The purpose of this paper is to present the paradigms of virtual teams in the communication process in the context of the existing literature in this field. We argue the above issues and we explore the communication process within virtual teams like an interactive, complex and limiting process in connxion with the advantages and disadvantages offered by information technology.Virtual team, communication, competence, cultural diversity, information technology (IT).

Adriana SCHIOPOIU BURLEA

English

Research Papers in Economics

Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007  113
The Communication Process in Virtual Teams 
 
Adriana SCHIOPOIU BURLEA 
University of Craiova 
 
The purpose of this paper is to present the paradigms of virtual teams in the communication 
process in the context of the existing literature in this field. We argue the above issues and we 
explore the communication process within virtual teams like an interactive, complex and lim-
iting process in connexion with the advantages and disadvantages offered by information 
technology. 
Key words: Virtual team, communication, competence, cultural diversity, information tech-
nology (IT). 
 
ntroduction 
Th
techn
e development of the informational 
ology, globalisation, the constraints im-
posed by the international business environ-
ment, are phenomena that leave their mark 
on the management of the organisations. 
Nowadays, mangers are constrained to take a 
series of decisions, both under the pressure of 
time and the pressure generated by the lack 
or shortage of financial human resources. 
The phrase – man is the most important re-
source of an organisation – led to the trans-
formation of the sustainable competitive ad-
vantage into a real riding hag for the manag-
ers  that give the company outstanding per-
formance over a period of time. 
Specialists come to the managers assistance 
suggesting that the virtual teams represent 
one of the solutions meant to lead to obtain-
ing a long-run sustainable competitive advan-
tage into organisations (Handy, 1995; Lip-
nack and Stamps, 2000; Skyrme, 2003). 
The enthusiasm of the virtual team partisans 
is motivated by the fact that: 
- the philosophy and the culture of the or-
ganisation are highly valorised by this type of 
teams,   
- some barriers like the ones related to time, 
space and structure are easier to be removed 
(Skyrme, 2003). 
In the era of technology, the virtual teams 
become more and more popular, and their 
limits, especially those related to the formal 
and informal communication, the acceptance 
of the organisational change, leadership, are 
considered to be insignificant barriers, easy 
to be removed. 
Even though the traditional teams are losing 
more and more ground to the virtual teams, 
one can not affirm that their existence is in 
danger. The fact of combining and modelling 
the advantages of the two types of teams – 
virtual and classic/traditional – leads to an ef-
ficient utilisation of the human resources of 
an organisation. 
The definition of virtual teams 
The definition of the virtual teams has not 
aroused violent controversies and disputes, 
and the establishment of a certain minimal 
agreement around the core term “technology” 
was succeeded (Duarte and Tennant Snyder, 
2001, Lloyg and Junemann, 2003). 
Lipnack and Stamps (2000, p. 18) define a 
virtual team as: A group of people who work 
interdependently with a shared purpose 
across space, time, and organisation bounda-
ries using technology. 
The limits of this definition consist of the 
fact that it does not emphasise the complex 
and complementary competences of the vir-
tual team. It is not only the technology that 
marks the difference between a virtual and a 
traditional team, but also the ensemble of the 
complex and complementary that can be re-
united at one time, in order to realise a com-
plex activity irrespective of space and time. 
Skyrme (2003, p. 148), considers that a 
group is not a team, but members of different 
groups can work together as a team. Team is 
an entity with certain cohesion whose mem-
bers have the same objective and everyone 
heads for success.  
In conclusion, the virtual team’s flexibility 
depends on the way of purchasing and redis-
I Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007  114 
tributing different types of competences, ac-
cording to the complexity of the activity that 
is to be carried out at one time. This makes 
the virtual team to be considered the micro 
cosmos of the virtual organisations. 
In this context the virtual reality is three-
dimensional in time, space and according to 
the ensemble of competences that the virtual 
team can reunite at a given time. 
Our concept about virtual teams 
The virtual team is a team with a well-
defined purpose which consists of realising a 
common object, whose members are in dif-
ferent work places (inside or outside the or-
ganisation, inside or outside the borders of a 
country); it uses the informational technology 
and it is continuously reconfigured, accord-
ing to the necessary complex competences at 
a given time, in order to achieve the pursued 
object. The virtual team represents an ad-
vanced version of a traditional team with a 
high level of cohesion. 
The core of the virtual team is human capital 
by his competences, as well as the technol-
ogy by communication and treatment of in-
formation facilities that offers it.   
Communication within virtual teams  
Having as a basis the classic model of com-
munication by Shanon (1948) and taking into 
consideration the particularities of communi-
cation within virtual team (Duarte and 
Tennant Snyder (2001) and Wickham 
(1999)) we have made the scheme of a com-
munication system within virtual teams (fig-
ure 1). 
 
