Virtual team
A virtual team usually refers to a group of individuals who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology such as email, instant messaging, and video or voice conferencing services in order to collaborate. The term can also refer to groups or teams that work together asynchronously or across organizational levels. Powell, Piccoli and Ives define virtual teams as "groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks." As documented by Gibson, virtual teams grew in importance and number during 2000-2020, particularly in light of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic which forced many workers to collaborate remotely with each other as they worked from home.
As the proliferation of fiber optic technology has significantly increased the scope of off-site communication, there has been a tremendous increase in both the use of virtual teams and scholarly attention devoted to understanding how to make virtual teams more effective. When utilized successfully, virtual teams allow companies to procure the best expertise without geographical restrictions, to integrate information, knowledge, and resources from a broad variety of contexts within the same team, and to acquire and apply knowledge to critical tasks in global firms. According to Hambley, O'Neil, & Kline, "virtual teams require new ways of working across boundaries through systems, processes, technology, and people, which requires effective leadership." Such work often involves learning processes such as integrating and sharing different location-specific knowledge and practices, which must work in concert for the multi-unit firm to be aligned. Yet, teams with a high degree of "virtuality" are not without their challenges, and when managed poorly, they often underperform face-to-face teams.
In light of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, many industries experienced a rapid and overnight transition to virtual work as a result of "social distancing." However, some scholars have argued the phrase "social distancing" in reference to the practice of physical distancing between colleagues may have dangerous connotations, potentially increasing prejudice based on age or ethnicity, isolation due to limited options for interpersonal contact, and hopelessness, given the focus on prohibitions rather than solutions. Today, most work teams have become virtual to some degree, though the literature has yet to incorporate the dynamic urgency of the pandemic and the impacts of rapid-fire learning of new technology and communication skills.
Origins
The acceleration of digital technologies has allowed common, even synchronous activities to be distributed across employees at remote locations. These decentralized work arrangements were first named telework in the 1970s, defined as "work carried out in a location remote from the central offices or production facilities, where the worker has no personal contact with coworkers but is able to communicate with them electronically". Typically, the remote location is the home, though telework centers and remote offices are alternative locations. Since the introduction of home computers in the 1980s and laptops and mobile phones in the 1990s, increasing numbers of office workers have become able to work from different locations. Moreover, the shift from manufacturing to an information economy has expanded the number of jobs amenable to remote work. Telecommuting is referred to as telework, remote work, distributed work, virtual work, flexible work, flexplace, and distance work, among other labels.Investigations of such flexible work locations began in earnest over 30 years ago. Distributed work and telecommuting have become widespread practices, growing steadily in the United States and abroad. A 2002 study by the Gartner Group indicated that more than 60% of professional American employees worked in teams characterized by virtuality, and by 2012, nearly 3.3 million American workers telecommuted for at least half of the time. Globally, an international survey of 254 senior-level executives revealed that staff in two thirds of their global firms were involved in distributed work.
Early research heralded virtual teams as a promising design for integrating firms and taking maximum advantage of innovation-creating capabilities. They were likewise touted as means to permit flexibility in the "where" of tasks, to allow workers to meet household needs, and to enable organizations to adapt work arrangements to changing environments and labor needs. According to Gibson and Gibbs, the term "virtual" represents a wide variety of teams that are at least to some extent geographically dispersed, mediated by technology, structurally dynamic, or nationally diverse. Much of the literature has focused on the challenges of virtual teams, while few have identified their assets and benefits, identifying strategies by which to increase team effectiveness and satisfaction. As technological ability and industry contexts are rapidly and continuously changing, virtual work represents a promising avenue of research as an ever-evolving, fundamental shift in how organizations have historically done business.
Defining features
The four defining features of a virtual team – geographic dispersion, electronic dependence, national diversity, and dynamic structure – have unique effects and should be considered independently. For example, although electronic dependence sometimes coincides with geographic dispersion, this is not always the case; teams in the same office may use e-mail to avoid the trip up to another floor, and teams in different countries may prefer to meet face-to-face infrequently rather than use video calls. As such, there is conceptual agreement that virtuality is a multidimensional higher-order construct. Rather than being dichotomous "on-off" conditions, these four features of virtuality each represent a continuum, and the degree of difference influences the strength of its effects. These four factors will be explored in further detail below.Geographic dispersion refers to the degree of physical distance between team colleagues. A team that spans multiple continents is more dispersed than one whose participants are located in the same city, and this degree of dispersion in turn modulates the severity of outcomes.
Electronic dependence refers to the degree of reliance on electronic tools such as e-mail or instant messaging for communications.
National diversity refers to the number of different nationalities represented on the team. Virtual teams may consist of members of a single nationality. Colleagues from different nations may bring different cultural values, mindsets, allegiances, and communication styles to the team.
Dynamic structure/membership refers to how often members leave and join the team, and to how stable or changeable members' roles are. Rather than having stable membership, many virtual teams are short-term and project-based, or involve frequent member turnover.
Framework for processes
Overview
According to Gibson and Cohen, the effectiveness of virtual teams is a function of enabling conditions, which are created and supported by managers and leaders, and do not work independently but rather in concert with one another through multiple performance strategies. Multiple design and implementation factors help to create the conditions that support virtual team effectiveness. These factors include organizational context, team design, technology use, team member characteristics, and work and team processes. Virtuality amplifies the challenges faced by teams. As teams become more virtual, they confront greater uncertainty and complexity, increasing the difficulty of the information processing and sensemaking tasks they face. Likewise, the greater the number and depth of differences that need to be managed in virtual teams, the greater the barriers to effectiveness. These teams must be designed, supported, and led effectively to be successful. When they are well supported, virtual teams enable the best talent irrespective of location, capitalize on each organization's unique competencies, and bring together people from different perspectives and knowledge bases, leading to higher levels of innovation. This orienting framework is explained in more detail below.Enabling conditions
For virtual teams to perform well, three enabling conditions must be established: shared understanding about the team's goals, tasks, work processes, and member characteristics; integration or coordination across key organizational systems and structures; and mutual trust in the team.Shared understanding is the degree of cognitive overlap and commonality in beliefs, expectations, and perceptions about a given target. Virtual teams need to develop a shared understanding about their goals, their tasks, how to achieve them, and what each team member brings to the team.
Integration is the process of establishing ways in which the parts can work together to create value, develop products, or deliver services. The parts of the organization represented by virtual team members are likely to be highly differentiated in response to global competitive pressures and uncertain business environments, potentially hindering effective collaboration. Notably, the lower the level of integration, the greater the difficulty of developing shared understanding.
Mutual or collective trust is a shared psychological state that is characterized by an acceptance of vulnerability based on expectations of intentions or behaviors of others within the team. As members are geographically dispersed and often from different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures, trust is difficult to establish in virtual teams. Thus, it is how the team is designed and managed that creates enabling conditions.