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JOHANNES KEPLER
UNIVERSITY LINZ
Altenberger Str. 69
4040 Linz, Austria
www.jku.at
DVR 0093696
Submitted by
Thuong Nguyen Uyen
Submitted at
Institute of Strategic
Managment
Supervisor
o.Univ.Prof. Mag. Dr.
Franz Strehl MBA
Co-Supervisor
MMag a
. Dr.in
Melanie
Wiener, MBA
Month Year
October, 2018
Global Collaborations
In The Digital Age
Master Thesis
to obtain the academic degree of
Master of Science
in the Master‘s Program
General Management Double Degree STUST Tainan – JKU Linz
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STATUTORY DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the thesis submitted is my own unaided work, that I have not used
other than the sources indicated, and that all direct and indirect sources are acknowledged
as references.
This printed thesis is identical with the electronic version submitted.
Hue, October 2018
Thuong Nguyen Uyen
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ABSTRACT
The world, nowadays, is closer and closer by the development of information
communication technology (ICT). Due to the trend, virtual collaboration is considered as a
great way to connect people and bring advantages to organizations. On the one hand,
virtual teams enable cooperate members from different geography and time zones. On the
other hand, organizations have to deal with many challenges when applying this method.
Despite the obstacles, many reputable companies over the world recognize the benefits of
virtual working and successfully apply in their organizations, especially IBM Company.
However, this trend may be unstable in the future. Based on the existing literature, it is
expected to extend knowledge about two big issues, comprising the global virtual teams
and ICT as well as their benefits and drawbacks in detail. Then, this study intends to
identify and discuss the factors contributing to the creating and managing of effective
global virtual teams in the development of ICT. For doing this, many academic and
scientific journals are used for the purposes of summarizing and synthesizing. This study is
a secondary research combining a best practice to explore its issues. By identifying the pros
and cons and important factors influencing the effectiveness of virtual teams, organizations
can create suitable solutions to manage and establish their teams in a better way.
Key Words: Information communication technology, Virtual teams, Global virtual teams,
Virtual working, Team management.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my gratitude to my advisors, MMag. Dr. Melanie Wiener MBA and
o.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Franz Strehl MBA, for all their supports, guidance and for being my
advisors during the project. They are so enthusiastic to help me despite the barriers of
geographic distance and time zones.
I could not no mention about my family who is my big motivation, many thanks for always
beside me wherever and whenever I am.
I am thankful to all the professors whom I had pleasure to be their students and the
Johannes Kepler University Linz‗s staff who give me lots of perfect guidance whenever I
got in trouble. I also sincerely give my appreciation to my great friends who never hesitate
to help me during the student life in two universities.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................................... iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................. v
LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... viii
1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Research Background and Problem Statement.................................................................. 1
1.2. Objectives and Research Question .................................................................................... 4
1.2.1. Research Ojective................................................................................................... 4
1.2.2. Research Question .................................................................................................. 4
1.3. Methodology...................................................................................................................... 5
1.3.1. Research Method .................................................................................................... 5
1.3.2. Data Sources........................................................................................................... 6
1.4. Research Structure ............................................................................................................. 6
2. DIGITALIZATION .................................................................................................................. 8
2.1. Definiting Digitalization .................................................................................................... 8
2.2. Information Communication Technology Changes the Nature of the World ................... 9
2.3. Internet Users in the World ............................................................................................. 12
2.4. Benefits of Information Communication Technology .................................................... 13
2.5. Challenges of Information Communication Technology ................................................ 16
3. GLOBAL COLLABORATION ............................................................................................. 23
3.1. Concept of Global Collaboration ..................................................................................... 23
3.1.1. Definition ............................................................................................................. 23
3.1.2. Characteristics of Virtual Teams .......................................................................... 24
3.1.3. Types of Virtual Teams ........................................................................................ 27
3.2. The Difference Between a Global Virtual Team and a Face-to-Face Team ................... 29
3.3. Pros and Cons of Global Virtual Teams .......................................................................... 30
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3.3.1. Advantages of a Global Virtual Team ................................................................. 30
3.3.2. Disadvantages of a Global Virtual Team ............................................................. 35
3.4. Technological Tools for Global Virtual Teams ............................................................... 38
4. AN EXAMPLE FOR GLOBAL VIRTUAL TEAMS IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL
AGE ........................................................................................................................................ 44
4.1. Introduction about IBM Company .................................................................................. 44
4.2. Virtual Teams in IBM ..................................................................................................... 45
4.3. The Virtual Teams Meeting in IBM ................................................................................ 47
4.4. The reasons for Virtual Teams in IBM ............................................................................ 50
4.5. The Challenges of Virtual Teams in IBM ....................................................................... 51
4.6. The Trend of Backing to the Office ................................................................................ 53
5. GLOBAL VIRTUAL TEAMS IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE ..................................... 55
5.1. Emergence of Global Virtual Teams in the 21st Century ................................................ 55
5.2. Identifying the factors affecting to global virtual teams and the research
framework........................................................................................................................ 56
5.3. Key Factors Contributing to an Effective Global Virtual Team ..................................... 61
5.3.1. Technology ........................................................................................................... 61
5.3.2. Trust ..................................................................................................................... 62
5.3.3. Diversity ............................................................................................................... 65
5.3.4. Leadership ............................................................................................................ 70
5.3.5. Communication .................................................................................................... 73
6. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 78
6.1. Conclusion and Discussion.............................................................................................. 78
6.2. Limitation ........................................................................................................................ 81
6.3. Suggestions for further studies ........................................................................................ 81
REFERENCE LIST ........................................................................................................................ 82
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Internet users in the world during 2006 to 2016 .................................................... 12
Table 2. Internet users by countries 2016 ............................................................................. 13
Table 3. Older worker scoreboard in the Europe Union and OECD area, 2003, 2007, and
2013 ...................................................................................................................................... 21
Table 4. A summary of characteristics of virtual teams ....................................................... 26
Table 5. Varieties of teams ................................................................................................... 27
Table 6. Forms of virtual teams ............................................................................................ 28
Table 7. A summary of the main differences between traditional teams and virtual teams. 30
Table 8. A summary of main advantages of virtual teams ................................................... 34
Table 9. A summary of main disadvantages of virtual teams .............................................. 38
Table 10. Tools for virtual teams ........................................................................................ 40
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Structure of this thesis...... .................................................................................... ..7
Figure 2. ICT has spread quickly throughout the world last decade from 1995 to 2014 ..... 10
Figure 3. The rise of using ICT in some sectors from 1995 to 2007 .................................... 11
Figure 4. The labor market polarized in OECD countries by region, from 1995 to 2015 ... 18
Figure 5. The beneficial tools of communication for virtual meetings ................................ 42
Figure 6. Beehive in IBM ..................................................................................................... 48
Figure 7. IBM Academy of Technology poster session ....................................................... 49
Figure 8. Model for effective virtual team working ............................................................. 57
Figure 9. Research Framework ............................................................................................ 59
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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Research Background and Problem Statement
In the age of booming technology, virtual interaction is increasingly becoming the basis for
establishing trans-local production networks by the support of computer-mediated
communication (CMC) (Harald & Philip, 2011, p. 520). In fact, mobile technology has
removed the space and enhanced the communication (Smith & Tom, 2014, p. 2).
Therefore, the world is getting closer and closer among different time zones, areas,
geography, and nations.
Technology takes a crucial role in improving processes, making many things smaller,
faster, more powerful and cheaper (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, p. 36). In fact,
Brynjolfsson & McAfee (2011) show that the power of the computer expands thousands
time of strength compared to its 30 years ago. Many competitive advantages are built by
technology and communication. Grosse (2002, p. 25) indicates that remote places are
connected by technology. It also helps build and establish the relationships with strangers
without moving or face-to-face meeting. Harald and Philip (2011, p. 5) claim that advanced
technologies show a great ability to ―overcome spatial and social limits of interaction―.
Despite many benefits of traditional communication, mass emails or video conferences
proved that they are effective tools bringing many chances to enlarge the relationships by
contacting to a large number of co-workers in different geography with crossing time
zones.
While technology is being dramatically applied in many aspects of life in order to increase
and improve the productivity, it is not always acted as a perfect method to bring all benefits
to organizations or everyone (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, p. 22). Many challenges are
mentioned in opening innovation as well as how to solve them so as to get expected results.
While a significant change is witnessed in the digital technology, organizations and skills
still do not follow the speed (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, p. 21). In reality,
some companies, such as firms in agricultural industry, forget or do not have enough ability
to catch up with this current trend efficiently. Furthermore, millions of employees are not
well- prepared to adapt high-tech. Then, the authors indicate that the obvious gap between
high-skilled and low-skilled employees becomes further and further. In this technical
change, it shows a higher demand for high-skilled employees than labors that are less
ability to improve and update their skills in information technology. Dawson and
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Andriopoulos (2014, p. 71) indicate that there is variety collaboration established among
different institutions, such as universities, companies and inventors. Therefore, it is such a
great challenge to manage and control these multiple relationships and partnerships.
These days, many companies create competitive advantages by building global
collaboration which can work on non- barriers of geography. Then, these special teams are
created by the variety of nations and cultures, working experience and different
perspectives on strategic (Tsedal, 2015, p. 76). Bergiel, Bergiel and Balsmeier (2008, pp.
105-106) sum up some benefits of a virtual team, including time and cost saving,
recruitment of talent employees, increasing creativity in group members, opening
opportunities in working environment, discouraging age and race discrimination. Besides,
Olaisen and Revang (2017, p.1447) claim that the ability to sharing knowledge is also
mentioned as a value of a virtual team.
While global virtual teams offer a variety of benefits, they still can face various drawbacks.
The differences in countries, locations, backgrounds and communication can be the barriers
for correct understanding and act as important factors by which an effective collaboration
can be built (Tsedal, 2015, p. 76). Bergiel et al. (2008, p. 99) mention that geography,
national culture, language and time are not only the main points to develop global teams
but also contribute as huge obstacles. Moreover, Heller (2010, p. 3) claims that the a global
collaboration might complete some duties to take care of their setting, including keeping
the engagement of their dispersed employees, forming and developing virtual teams,
evaluating remote workers, and developing a global mindset. Therefore, developing an
effective global virtual team is significant challenge to both organizations and managers.
When team members coming from other parts of the world with diversity build a
collaboration and work in different working places, communication contributes as a
dramatic problem leading misunderstanding and bad cooperation (Tsedal, 2015, p. 76).
Then, the ―psychological contracts" between employees, and formal and informal leaders
should be dealt to find what is ―allowable, acceptable, desirable, possible and mandatory‖
in the working environment (Smith & Tom, 2014, p. 2)
In the degree of the development of the effective international virtual group, four elements
including human, social, political, and cross- cultural are illustrated by Harvey et al. (2005,
p. 1583) while Olaisen and Revang (2017, p. 1447) recognize the relationships among team
member as a crucial factor for the possibility of a global team. In spite of traditional
meetings, video conferences or teleconferences become powerful cost saving solutions and
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popular to build strong relationships and connect people in the modern era, as mentioned
by Tavčar et al. (2005, p. 557) and Bergiel et al. (2008, p. 99). As a result, it can be said
that the developing and supporting technological development is leading to the growth of
virtual teams these days.
