Organizations are often searching for ways to have a competitive advantage over their competition. In an international environment this is showed by, “continually reshaping the organization to maximize power, address threats, and boost speed” (Duarte & Snyder, 1999, p.3). Recently this benefit has made inroads into the strategic operations method through the use of virtual teams.
Definition of Virtual Team
Conventional teams and teamwork have been used in business for years, but the virtual team adds a whole new dimension to meeting the challenges of the modern workplace. Conventional groups can roughly be characterized as persons located in the identical geographical district employed together through direct interaction. However, the virtual team can be characterized as “groups of workers with exclusive skills, who often reside in distinct geographical locations, and have to use for co-operation means of information and communication expertise in order to span the boundaries of time and space” (Kirkman & Mathiew, 2004, p.). All teams are somewhat distinct due to numerous components therefore the virtual group can take on numerous delineations, functions, and patterns. Another investigator characterizes virtual groups as a “group of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers that are assembled using a combination of telecommunications and casual technologies to complete an organizational task” (Townsend, 1998, p.).
The structure of virtual groups varies over associations and industries. Along with their common topics of reliance on expertise, distance obstacles, and uniform task assignments, they normally are divided into task groups, service groups or method teams. This assists the organization to better characterize its desires and supply support of collaboration between the participants (Edwards & Wilson, 2004). The structure helps to allow the coordination of focused talents of workers not in the identical position to have a relentless cycle of workflow and feedback throughout the distributing of information (Hawkrigg, 2007).