scholarly journals Exploring How Emotional Intelligence Contributes to Virtual Teams: Interpretive Analysis of a Phenomenological Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Quisenberry
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Social Loafing ◽  
Team Members ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Analytical Review ◽  
Virtual Teaming

The use of virtual teams continues to rise due to various factors such as increased pressure from competing forces, globalization, the need for improved efficiency, and technological advances. Despite the various benefits associated with high performing virtual teams, these specialized groups also experience extremely high failure rates. The increased failure can come as a result of various challenges including a lack of knowledge-sharing, limited communication, team members who lack self-managed and virtual teaming experience, and social loafing. While increased challenges are prevalent during virtual teaming arrangements, there seems to be evidence supporting that virtual team performance can be improved when team members have higher emotional quotients. This paper explores the potential benefits of emotionally intelligent virtual team members to understand how those with higher emotional quotients can potentially improve project success. The research involved analyzing a phenomenological study that interviewed 31 self-managed virtual team members via electronic questionnaires and surveys. This study follows up the original empirical research with an interpretative analytical review of the phenomenological findings pertaining to emotional intelligence and virtual teams. A thorough discussion regarding the findings and recommendations are provided.

Collaborative Approach to Successful Virtual Team Leadership

2017 ◽  
pp. 55-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Ellis ◽  
Eric Kisling
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Group Performance ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Team Leadership ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Social Loafing ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Travel Costs ◽  
Virtual Team Leadership ◽  
Specific Project

Due to the changing nature of organizations to meet decreased travel budgets, a globalized economic recession, and increased travel costs, multicultural virtual teams are rapidly growing (Hardin, Looney, Fuller, & Schechtman, 2013). Virtual teams are dynamic typically constructed for a specific project or task-focused group. Based on collaborative principles using state-of-the-art communication technology to support collaboration, virtual teams are often faced with several challenges: distance, time, technology, culture, trust, leadership, and social loafing, which can occur when group performance is less than the sum of the individual's efforts (Robbins, 1995). Einstein and Scott (2001) consider social loafing a result of team members putting forth less effort than they would on an individual assignment/task, leading to discourse and loss of synergy. This chapter describes best practices utilizing experiential learning activities for students on virtual teams can enable students to learn, practice, and hone their virtual team skills to be effective workers in the 21st century workplace.

Managing Relationships in Virtual Team Socialization

2010 ◽  
pp. 1632-1642
Author(s):  
Shawn D. Long ◽  
Gaelle Picherit-Duthler ◽  
Kirk W. Duthler
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Electronic Mail ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
New Members ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Organizational Work

The traditional organizational workplace is dramatically changing. An increasing number of organizations are employing workers who are physically and geographically dispersed and electronically dependent on each other to accomplish work (Gibson & Cohen, 2003; Griffith, Sawyer, & Neale, 2003). Recent technological advances, combined with more flexible job design, have helped increase the number of people working in distributed environments. Hence, more employees are working individually and on teams that seldom, if ever, meet face to face. These virtual employees have the same work responsibilities as traditional employees in addition to the challenge of operating within the dynamics of these newly designed mediated workplaces. Rapid developments in communication technology and the increasing influence of globalization and efficiency on organizations have significantly accelerated the growth and importance of virtual teams in contemporary workplaces. Virtual teams are becoming more commonplace because of the possibilities of a more efficient, less expensive, and more productive workplace. Additionally, distributed teams are less difficult to organize temporal organizational members than traditional co-located teams (Larsen & McInerney, 2002; Lurey & Raisinghani, 2001; Piccoli & Ives, 2003). Although there are apparent advantages of organizing work virtually, the challenge for new member integration lies in the fact that team members must communicate primarily through communication technology such as electronic mail, telephone, and videoconferencing or computer conferencing. This increased dependence on technology as a medium of communication significantly alters the way new members are socialized to work teams. Additionally, team members’ ability to use complex communication technologies varies across individuals. This variation potentially may lead to inter- and intra-group conflict, as well as creating organizational work ambiguity, which refers to the existence of conflicting and multiple interpretations of a work issue (Miller, 2006). This article addresses the challenges of virtual team socialization with regard to newcomer assimilation and how newcomer encounter is an embedded process of virtual team assimilation.

