Virtual Teams: Human Resources’ technology preferences for better communication, increased trust and performance.

AbstractVirtual Teams (VTs) are increasingly being adopted by companies. Being geographicallyand time dispersed, human resources of VTs are totally dependent upon the use ofinformation and communication technologies (ICT) to support their communicationalsuccess. Although much research has already been done on several aspects of VirtualTeams, very little has focused on the relation between the virtual team communicationperformance and the selection of tools available to the team members. Additionally,most of the theories related to tool selection concentrate in the combined characteristicsof task and technology, disregarding human factors based in personal characteristics,comfort and preferences.To detect which technology workers of Virtual Teams prefer for accomplishing eachone of their communicational needs and to analyze the impact of personal characteristicsbased technology choice, on cohesion, leadership, knowledge share and trust,leading to virtual team performance, an electronic questionnaire has been sent tomembers of virtual teams in several companies from different sectors of activity, and79 valid answers were received.The analysis looked at the data from different perspectives: Is there, globally, a preferredtechnology? Do personal characteristics of workers - Gender, Age Group, EducationLevel and IT use Proficiency – influence the choice? And, does the choice ofthe preferred technological tool that best suits each of the four HRM themes – Trustbuildup, Management, Knowledge Share and Cohesion – follow the global preference?The results have shown that e-Mail is the preferred technology choice and that thischoice is not influenced by gender. The other three sets of personal characteristicsinfluence the choice. For building Trust and Cohesion, the preferred technology is videoconference,contradicting the global tendency whereas for Knowledge Share andfor Management activities e-Mail is again the preferred technology, in line with themain choice.Keywords: virtual teams, communication technology, channel selection, human resources,cohesion, trust, performanceResumoA adoção de Equipas Virtuais pelas empresas tem vindo a aumentar. Encontrandosedispersos, geograficamente e no tempo, os recursos humanos das equipas virtuaisdependem totalmente da utilização de tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TIC)para suportar as suas necessidades comunicacionais. Embora exista muita investigaçãoefetuada sobre inúmeros aspetos das equipas virtuais, muito pouca se focou narelação entre o desempenho comunicacional destas e a seleção das ferramentas disponíveispara os membros. Além disso, a maior parte das teorias relacionadas com aselecção de ferramentas concentra-se na combinação de características tarefa/tecnologia,descurando factores humanos baseados nas características pessoais, no confortoe nas preferências.Com o fim de detetar qual a tecnologia preferida pelos trabalhadores das equipas virtuaispara a satisfação das suas necessidades comunicacionais e ainda para analisaro impacto da escolha tecnológica - baseada em características pessoais - na confiança,coesão, liderança e partilha de conhecimento foi enviado um questionário eletrónicoa membros de equipas virtuais de empresas operando em diferentes sectores, tendosido recebidas 79 respostas válidas.A análise dos dados centrou-se em diferentes perspetivas: Existe uma tecnologia preferida?As caraterísticas pessoais dos trabalhadores – género, faixa etária, escolaridade ecapacidade de utilização de tecnologia – influenciam a escolha? A escolha da tecnologiaque melhor se adapta a cada um dos 4 temas de GRH - confiança, coesão, liderançae partilha de conhecimento – segue a preferência global?Os resultados mostraram ser o e-Mail a tecnologia preferida e que esta escolha nãoé afetada pelo género. Os outros três tipos de caraterísticas pessoais mostraram terinfluência na seleção da tecnologia. Para o estabelecimento de confiança e coesão, atecnologia preferida foi a vídeo-conferência enquanto para a partilha de conhecimentoo e-Mail voltou a ser a escolha principal.Palavras chave: equipas virtuais, tecnologia de comunicação, seleção de canais, recursoshumanos, coesão, confiança, performance

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

Effective Virtual Teams for New Product Development

At present, the existing literature shows that the factors which influence the effectiveness of virtual teams for new product development are still ambiguous. To address this problem, a research design was developed, which includes detailed literature review, preliminary model and field survey. From literature review, the factors which influence the effectiveness of virtual teams are identified and these factors are modified using a field survey. The relationship between knowledge workers (people), process and technology in virtual teams is explored in this study. The results of the study suggest that technology and process are tightly correlated and need to be considered early in virtual teams. The use of software as a service, web solution, report generator and tracking system should be incorporated for effectiveness virtual teams

Innovation and R & D activities in virtual team

Innovation plays a central role in economic development, at the regional and national level. In the competitive environment companies are obliged to produce more rapidly, more effectively and more efficiently in new product development, which is a result of research and development (R&D) activities. It is necessary for them to put together different capabilities and services with the goal, through cooperation between suppliers and customers, service providers and scientific institutions to achieve innovations of high quality. Depending on the type of industry, the type of business, the type of innovation and the strategic objectives that have been set, firms will regularly have to modify the way in which their R\&D and innovation are organized. Nowadays, shift from serial to simultaneous and parallel working in innovation has become more commonplace. Literature's have shown that collaboration is as a meta-capability for innovation. By a comprehensive reviewing of literature this article after define virtual teams and its characteristics, addressing virtual environment innovation and the relationship to R&D activities. Finally conclude that innovation cannot be successful, unless the knowledge and information in the R&D project are effectively captured, shared and internalized by the R&D project?s virtual team members

