Virtual Teams Case Study

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Global Communication in Virtual Teams
Teams represent the important part of organizational life, providing for the multifaceted solutions of the common tasks (Croasdell et al., 2003, p.478). The advancements in the Internet and communication technologies, as well as a trend to an increased cross-cultural cooperation determined the proliferation of virtual teams. The members of virtual teams tend to be based in different geographical locations that utilize modern communication technologies (e.g., email, chats, computer-based video conferencing systems) to communicate and cooperate (Croasdell et al., 2003, p.479). Given the fact that e-technologies enable individuals to cooperate, despite the fact that they live in different countries, many virtual …show more content…

These aspects of enabling the performance of virtual teams are discussed in the following parts of the assignment.
Diversity Management in Virtual Teams
Similar to the face-to-face teams, virtual teams can suffer from the negative effects of diversity that cause the difficulties in communication and frequent misunderstandings, as well as even quarrels between the team members. The key challenge of diversity that impacts the virtual teams is the lack of trust (Abudi, 2014) Since employees are geographically dispersed and the management cannot utilize traditional ice-breaking tools to help them get to know each other better, the lack of trust can result in the absence of openness and transparent communication between the team members. In turn, the lack of transparency can result in the fact that employees will not share their concerns, and the whole system can suffer from the challenges being not discussed and not communicated to management (Abudi, 2014). The communication difficulty that directly refers to the factor of heterogeneity deals with the team members’ making assumptions about each other, based on cultural identity. The misunderstandings, stemming from the team members’ lack of experience …show more content…

Foremost, it is required that a team leader conducts a web-conference, involving all the members of a team. Apart from introducing team members to each other in a formal manner, a leader needs to think about ice-breaking activities that can help team members adapt to the peculiarities of virtual cross-cultural communication. A team leader can also suggest some procedures for sharing concerns and issues between the team members. For instance, a special forum can be launched to discuss the process of communication and the novelties that can be utilized to improve it. Last, but not least, a team leader shall think about finding a suitable manual on cross-cultural communication and distributing it among the team

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