Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2006
Abstract
Virtual teams allow organizations to bring together critical contributors who might not otherwise be able to work together due to time, travel and cost restrictions. In addition, virtual teams can enhance the available pool of resources by including people from outside the sponsoring organization, such as consultants, or members of partner organizations. Virtual teams also allow organizations to hire and retain the best people, who may be either unable or unwilling to relocate, and to facilitate dynamic membership changes as a result of changes in project requirements or the unexpected loss of team members. As such they are sometimes unable to always operate optimally or produce optimal solutions--forcing organizations to reexamine their project team strategies both at the individual and group level. Organizations have applied electronic mediating solutions of various types to support such virtual teams but this has produced mixed results. Such teams are still challenged from being physically disconnected and as a result the needed leadership, social exchanges, accountability and collaboration are difficult to achieve in support of initiating and or sustaining team trust and performance. This paper analyzed qualitative data through grounded theory techniques and respondents reported their experience that both social relationship management processes and project management processes generally resulted in higher performing virtual teams. Respondent data also reported that technology and process are required elements for virtual teams but are clearly not sufficient to ensure successful virtual team projects. Key implications from this study include the need for management to be aware that managing virtual team projects requires different skills and expectations versus managing co-located team projects. In particular, there is a need for project managers of virtual teams to possess skills to manage the social framework of the team and in concert manage the overall project management control structure.
Keywords
virtual work teams--management
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Pierce, Eugene A., "Enabling Trust and Performance in Distributed Collaborative Teams" (2006). Student Scholarship. 186.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/186