Work Organisation and Innovation - Case Study: Rabobank, Netherlands

[Excerpt] Rabobank Nederland (RN) is part of Rabobank Group, which provides financial services and insurance. It is the largest financial services provider in the Netherlands. The group operates in 47 countries and has an employee base of 59,670 full-time equivalents (FTE). In the Netherlands RN has an employee base of 6,800 FTE, which is more or less equal to 8,500 employees. RN is a cooperative, located in Utrecht, and the administrative centre for 139 (2011) local cooperative Rabobanks. The local banks are not branches of RN as each of them has its own banking licence from the central Nederlandsche Bank. The joint employee base of the local Rabobanks is 27,000 FTE. The 139 local Rabobanks, RN and affiliates, provide services to some 10 million clients, including 1.9 million members (Rabobank Annual Report, 2011)

Ground Rules in Team Projects: Findings from a Prototype System to Support Students

Student team project work in higher education is one of the best ways to develop team working skills at the same time as learning about the subject matter. As today’s students require the freedom to learn at times and places that better match their lifestyles, there is a need for any support for team project work to be also available online. Team working requires that the task roles as well as the maintenance roles are taken into consideration, in that social interactions are just as important as carrying out the tasks of the project. The literature indicates that groupware, whilst effective in supporting the task roles, provides limited support for the maintenance roles of team working in the work place. As groupware was not specifically designed for student team working, it provides limited support for maintenance roles in student team projects. Virtual learning environments similarly provide support for completing the task roles. Many researchers have found that students experience difficulties with their team project work that reduce the perceived benefits of working in a team. It is proposed that helping students to agree on ground rules at the start of a project will improve team cohesion. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a prototype system to help students to agree on ground rules as they start their team projects. The system was tested with teams of students carrying out information systems team projects, using an interpretive case study research approach. In this case the teams had the additional problem of being composed of students from across three years of their undergraduate degree programmes, so they did not always have prior knowledge of each other’s preferences. We were trying to establish how useful this software tool would be to these student teams, in starting their project work. The findings showed that some of the student teams did find the ground rules function useful, but the team leaders were the ones who most appreciated its potential. The students may use the outputs in very different ways, but even just looking at the ground rules appeared to get team members thinking about their expectations for team working. Student teams do not often start by thinking about norms, but this study shows a positive benefit of encouraging teams to agree on ground rules at the start of their projects

Virtual teams: A literature review

In the competitive market, virtual teams represent a growing response to the need for fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid solutions to complex organizational problems. Virtual teams enable organizations to pool the talents and expertise of employees and non-employees by eliminating time and space barriers. Nowadays, companies are heavily investing in virtual team to enhance their performance and competitiveness. Despite virtual teams growing prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of team. Hence the study offers an extensive literature review with definitions of virtual teams and a structured analysis of the present body of knowledge of virtual teams. First, we distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams, different types of virtual teams to identify where current knowledge applies. Second, we distinguish what is needed for effective virtual team considering the people, process and technology point of view and underlying characteristics of virtual teams and challenges they entail. Finally, we have identified and extended 12 key factors that need to be considered, and describes a methodology focused on supporting virtual team working, with a new approach that has not been specifically addressed in the existing literature and some guide line for future research extracted.Virtual team, Literature review, Effective virtual team,

Building an Ethical Small Group (Chapter 9 of Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership)

This chapter examines ethical leadership in the small-group context. To help create groups that brighten rather than darken the lives of participants, leaders must foster individual ethical accountability among group members, ensure ethical group interaction, avoid moral pitfalls, and establish ethical relationships with other groups. In his metaphor of the leader\u27s light or shadow, Parker Palmer emphasizes that leaders shape the settings or contexts around them. According to Palmer, leaders are people who have an unusual degree of power to create the conditions under which other people must live and move and have their being, conditions that can either be as illuminating as heaven or as shadowy as hell. 1 In this final section of the text, I\u27ll describe some of the ways we can create conditions that illuminate the lives of followers in small-group, organizational, global, and crisis settings. Shedding light means both resisting and exerting influence. We must fend off pressures to engage in unethical behavior while actively seeking to create healthier moral environments

SMEs; Virtual research and development (R&D) teams and new product development: A literature review

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are indeed the engines of global economic growth. Their continued growth is a major subject for the economy and employment of any country. Towards that end, virtual research and development (R&D) could be a viable option to sustain and ease the operations of SMEs. However, literature shows there has not been a great deal of research into the diverse characteristic of virtual R&D teams in SMEs. This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R&D teams collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the literature review is to provide an outline on the structure and dynamics of R&D collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the rationale and relevance of virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R&D team for SMEs and new product development (NPD) has been examined. It concludes with identifying the gaps and feebleness in the existing literature and calls for future research in this area. It is argued to form of virtual R&D team deserves consideration at top level management for venturing into the new product development within SMEs