scholarly journals Using New Generation Collaboration & Social Computing Technologies in Managing Virtual Teams: An Exploratory Study into Enablers and Barriers in a Multicultural Context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brahma Dev Veeramachaneni
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Social Computing ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Collaborative Technologies ◽  
Virtual Teaming ◽  
The Individual

<p>Purpose - To explore the various enablers and barriers of collaborative technologies in virtual teams through literature reviews and participant interviews and to develop findings with considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives. Design/methodology/approach - A constructivist methodology. One-to-one interviews with participants from researcher's organization: a cross-section of senior managers and team members with either previous or current virtual team experience. Thematic analysis has been used to draw out the themes in the interview transcripts, and to develop interpretations and connections to the literature. Findings - There is a great consensus among participants towards the importance of collaboration in virtual teaming and the need for proper planning and uptake. However caution is necessary for organizations embarking on these ventures as there are various barriers that need consideration. There are many aspects that organizations venturing into virtual team initiatives need to consider. These include various integration aspects of technologies, people & processes, choosing technologies that work together well, various people aspects associated with virtual team collaboration initiatives and establishing the virtual team culture as part of the overarching organization & group culture. Research limitations/implications - Small sample sizes make it hard to generalize. Further research could include larger sample sets, surveys of various types of teams affected, the individual collaboration technologies, social computing interdependencies, specific Enterprise 2.0 technology suites etc. Originality/value - Contributes a small body of research on the experience of managers and team members on collaborative technologies and virtual teaming. Provides the only such research in the banking sector and in the New Zealand marketplace, and contributes a set of findings & considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives.</p>

scholarly journals Using New Generation Collaboration & Social Computing Technologies in Managing Virtual Teams: An Exploratory Study into Enablers and Barriers in a Multicultural Context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brahma Dev Veeramachaneni
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Social Computing ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Collaborative Technologies ◽  
Virtual Teaming ◽  
The Individual

<p>Purpose - To explore the various enablers and barriers of collaborative technologies in virtual teams through literature reviews and participant interviews and to develop findings with considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives. Design/methodology/approach - A constructivist methodology. One-to-one interviews with participants from researcher's organization: a cross-section of senior managers and team members with either previous or current virtual team experience. Thematic analysis has been used to draw out the themes in the interview transcripts, and to develop interpretations and connections to the literature. Findings - There is a great consensus among participants towards the importance of collaboration in virtual teaming and the need for proper planning and uptake. However caution is necessary for organizations embarking on these ventures as there are various barriers that need consideration. There are many aspects that organizations venturing into virtual team initiatives need to consider. These include various integration aspects of technologies, people & processes, choosing technologies that work together well, various people aspects associated with virtual team collaboration initiatives and establishing the virtual team culture as part of the overarching organization & group culture. Research limitations/implications - Small sample sizes make it hard to generalize. Further research could include larger sample sets, surveys of various types of teams affected, the individual collaboration technologies, social computing interdependencies, specific Enterprise 2.0 technology suites etc. Originality/value - Contributes a small body of research on the experience of managers and team members on collaborative technologies and virtual teaming. Provides the only such research in the banking sector and in the New Zealand marketplace, and contributes a set of findings & considerations to organizations embarking on similar initiatives.</p>

Self Organising and Virtual Teams

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Salama ◽  
Maria Mataj
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Project Management ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Team Performance ◽  
Management Practice ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Sixth Edition ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Talented People ◽  
And Performance