Sender  
Encoding the 
Message 
Receiver  
Decoding the 
Message 
Feedback
IT  
transmission 
 
IT 
transmission 
Feedback 
Loss the message 
of part of the 
message 
 
Figure no 1. The communication system of the virtual team (VT) 
 
We have characterised the communication 
within virtual teams like an interactive, com-
plex and limiting process. 
Communication interaction is due to the fa-
cilities given by information technology. 
Sending the message by means of Internet 
technology makes the relation between 
sender and receiver to be established in a 
very short time even if the messages are not 
directly sent to the receiver. 
The advantage of virtual communication, 
as an interactive process, consists of the fact 
that it is realised on different relations:  
1.  one sender – more senders, 
2.  one sender – more receivers,  
3.  more senders – more senders, 
4.  more senders   – more receivers. 
Due to the use of information technology, 
coding and decoding the messages are made 
automatically without important modifica-
tions of the message.  
But there is the disadvantage given by the 
possibility that in the IT field, the message to 
be totally or partially lost. This will lead to 
delays in the communication process and to a 
certain mood of uncertainty between the 
members of the virtual team.  
Delays in receiving the message lead to the 
appearance of some time to think in supply-
ing with the answer, which diminishes the 
spontaneity and the creativity of the receiver. 
The consequences of losing totally or par-
tially the message are all the more serious as 
the communication is realised between more 
senders because, at one time, it will be diffi-
cult to identify the ‘missing link’ among the Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007  115
series of messages between the members of 
the team, and thus, the team will not to be 
able to realise, in time, its objective. 
Thus the communication becomes inefficient 
the members of the virtual team have no 
longer a clear perception and an overview of 
the existent situation. 
Another  disadvantage of the interactive 
communication is that the employee feels 
isolated in front of the computer and has no 
longer the protection of the other members of 
the team. 
The feeling of isolation, correlated with the 
lack of overview of the objectives of the 
team lead to disappointment and the appear-
ance of relation conflicts within the team. 
The conflict of relations is based on dis-
agreement created between two or more 
members of the virtual team.  
The source of the conflict of relations is the 
misunderstandings that occur at one time in 
the process of communication and in the way 
of thinking of the team members. 
Communication complexity is the result of 
diverse competences of the virtual team 
members (Rich, 1997), instability and weak 
demarcation of the roles within the virtual 
team.  
The members of a team with diverse compe-
tences gather much more abilities, skills, 
knowledge (Burlea Şchiopoiu, 2003) that can 
contribute on one hand to improving the per-
formance (Milliken and Martins, 1996; Kel-
ler 2001), and on the other hand it can affect 
negatively the cohesion of the group because 
of some lacks in the communication process.  
Cultural diversity within virtual teams can 
lead to an inexact understanding of the mes-
sage, especially if we take into consideration 
the lack of body language that, in some 
cases, has the role to emphasise or to com-
plete certain essences of the message. 
The members of the virtual team have a 
flexible culture that they adapt permanently 
to organisational culture according to the 
empowerment level that they have and the 
role that they accomplish at one time within 
the team.  
Belbin considers that the role of the team 
represents (Belbin, 2000, p. 25) ‘. . . useful 
behaviours which make an effective contri-
bution to team performance…’ . Thus, there 
is a strong connection between the estab-
lishment of the roles and the performance of 
the team even if the roles change during the 
process of realisation of the team’s objective 
(Carnal, 1999; Heckhusen, 1989). 
Because virtual teams are heterogeneous 
teams, the establishment of the roles is a very 
difficult process that leads to creating some 
barriers in the co-ordination process of the 
team members. 
The importance of the responsibility estab-
lishment of the team members is analysed by 
