social Exchange Perspective: A Survey of Virtual Teams Within Business Organizations

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study proposes a model by postulating critical antecedents and mediators as the key drivers of online learning ability. In the model, online learning ability is affected indirectly by trust via 3 mediators simultaneously, including team commitment, task conflict, and relationship conflict, whereas trust is impacted directly by expressiveness interdependence, outcome interdependence, and task interdependence. Empirical testing of this model, by investigating the personnel of virtual teams from information technology organizations, confirms the applicability of social exchange theory in understanding online learning ability. This study contributes to the virtual team learning literature by extending social exchange theory to the rarely explored area of online learning ability of organizational teams and validating idiosyncratic drivers of online learning ability. Last, this article provides managerial implications and limitations of the research.     

Fostering trust in virtual project teams: Towards a design framework grounded in a TrustWorthiness ANtecedents (TWAN) schema

Several collaboration problems in virtual project teams that work in knowledge-intensive contexts can be attributed to a hampered process of interpersonal trust formation. Solutions to trust formation problems need to be based on an understanding of how interpersonal trust forms in face-to-face project teams as well as on insight into how this process differs in virtual teams. Synthesizing literature from various disciplines, we propose a model for the formation of interpersonal trust between project team members. Taking this model as a starting point, we analyse how virtual settings may alter or even obstruct the process of trust formation. One method to improve the formation of interpersonal trust in virtual settings is to facilitate the assessment of trustworthiness. This can be done by making information available about individual virtual project team members. Previous research in virtual project teams focussed principally on the medium by which information is spread, for example, by phone, mail, or videoconferencing. Most researchers failed to take the specific content of the information into account, although there is general agreement that personal, non-task-related information is important to foster trust. For this, we propose to use the antecedents of trustworthiness, which until now have mainly been used as a framework to measure trust, as a design framework instead. This framework of antecedents can also be used to determine which type of information is relevant to assess each other’s trustworthiness. We review existing literature on the antecedents of trustworthiness and extend the well-accepted antecedents of ‘ability’, ‘benevolence’ and ‘integrity’ with several other antecedents, such as ‘communality’ and ‘accountability’. Together, these form the TrustWorthiness ANtecedents (TWAN) schema. We describe how these antecedents can be used to determine which information is relevant for team members assessing others’ trustworthiness. In future research we will first verify this extended cognitive schema of trustworthiness (TWAN) empirically and then apply it to the design of artefacts or guidelines, such as a personal identity profile to support the assessment of trustworthiness in virtual project teams.     

虚拟教学环境中基于草图的自适应用户界面研究

将草图技术、自适应技术与传统的虚拟现实技术相结合应用于虚拟教学过程中,通过增强用户和系统之间个性化需求的交互处理来提高系统的智能性和友好性,进而有效提高虚拟教学环境的应用效果.旨在虚拟环境中构建基于草图的自适应用户界面并应用于虚拟教学来满足特定教学需求,着重结合实例分析了基于自适应草图用户界面的虚拟教学环境中的草图上下文处理机制.在上述研究基础上,设计开发了一个虚拟教学原型系统,实验证明该系统在用户体验上有明显的改善.     

Integrating the smartphone into a sound environmental information systems strategy: Principles, practices and a research agenda

Smartphones are both green technologies and an integral parts of green information systems that are beginning to make serious contributions toward a sustainable environment. We trace the rise of the smartphone, with particular attention given to the iPhone and its many applications. The fundamental differences between smartphone-based and more common Internet applications, and how these might enhance sustainable strategies for organizations with a green agenda are highlighted. U-Commerce is suggested as a theoretical framework that best explains this, and the four dimension of U-Commerce are employed to illustrate how innovative organizations are using the unique characteristics of smartphones to pursue environmentally sound strategies. A process that might be followed for indentifying applications for sustainable issues, making sure that the applications take advantages of a smartphone’s unique features, and that contribute to sustainability by using fewer resources, protecting resources, and improving our use of current resources. The paper concludes by identifying a research agenda for information systems scholars to pursue studying the use of smartphones in search of a sustainable information technology agenda.     