A survey from Society for Human Resource Management (2012, July 13) reveals that 46
percent of enterprises are using virtual teams. In this survey, 379 randomly selected Human
Resource professional from their memberships indicate that 66 percent multinational firms
cooperated by global virtual teams and 28 percent of enterprises with U.S-based operations
depend on these groups. Besides, another investigation of 600 organizations all over the
world about teamwork reveals that three-quarter of teams is complicated cooperation in
multi areas, 30% are working in different time zones, 50% are in virtual teams (Tieman,
2012, March 15). Therefore, it shows that dispersed working proves its benefits by the wide
usage of many global firms. Remote working does not act such a big problem anymore by
using alternative methods instead of face-to-face communication. Emails or conferences
are becoming more and more popular and necessary tools these days.
Besides, the efficiency of multicultural groups under the development of innovation is
illustrated in many successful high- tech companies. Basing on the annual Fortune 500 list,
Flexjobs showed that Apple, Amazon and IBM are in a list of ―Top 100 companies with
remote and flexible jobs‖ overcoming the huge obstacles of languages, distances and true
relationships. Furthermore, IBM has been considered as one of the earliest firms applying
virtual working since 1980 (Sarah, 2017, March 21). There are 40 percent of about 400,000
IBMers work in a virtual environment (Fisher, 2009; Hegar & Hodgetts, 2012, p. 157) and
connect each other in over 175 countries as a globally integrated enterprise (IBM, 2016, p.
76). The company could be a great practice to explore the global collaboration by the
support of technology in this study. On the one hand, computer-based communication
technology has a great ability to bring the benefits to connect works anywhere in anytime
with any person. On the other hand, challenging is faced by these organizations to
transform the old business model and control the relationships in terms of this innovation.
This study will review the development of ICT and how ICT promotes the virtual
collaboration, and what are the related advantages versus disadvantages. Second, a practice
of IBM company will be discussed in the virtual context to understand how it works in
reality. Third, some key factors will be analyzed and proved for their contribution to the
success of global virtual teams in the development of information technology.
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1.2. Objectives and Research Question
1.2.1. Research Ojective
The main objective of this study is to explore effective virtual collaboration. Thus, this
thesis will review and summarize the existing relevant research about virtual collaboration
and technology, thereafter showing a typical example of global virtual teams‘ implement
by the support of technology tools. As a virtual team can only be successful if team
members and leaders know how to deal with the challenges of virtual context, it would be
useful to reveal the main factors affecting the effectiveness of global virtual teams in the
development of technology.
1.2.2. Research Question
This master thesis mainly focuses on the virtual teams in digitalization age, whereby the
impact of information communication technology (ICT) on the operation of virtual teams is
emphasized. Virtual teams in digital age are effected by various factors which are indicated
by many studies (Bergiel et al., 2008, pp. 101-104; Brandt, England, & Ward, 2011, pp. 62-
63; Duarte & Snyder, 2006, p. 11; Ebrahim, Ahmed, & Taha, 2009, p. 2660; Horwitz,
Bravington, & Silvis, 2006, pp. 489-490). In the age of digitalization, however, ICT is
enhanced and mordenly created day by day. Therefore, whether or not those factors still
make influences on virtual teams. This study will reveal the key factors for an effective
virtual team in the age of information technology.
An analyzation of IBM company will be conducted to examine how the company uses ICT
to manage its global cooperation within the organization. It is interesting to know the
information technologies implemented in IBM and how those tools work in the virtual
environment. In this case, the reason for applying virtual teams and their challenges will be
examined to illustrate the practical situation of virtual context.
Basing on intensive literature review, the main aim of this study is to provide answers to
the following main research question:
What are the important factors for the effectiveness of global virtual teams in the digital
age?
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1.3. Methodology
1.3.1. Research Method
This study used Secondary research (or desk research) relating to the collection, summary,
and synthesis of existing research rather than primary research (Crouch & Housden, 2003,
p. 22). Glass (1976, p. 3) defines Secondary analysis is the re-analysis of data to answer the
original research questions with better statistical techniques or answering new questions
with existent data.
Burns and Bush (2014, p. 98) highlight the five main advantages of using secondary data,
including (1) It can be implemented quickly; (2) It is cost-saving comparing to collecting
primary data; (3) Some secondary data are almost available in many situations; (4)
Secondary data may improve primary data; and (5) Secondary data may be the needed
information to complete the research objective.
In this research, secondary data is collected, including written documents from academic
journals, reports, newspapers, and books. According to Burns and Bush (2014, p. 92), that
information is mentioned as internal and external secondary data. While internal databases
contain the information gathered by a company, external databases are data obtained from
outside the firm and clasified into three sources, including published sources, syndicated
services data, and databases. This study conducts the collection of secondary data from
both internal and external data. The external databases will comprise published sources and
online information databases. Published sources are the source of data for public
distribution purposes and available in libraries, the Internet or other entities, for example,
trade associations, professional organizations and companies. Online information databases
are sources of secondary data by online and an online data bank can provide a variety of
information, including indexes, directories, statiscal and full-text files (Burns & Bush,
2014, pp. 92, 98). In this study, the internal secondary data are data collected within the
organization through the online databases source such as the annual reports or internal
reports.
In order to get a clear view of virtual context, an example will be analyzed to explore the
issue in practice. Therefore, IBM company will be taken as a typical example because of its
success in remote working as mentioned before. Most of the information is collected from
IBM sites, its reports and some relevant studies on IBM.
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The main purpose of this study is to collect, summarize and synthetize the virtual teams
and ICT concept, their pos and cons from variety of previous studies and research and
identify the key factors affecting to these teams. Fundamentally, those data are proven with
quality and practical works in many organizations, and then it is suitable for this study to
apply. Therefore, secondary research is chosen as the primary methodolody of this
research.
1.3.2. Data Sources
This study searches for academic or scientific journals as the main secondary data. They
are international journal articles unlimited time and English language published literature.
The databases for this thesis come from books and internet-based literature indexes,
including: EBSCOhost- Elton B. Stephens Co. Host, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, IEEE
Explore, ACM Digital Library, Willey, SpringerLink and some websites (ex. Forbes,
Business Insider, Fortunes, The New York Times, IBM sites, etc.)
1.4. Research Structure
This thesis is structured into six chapters, as follows:
Chapter one includes the introduction, objectives, research question and methodology.
Chapter two will show the exist literature review about the content of Information
communication technology in changing the nature work, the development of Internet users
and ICT, pros and cons of ICT in organizations.
Chapter three reviews the literature involving the content of global virtual teams,
advantages and disadvantages of remote working and making comparision between a face-
to-face team and a virtual team.
Chapter four is an example for virtual teams in a global enterprise, IBM company. This part
will explain the reason for applying virtual collaboration in IBM, their challenges, and how
virtual teams work in the company.
Chapter five is the main part of the research solving the research question to find the key
factors which can contribute to an effective global team in the development of technology.
Then, the emergence of virtual teams will be discussed in the age of technology.
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Chapter six is the last part of the thesis giving the conclusion and discussion, limitation and
future research.
Firgure 1. Structure of the thesis
Source: built by author
Introduction, Objectives and
Research question, Methodology
Information Communication
Technology
Global collaboration
IBM as an example
Global collaboration in the
Digital age
Conclusion
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2. DIGITALIZATION
This chapter will provide the basic concept of digitalization, also the benefits and
drawbacks of this issue. Another aim of this part is to explain the role of technology in
changing the nature world based on development of the Internet.
2.1. Definiting Digitalization
Digital is understood as numbers in which the information can be sorted, stored, changed
and processed. For example, the basic forms of long series of numbers are a photo from a
digital camera, a new application, a text message – as mentioned by Woodford (2006, p. 6).
By the author, digital technology contributes as the basement of many different things, such
as digital cameras, computers, MP3 music players, compact discs, digital versatile, cell
phones, image scanner, email, calculators and the Internet. Therefore, digital technology
can be a great tool not only for entertainment but also to support people to complete their
tasks more quickly, safely and conveniently than traditional methods.
In this study, digital can be understood as ICT (Information communication technology).
OECD (2009, p. 90) defines ICT as products intended to fulfill or enable the function of
information processing and communication by electronic means, including transmission
and display.
Cohen et al. (2002, p. 35) characterize ICT as follows:
very dynamic technological changes, with rapid penetration and adoption rates;
decreasing costs for new equipment and features;
a rapidly increasing range of applications and penetration in many realms of
professional and personal life;
an intertwined institutional market place, with the private sector acting in a
decreasingly regulated environment; and
a production and services package dependent on a range of qualities of skilled
human resources.
ICT represents as a family collection of technologies, services and applications which are
possible to electronic processing, storing, retrieving and transferring of information to a
wide variety of users, including the institutional and business sectors or the public (Cohen
et al., 2002, p. 35; Savulescu, 2015, p. 514).
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According to Savulescu (2015, p. 514) ICT illustrates the characteristics of complex
systems, brings many change in innovations and be able to make over expectations of
people and businesses. Moreover, ICT contributes as a pillar to speed up the scientific and
technological innovations, knowledge and information exchange or collaboration in many
areas including education, industry or research development. Finally, ICT plays as a crucial
element of firm capability and be considered as a sustainable competitive advantage
(Abdelkader & Abed, 2016, p. 16).
2.2. Information Communication Technology Changes the Nature of the World
In 21st century, ICT innovations contribute as not only a factor of an influence but also a
foundation (Savulescu, 2015, p. 515). Moreover, it can affect a wide range, including both
citizens and organizations. In fact, the development of ICT brings potential effects to
enhance better communication and interaction among people, create opportunities for
applying or enhance innovations in institutions as well as create competitive advantages.
According to OECD (2017, p. 88), the growth of ICT in the workplace indicates the speed
of technological development all over the world. Figure 2 shows the rapid applying ICT in
the world over the previous two decades. From 1996 to 2014, the ICT capital services per
hour worked at least doubled in most of researched countries. The United States, Belgium
and the United Kingdom increased above 350% while Hungary, Japan and Slovenia
experienced the increase of 150% over the period of 20 years. The level of ICT
development in Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Germany rose up to 300%.
For the period after 2007, the growth rate of ICT went up slightly in most countries and the
data were only possible for some countries.
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Figure 2. ICT has spread quickly throughout the world last decade from 1995 to 2014
ICT capital services per hour worked, index (1995=100)
Source: OECD (2017, p. 89)
As can be seen from figure 3, ICT adoption brings the large level of differences in various
sectors. In general, some industries have been dramatically affected by ICT, others have
located in the first step of adopting a new technology. ―Total manufacturing‖ has the
largest increase in ICT, changing 230% in the period 1995 to 2007. The following are
―Agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing‖, ―Wholesale and retail trade‖ and ―Hotel and
restaurants‖ experiencing the rise of around 200%. The lowest rates belong to
―Construction‖ with 80% of growth in this decade.
The evolution of ICT has been changing the ways of human life and work dramatically
(Bouwman, 2005, p. 3). Before the development of ICT, face-to-face meetings are the main
solution to communicate within organizations. In the 1980s, the telephone is conducted
over the telecommunications network (Bouwman, 2005, p. 30). The evolution starts with
many applications on desktops, personal computers (PCs), laptops and many applications
accessed by Internet in 1990 (Savulescu, 2015, p. 515). In the working environment,
nowadays, it is unthinkable for an office without PCs or the usage of emails (Bouwman,
2005, p. 3). Mobile applications working on tablets or smartphones represent the present
evolution. In the future, it properly involves in the informational stream such as cloud
computing, Internet, GPS, modern banking, medical e-services, social networks, e-learning
etc. (Savulescu, 2015, p. 515).
