A virtual team is a group of people that relies primarily or exclusively on electronic forms of communication to work together in accomplishing its goals. Other terms for virtual teams are cyberteams, dispersed teams, distributed teams, and online teams. A growing number of organizations are finding it relatively easy to employ readily available technologies to facilitate virtual team communication. In addition, virtual teams are the status quo in organizations that operate in a totally distributed fashion, with no physical home base.
Virtual teams play an important role in today’s global business environment. In such teams, traditional face-to-face communication is at least partially replaced with technology-mediated communication methods including e-mail, fax, synchronous chat programs, phone, and videoconferencing. Most teams operate virtually at least some of the time, as members employ available technologies to supplement and at times take the place of face-to-face meetings.
It is no surprise that virtual teams have become enormously popular. For several decades, North American companies have employed teams as a way to respond to challenges associated with decreasing productivity, questionable product quality, and lagging worker motivation. Various economic and logistic advantages can result from the employment of virtual teams in organizations. But virtual teams also face various challenges, especially when the team includes members of different genders, widely distributed ages, and various cultures. Challenges occur in the progressive phases of team development, and virtual teams must be able to cope effectively with those obstacles if they are to be successful and reach their potential.
In this book, you will learn about numerous strategies you can employ to help assure effective functioning of a virtual team as well as personal characteristics you can cultivate in yourself and others to promote the development of valuable virtual team members and leaders. This second edition of Managing Virtual Teams also includes real-world cases with opportunities for you to reflect on how chapter principles apply in actual work environments, along with applications that allow you to hone your skills as a virtual communicator.