Working Together Apart? Building a Knowledge‐Sharing Culture for Global Virtual Teams

A new impetus for greater knowledge‐sharing among team members needs to be emphasized due to the emergence of a significant new form of working known as ‘global virtual teams’. As information and communication technologies permeate every aspect of organizational life and impact the way teams communicate, work and structure relationships, global virtual teams require innovative communication and learning capabilities for different team members to effectively work together across cultural, organizational and geographical boundaries. Whereas information technology‐facilitated communication processes rely on technologically advanced systems to succeed, the ability to create a knowledge‐sharing culture within a global virtual team rests on the existence (and maintenance) of intra‐team respect, mutual trust, reciprocity and positive individual and group relationships. Thus, some of the inherent questions we address in our paper are: (1) what are the cross‐cultural challenges faced by global virtual teams?; (2) how do organizations develop a knowledge sharing culture to promote effective organizational learning among culturally‐diverse team members? and; (3) what are some of the practices that can help maximize the performance of global virtual teams? We conclude by examining ways that global virtual teams can be more effectively managed in order to reach their potential in this new interconnected world and put forward suggestions for further research.     

Exploring the effects of trust,task interdependence and virtualness on knowledge sharing in teams

The sharing of knowledge within teams is critical to team functioning. However, working with team members who are in different locations (i.e. in virtual teams) may introduce communication challenges and reduce opportunities for rich interactions, potentially affecting knowledge sharing and its outcomes. Therefore, using questionnaire‐based data, this study examined the potential effects of different aspects of virtuality on a knowledge‐sharing model. Social exchange theory was used to develop a model relating trust to knowledge sharing and knowledge sharing to team effectiveness. The moderating effects of virtuality and task interdependence on these relationships were examined. A strong positive relationship was found between trust and knowledge sharing for all types of teams (local, hybrid and distributed), but the relationship was stronger when task interdependence was low, supporting the position that trust is more critical in weak structural situations. Knowledge sharing was positively associated with team effectiveness outcomes; however, this relationship was moderated by team imbalance and hybrid structures, such that the relationship between sharing and effectiveness was weaker. Organizations should therefore avoid creating unbalanced or hybrid virtual teams.     

Toward the measure of virtual teams effectiveness

Virtual teams can be an alternative to colocated teams and they are inevitable when the members of team are significantly dispersed. Quite often when team members are dispersed there is a necessity to arrange either face‐to‐face (FTF) meetings or their substitute—videoconferencing sessions. Such cases take place in multinational corporations. In one of them from the automotive industry, we examined the cost‐effectiveness of arranging meetings of team members in the form of FTF or videoconferencing sessions. For this purpose, a mathematical model has been elaborated. This model can be a useful tool for choosing between creating a colocated or virtual team as well as about the form of meeting of virtual team members. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Exploring virtual team-working effectiveness in the construction sector

In defining a virtual team-working solution as with any new organisational form, success relies not merely on the introduction and adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), but also on critically analysing the underlying social and organisational aspects. The paper investigates the effectiveness of virtual teams, and any other suitable form of virtual collaboration, in the Construction sector and explores the factors that influence their successful adoption. The positivist strand adopted in the research emphasises a particular approach that promotes software application hosting through a dedicated application service provider, as opposed to the traditional software-licensing model. The research identifies important socio-organisational challenges inherent to the project-based nature of Construction, including issues related to technology adoption, team identification, trust, and motivation. Action research techniques have been employed to conduct the research involving two Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) from France and Finland.     

Information Infrastructure Centrality in the Agile Organization

Modern organizations face increasing pressure to find new ways to compete effectively in a dynamic global market. Many firms are turning to E-commerce and virtual structures, such as virtual organizations and virtual teams, to improve organizational agility and to expand globally. These solutions elevate the importance of information flow within the firm and among firm partners. New technologies are emerging at a rapid pace to support this increased flow of information. As organizations grow to depend upon these new technologies, their opportunities to expand into new geographic regions might be limited by the ability of the remote information infrastructure to support the organization's modernized requirements. Thus, firms seeking to improve their ability to compete globally might actually impede future expansion.     

The sound of silence: The case of virtual team organising

In this paper we discuss the role of silence within a virtual organising context. The paper raises issues related to the construction of silence in the virtual team context and the implications it has on team interactions. By drawing upon existing studies on virtual teams, we argue that members' silence may not always have negative effects on team performance and team relationships, but that silence is an embedded part of this environment as it reinforces the very nature of virtuality. The theoretical and practical significance of this study are discussed and implications for further research are identified.