some authors (Broom and Keever, 1989; 
McFadzean, 1998, Burlea Şchiopoiu and 
Barbacioru 2005) according to the efficiency 
of the final results of the team, not taking 
into account the relation between responsi-
bilities, communication, collaboration and ef-
ficiency.  
Other authors (Belbin 2000, Davidson – 
1994) consider that the establishment and the 
diversity of roles within a team have a great 
impact on the performance and the sharing of 
knowledge as well as on collaboration be-
tween the members of the group.  
The one-dimensional analysis of different 
variables that influence work team, either it 
refers to a traditional team or a virtual one, is 
a weakness of the literature review. This 
leads to minimising the communication im-
portance in realising a definite profit and em-
phasises the feeling of uncertainty, reducing 
the stability and the commitment of the 
members of the virtual team.  
The on-line co-operation and co-ordination 
between team members become inertial be-
ing characterised by a certain level of con-
straint. 
The lack of social integration between the 
members of the virtual team reduces the sat-
isfaction level (O’Reilly, Caldwell and Bar-
nett, 1989).  
Within virtual teams, the cognitive conflicts 
that influence directly the team’s perform-
ance have a probability of appearance, bigger 
than the affective conflicts (Simons and Pe-
terson, 2000). 
Thus, the communication process becomes Informatica Economică, nr. 1 (41)/2007  116 
rigid, emphasising the egocentric part of the 
members of the virtual team and diminishing 
the feeling of reciprocal trust.  
Communication limitation  represents a 
paradox and it is due to the lack of expressiv-
ity of the message that has been sent, even 
though apparently there is a bigger control 
over the dysfunctions that take place while 
sending the message, and still the exchange 
of some informal information is practically 
limited both in time and in space due to the 
lack of face - to - face communication.  
The messages that have been sent by a tradi-
tional team include a series of formal and in-
formal information that gives the recipient 
more clues about the way he or she has to in-
terpret the message.  
Besides, the message coding, decoding and 
feed-back take place suddenly and lead to 
more control on disruptions during the 
transmission process and to a better monito-
risation of the impact of the message over the 
receiver, and thus the possibility of an imme-
diate correction of the message.  
Conclusions 
Communication within virtual team is a 
complex and fundamental process that im-
plies a detailed analysis of the human and or-
ganisational aspects according to the tech-
nology that is being used.  
The work in the virtual team has some ad-
vantages and disadvantages. 
The advantages consist of the use of IT that 
offers multiple possibilities in order to have 
an efficient co-operation within virtual team 
and eliminates the cultural and geographical 
barriers. 
The disadvantages are due to the lack of syn-
chronisation during the communication proc-
ess and may produce conflicts among the 
members as well as among the virtual team.  
Finally, a virtual team can be a cohesive and 
interdisciplinary team that clearly under-
stands the mission of organisation in rela-
tionship with the communication process. 
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A learning community on the Internet: an exercise with masters students,

A mathematical theory of communication,

Consulting for virtual excellence: virtual teamwork as a task for consultants, Team Performance Management: An International Journal, Volume 9.

Creating high performance international teams,

Cross-functional project groups in research and new product development: diversity, communications, job stress, and outcomes,

Knowledge Networking. Creating the collaborative enterprise,

Management Consulting,

Next generation group facilitation: proposed principles,

Search for common threads: understanding the multiple effects of diversity in organizational groups,

Task conflict and relationship conflict in top management teams: the pivotal role of intragroup trust”,

The attention wheel: how to manage creative teams,

The Role of Strategic Intellectual Capital in the Management of Organisational Change,

The communication process in virtual teams

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