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Figure 3. The rise of using ICT in some sectors from 1995 to 2007
ICT capital services per hour worked, index (1995=100)
Source: OECD (2017, p. 89)
Since the evolution of technology and Internet, multiple technological tools are offered to
fulfill the communicative demands of teams (Laitinen & Valo, 2018, p. 13). In particular,
within the virtual environment, some virtual tools are considered as common technology
because of the special visual connections among teammates, such as group conferencing,
shared workspaces, or online meeting tools. According to Laitinen and Valo (2018), the
modern platforms not only be beneficial to connect people from different regions but also
provide a variety of communication options, for example, information sharing, negotiating,
problem-solving, and team decision making. Furthermore, team members are also able to
share documents, pictures or web displays during the usage of modern tools.
According to above, ICT represents the power for the success of both economies and
organizations (Savulescu, 2015, p. 519). By the technological evolution, the way of
communication within institutes has been changed significantly and effectively. Without
the Internet, it is difficult for ICT to conduct their important role (Bouwman, 2005, p. 3)
because those modern tools have to run on the Internet platform.
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2.3. Internet Users in the World
―The Internet has opened up the word and increasingly; mobile technology has diminished
distances and expanded communication‖- as mentioned in Smith and Tom (2014, p. 2).
The Internet plays as an important tool supporting people in not only human life but also
our work. In terms of digital technology, the Internet acts as a crucial mediated tool to
encourage and enhance the virtual cooperation and communication. In fact, social networks
are quite popular and have millions of users, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google plus.
These social networking platforms are used not only for personal contacts but also business
purposes as well.
Table 1. Internet users in the world during 2006 to 2016
Year Internet Users Penetration
(% of Pop)
World
Population
Non-Users
(Internetless)
2016 3,424,971,237 46.1% 7,432,663,275 4,007,692,038
2015 3,185,996,155 43.4% 7,349,472,099 4,163,475,944
2014 2,956,385,569 40.7% 7,265,785,946 4,309,400,377
2013 2,728,428,107 38% 7,181,715,139 4,453,287,032
2012 2,494,736,248 35.1% 7,097,500,453 4,602,764,205
2011 2,231,957,359 31.8% 7,013,427,052 4,781,469,693
2010 2,023,202,974 29.2% 6,929,725,043 4,906,522,069
2009 1,766,403,814 25.8% 6,846,479,521 5,080,075,707
2008 1,575,067,520 23.3% 6,763,732,879 5,188,655,359
2007 1,373,226,988 20.6% 6,681,607,320 5,308,380,322
2006 1,162,916,818 17.6% 6,600,220,247 5,437,303,429
Source: Internetlivestats, 2017
As can be seen from table 1, the number of internet users has increased more and more
every year. From 2006 to 2009, the total number of Internet users in the world was less
than 2 billion users with more than 20% total world population. Seven years later, it
reached more than 3.4 billion users and accounted for nearly half of people in the world
which is 46.1%.
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Table 2. Internet users by countries 2016
Ranking Country Internet Users
(2016)
Penetration
(% of Pop)
Population
1 China 721,434,547 52.2 % 1,382,323,332
2 India 462,124,989 34.8% 1,326,801,576
3 U.S. 286,942,362 88.5% 324,118,787
4 Brazil 139,11,185 66.4% 209,567,920
5 Japan 115,111,595 91.1% 126,323,715
6 Russia 191,258,256 71.3% 143,439,832
7 Nigeria 86,219,965 46.1% 186,987,563
8 Germany 71,016,605 88% 80,682,351
9 U.K. 60,273,385 92.6% 65,111,143
10 Mexico 58,016,997 45.1% 128,632,004
Source: Internetlivestats, 2016, July 1
Recently, most regions in the world are covered by the Internet. According to
Internetlivestats (2016, July 1), the Internet is being used in 201 different countries in the
world and this statistic data is increasing day by day. It is obvious from table 2 that China
led the first ranking of Internet users with 52.2% in its total population in 2016. Following
is India which accounted for 34.8% internet users in its total population. It is interesting
that the United States stood in the third position but more than 88% of total US population
using internet. The rest in top 10 of Internet users by countries belonged to Brazil, Japan,
Russia, Nigeria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Mexico etc.,
2.4. Benefits of Information Communication Technology
Madadipouya (2015, p. 29) mentions that if ICT is well aligned to the business, ICT can
support a variety of strategic objectives, including the redesign of innovative applications
and business processes. It also links organizations with their business partners and
facilitates sharing information. Costs can dramatically be reduced as well and acquiring of
competitive intelligence can be fully supported. Therefore, ICT takes an important role in
the economic growth and structural change (Savulescu, 2015, p. 513).
Moreover, technology and communication are one of the important factors bringing the
competitive advantage in the global environment (Grosse, 2002, p. 24). Grosse indicates
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that many opportunities can be gained by applying technology in virtual teams, such as
reducing the remote places without leaving the office, building and establishing the
relationships with strangers without moving or face-to-face meeting, helping companies
and employees to complete works or tasks more efficiently and quickly, saving time and
reducing travel costs. Some main advantages are collected and listed below to indicate the
benefits of ICT.
Increasing productivity and effectiveness
In dynamic global markets, productivity is one of the factors representing the level of
competitiveness (Mačiulytė-Šniukienė & Gaile-Sarkane, 2014, p. 1272). Brynjolfsson and
McAfee (2011, p. 21) and Savulescu (2015, p. 513) mention that technology could increase
the productivity, enhance the wealth and living standard. In general, labor productivity can
be measured as output per worker or output per hour worked. For showing the growth of
economics, the result is better to come from working smarter than working harder. It means
that new technologies or techniques of producing are used to create more value without
raising the capital, a number of labor or other resources. According to Ebrahim et al. (2009,
p. 12), the teams can get more efficient in case of well-equipped virtual team members with
suitable technology.
According to Mačiulytė-Šniukienė and Gaile-Sarkane (2014, pp. 1280-1281), ICT
contributes a strong impact on labor productivity in a variety of ranges, including company,
industry, and country level. Then, the application of ICT has increased the labor
productivity in both producing and using technology. In fact, ICT brings benefits into
improving systems of company management processes, encouraging the network economy,
and building foundation for development of ICT and other innovations. Similarly, ICT
helps reshape the competitive landscape into a network economy and be considered as a
useful and beneficial platform by which innovation could be encouraged to apply and
enhance the technological level of the production process (Chou, Chang, & Shao, 2014, p.
290). Continuing to the study of Mačiulytė-Šniukienė and his co-workers, levels of labor
productivity by ICT are examined in 27 members of EU. As a result, they indicate that ICT
brings effects on labor productivity in most countries except for some unobserved medium
productivity regions, such as Ireland, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, and Malta.
In organizations, ICT positively experiences on performance in implementing different
types of technologies (Bayo-Moriones, Billón, & Lera-López, 2013, p. 131). However, the
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effect of ICT depends on the time-period and the adoption of new work practices.
Therefore, ICT does not immediately impact on work performance until one year after the
application.
Increasing abilities for communication, coordination, collaboration, and
knowledge exchange
According to Davis (2002, p. 69), the important characteristics of knowledge work include
communication, collaboration, and coordination. These activities may be in a workgroup, a
project team and showed by sending and receiving messages, holding physical and virtual
meetings, or exchanging documents. Therefore, by the flexibility in time and place,
communication, coordination, and collaboration can be accessed without those constraints.
Moreover, these characteristics are useful for jobs which require contact with people in
various places and time zones. Bayo-Moriones et al. (2013, p.131) indicate that the positive
effect of ICT on communication may be more beneficial in firms with larger coordination.
Knowledge is mentioned as a crucial weapon for bringing the competitive advantages and
the knowledge management is being attended by many organizations carefully (Lee &
Choi, 2003, p. 79). Besides, information technology is considered as an important factor in
the development and encouragement of collaboration innovation by providing the
necessary linkages for data exchange with external partners (Kleis, Chwelos, Ramirez, &
Cockburn, 2012, p. 46). In this collaboration, some technical tools contribute as effective
infrastructure technologies, such as PCs, laptops, date and voice networks, and some
communication applications. By the support of these facilities, information or data enables
exchange from and to external participants. Information technology helps create, store,
share, and use knowledge across the enterprise on a large range (Lee & Choi, 2003, p. 210).
Reducing the constraints of time and space for doing knowledge work
While using a physical office and associating custom of set hours for the office operation
may bring convenience to enterprises supporting services, these ways may not be beneficial
to improve productivity (Davis, 2002, p. 69). Therefore, accessing computing without those
constraints allows the office to run with the knowledgeable workers rather than be locked
into a physical box. Information can be accessed anytime from any geography, thus
exchange of information enables with unlimited access computing.
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Davis (2002, p. 69) claims that information and communication technology support
workers to work across any time zones and anywhere in case of full ability to access the
required data. Therefore, it is able to enhance the capabilities for communications,
collaboration and knowledge exchange. By the support of electronic devices, workers in a
project team can work together anytime or anyplace by sending and receiving emails or
messages, exchanging documents or joining virtual meetings. Then, it is possible and
convenient to set up interaction, communication, and coordination through 24 hours per
day. Moreover, for those who are located in different time zones and places, digital
technology takes a crucial role to make strong connections with other teammates.
Digital technology brings more power to remove the time and space barrier in doing
knowledge work. Workers can be more benefits to work with computers and set up
communications without limited access, time and space than those who were tied to a
physical office.
2.5. Challenges of Information Communication Technology
ICT produces a“competitive weapon“ in order to enhance the ability of enterprises in the
dynamic business environment (Parsons, 1984, p. 51). However, Abdelkader and Abed
(2016, p. 32) reject the relationship between two factors by using data from 36 Algerian
firms. It means that ICT has no significant effect on the competitive advantage.
While a large amount of benefits come from ICT, many required issues are proposed to
gain the effective results, such as the parallel innovation in the business models,
organizational processes structures or skills of employees adapting to a new technology
(Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, p. 21). The results of new communication technology are
hard to forecast, so organizations and individuals may have ability to get used to new
technology. In some extends, some new structures may be formed and applied to encourage
or limit it (Davis, 2002, p. 68; Savulescu, 2015, p. 513).
Creating the gap between high-skilled and low-skilled employees
Besides, technology also can make concerned effects to productivity and the
unemployment by the distinction of high-skilled and low-skilled workers and the labour
replacement by machines (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, p. 21). With the technical
change, the demand for high-skilled labors increases while that for low-skilled labors
decreases or removes. In fact, these phenomenon occur in many automatic factories in
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which hard working jobs are run by machines while human can control and manage the
complex programs. ICT brings a new era for the replacement of human labor and the
change of human positions.
In a study of Peng et al. (2017, p. 17), an analysis of nine European countries in a period of
37 years is observed to examine the impact of information and communication technology
on the demand for older employees (aged 50 and over), including Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Spain, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and the UK. As a result, it shows
that that there is an enhancement or reduction effect of Information communication
technology capital on the demand for older employees. For instance, the high-skilled
demand is obviously required for older workers in Denmark, Netherland and the UK, while
other countries are observed with the low-biased demand of information communication
technology ability. However, codified and standardized technologies can be a useful tool to
support older workers in adapting to a changing working environment as well as save their
jobs. It also contributes to the future development of young workers to train them get more
adaptable to new technologies when they become senior by the time.
Changing structure of the labor market
According to OECD (2017), the labor markets witness a significant change in the
occupational structure in 22 OECD countries over the past decades. And then, the proof for
this transformation leads to the gap of employment into high-skill or high-paying jobs on
the one hand, and low-skill or low-paying jobs on the other hand. In fact, this phenomenon
is encouraged by the rapid development of digitalization and automation as well as the
increase in the global integration of production processes.
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Figure 4. The labor market polarized in OECD countries by region, from 1995 to 2015
Percentage point change in share of total employment
Source: OECD (2017, p. 86)
Southern Europe contains Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal.