Amid the shift towards digital economies in the context of globalisation, project team members are required to work together remotely, utilising the current highly accessible technology (Han and Beyerlein, 2016). Virtual teams are growing rapidly in today’s world as companies are being involved in a constant fight for existence, due to the very vibrant and continuous competition which makes organizations emerge in different countries. Being a global organisation involves synchronization among people situated in diverse geographical areas, thus there arises the necessity for managing global virtual teams, assigned to resolve issues at a global level (Paul et al., 2016). The existence of a variety of technologies allows companies to have access to a large pool of talented people located all over the world, as it reduces costs and facilitates cooperation among different locations and time zones (Paul et al., 2016). According to Hertel et al. (2005), the allocation of work among employees has become more efficient due to the evolvement of technology. Consequently, for international companies to collaborate with each other and to have high performing virtual teams, there has been a need to consider the impact of cultural diversity on virtual teams’ practices and performance (Han and Beyerlein, 2016). This discussion should also include self-organising teams in the context of agile methodologies and beyond. In addition, studies have been focusing on how emotional intelligence impacts teams and groups (Wolff et al., 2001). However, limited research has been conducted on how culture and emotional intelligence impact virtual team performance in the context of project management. This chapter aims to discuss the critical area of managing project teams with emphasis on the relationship between culture, communication, emotional intelligence and trust in self-organising and virtual teams, and how the interaction between these factors impact team performance. This attempts to answer the call by the sixth edition of the PMI PMBOK that emphasised the importance of developing the soft skills of project managers in the pursuit of enhancing project management practice amid the growing interest in sustainability in general. In addition, this endorses and further justifies the suggested paradigm shift that the authors advocate, in pursuit of sustainable project management.

scholarly journals How Online Teams with Diverse Backgrounds Worked to Excel: Findings from an International eTournament

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lau ◽  
Rupa Vuthaluru ◽  
Lawrence Mui ◽  
Simon Kerrigan ◽  
Theresa Kwong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Team Building ◽  
Multicultural Competencies ◽  
Team Members ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Learning Platform ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Gamified Learning

A tide of changes with technological advances at its center has allowed more efficient and productive synchronous and asynchronous collaborations among dispersed individuals across the globe in recent years. Working effectively in virtual teams of individuals with diverse backgrounds is thus critical for students to succeed in the 21st century. However, relevant training for international collaboration is lacking in the higher education system. The research team examined data from a project aimed to heighten students’ multidisciplinary and multicultural competencies via a team-based, international eTournament organized in 2019 and enhanced and repeated in early 2020 featuring the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Students were teamed up according to a mechanism, to ensure diversity in each virtual team and mimic the real practice in many workplaces. A two-stage “strategize-play” approach was deployed with activities carried out entirely online. Team members first got to know each other, built up their teams and formulated their strategies for the next stage. In the second stage, the virtual teams competed with one other on a gamified learning platform called PaGamO by answering questions related to the SDGs. About 240 students (2019) and 420 students (2020) participated. Various sets of quantitative and qualitative data were collected, including student chat histories, focus group interviews, data analytics from PaGamO recording how the students progressed in the game, as well as the pre- and post-game surveys. This article focuses on the chat histories of students from the top-5 and bottom-5 teams of the 2019 and 2020 eTournaments. The results provide evidence that the high performing teams took a different gaming approach from the low performing teams in such areas as team building and game strategy deployment.

Managing Relationships in Virtual Team Socialization

2010 ◽  
pp. 2510-2516
Author(s):  
Shawn D. Long ◽  
Gaelle Picherit-Duthler ◽  
Kirk W. Duthler
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Electronic Mail ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
New Members ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Organizational Work

