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TopBackground – Virtual Teams
The advent and rapid development of telecommunication technology has created an environment in which information is now communicated and shared faster than ever. Zivick (2012) added that these telecommunication technologies provide an additional advantage for organisations: the ability to rapidly assemble human resource (HR) expertise, regardless of physical location, for both short and long-term projects. These teams assembled together via telecommunication technology have been labeled virtual teams. Zivick (2012) defined these virtual teams as:
A group of individuals dispersed in time, geography or culture that collectively produce a deliverable via inter-dependent work tasks and primarily use computer and telecommunication technology for individual and team communication. (p.19)
Virtual teams can be physically separated by great distances: city-to-city, state-to-state, or even country-to-country or separated departmentally within the same organisation. Lee-Kelly and Sankey (2008) stated that virtual teams are useful for projects that require either cross-functional or cross-boundary skills when they have a clear plan to overcome problems generally associated with teams that are separated by space, time, language, culture or other demographic differences.
For example, Lee-Kelley and Sankey (2008) reported findings that are well known in the virtual team’s literature: global virtual teams (GVTs) provide organisational successes in terms of time, budget, and value delivery in virtual team projects. In terms of inter-organisational virtual teams, Majchrzak, Rice, Malhotra, King, and Ba (2000) demonstrated that an organisation that was willing to adapt organisational structures and work groups to support virtual teams using a new collaboration technology could successfully create a new highly innovative product.
Virtual teams also offer organisations an opportunity to tap into highly dispersed “pockets” of organisational knowledge. Alavi and Tiwana (2002) acknowledged that one of the primary reasons for virtual team formation is founded on the need for knowledge sharing, knowledge application and knowledge exploitation for organisational gains. With so many organisational benefits that come with virtual teams, their use will continue to play an important role, well into the future, in how businesses organize units of work to meet their goals and objectives. Perhaps Bell and Kozlowski (2002) said it best: “…virtual teams are here, and they are here to stay.” (p.45).