Western Europe contains Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland and the
United Kingdom.
Central Europe contains Czech Republic, Hungary, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia
Northern Europe contains Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
North America consists of Canada and the United States.
The gap of labor market between high-skill and low-skill is clearly shown in figure 4. It is
obvious from the figure above that all the areas have witnessed a reduction in the share of
middle-skilled jobs which involves in both high-skilled and low-skilled jobs. While
middle-skill jobs occupy big shares in five areas, the decline of them affects to all regions
except for Central Europe. In Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe and
North America, the high-skill jobs at least double the low-skill occupations in these
regions. Central Europe sees an outstanding demand for high-skill jobs and lowest demand
for middle-skill jobs.
Affecting to private time
Information communication technology can intrude into the border time between private
life and work (Davis, 2002, p. 70). It happens when some projects that teammates from
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different parts of the world and different time zones are hard to set up a fixed daytime for a
virtual meeting. Cascio (2000, p. 87) states that ―Scheduled virtual meetings are essential
and attendance must be enforced strictly to ensure that all team members participate‖.
Virtual team members have to ensure the time accuracy and timely communication in spite
of working across time zones and locations. Therefore, it is difficult for virtual team
members to prevent the working time from interfering in their personal time when it can be
used for relaxing or being with family and friends (Davis, 2002, p. 70; Horwitz et al., 2006,
p. 490). It is the reason why some members have the feeling of extended working days so
as to have virtual meetings with their teammates in various time zones and places (Horwitz
et al., 2006, p. 490).
Increasing income inequality
According to Peng et al. (2017, p. 17), the number of older employees has significantly
raised and the wage share of these labors has dramatically fluctuated on nine European
countries. The salary of high-skilled workers passes over the wage shared by intermediate-
skilled and unskilled workers. Besides, the higher pay contributes to the increase in the
demand for skilled workers and the least educated workers accept lowest wages. Therefore,
the changing technology brings the gap to wage inequality (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011,
p. 27).
Moreover, the net effect can become a decline in the overall demand when the technology
changing raises the wage of high-skilled labors and reduces the income and employment of
low-skilled workers. However, high-skilled workers who are better in experience and
capability may prefer more time to leisure and savings rather than to work extra hours,
while workers with lower skills may be at risk of losing their jobs. Therefore, the labor
force of these two groups may be less than before the technology changes, so the overall
output falls (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, p. 27).
Decreasing well-being
The increase of the Internet usage is associated with the decrease in well-being because it is
less benefit than traditional communication for maintaining relationships and the reduction
of social connections, including self-disclosure and social support (Schiffrin, Edelman,
Falkenstern, & Stewart, 2010, p. 303). According to these authors, a study in college
students shows that most of participants access to the Internet and use it several hours a day
for collecting information and social purposes. Then, the more time people spend on the
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Internet, the lower well-being they receive. In this research, the participants confirm that
computer-mediated communication is less beneficial than face-to-face communication for
maintaining the relationships which are the key element of well-being. Therefore, a virtual
communication brings a negative impact on well-being.
In a study of Kraut and Burke (2015, p. 99), the relationship between the Internet
connection and well-being depends on whom they are communicating with. The authors
agree that the users who run the Internet for entertainment, information searching purposes
or communication with strangers involve in the decrease in psychological well-being.
However, the author indicate that talking online with close friends can positively affect
well-being, such as improving life satisfaction, reducing depression, stress and loneliness.
Problem in keep up with and accepting the changing in technology
As can be seen from table 3, the employment rate for the group over 55 increased during
2003, 2007 and 2013 in 21 European countries and 34 members of OECD. In the period of
that decade, the employment rate for the age group 55-64 rose approximately 10 per cent,
up to 49.5 per cent in EU and 54.9 percent in OECD. In 2013, the percentage of older
workers who are at the age 65-69 in OECD doubled that one in 21 members in EU, 19.6%
and 11.2% respectively. Moreover, there was about 30.3% of people in the age of 65-69
working in 2013 in the United States (OECD, 2015, p. 44).
This trend of population transformation brings not only the challenges to public service,
such as health care, housing, transportation, education, employment, and product design
but also opens opportunities for businesses (Lee & Coughlin, 2015, p. 747). ICT
comprising the Internet, computers or mobile communications provides a variety of
benefits to solve many social challenges involving the population ageing (Lee & Coughlin,
2015, p. 747; Macedo, 2017, p. 936).
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Table 3. Older worker scoreboard in the Europe Union and OECD area, 2003, 2007,
and 2013
Europe (1) OECD (2)
2003 2007 2013 2003 2007 2013
Employment rate (% of the age group)
55-64 40.7 45.1 49.5 47.2 51.1 54.9
55-59 53.5 58.5 64.2 58.1 62.1 66.5
60-64 25.5 29.0 33.6 34.0 37.7 42.2
65-69 9.0 10.3 11.2 15.8 17.2 19.6
Employability
Participation in training, 55-64 (% of the age group)
Absolute (% of all employed
in the age group)
6.4
6.5 8.0 7.9 8.0 9.6
Source: OECD (2015, p. 42)
(1): Europe 21 countries
(2): OECD 34 countries, including Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, United States, Australia, Austria,
Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Finland, Iceland, France, United Kingdom,
Japan, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Israel, South Korea, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Greece, Slovakia, Portugal,
Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Chile, Turkey, Mexico.
However, the successful ability of ICT significantly depends on the acceptance and the
reality in using technology (Macedo, 2017, p. 936). While a variety of technology tools are
especially designed for older adults, the percentage of adoption is still low in spite of their
benefits (Lee & Coughlin, 2015, p. 747). According to the Lee and Coughlin, performance
and price are not the only two factors affecting to older adults‗ adoption in using
technology, they are impacted by multiple factors. In their study, however, design and ease
of use are not considered as one of the factors impacting on the usage of technology as
recognized in some previous studies. Ten factors which comprise social contexts of use and
delivery, communication channels, individual characteristics and technical features are
identified as determinants of elders‗ adoption of technology, such as value, usability,
affordability, accessibility, technical support, social support, emotion, independence,
experience, and confidence. Therefore, it is obvious from table 3, the percentage of old
employees over 55 age participating training or learning something new just accounted for
a small rate in both EU21 and OECD34, respectively 8% and 9.6% in 2013.
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In a study of 278 Portuguese older adults by Macedo (2017), a survey is conducted to
examine their intention behavior and usage of information communication technology.
According to Macedo, performance expectancy contributes as the most important element
impacting on individual‘s intention in using ICT. It indicates that older workers' decisions
involving the usage of ICT are significantly affected by the cognitive benefits regarding its
use in their daily life (Macedo, 2017, p. 973). Besides, facilitating conditions are the second
factor impacting on the older workers behavior in adapting ICT. Indeed, older adults intend
to use ICT when they feel familiar with the technology and are well-equipped for using it.
This result is consistent with one of the main influence on older adults‘ decisions to adopt
the Internet, in which facilitating conditions were found to have a significant effect on
acceptance and usage (Pan & Jordan-Marsh, 2010, p. 1111).
In addition, another problem is that some technology tools which appear as out of the
productivity, such as Facebook, Wikipedia, and Youtube. These common digital goods are
free services attracting lots of users who spend more time to consume them. Therefore, it
becomes an important issue in many organizations (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2011, p. 23).
In conclusion, ICT acts as a crucial element in changing the ways of people work as well as
their life (Bouwman, 2005, p. 3). ICT is a competitive tool which can bring both benefits
and challenges for organizations. While ICT is potential in improving effectiveness,
communicating and knowledge exchanging, reducing the time barrier, it can create the gap
in levels skill of employees and affect the status of income inequality.
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3. GLOBAL COLLABORATION
3.1. Concept of Global Collaboration
3.1.1. Definition
Global collaboration is a broad issue which can be understood in some different point of
views and not defined clearly. First, global collaboration can be the international co-
operations in different fields such as industry, firms or education institution. Second, global
collaboration can be understood as a global team or a virtual team (or virtual
collaborations) (Workman, Kahnweiler, & Bommer, 2003, p. 199) in which team members
are not located in the same office, city, area or nation and work together without direct
interaction.
In this thesis, the concept of the ―global virtual team‖ or ―virtual team‖ is considered as
global collaboration and defined by many authors. Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 6)
mention that ―a virtual team works across space, time, and organizational boundaries with
links strengthened by webs of communication technologies.‖ A virtual team is an effective
method helping people keep in touch across nations without leaving their building or
office. So, the difference between a traditional team and a virtual team is that members in a
virtual group will work across the barriers of time and geography by the supporting of
technology.
Henry and Hartzler (1998, p. 5) define global virtual teams are ―groups of people who work
closely together even though they are geographically separated by miles or even
continents―. It is also mentioned as ―intact workgroups or cross functional groups brought
together to tackle a project for a finite period of time through a combination of
technologies―. Similarly, global virtual team is a ―collection of individual who work
together, regardless of their geographical and physical location― (McLean, 2007, p. 16) .
According to Brandt et al. (2011, p. 62), a virtual team are a collection of differentiated
people who do not know each other before and contact indirectly to accomplish their
project. Besides, it is a group of interdependent members among dispersed geography and
shares the responsibility to complete the tasks by using technological tools by a certain
time and at a certain cost (Gibson & Cohen, 2003, p. 3).
One of the very basic features of a virtual or physical team is that a number of people are
connected together in such a way that they are dependent on each other in achieving
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common goals. Berry (2011, p. 186) defines ―a team as a group of individuals who interact
interdependently and who are brought together or come together voluntarily to achieve
certain outcomes or accomplish particular tasks‖.
In conclusion, virtual teams are remote workers who work far away from the office that can
be at home, in other cities or different countries. In these teams, the main interaction is run
under the support of digital technology, including e-mail, voice mail, fax or other
information communication tools offered by the company (Hegar & Hodgetts, 2012, p.
156).
3.1.2. Characteristics of Virtual Teams
Various definitions and perceptions about virtual teams mentioned in the part above create
many relevant characteristics of virtual teams. This part will summary features of this
special type of team collaboration.
Kratzer et al. (2005, p. 13) list three characteristics of virtual teams. First, members in
virtual teams are distributed in different areas. Second, information technologies are used at
the main communication tools. Third, members of virtual teams need to interact together.
Gibson and Cohen (2003, p. 4) illustrate three required characteristics for a team
considered as a virtual team:
It is a functioning team. The team members are individual people who are
interdependent in their tasks and share responsibility for outcomes.
The team members are multi-geography.
Communicating with electronic devices is the main way to interact and execute
their works among team members than face –to- face contact.
By the authors, the members of a virtual team differ from each other. They can come from
a variety of nations, areas, cities, and continents and not in the same building. Besides, the
members of virtual teams also can come from the same organizations or multiple
organizations in the same or different buildings. By using this technology, the virtual team
can interact and discuss together how to achieve their goals instead of direct meeting. To
support the communication, a diversity of technical methods can be applied, such as e-mail,
video conferences, telephone, faxes and collaborative design tools.
Some virtual teams' characteristics are listed by Bal et al. (1999, p. 75) in the paper
―Virtual Teaming in the Agile Supply Chain―, including:
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Team members are goal oriented.
Members are dispersed geographically (nationally or internationally).
The team works apart more than in the same location.
The team is a collection of individuals who work together to attain a goal by using
computer-supported networking.
Team members are involved in a co-ordinated undertaking of interrelated activities.
Members are mutually accountable for team results.
Team members solve problems and make decisions jointly.
The are of finite duration, with a beginning and ends (few teams are permanent.
