Building and Maintaining Trust in Virtual Teams as a Competitive Strategy

Many virtual team leaders lack strategies to build and maintain trust among virtual team members, which affects performance and productivity. The purpose of this exploratory single case study was to provide organizational leaders with information about the strategies that virtual team leaders use to build and maintain trust among virtual team members to enhance job performance. Cognition-based and affect-based theories of interpersonal relationships were used as a conceptual framework. In-depth, semistructured electronic interviews were conducted with 10 virtual team leaders of a multinational global organization specializing in management consulting and technology services that has headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. Interview data and documents from virtual team memos and progress reports were content analyzed with NVivo software, and member checking was used to validate transcribed data. Two major thematic categories emerged from data analysis (a) the need for effective organizational and leadership skills and (b) strategies for building and maintaining trust among virtual team members. Recommendations include reevaluating the hiring processes of virtual team leaders and members, providing adequate cross-cultural training to virtual team leaders and members, creating effective strategies for interpersonal relationships, and investing in communication technologies that foster face-to-face collaboration. Building and maintaining trust among virtual team members helps increase team performance and productivity. Implications for social change include promoting social stability, reducing projects\u27 failure, and improving the bottom line

The Collective Building of Knowledge in Collaborative Learning Environments

The intention of this chapter is to investigate how collaborative learning environments (CLEs) can be used to elicit the collective building of knowledge. This work discusses CLEs as lively cognitive systems and looks at some strategies that might contribute to the improvement of significant pedagogical practices. The study is supported by rhizome principles, whose characteristics allow us to understand the process of selecting and connecting what is relevant and meaningful for the collective building of knowledge. A brief theoretical and conceptual approach is presented and major contributions and difficulties about collaborative learning environments are discussed. New questions and future trends about the collective building of knowledge are suggested

Determining how information technology is changing the role of leadership in virtual organization

Includes bibliographical references

Impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on construction projects

The changing face of construction projects has resulted in a movement towards the use of technology as a primary means of communication. The consequences of this rise in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) is a loss of interpersonal communication skills. A number of resulting issues within the human – electronic and human – human interfaces are identified in an attempt to define the efficiency of communication in projects. The research shows how ICT effects the social environment of construction project teams and the project outcome. The study seeks to confirm the need for further work in order to develop new forms of communication protocols and behaviour. An initial literature review was undertaken to develop a theoretical review of the impacts of ICT on construction project teams. This review identified a number of issues that were then tested in the field through an observation and two verification interviews. The research confirms the existence of tensions and conflicts in the human – electronic and human - human communication interfaces within the studies environment. It is proposed that the increasing use of ICT occur at the expense of soft system communication. The principal impact of this is a form of ‘human distraction’ which adversely affects the performance of project teams. There is limited theory exploring these issues that suggests the problems identified are not well understood and consequently indicates a gap in knowledge

Virtual Teams: Work/Life Challenges - Keeping Remote Employees Engaged

Remotely located employees are quickly becoming a norm in the modern workplace in response to evidence that telecommuters save on costs and produce more efficiently. There are many intangible benefits also felt with the increasing prevalence of remote employees. Telecommuters are more satisfied with their work/life balance and report lower rates of job burnout. Though there are also many well-identified setbacks remotely located managers and employees may face. Employers see the most success with telecommuting by first recruiting the people best fit to fill these remote roles. However, the process of developing remote employees is a process that requires constant monitoring. The purpose of this paper is to identify the best practices being used by companies to keep remote employees engaged while simultaneously avoiding burnout

Managing Virtual Teams

{Excerpt} Virtual team management is the ability to organize and coordinate with effect a group whose members are not in the same location or time zone, and may not even work for the organization. The predictor of success is—as always—clarity of purpose. But group participation in achieving that is more than ever important to compensate for lost context. Virtual team management requires deeper understanding of people, process, and technology, and recognition that trust is a more limiting factor compared with face-to-face interactions. A team is a cooperative unit of interacting individuals who are committed to a common purpose on tasks; endowed with complementary skills, for instance, in technical competence, problem-solving ability, and emotional intelligence; and who share interdependent performance goals (with indicators and deadlines) as well as an approach to work for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. (People try to accomplish with others what they cannot do alone.) When they are effective, teams are typified by intelligibility of purpose, trust, open communication, clear roles, the right mix of talent and skills, full participation, individual performance, quality control, risk taking, collective delivery of products and services, an appropriate level of sponsorship and resources,and balanced work-life interactions. Their stages of development are likely universal. But here commonalities end: thanks to globalization and, chiefly, the advent of the Internet, unusual teams whose members may never meet face to face have come to proliferate. Their distinct configurations raise unique challenges for managers, to which literature and practice are only just beginning to pay attention

Building Teams from a Distance

[Excerpt] Virtual teams are comprised of individuals that are separated geographically or organizationally and that rely primarily on technology to complete tasks (Powell, Piccoli & Ives, 2004). This work arrangement has been found to be advantageous for many firms because it reduces the costs and time associated with employee travel. It also permits organizations to attract and retain top talent because workplace flexibility is increasingly seen as a crucial aspect of job satisfaction for many employees (Bergiel, Bergiel & Balsmeier, 2008). Virtual teams are also valuable to many businesses because team members commonly focus their interests on tasks instead of shared social or cultural environments, which often impact the dynamic within conventional teams (Hamilton & Scandura, 2003). This fosters a working environment that encourages innovation and decreases discrimination by hierarchy, employee impairments, race or age because productivity is more important than other characteristics (Bergiel et al., 2008). While virtual teams have many advantages, they frequently struggle to establish a strong sense of trust between individuals, frequent team member intercommunication, and effective leadership; all of which are necessary for team success

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