Cross – Cultural Virtual Teams.
Virtual teams unite individuals from different countries to enable their company to obtain a competitive advantage (Vinaja, R. 2003).
Multi-cultural concerns in virtual teams may not always be visible but they definitely do transpire (Vinaja, R. 2003). Current research suggests that virtual team failure is directly related to the difficulties of building trust, dealing with communication barriers and cultural differences (Kimble et.al. 2001)
The most important issues facing the leaders of cross-cultural virtual teams:
Trust: Trust is harder to establish within a virtual team. People in co-location environments build up trust after spending time together or sharing of personal matters. In virtual groups trust is built up on work ethics. Individuals will start to have trust when they can rely on the performance of their team members.
Lack of Synergy between Cross- Cultural Team Members: Time differences between countries can cause problems when members are widely dispersed across the globe, making it difficult to synchronize activities and meetings. Cultural differences amongst the team members may create barriers due to different attitudes toward authority or the influence of their individual culture on how they manage decision making or other practices.
Performance Management: It is difficult to observe virtual team members commitment and productivity. It is problematic for a manager to remotely measure performance with team members he rarely or never sees. Different cultures demonstrate different work characteristics for example:
Approaches to their work.
Expectations
Interaction preferences
Power structure
Perceptions on performance and reward systems
Communication bre...
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... References:
Brett, J., Behfar, K. & Kern, M. (2006) ‘Managing multicultural teams’, Harvard Business Review, 84 (11), pp.84-91, Business Source Premier
Goman,C.(2010) ‘5 Tips for Virtual Collaboration;, Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolkinseygoman/2012/06/05/5-tips-for-virtual-collaboration/ (accessed on 25March 2014)
Symons, J. & Stenzel, C. (2007) ‘Virtually borderless: an examination of culture in virtual teaming’, Journal of General Management, 32 (3), pp.1-17, Business Source Premier
Vinaja, R. (2003)’Major challenges in multi-cultural virtual teams’. Proceedings: Southwest Case Research Association, 341 -346 [online] http://pdf.aminer.org/000/326/846/virtual_teams_an_exploratory_study_of_key_challengesand_strategies.pdf
The process of forming virtual teams is very crucial and plays a significant role in the success of a virtual team, since the team members can be formed from virtually anywhere. As such, the management of the particular organizations needs to take significant care in the formation of virtual teams. Lerner (2008), did say that the leaders of distributed teams should have a heightened sense of awareness of the various subgroup formations and their weaknesses”. Thus the formation of virtual teams is critical to ensuring the objectives for a given project are met and the chemistry of the team is proper to achieve given goals. Karayaz (2006) did define thr...
Online learning is now a reality, with distributed learning and blended learning becoming more widely used in Higher Education (Whatley, 1999). Online learning has many advantages and disadvantages. Teamwork in online environments is becoming a widely used tool, whether it is in business or education. A team working together has more and better input than individuals working alone. This results in better ideas and decisions and higher quality output. Virtual teams are a good way to enable teamwork in situations where people are not sitting in the same physical office at the same time. The effective team-building requires the combination of clear team goals, empowerment, atmosphere of trust within the team, authentic participation of every member of team, innovative approach to work and ability to manage risks, proper leadership and ability to make the constructive changes.
In today’s environment of companies doing business in a global economy, teamwork is essential. “Employees working in effective teams help increase productivity, employee involvement, and contribution, while reducing costs and flattening organizational structure (Adams, 2003). In contrast, ineffective teams can cause increased costs, waste valuable time, and contribute to losses in market share (Ross, Jones, & Adams, 2008)” quotes Jean McAtavey and Irena Nikolovska in an article in Human Resource Development Quarterly. Today, teamwork is found in virtually all workplaces.
It was very interesting the multicultural teams concept in the lecture and seminar. Even I came across with multicultural team but I haven’t recognize our culture difference and never realized that differences in culture causes division and conflicts between member of team. Culture is primarily formed in the environment of individual childhood home and this point out those individuals brings their preferences culture to the team. This has consequence on how individuals view each other’s, leaders, decision making and communication. (Guilherme,
It could be a good choice to cooperate with other people when everyone has the common goal. According to the book, The Mastering Virtual Teams, action virtual teams could help these team to handle these change. Action team deals with immediate action, usually in an emergency situation. And They cross distance and organizational boundaries (Duarte & Snyder, 2006). Each team have they own strength and weakness. Team is a good way to remedy personal weaknesses and to amplify personal strengths. In a simple team, team member is people. In this situation, team member could be a
Di Stefano, J.J. & Maznevski, M.L. (2000) ‘Creating value with diverse teams in global management’, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 45 – 63,
Remaining focused on the overall goals and objectives of a project can become an issue if these are not consistently restated by managers or team leaders. Without the advantage of regular and ad hoc personal meetings, members of virtual teams may misinterpret, inadvertently change, or lose focus on the goals of the project. Because of this, individuals are charged with a greater responsibility to remain focused on both expected outcomes and objectives (Chinowsky & Rojas, 2003).
The successful passing of information creates an important bond between virtual team members. “Without creating the connections, a virtual team can’t do what it needs to; function as a cohesive unit” (Thompson, n.d., Introduction section, ¶2). Information should be specific to the task at hand with a common goal in mind. Complete and accurate information not only helps a team reach its goal, but it also avoids problems and conflicts that arise between members. The importance of clear, concise information in a virtual team can not be stressed enough; however, timing should also be considered when sharing information. Information not received in a timely fashion also jeopardizes the cohesiveness of the team.
Parker, G., (2003). Cross- Functional Teams: Working with Allies, Enemies, and Other Strangers. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass. pp. 170- 194.
The virtual organization is a network of independent suppliers, customers, and even competitors, generally tied together by computer technology (Roger, 1991). They share skills, costs, and access to markets. It is tend to have flat structures in which information and decision making move horizontally (Judith R.G, 2002). Through the support of modern electronic system, it becomes possible to link people across formal organizational boundaries (Judith, 2002, quoted in S.G. Straus, S.P. Weisband, and J.M. Wilson, 1998).
In today’s globalized world, multicultural teams accomplish a significant proportion of organizational work. Multicultural teams are formed because they improve organizational effectiveness in the global business environment. As such, multicultural teams offer huge potential to organizations. The most critical and practical challenge multicultural teams face is managing conflicts across members’ national cultural boundaries. Other cultural challenges in multicultural teams include dealing with coordination and control issues, maintaining communication richness, and developing and maintaining team cohesiveness. For multicultural teams to be effective, members must learn to address the challenges that arise from team members’ differing nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
There are four different types of teams. These teams are problem-solving teams, self-managed work teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams. Problem-solving teams work together to help find methods to improve the work environment or have suggestions to increase employee’s morale. Self-managed work teams organize the responsibilities of the employee’s such as assigning tasks to individuals, scheduling conflicts, and evaluate employee performances. Cross-functional teams are individuals whom all have experience in the same work field. The individuals come together as a team to incorporate their thoughts, designs, and new ideas to accomplish what the company needs to improve or create. Virtual teams are individuals that work together, but only by technology such as the internet, emails, or web cam.
Organizations use teamwork because it increases productivity. This concept was used in corporations as early as the 1920s, but it has become increasingly important in recent years as employ...
Virtual teams – virtual team is one of the most popular teams in every organization because in virtual team the member are separated in different nation and use technologies to communicate to accomplish their goal on the time.
...tive impact on individual outcomes. Thus the result tells that managerial behavior control is not compatible with virtual team environment.