Bal and Teo (2000, p. 6) confirm that a global virtual team should satisfy four common
criteria and some additional characteristics. First, team members should be geographically
dispersed in a global group. Second, virtual teams are driven by common purpose. Third,
communication technologies are used and enabled. Fourth, it is possible for cross-boundary
collaboration. Other characteristics include a small team size, inconsistent membership, not
a permanent team, knowledge workers, unity in solving problems and making decisions,
responsibility in team results.
Berry (2011, p. 187) summarizes six attributes of a virtual team in the study ―Enhancing
effectiveness on Virtual Teams―, as follow:
• The team usually but not always has a definable and limited membership, and this
shared membership is recognized by team members. The team will not be affected
by any change of membership.
• The team members work interdependently and share the same goal.
• The team members have responsibility for final results together.
• The team members collective manage their relationships across organizational
boundaries.
• The team member are distributed in different regions.
• Computer – mediated communication is the main tool to complete their tasks more
than traditional communication.
In addition, some added criteria are supposed to expand the characteristics of virtual teams.
Henry and Hartzler (1998, p. 5-6) identify the size of a virtual group which should be less
than 20 members, while Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 128) does not discuss any number
for the size of virtual teams. However, they mention about the team size which should
depend on ―task at hands and constraint and opportunities of the situation―. They argue
that virtual team tend to have “small number of active members and large memberships“.
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It means that there is no constant number for team members. Therefore, it is not suitable to
give an exact size for virtual teams and then, they always witness newcomers or leavers
during team life cycle (Bal & Teo, 2000, p. 5).
Table 4 represents a summary of virtual teams‗ characteristics within organizations
Table 4. A summary of characteristics of virtual teams
Characteristics
of virtual teams
Descriptions Authors
Common criteria
Geographically dispersed Bal and Teo (2000), Kratzer et al.
(2005), Gibson and Cohen (2003),
Bal et al. (1999), Berry (2011)
Driven by common purpose Bal and Teo (2000), Bal et al.
(1999), Berry (2011)
Enabled by communication
technologies
Bal and Teo (2000), Gibson and
Cohen (2003), Bal et al. (1999),
Berry (2011)
Involved in cross-boundary
collaboration
Bal and Teo (2000), Bal et al. (1999)
Other
characteristics
It is not a permanent team
Bal and Teo (2000), Bal et al.
(1999), Berry (2011)
Members solve problems and
make decisions jointly are
mutually accountable for team
results
Bal and Teo (2000), Bal et al.
(1999), Berry (2011)
Small team size
Bal and Teo (2000)
Inconsistent membership
Bal and Teo (2000)
Team members are knowledge
worker
Bal and Teo (2000)
Source: Buit by Author
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3.1.3. Types of Virtual Teams
During the last decade, words such as “virtual”, “virtualization”, “virtualized” have been
very often advocated by scholars and practitioners in the discussion of social and economic
issues (Vaccaro, Veloso, & Brusoni, 2008, p. 1). Following that, many definitions and
charateristics of virtual teams are suggested by different authors as mentioned above.
Concerning their study, various criteria are applied to classify virtual teams. While
Lipnack and Stamps (1997) categorize global virtual teams by space, time and
organization, Cascio and Shurygalo (2003) form them by locations and managers. Other
authors use another criterion to address the difference in their types.
Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 42) categorize types of virtual teams in a fundamental way
referencing to organization, space and time dimensions. Space and time are treated as an
interrelated area, namely space-time. There are four kinds of team fitting into the matrix
formed by the space-time and organizational boundaries, as shown in table 5.
Table 5. Varieties of teams
Space/Time Organization
Same Different
Same Collocated Collocated Cross-Organizational
Different Distributed Distributed Cross-Organizational
Source: Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 42)
Table 5 shows one conventional (traditional team) and three kinds of virtual teams:
Collocated cross-organizational teams involve in team members from different
organizations working together in the same place.
Distributed teams are mentioned as a group which team members are located in the
same organization and work in different places, such as multisite product development
group, branches and local offices.
Distributed cross-organizational teams consist of people from different
organizations who disperse in different geographies.
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Similarly, time and space are two criteria chosen to classify virtual teams (Mittleman &
Briggs, 1998, as cited in Berry (2011, p. 189):
Same time and same place interactions similar to traditional interaction except
using technologically assisted communication instead of face-to-face communication,
as with e-mail across an office.
Same time but different place interactions, such as using instant messaging.
Different time but same place interactions such as using a dedicated chat room on a
network.
Different time and different place interactions such as an exchange of e-mail
communications as is commonly found in online classrooms or multioffice setting.
Cascio and Shurygalo (2003, p. 363) have classified virtual teams by two primary criteria
which are the number of locations (one or more) and the number of managers (one or
more). The four categories of virtual teams are shown in table 6.
Table 6. Forms of virtual teams
Managers
One Multiple
Locations One Teleworkers Matrixed Teleworkers
Multiple Remote team Matrixed Remote Teams
Source: Cascio and Shurygalo (2003, p. 364)
Teleworkers: A single manager of a team at one location
Remote team: a single manager of a team distributed across multiple location
Matrixed teleworkers: Multiple manager of a team at one location
Matrixed remote teams: Multiple managers across multiple locations
Ebrahim et al. (2009, p. 2655) categorize forms of ―virtual‖ work in four types by team size
and the degree of interaction between team members. They are:
• ―Telework” (telecommuting) which is done partially or completely outside of the main
company workplace with the aid of information and telecommunication services.
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• “Virtual groups” exist when several teleworkers are combined and each member
reports to the same manager.
• “Virtual team” exists when the members of a virtual group interact with each other in
order to accomplish common goals.
• “Virtual communities” are larger entities of distributed work in which members
participate via the internet, guided by common purposes, roles and norms.
3.2. The Difference Between a Global Virtual Team and a Face-to-Face Team
While face-to-face communications act as the foundation for the chain operations of
economic interaction and knowledge creation in many fields, enterprises grow with virtual
communication by ICT to improve and organise their product, service, research or market
interaction (Harald & Philip, 2011, p. 524). The differences exist in two types of teams
which both bring effects to firms.
McLean (2007, p. 16) takes the working location for the main difference between a
traditional team whose members are fixed in the office and a virtual team whose teammates
are flexible in their workplaces. According to Ebrahim et al. (2009, p. 2658), a virtual
team has an ability to work across time, region and organization boundaries by the support
of communication technologies. Therefore, in general, a global virtual team is dramatically
different from a face-to-face team Kratzer et al. (2005, p. 13). As for task solving, they can
be coordinated directly by team members together to bring a perfect result while it tends to
be more structured in a remote team. Another difference involves in the communication
method. In a virtual team, a vast of electronic interaction tools are used to make strong
connections among team members and solve problems. In contrast, traditional teams are
loyal with face-to-face communication regularly.
To conclude, Bell and Kozlowski (2002, p. 25) and Zander et al. (2013, p. 229) mention the
distinguished characteristics between a virtual teams and a face-to-face teams including (1)
the separated geography mong members in a team which do not appear in collocated teams
and (2) the main usage of ICT for the purpose of communication. Table 7 shows the
comparison between two types of team illustrated by Kratzer et al. (2005).
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Table 7. A summary of the main differences between traditional teams
and virtual teams
Fully Traditional Teams Fully Virtual Teams
Team members all co-located Team members all in different locations
Team members communicate face-to-
face
Team members communicate through
asynchronous means
Team members coordinate team task
together, in mutual adjustment
The team task is so highly structures that
coordination by team members is rarely
necessary
Source: Kratzer et al. (2005, p. 14)
3.3. Pros and Cons of Global Virtual Teams
The modern age witnesses a highly developed information technology tools which might
replace the traditional interaction in global projects (Olaisen & Revang, 2017, p. 1446).
Besides, global virtual teams are applied significantly because of their ability to bridge
time, space and organizations (Kanawattanachai & Yoo, 2002, p. 187). However, it
consists of both the benefits and drawbacks in a virtual team.
3.3.1. Advantages of a Global Virtual Team
Time and cost saving
Due to virtual teams, the expenses for accommodation, transportation, travel and daily
allowances can be reduced by the support of technology systems (Bergiel et al., 2008, p.
105; Dulebohn & Hoch, 2017, p. 1; Grosse, 2002, p. 25). Therefore, it saves time and
provides access to experts (Cascio, 2000, p. 83). According to Bergiel et al. (2008, p.105),
IBM can save $50 million for travel expense and then reduce lots of unnecessary time in
transnational organizations among IBM over the world.
Rice et al. (2007, p. 588) indicate that many aspects of virtual meetings can be equal or
more effective than face-to-face collaboration. As his point of view, the ―equal
effectiveness― seems beneficial to computer mediated collaboration, including reducing
travel costs and employee relocation costs (Joinson, 2002, p. 73).
Advanced information technology and telecommunications can bring advantages in
supporting cooperation efficiently, for example video conferencing, shared whiteboard,
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application sharing and product data management tools. A study of May and Carter (2001,
p. 171) indicate the pre-eminence of virtual teams by a survey of 40 engineers in four
countries, including the UK, Italy and France in a 14-month period. As a result, he shows
that 10 to 50% time can be saved for different stages of the product introduction process.
Besides, the overall is able to save 20% in development time so as to raise the sale volume
to approximately £1 billion and cost saving up to £90 billion.
In contrast, Rice et al. (2007, p. 581) argue that time may be lost by using communication
protocols in CMCs. In the beginning of a conversation, the latency of network connection
can make a short delay because of the time losing by switching of audio and video among
colleagues. Therefore, it can lead to the disappointment and stop communication.
Bringing creativity and originality among team members
Bergiel et al. (2008, p. 106) suggest that global virtual team are more powerful than
face-to-face teams because of their diversity and heterogeneity. In contrast to the fact that
traditional teams are affected by time and place, virtual teams are flexible. Therefore,
virtual teams are more benefit in creativity and originality due to the diversity among
virtual teammates.
Attracting talented employees
Rice et al. (2007, p. 588) and Kerber and Buono (2004, p. 4) recognize that virtual teams
allow firms to recruit better employees in the fields. Global teams bring opportunities to
expand their potential labor markets, allow organizations to hire the best people in any
geography areas, regions, nationalities, and physical ability (Cascio, 2000, p. 84). Carl
Worthy, an expert on remote workers and president of Worklogix, a Mountain View,
Calif.- suggests that firms can hire employees ―from wherever they are to wherever they
need to be, almost instantly― (Joinson, 2002, p. 73).
Berry (2011, p. 195) confirms about the ability of virtual teams in exploiting talent and
knowledge from any geographical regions in order to perform work tasks 24 hours per day.
However, that benefit has just been successful in the condition that virtual teams are
designed, managed and implemented effectively. Otherwise, it can bring negative effects to
team dynamic and lead to their weakness or failure.
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Increasing capability, productivity and higher profit
Virtual teams support firms to complete things more quickly and efficiently (Grosse, 2002,
p. 25). An important and advantage point for virtual teams is able to make connections in
the diversity of different expertise, age, gender, ethnic background, attitudes without re-
locating employees. Thus, it brings a positive impact on the team‘s gained result:
Some research claims that the use of teams increases capability, responsiveness, and
flexibility within organizations (Griffith, Sawyer, & Neale, 2003; Maynard, 2006) partly
because synergies are created among team members who have different types of expertise,
experience, or knowledge (Grimshaw & Kwok, 1998; Klein & Kleinhanns, 2003) (as cited
in Berry, 2011, p. 186). For example, a study of Cascio (2000, p. 81) shows that internal
IBM studies increase of 15 to 40 percent. Similarly, USWest Communications, Inc. reports
that the productivity of its teleworking employees increased, some by as much as 40
percent.
