Virtual Project Teams Paper
Opportunities, Challenges, and Methods of Virtual Project Teams
A Research Paper
Presented By
Sona Ngoh
Missouri State University
TCM 701
Fall 2013
Executive Summary
Virtual Project teams which are made of team members working from different location where they only meet face-to face for a short period or not at all have become more common in today’s workplace. This paper is my attempt at investigating the major opportunities, challenges and methods of virtual project teams. I have reviewed literature which addresses global issues and their impact on virtual project teams and made some analysis of the trends, opportunities and challenges based on the work of major researchers and comprehensive set of interviews carried …show more content…
They received 600 completed surveys, and the full results were analyzed in a report. In their report it is stated that; overall, participants in the survey confirmed that virtual teams present unique challenges that are culturally based and can be counterproductive unless managed effectively. While the hurdles that virtual teams face ware not surprising to them, they were struck by the depth and breadth of the challenges. They also found that virtual teams face many of the same challenges that all teams face, but language difficulties, time‐and‐distance challenges, the absence of face‐to‐face contact, and above all, the barriers posed by cultural differences and personal communication styles make virtual work far more complex (RW3 Culture Wizard - Virtual Team Survey Report, …show more content…
As Rex Fitzpatrick the author of “challenges and interventions in monitoring and evaluating virtual team performance” stated, Virtual team members may feel organizational injustice when compared to those who are present in the actual workplace. Research by Wright and Oldford (1993) finds that a large number of employees’ primary reluctance about virtual work and telecommuting rests on concerns of isolation. Professionally, employees fear that being “out of sight” infers being “out of mind” for advancement and other organizational rewards. This becomes a significant challenge when evaluating members of virtual teams against those at the physical office (Kurkland & Egan, 1999). Further, it is often perceived that when the outcomes employees receive are not aligned with their respective inputs, they tend to scale back their effort to a level in accordance to the outputs received, or even consider leaving the organization all together (Dittrich & Carrell,
A Research Paper
Presented By
Sona Ngoh
Missouri State University
TCM 701
Fall 2013
Executive Summary
Virtual Project teams which are made of team members working from different location where they only meet face-to face for a short period or not at all have become more common in today’s workplace. This paper is my attempt at investigating the major opportunities, challenges and methods of virtual project teams. I have reviewed literature which addresses global issues and their impact on virtual project teams and made some analysis of the trends, opportunities and challenges based on the work of major researchers and comprehensive set of interviews carried …show more content…
They received 600 completed surveys, and the full results were analyzed in a report. In their report it is stated that; overall, participants in the survey confirmed that virtual teams present unique challenges that are culturally based and can be counterproductive unless managed effectively. While the hurdles that virtual teams face ware not surprising to them, they were struck by the depth and breadth of the challenges. They also found that virtual teams face many of the same challenges that all teams face, but language difficulties, time‐and‐distance challenges, the absence of face‐to‐face contact, and above all, the barriers posed by cultural differences and personal communication styles make virtual work far more complex (RW3 Culture Wizard - Virtual Team Survey Report, …show more content…
As Rex Fitzpatrick the author of “challenges and interventions in monitoring and evaluating virtual team performance” stated, Virtual team members may feel organizational injustice when compared to those who are present in the actual workplace. Research by Wright and Oldford (1993) finds that a large number of employees’ primary reluctance about virtual work and telecommuting rests on concerns of isolation. Professionally, employees fear that being “out of sight” infers being “out of mind” for advancement and other organizational rewards. This becomes a significant challenge when evaluating members of virtual teams against those at the physical office (Kurkland & Egan, 1999). Further, it is often perceived that when the outcomes employees receive are not aligned with their respective inputs, they tend to scale back their effort to a level in accordance to the outputs received, or even consider leaving the organization all together (Dittrich & Carrell,