The traditional organizational workplace is dramatically changing. An increasing number of organizations are employing workers who are physically and geographically dispersed and electronically dependent on each other to accomplish work (Gibson & Cohen, 2003; Griffith, Sawyer, & Neale, 2003). Recent technological advances, combined with more flexible job design, have helped increase the number of people working in distributed environments. Hence, more employees are working individually and on teams that seldom, if ever, meet face to face. These virtual employees have the same work responsibilities as traditional employees in addition to the challenge of operating within the dynamics of these newly designed mediated workplaces. Rapid developments in communication technology and the increasing influence of globalization and efficiency on organizations have significantly accelerated the growth and importance of virtual teams in contemporary workplaces. Virtual teams are becoming more commonplace because of the possibilities of a more efficient, less expensive, and more productive workplace. Additionally, distributed teams are less difficult to organize temporal organizational members than traditional co-located teams (Larsen & McInerney, 2002; Lurey & Raisinghani, 2001; Piccoli & Ives, 2003). Although there are apparent advantages of organizing work virtually, the challenge for new member integration lies in the fact that team members must communicate primarily through communication technology such as electronic mail, telephone, and videoconferencing or computer conferencing. This increased dependence on technology as a medium of communication significantly alters the way new members are socialized to work teams. Additionally, team members’ ability to use complex communication technologies varies across individuals. This variation potentially may lead to inter- and intra-group conflict, as well as creating organizational work ambiguity, which refers to the existence of conflicting and multiple interpretations of a work issue (Miller, 2006). This article addresses the challenges of virtual team socialization with regard to newcomer assimilation and how newcomer encounter is an embedded process of virtual team assimilation.

Mobile Collaboration Support for Virtual Teams

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keng Siau ◽  
Min Ling
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
Work Systems ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Development Teams ◽  
Geographically Distributed ◽  
Qualitative Technique ◽  
Sophisticated Technology

Organizations increasingly depend on virtual teams in which geographically distributed individuals use sophisticated technology to interact and collaborate. With the advancement of mobile and wireless technology, mobile support for collaboration among virtual team members is becoming increasingly important and popular. In this research, we study the values of mobile support for virtual team members. Using the qualitative technique, Value-Focused Thinking approach, proposed by Keeney, we interviewed 30 subjects who were involved in information systems development teams and asked them the values of mobile support for virtual collaboration. This study uses Alter's Work Systems Theory as the conceptual foundation.

scholarly journals The power of individual cultural values in global virtual teams

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audra I. Mockaitis ◽  
Elizabeth L. Rose ◽  
Peter Zettinig
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Global Teams ◽  
Global Virtual Teams ◽  
Team Processes ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Relationship

This paper investigates the perceptions of members of 43 culturally diverse global virtual teams, with respect to team processes and outcomes. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the challenges presented by cultural differences in the context of global teams, little is known about the effect of these differences on team dynamics in the absence of face-to-face interaction. Using a student-based sample, we study the relationship between global virtual team members’ individualistic and collectivistic orientations and their evaluations of trust, interdependence, communication and information sharing, and conflict during the team task. Our results suggest that a collectivist orientation is associated with more favorable impressions regarding global virtual team processes and that cultural differences are not concealed by virtual means of communication.

Learning together and working apart: routines for organizational learning in virtual teams

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 138-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Dixon
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Learning ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Information Industry ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Virtual Teaming

Purpose Research suggests that teaming routines facilitate learning in teams. This paper identifies and details how specific teaming routines, implemented in a virtual team, support its continual learning. The study’s focus was to generate authentic and descriptive accounts of the interviewees’ experiences with virtual teaming routines. Design/methodology/approach This case study gathered concrete, practical and context-dependent knowledge about virtual teaming routines in a specific environment. The main source of data was narrative expert interviews with working members of the team. Findings This study illustrates how a mix of face-to-face and virtual routines can ensure organizational learning in virtual teams. Research limitations/implications This case study is limited to one virtual team in the information industry. Future research could build on this research to study virtual teams in other industries. Practical implications This research offers specific examples of teaming routines that managers of virtual teams might adapt in managing their own teams. Social implications Given that the use of virtual teams is a growing phenomenon, understanding how to help those teams learn effectively is a critical issue. Originality/value This case study extends the research on teaming routines to virtual teams.

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