Besides, new products are the competitive advantage for the existence of companies.
Therefore, firms need expertise appearing over the world not in a single region to create
new products in order to ensure their development. Therefore, global virtual teams are great
solutions to exploit their diversity and flexibility and lead to support the creativity, develop
new products and services in a practical and economical way (McDonough, 2001, p. 110).
Creating equal opportunities in the workplace
It is easier for physically disadvantaged employees to get access to the virtual workplace
than the physical workspace. Therefore, people with phycisal problems have opportunities
to join the virtual teams whether or not they are able to go to work (Cascio, 2000, p. 84).
As a result, teams become more diverse and can be the basement for the creativity (Bergiel
et al., 2008, p. 106).
Reducing age and race discrimination
In a virtual team, performance is measured by productivity more than other attributes.
Therefore, the environment created by virtual place brings the equality for employees
without the distinction in age, gender or nationality (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 106). As a
result, employees pass over the difference and work together to complete their tasks under
a common goal.
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Knowledge sharing
Data, information and knowledge are rapidly and easily shared across geographical areas
and organization units (Dulebohn & Hoch, 2017, p. 1). According to McLean (2007, p. 16),
global virtual teams allow people to access and increase knowledge without any relocation
and bring a variety of capacity, knowledge expertise and skills in using high technology
tools.
Olaisen and Revang (2017, p. 1447) indicate that informal and formal knowledge can be
shared by technology platforms. In his study, three of four teams developing into high-
performance use their technology platform as their main communication tool to interact
and exchange the knowledge. By the time, this exchanged information is able to share
explicit knowledge through the development of trust and social ties. Then, team members
not only can work together to solve problems and share solutions but also open innovation
and meaningfulness to professional workers. As a result, teams work smarter and greener.
Working across places and time zones
Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 7) and Ebrahim et al.(2009, p. 2658) state the strength of
virtual teams in working across time, region and organization boundaries by the support of
communication technologies. Besides, it is easier to schedule global virtual teams because
of their flexible meeting format but team leaders indicate that preparation and effort are
more required than in face-to-face collaboration (Rice et al., 2007, p. 588-589). By the
support of computer- mediated collaboration evolution, the geographical distance and time
zones are not barriers anymore to the development of remote cooperation. However, the
separation of physical and time zone do not affect performance as it used to in the past
(Prikladnicki, R., Perin, M. & Marczak, 2016, p. 5).
On the contrary, Joinson (2002, p. 72) argue that crossing time zones can bring a challenge
for virtual groups. Because of the different time, global team members have fewer chances
to make contacts together than working with face-to-face teammates who are always in the
same office at the same time.
Bringing a positive effect on our environment
Olaisen and Revang (2017, p. 14) argue that computer-mediated-communication brings a
high competitive advantage in industries with dispersed teams through a case studies in
Scandinavian, Norway. Then, four Scandinavian virtual global project teams are
established with 42 team members in a period of two years from 2014 to 2016. Basing on
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168 individual reports and 16 in-depth top leader interviews, these four virtual teams prove
their contribution to the environment in cutting the airline pollution through reducing the
number of trip by 50 to70%.
Table 8 will represent a clear summary of the benefits of virtual teams.
Table 8. A summary of main advantages of virtual teams
Advantages Authors
Reducing time and cost Bergiel et al. (2008), Dulebohn and Hoch
(2017), Cascio (2000), Rice et al. (2007),
Joinson (2002), May and Carter (2001),
Grosse (2002)
Creativity and originality among team
members
Bergiel et al. (2008)
Ability to recruit talented employees over
the world
Rice et al. (2007), Kerber and Buono
(2004), Cascio (2000), Joinson (2002),
Berry (2011)
Improving productivity or higher profit Berry (2011), Cascio (2000), McDonough
(2001)
Bringing equal opportunities to all
employees
Cascio (2000), Bergiel et al. (2008)
Reducing age and race discrimination Bergiel et al. (2008)
Knowledge sharing Dulebohn and Hoch (2017), McLean
(2007), Olaisen and Revang (2017)
Reduce pollution Olaisen and Revang (2017)
Ability to work across places and time
zones
Ebrahim et al. (2009), Rice et al. (2007),
Prikladnicki, R., Perin, M. and Marczak
(2016), Kanawattanachai and Yoo (2002),
Lipnack and Stamps (1997)
Source: Summarized by author
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3.3.2. Disadvantages of a Global Virtual Team
Virtual teams are considered as the complex organizational structures associating cultural
diversity, psychosocial variable, and management processes. Besides, the difficulty of
global virtual teams become higher and higher due to the geographical distance, the lack of
traditional face-to-face communication, and the significant dependence on the support of
computer (Wakefield, Leidner, & Garrison, 2008, p. 452).
Problems in resolving conflicts
Virtual teams maybe face to many types of conflicts, including task conflicts and
interpersonal conflict. Hinds & Bailey (2000, p. 3) argue that task conflict is only beneficial
by sharing the information about that problem. However, it is difficult for a remote team to
share complex information and lead to an agreement on specific tasks because of the
different contextual perspectives or taking longer time with communicating mediated
channels. Besides, the far distance and the dependence on mediated interaction tools can
create depersonalized interaction which encourages inappropriate interpersonal behaviors.
As a result, it brings the barriers to share information and constrains the interaction to fix
misunderstanding. Therefore, it becomes hard to solve task conflict effectively.
Furthermore, a study of Stark and Bierly (2009, p. 467) shows that the relationship between
virtual teams and interpersonal conflict is considered as a positive correlation. It means that
the higher levels of virtual groups are, the higher levels of interpersonal conflict is.
Physical interaction problems
Rice et al. (2007, p. 589) argue that communicating mediated channels have difficulty in
developing a conceptual understanding of a problem. In this study, communicating by
technology includes asynchronous interactions in a team workspace and synchronous
interaction by the application of desktop video conferencing, shared workspace, chat and
other features. Therefore, teammates operate their work and interact with others by
electronic tools such as headsets, microphones, cameras and displays without any direct
communication.
A lack of physical interaction is also mentioned as the main drawbacks of virtual teams by
Cascio (2000, p. 84). However, these physical interactions are the associated verbal and
nonverbal cues that are easy happen in face-to-face communication. ―All of our experience
comes from co-located teams, with communication and the way we act based on physicality
―and ―Much of our communication is nonverbal – unformulated words, sighs, facial
expressions―- as mentioned in Joinson (2002, p. 72). Similarly, Zander et al. (2013, p. 229)
agree with some problems of global virtual teams in the lack of the usual cues used in
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expressing actions and statement, and non-verbal communication. Therefore, these
shortages lead to the problem of trust, communication and interaction including
misunderstandings and conflict (Cascio, 2000, p. 84; Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999, p. 791;
Kerber & Buono, 2004, p. 5; McLean, 2007, p. 72). In addition, McLean (2007, p. 16)
suggests that another critical obstacle in a virtual team might be language barriers which
can cause the trouble in interpersonal relationships, trust and team‘s culture.
The lack of expertise in technological applications
It happens in some mature senior managers leading to the generation gap (Bergiel et al.,
2008, p. 106). According to Lipnack and Stamps (2000, p. 15), employees under 30s are
able to easily update and apply the advanced technologies more than senior leaders who are
lack of simple skills of computer manipulation practices, such as pointing, clicking and
even typing. On the contrary, using computers and applying digital technologies are
considered as a trend of the young generation.
Virtual teams do not fit all
As for firms, ― Any type of work that‟s very sequential or integrated can pose problems for
virtual teams― (Joinson, 2002, p. 70). The author indicates that industries such as
manufacturing might not be appropriate to create virtual teams. Therefore, virtual teams
may not be a suitable tool for all types of organizations (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 106).
As for the employees, virtual teams are considered as not a good method for many people
because some of them may be unsuitable psychologically to work in this kind
of environment (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 106). In Joinson (2002, p. 70) study, it is
mentioned that ―Employees who are stimulated by interaction with other people or who
need external structure to stay on track may be unsuccessful in a virtual environment
without training and acclimation―. Therefore, remote teams can be successful in case of
forming, training and managing correctly.
Problems from the flexibility in Virtual teams
Due to the flexibility in a virtual team such as the freedom in geographical areas or time
zones, team members face to many problems including levels of trust, expectations,
experiences, cultures and clash personalities (Joinson, 2002, p. 73). Then, McLean (2007,
p. 72) suggests that tensions can come from the difference in culture, individual and
personality.
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Getting trouble in promotion
Chery Wyrick, SPHR, Ph.D., associate professor of management and human resources at
California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, mentions that few chances in face-to-
face contacts lead to the difficulty in getting promoted for virtual team members (Joinson,
2002, p. 73). Besides, Horwitz et al. (2006, p. 477) indicate that it may be tough for virtual
team members to get promoted because of the fewer chances for face-to-face networking
efficient monitoring and measurement of employee performance.
Challenges for managers
A global virtual team operates differently compared to a face-to-face team, so managers are
required to adapt to this new type of collaboration. Firstly, managers have to change their
management style because of the difference in evaluating performance. It is impossible for
virtual teams to know that they are performing their work by watching them. Thus,
managers have to change from direct monitoring to focusing on results (Joinson, 2002, p.
73).
Besides, Joinson (2002, p. 73) mentions that some managers feel hard to coach, train or
give feedback to virtual team members. Therefore, they have to apply some special tools,
for example using 360-degree feedback to help managers understand their employees.
Jelavic and Salter (2017, p. 14) list five obstacles that leaders of global virtual teams might
face with. First, it is difficult to monitor the virtual teams because they can not observe how
their employees finish works. Second, lack of trust affects the way of team members
approach and solve problems significantly. Third, different languages and the lack of
physical interaction lead to poor communication. Fourth, technology can reduce the quality
of communication and bring misunderstanding. There are little chances for face-to-face
communication to get feedback directly or interpret their expressions. Fifth, there are
different views on time management which can be affected by the cultures. In traditional
Western, for instance, they prefer to focus one task at a time and it called a ―polychronic
view―. However, Latin America applies multi-tasking called ―polychronic view― to solve
many duties at the once. These two points of views can make a conflict in how using time
effectively because managers who follow a monochronic way may think polychronic view
as disorganised.
Table 9 will represent a clear summary of the drawbacks of virtual teams.
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Table 9. A summary of main disadvantages of virtual teams
Disadvantages Authors
Bringing problems in resolving conflicts Hinds and Bailey (2000), Stark and Bierly
(2009)
Lack of physical interaction Cascio (2000), Joinson (2002), McLean
(2007), Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999),
Kerber and Buono (2004), Jelavic and
Salter (2017)
Getting problem in developing a
conceptual understanding of an issue
Rice et al. (2007)
Lack of expertise in technological
application
Bergiel et al. (2008), Lipnack and Stamps
(2000)
Challenge for firms to apply a virtual team
because it does not fit all types of
organizations
Bergiel et al. (2008)
Challenge for employees Bergiel et al. (2008), Joinson (2002)
Problems coming from the flexibility of
virtual teams, involving levels of trust,
expectation, experiences
McLean (2007), Joinson (2002), Jelavic and
Salter (2017)
Trouble in promotion Joinson (2002), Horwitz et al. (2006, p.
