International Management: Managing Global Virtual Teams the Essay

International Management: Managing Global Virtual Teams

The global fiber optic network and the internet have played a key role in the development of long-distance communication, which has facilitated work interactions among people from all over the world. It offers global platforms through which people can, at the touch of a button, share work and knowledge, compete, play and collaborate with colleagues across national borders. The creation of virtual teams is one of the most significant developments of these new communication technologies. This allows employees to form working teams with colleagues across national borders. For large organizations, such as MNCs whose operations are cross-continental, these teams are referred to as global teams, and are made up of employees located in different continents, with different cultural beliefs, practices, and functionalities. Global teams are able to take advantage of the different time zones in areas in which different team members are located so as to implement a round-the-clock work mechanism (IRMA, 2001). On the other hand, the diversity elements discussed above pose serious communication and trust concerns. The effectiveness of an organization's virtual teams depends on the management's ability to exploit the opportunities while minimizing the pitfalls associated with the same (IRMA, 2001).

The Building Blocks for Effective Virtual Teams

Creation of Rules, Mission, and Goals

A Clear-cut mission, set of goals, and established rules are crucial to the success of any team, virtual or otherwise, as they provide a sense of purpose and ensure that team members orient their individual activities in line with their requirements (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 2010). Non-existent or inefficiently enacted missions, goals and governing rules do not provide members with a unified understanding of what the team seeks to achieve; and as long as this purpose is neither clear nor shared by the team members, the chances of achieving it are minimal (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 2010). There is a need to make known, to the team members, the team's purpose and the importance of that purpose to the organization so that each member assigns their individual roles and tasks towards the achievement of these (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 2010).

Identification of Stakeholder Expectations

A virtual team's purpose stems from stakeholders' expectations. It is therefore crucial to involve stakeholders, or their representatives in the formation and functioning of virtual teams (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 2010). Team members should, throughout the project's life, make reference to the documented expectations of shareholders to ensure that their activities properly align with the latter (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 2010). Moreover, management needs to hold frequent meetings with team representatives and stakeholders as a way of keeping the team's activities in check and ensuring that the purpose is being achieved (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 01).

Trust and Relationship Building

Face-to-face engagements provide the most ideal platforms for relationship building (Chavaren, 2003). This could prove difficult for virtual teams - especially global ones. Managers and team representatives need to enact mechanisms that would facilitate regular face-to-face meetings of virtual team members (Chavaren, 2003). Team members would then get the opportunity to share work-related challenges and calibrate fundamental activities at a personal level (Chavaren, 2003). Trust is built from such connections. It is this trust that steers active participation and builds passion for goal achievement (Chavaren, 2003).

Complementarities in Team Responsibilities

Complementarities in roles and responsibilities smoothens team activities as it presents team members with a clearer picture as to whom exactly they could turn to for support (Chavaren, 2003). With this kind of knowledge, teams are in a better position to realize their performance potential. If there is a clear definition of roles and proper strategies for complementarities, members will 'own' their roles, develop a sense of accountability towards one another, and to the group as well (Chavaren, 2003). Management could ensure that employees own their roles by; i) developing ground rules that address members' tasks and provide protocols and remedies for non-fulfillment of goals, and ii) providing frameworks through which members can document their views regarding the roles assigned to them (Chavaren, 2003).

The above building blocks relate to the formation, and successful development of all kinds of teams - virtual and physical, global virtual and intra-national virtual teams. The subsequent sections relate solely to global virtual teams within the context of MNCs. I will first briefly outline the benefits of global virtual teams and then later explore a number of significant pitfalls associated with GVTs and the steps that managers could take to address each pitfall.

The Benefits of Global Virtual Teams (GVT)

The benefits of GVTs accrue from the increased resources and options that global virtual teams bring. IRMA (2001) points out efficiency in utilization of resources, cost savings, flexibility, unrestricted talent procurement and responsiveness as the key benefits associated with global virtual teams.

Efficient Utilization of Resources

Global virtual teams enable time leverage through asynchronous work performance. Global organizations, such as MNCs, can essentially use the different world time zones to increase their productivity and reduce the amount of time spent on developments (IRMA, 2001). Taking, for instance, a software developing MNC with branches and virtual teams in London, New York, and Tokyo; the London-based team could develop a code, and in the evening, transmit the same, for testing, to their New York colleagues, who then transmit the tested code to Tokyo for purposes of debugging. In summary, GVTs enable round-the-clock working systems (IRMA, 2001).

Cost Savings

This takes the form of reduced spending on travel and accommodation (IRMA, 2001). Organizations can also realize low labor costs by outsourcing business activities to countries such as India which have large pools of qualified, yet inexpensive, labor forces (IRMA, 2001). It would be cheaper to utilize the services of a qualified worker in India, on a virtual basis, rather than those of an American worker (IRMA, 2001).

Responsiveness

MNCs can use diversity as an avenue for responding to the needs of customers (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 2010). Global virtual teams are a perfect representation of diversity as they incorporate employees from different continents, with different cultural practices, beliefs, and functionalities. These employees disregard their cultural differences and work together. The conglomeration of diverse cultures leads to the development of comprehensive, innovative, and culture-responsive solutions to problems.

Flexibility

Virtual teams are flexible; through them, organizations are able to procure talent from any part of the world without having to make physical relocations.

Pitfalls of Global Virtual teams, and the Possible Strategies Management Could Adopt

The major pitfalls of global virtual teams stem from cultural concerns, trust building, and communication issues (IRMA, 2001). The enjoyment of the above benefits is dependent upon the management's ability to address these pitfalls.

Cultural Concerns

Culture refers to the beliefs and practices shared by a group of people. Cultural diversity is beneficial to the development of virtual teams. However, if not properly addressed, it could pose complexities to virtual group dynamics (IRMA, 2001).

Opportunities: Virtual groups bring people from diverse cultures to work together towards the achievement of pre-determined objectives. This instills in team members a sense of appreciation and acceptance for other cultures, and discourages ethnocentric thinking and decision making (Lepsinger and DeRosa, 2010). This acceptance and appreciation of others' cultures drives innovation, as team members seek to engage in developments that satisfy the cultural needs of a diverse audience.

Drawbacks (factors that derail the utilization of benefits resulting from cultural diversity): First, a false cultural similarity assumption creates a false impression that it would be easy for one to integrate with a certain group because of similarities in some aspects of culture, such as a common language (Connolly, 2013). Assumptions such as these make it difficult for their holders to integrate swiftly with people from other cultures, mainly because of the cultural shock they receive, once reality dawns (Connolly, 2013). A second drawback stems from the fact that different cultures perceive teamwork differently (Connolly, 2013). Some countries are known to prefer individualistic behavior to collective efforts, and vice versa. People from more individualistic countries may be less willing to trust others, less engaged in communication, etc. (Connolly, 2013) .

Possible Steps: Taking time to learn the aspects associated with different cultures from documented literature, background research, etc. (Hawkins, 2011). This would go a long way in sending signals of commitment and preparedness to integrate with others. A leader ought to create an impressive first impression at all times.

Trust Building

Opportunities: Trust is crucial to business operations as it boosts participation and the need to achieve organizational goals.

Drawbacks: Differences in language and stereotypes are the main barriers to trust and relationship building within virtual teams (Hawkins, 2011). They influence the perceptions people hold about others as well as the communication environment (Hawkins, 2011) . Negative misperceptions and differences in languages could have an impact on members' morale, creativity, etc. (Hawkins, 2011).

Possible steps: Trust building could be boosted through a number of techniques. First, through the creation of small-size teams with longer tenures, team members would be in a better position to share with each other, understand each other's abilities, and…