477)
Challenges for managers in changing
management style to adapt to new virtual
collaborations
Joinson (2002), Jelavic and Salter (2017)
Lack of trust Jelavic and Salter (2017)
Technology can reduce the quality of
communication and lead to
misunderstanding
Jelavic and Salter (2017)
Source: Summarized by author
3.4. Technological Tools for Global Virtual Teams
Sharing knowledge by voice, document, image and shared operational software supports
individuals‟ needs for aural, visual and tactile communication (Thissen, Page, Bharathi, &
Austin, 2007, p. 29). According to the authors, five main tools are mentioned as the useful
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collaborative software and systems, including Instant Messaging and Chat,
Groupware/Shared Services, Remote Access and Control, Web Conferencing, File
Transfer, Email, Telephone.
One of a common and often-used tool is chat or instant messaging (IM). It is considered as
an effective business tool to get instant interaction. When over two people join in IM at the
same time, this tool is called chat. Skype is a useful application which is possible with
video and audio transmission and can work in most of operating systems, such as
Windows, Macs, and Linux (Thissen et al., 2007, p. 29). Therefore, it can deal with the
lack of face-to-face communication which leads to miscommunication (DuFrene &
Lehman, 2012, p. 45; Shachaf, 2008, p. 138).
Groupware or Shared Services is a general category of software which allows multiple
users to use a single software resource. For example, Lotos Notes, Microsoft Exchange and
Novell Groupwise provide some useful application for employees to shared calendars,
make group meeting scheduling or share contact lists (Thissen et al., 2007, p. 29).
While Web conferencing significantly depends on the Internet to use software or service
from other organizations (Thissen et al., 2007, p. 29), it is used frequently by global team
members (Shachaf, 2008, p. 137). Microsoft offers a free tool called Netmeeting which
provides multi-point data conferencing, text chat, whiteboard, file transfer, audio and
video. Each of articipants occupies private account to log in to a single network. By using
cameras for video or sharing image through the desktop on which connects all participant
in a meeting together to follow the conversation. Another form is WebEx providing
meeting services for teams who do not belong to a common network. To participate in the
meeting, however, these participants have to pay for a per-mitnute fee to the host and are
quired a web browser and internet access to connect and use the service. Then, participants
can see a slide presentation on their desktops and can make questions or comments during
the presentation. With WebEx, moreover, participants can get feedback from international
participants (native or non-native English speakers) who are willing to give their comments
by using virtual meeting software than in face-to-face meeting or on conference calls
without any worry about their English ability (Grosse, 2002, p. 25).
Email contributes as the most popular and effective way to send information across areas
and time zones. Besides, email may provide some additional service, for examples sending
audio, video or other electronic content (Thissen et al., 2007, p. 29).
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Table 10 represents the tools for virtual teams including their main advantages and
examples.
Table 10. Tools for virtual teams
Tool Examples Uses and
Advantages
Immediacy Sensory
Modes
Instant
Messaging
and Chat
• Yahoo
Messenger
• MSN
Messenger
• AOL Instant
Messenger
• Skype
• Instant interaction
• Less intrusive than
a phone call
• View who is
available
• Low cost
• Low setup effort
• Synchronous
or
asynchronous
• Visual
• Text and
limited
graphics
Groupware/S
hared
Services
• Lotus Notes
• Microsoft
Exchange
• Novell
Groupwise
• Calendars
• Contact Lists
• Arrange meetings
• Cost and setup
effort vary
• Asychoronous • Visual
Remote
Access and
Control
• NetMeeting
• WebEx
• Remote
Desktop
• pcAnywhere
• User control a PC
without being
onsite
• Cost varies
• Setup varies
• Synchronous • Visual
• Audio
• Tactile
Web
Conferencing
• NetMeeting
• WebEx
• Meeting Space
• GoToMeeting
• Live audio
• Dynamic video
• Whiteboard
• Application
sharing
• Moderate cost and
setup effort
• Synchronous • Visual
• Unlinited
graphics
• Optional
audio
File Transfer • File Transfer
Protocol (FTP)
• Collaborative
Websites
• Intranets
• Share files of any
type
• Cost varies
• Moderate setup
effort
• Asychoronous • Varies with
file content
Email • Numerous • Send messages or • Asychoronous • Visual
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vendors and
• Free
applications
files
• Cost and setup
effort vary
• Audio in
attached
files
Telephone • ―Plain Old
Telephone
Service―
(POTS)
• Voice Over
Internet
Protocol (VOIP)
• Direct calls
• Conference Calls
• Cost varies
• Low setup effort
• Synchronous
• Asynchronous
for voice mail
• Audio
Souce: Thissen et al. (2007, p. 30)
Another tool is video conferencing which can be chosen and suitable for virtual team
members. Video conferencing is able to provide more interactions between team members
(Rathore, Sharma, Loia, Jeong, & Park, 2017, p. 50). According to Thissen et al. (2007, p.
30), it can provide more feeling about a face-to-face communication despite the geographic
distances.
In a study of Ebrahim et al. (2012, p. 12) named ―Technology use in the Virtual R&D
Teams―, 19 technology tools for virtual teams are summarized and extracted from the
literature review. They are Use internet and electronic mail, Online meeting on need basis,
Web conferencing, Seminar on the Web, Shared work spaces, Video conferencing, Audio
conferencing, Online presentations, Share documents (offline), Share what‘s on your
computer desktop with people in other locations (Remote access and control), Do not
install engineering software (get service through web browser), Access service from any
computer (in Network), Standard phone service and hybrid services, Access shared files
anytime from any computer, Web database, Provide instant collaboration, Software as a
service, Virtual research center for product development, Can be integrated or compatible
with the other tools and systems (Ebrahim et al., 2012, p. 10). However, the result shows
10 factors out of 19 factors contributing as the main tools in technology construct of the
virtual team for new product development. While Email, Instant messaging and Chat,
Remote access and control, Telephone, Shared Services are considered as one of effective
tools suggested by Thissen et al. (2007, p. 30), they are dropped in Nader‘s study. The ten
factors are sorted into two groups which contain a strong correlation to each other:
The Web base communication consists of six tools, including Online
meeting on the need basis, Web conferencing, Seminar on the Web, Video conferencing,
Audio conferencing, Online presentations.
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The Web base date sharing comprises four tools, including Shared work
spaces, Share documents (off-line), Access service from any computer (in Network),
Virtual research center for product development.
According to a survey conducted by RW3 CultureWizard (2016, p. 16), some forms of
effective communication are analyzed by virtual team members. As be shown in figure 5,
regular face-to-face meeting is concerned as the most beneficial tool by 92% of respondents.
The followings are conference calls by 93%, video-conferencing by 84%, and email by 83%.
Figure 5. The beneficial tools of communication for virtual meetings
Source: RW3 CultureWizard (2016, p. 16)
In a study of Thomas et al. (2007, p. 87), the frequence of information communication
technology is analyzed through several researching teams whose membership sizes
fluctuate over the course of projects. Size would often begin small (from 5 to 12 members),
grow to approximately 60 members and five organizations during development. According
to Thomas, the percentage of teams using a particular ICT is different. Audio conferencing,
Email and Phone are considered as ―comfort technologies ―and be frequently applied by all
teams. The following are Fax, Project management tools, Calendar, Development support
tool, Chat, Document versioning tool, Instant messaging, File servers, and Groupware/
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team space which are used more than 70% during the operation of groups. From 40% to
60% teams are familiar with Virtual meeting tool, Desktop sharing, and Web pages. The
rest belongs to Video conferencing, Group decision tool, and others. This result is also
confirmed by Thomas et al. (2007, p. 90) that phone and email are one of the simplest and
most comfortable of information communication tools.
In conclusion, global virtual teams are considered as dispersed teams with teammates who
can work across different time zones and geography. Geography distance and ICT used as
the main communication tool are two vital differences between a global virtual team and a
face-to-face team. Virtual teams can bring both advantages and disadvantages for
employees and organizations. However, the benefits beyond to the drawbacks and many
firms are success in implementing this team. There are many tools for virtual teams which
can help team members interact and implement their work effectively, such as email and
video conferencing.
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4. AN EXAMPLE FOR GLOBAL VIRTUAL TEAMS IN THE
TECHNOLOGICAL AGE
In order to realize how businesses use ICT for global collaboration, this study uses IBM as
an example. IBM has established various virtual teams and virtual meetings so that their
workers can easily to collaborate with each other. It has been proven that such arrangement
has several advantages but also incur some challenges. In this chapter, the background
information about the IBM company is first introduced. Later, we look at the operation of
virtual teams and virtual meeting within IBM. The related benefits and challenges are
discussed subsequently.
4.1. Introduction about IBM Company
IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) is an American multinational
technology company established in 1911 as a computing tabulating recording company.
The headquartered is in Armonk, New York, United States and the company has operated
over 175 countries as a globally integrated enterprise (IBM, 2016, p. 76). With the
statement ―Innovation rarely occurs in isolation―, 12 research laboratories were built on six
continents as collaboration centres where more than 3,000 researchers have shared and
implemented ideas leading to great breakthroughs. IBM Research is considered as one of
the world‘s largest and the most influential corporate research labs. Besides, with more
than 400,000 IBMers, it collects a pool of talents, the greatest competitive advantage and
be considered as the most important reason for the growth of the company in the future
(IBM, 2016, p. 19).
IBM is a reputable company and contributes as an important element in the development of
the global business. In fact, IBM works in many fields including designing, building and
running the systems that are considered as the foundations of international business (IBM,
2016, p. 21). In global business, IBM provides a variety of beneficial tools used in many
areas popularly, as follows:
• 97% of the world‘s largest banks use IBM products to run their systems
• 90% of global credit card transactions are processed on IBM mainframes
• 80% of global retailers powered by IBM retail solutions
• 80% of the world‘s travel reservations are processed on IBM systems
• 83% of the world‘s largest communications service providers are IBM clients
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4.2. Virtual Teams in IBM
According to Sarah (2017, March 21), IBM has started remote work for decades and
occupied a significant percentage of employees working in other places, not centres or
headquarters. The company began to install special equipment called ―remote terminals‖ to
support employees work outside the office in the early 1980 s. Five years later, 1995 was
the first period of time that IBM started to encourage employees to telecommute. It means
that laborers are allowed to work from home or anywhere they prefer by making use of the
Internet, email, and the telephone. The purpose of this program is to retain talents by
respecting and supporting the balance between their life and work (IBM, 2008, p. 4).
Furthermore, Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM's global healthcare and life sciences
division said that ―Humans are social animals. Without a real sense of community, most
people just don't do their best work" (Fisher, 2009). Therefore, IBM has been working on
creating a sense of individual connection among remote employees for a higher
effectiveness.
In 2005, remote working becomes popular. IBM facilities 40 percent of about 400,000
IBMers work in a virtual environment (Fisher, 2009; Hegar & Hodgetts, 2012, p. 157). In
early 2006, small teams of innovators around IBM began exploring virtual world
technologies for business enablement (Cherbakov, Brunner, Smart, & Lu, 2009, p. 2).
IBM implements virtual teams in virtual worlds
Due to globalization and a challenging business environment, organizations face new
issues these days. The demands for global teams in working across every time zones and
different locations get bigger and be facilitated by many enterprises which are in an
increasingly distributed environment (Cherbakov et al., 2009, p. 1). In fact, some
institutions choose and apply virtual worlds to enhance their enterprise‘s collaboration
platform. Due to this trend, virtual worlds have first appeared in a small IBM team of
innovators for the field of business in the beginning of 2006.
Take the IBM InnovationJam for example, it is contributed as a proven IBM management
tools for driving innovation and collaboration. Despite being explored since 2006, it has
being continued to play an important role today. The IBM 2006 InnovationJam is
considered as the largest online brainstorming session ever held (IBM 100). This event
attracted more than 150,000 IBMers, family members, business partners and clients from
104 countries and 67 different companies (Cherbakov et al., 2009, p. 3). Jams help a large
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number of people come together to share, collect, generate, develop thoughts and ideas
about how to solve critical business or societal issues. By these virtual corporations,
innovation and creativity are built and developed without the barriers of geography or
hierarchy to tap the collective wisdom of organizations‘ members.
How IBM applies Virtual Spaces
In IBM, employees are able to make interaction with their teammates, co-workers or
leaders through many channels such as forums, blog, virtual meetings, conferences, and
@ibmvuc twitter account. Especially, a modern site is called virtual Spaces that are 3D
collaborative immersive environments. According to Cherbakov et al. (2009, p. 3), the
main characteristics of Virtual Spaces are listed as follow:
· Are built on virtual world technologies.
· Support secure and private interactions within the enterprise, and deliver business
value to participants.
· Can support both structured interactions (for example, training sessions where
students complete predefined activities and are evaluated) and unstructured business
interactions (collaborative events).
· Are an emerging concept.
As for the scope of usage, Virtual Spaces are applied in a variety of areas. According to the
authors, many business activities are enabled by Virtual Spaces, such as events, mentoring
and knowledge exchange or new employee orientation.
Events: Virtual Spaces can attract more audiences from small team meetings to larger
formal conferences, poster sessions, slide presentations or informal social gatherings.
Besides, time-saving and cost reducing are another benefits by applying Virtual Spaces in
opening events.
Mentoring and knowledge exchange: Virtual places can make private chat, integrate with
enterprise directory, and create social spaces and games to build stronger connections.
Therefore, it is possible to make remote interaction with SMEs, cross-cultural and
generational networking. It also can exchange information and knowledge without the
constraints of geography and different time zones.
New employee orientation: Career opportunities can be explored by Virtual places. Then, it
helps establish quick connections with newcomers and IBM seniors who had already had
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experience for a period of time. Besides, applying Virtual spaces creates a new way to
share about IBM history and culture. It is also an effective way for employees to practice
English and presentation skills.
4.3. The Virtual Teams Meeting in IBM
According to Fortune, IBM is one of the Top Company for Leaders in applying technology
to narrow the distance among human (Fisher, 2009). In 2007, IBM set up a task called
OTTO (for Other Than the Office) to connect virtual workers by informal online networks.
Some platforms are conducted to complete the task, such as Active Worlds, Forterra
OLIVE, OpenSimulator, Second Life, Unity 3D or Beehive. By those tools, remote
employees can share their ideas, advice or moral support. This study takes Second Life and
Beehive for examples.
Beehive
According to IBM - Beehive (SocialBlue), the company created an internal social
networking site called Beehive (later named SocialBlue). Beehive helps employees make
new connections, keep track of current co-workers, and renew contacts with whom they
have worked in the past. The site runs live inside of IBM by 65,000 employees worldwide
from new entry-level hires to senior vice presidents. Beyond the benefits, Beehive is
considered as a powerful tool that can give IBMers a rich connection to people who they
corporate with on both a personal and a professional level.
Actually, Beehive is a researched tool for some reasons: (1) understanding motivations for
using the site, (2) finding its impacts on organizational social capital, and (3) designing
incentives to encourage participation. Therefore, it was run inside of IBM from 2007 to
2011. Figure 8 shows the display of Beehive site in IBM.
How it works?
First, a profile is created when employees join Beehive. On this profile page, users can let
other people at IBM know where they are, what they are doing, and what they are thinking.
Besides, Beehive also allows users to share and post photos, creates lists to share their
thoughts and organization events. Employees can share their personal life by post daily
photos with their kids, their dogs, their motorcycles and their weekend activities.
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Figure 6. Beehive in IBM
Source: http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=1231
Users can use a function called ―hive fives‖ to share their opinion on any topic that they
feel interested in. They also can open a ―hive fives‖ list to share their ideas about their
projects, and then open a conversation by inviting their team members to ―reuse‖ the list
and exchange their views (see figure 6). Hive fives is variety in contents, from personal
exchanges to clearly work-related subjects. Therefore, it is a useful tool to make interaction
with remote team members and exchange their ideas. According to the results from IBM
employee surveys, remote working without losing touch with co-workers bring a positive
effect in increasing employee satisfaction and help gather talents together (Hegar
& Hodgetts, 2012, p. 157).
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Moreover, Beehive is helpful for upcoming conference calls. For example, a conference
call will open with some unknown people. However, it is not easy at first to cooperate with
strangers who we have not worked before or have had no information about. Therefore, the
virtual meetings may not bring good results and benefits as the expectation. By Beehive,
the advantage is that employees can check their profiles beforehand and find out some
information about the members, including the common interests, characteristics,
backgrounds, research fields or even colleagues in common. Besides, users can open an
event page and invite people to join if they are hosting an event.
Second Life
Second Life is a virtual space where IBM conducted as virtual world firstly in the
beginning of 2006. It provides a virtual place for IBMers around the world to meet, connect
and open new business connections. By Second Life, users can know who is using it and
interact with them. This program provides many options, such as text chat, voice functions
and avatar customization (Cherbakov et al., 2009, p. 11). In the virtual spaces, the
representation of avatars opens new access for the flexible identity, personal information,
reputation and trust (Alther, Cherakov, & Becker, 2009, p. 9).
Figure 7. IBM Academy of Technology poster session
Source: Cherbakov et al. (2009, p. 10)
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Figure 7 shows how Second Life was used by IBM to create a poster session. IBMers is
using Second Life for a variety of purposes, such as implementing meeting and events with
both internal and external participants, team building, conferences, training and education,
product marketing, demonstrations, such as the green data center, and visualizing complex
structures (Cherbakov et al., 2009, p. 11).
4.4. The reasons for Virtual Teams in IBM
IBM employs more than 400,000 IBMers from different countries, cultures, and
backgrounds. Therefore, managing time zones and finding the best solution for the cross-
boundaries collaboration are one of the major challenges in this global company. By
allowing 40 percent of total IBM‘s employees working remotely, IBM mentions that virtual
working helps reduce the office space by 78 million square feet and bring an effective
effect in a cost saving of more than $100 million in the US annually. As for the business
aspect, IBM views a benefit in cost saving by virtual teams, especially the flexibility in
hiring employees. Besides, people can work across the time zones and different areas.
Therefore, enterprises can save lots of expenses on traveling, including transportation and
hotels (IBM, 2003, p. 2).
As a result, the performance of the company indicated that over 75% of IBMers felt
working remotely and flexibly bring positive effects on performance, morale, and
commitment in 2007. Besides, 7% rise of employees recognized the support from their
managers in both work and life (IBM, 2008, p. 4).
Virtual teams create competitive advantages by recruited excellent employees (IBM, 2003,
p. 2). In reality, talents are distributed over the world and not fixed in one location. IBM is
successful in operating and hiring employees from over 175 countries to collect talents
around the world (IBM, 2016, p. 76). However, these people have different demands and
lifestyles. For example, someone wants to live in a country which offers reasonable taxes
or lower traffice jams. Others believe in the family‗s value so they want to live near their
parents. Therefore, the combination of remote working and keeping touch with colleagues
brings satisfaction and encourages connecting talents from many fields. Virtual working is
a great solution to connect talents, researchers or employees in any regions in the world
(Fisher, 2009; Hegar & Hodgetts, 2012, p. 157).
Global virtual teams enable broaden the diversity which leads to innovation and success for
IBM (IBM, 2015, p. 1). In these diverse teams, members can come from different parts of
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the world, organizations or knowledge backgrounds. Therefore, virtual teams can be used
as a chance for a change in the company and help adapt the new environment more quickly
(IBM, 2003, p. 2).
Another survey of IBM Global Work and Life Issues compares how three different types of
work venues including the traditional office, virtual office, and home office affect some
aspects of work. It is conducted in 48 countries which IBM operates with 20 languages in
2001. In this study, Hill et al. (2003, pp. 232-233) emphasize the positive influence of
telework on employees productivity and job motivation. Virtual workers show a higher
performance than those work in home office due to the flexibility during the working
process. While virtual office workers spend working time as 53h per week, workers in the
home office and traditional office spend less than 2h per week and 4h per week
respectively.
In comparison with the traditional office, the level of autonomy is appraised higher in a
virtual environment. Employees are able and flexible to decide the place, time,
methodology and the type of work to implement based on their own schedules. Therefore,
those greater autonomies bring greater motivation for employees in virtual teams. The
ability of cost-saving is also recognized as an advantage for organizations facilitating
virtual working by replacing the brick office space, bringing an attractive business for
investigating and applying remote programs (Hill et al., 2003, p. 236). In IBM,
furthermore, virtual office enables employees to have a better balance between their work
and their family life because they have more power for autonomy in the scheduling of paid
work, housework, and childcare responsibilities (Hill et al., 2003, p. 224).
4.5. The Challenges of Virtual Teams in IBM
As mentioned above, IBM operates in more than 175 countries with a large workforce from
many different cultures and continents. In the company,“Every IBMer is considered as a
global IBMer“ which means that they might have ability to cooperate crossing the
geography (IBM, 2015, p. 9). Therefore, working in such multicultural teams becomes the
norm for their employees to do business around the world. However, IBM can face more
challenges when implementing virtual multicultural collaboration, as follows:
Trust is considered as the most challenge in a virtual team (IBM, 2003, p. 3). In fact, trust
takes an important role in the effectiveness of a team. Normally, people build trust through
a face-to-face way. However, it is hard to establish trust through the phone or other
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communication tools in a virtual environment where team members have few opportunity
to open physical interactions. Virtual spaces, furthermore, respect the importance of trust
and identity in order to build a better virtual world for users. People want to know who they
are interacting with, not only real names but also look like them and where they are in this
world (Alther et al., 2009, p. 9).
Virtual teams can make a shortage of physical interaction among team members. For
example, people can not have a face-to-face communication through a conference call.
Although teammates can make conversation with the support of this information
communication tools, it is impossible to see the faces of group members. Therefore, it is
not able to know how teammates enjoy the conversation, and then affect to the quality of
communication process (IBM, 2003, p. 3). Besides, it recognizes that the more people
interact in the past, the more the team can take advantages from those contacts. On the
opposite side, the teams can face more troubles if team members do not have any
traditional communication directly.
The differences in culture might appear in global virtual teams and create some related
concerns. In a face-to-face meeting, the interaction can be disconnected if the conversation
starts with people in different geographies or knowledge backgrounds, such as a talk
between an engineer and a marketer. However, these disconnections can be hired until the
appearance of real conflict in a virtual environment. Thus, solving the conflict in virtual
teams is perceived as a great challenge for managers, especially when employees are
physically separated (IBM, 2003, p. 3).
In addition, it is important to care about the size of a remote team. In fact, it will become
more complex for managers and company when building a global virtual team with more
than twenty members (IBM, 2003, p. 3).
In a study on IBM, furthermore, Hill et al. (2003, p. 236) indicate that virtual office can
relate to the decrease in work and life balance and less success in personal and family than
traditional office workers or home office workers because of personal and family concern.
There is a negative relationship between being a virtual worker and work/life balance. One
of the main reasons is the lack of ―externally imposed physical boundaries‖ among virtual
office workers. Therefore, it is difficult for virtual team members to know when they are at
work and when they are at home.
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4.6. The Trend of Backing to the Office
There is a decline in management rewarding support for flexible work arrangements from
31% in 2005 down to 14% in 2016 (National Study of Employers, 2012, p. 42). According
to Weller (2017, May 18), about 2,600 employees who are in IBM‘s marketing department
and a number of employees in IT, procurement and Watson-related department were
informed for a co-location to work in one of six US cities, including Atlanta, Austin,
Boston, New York, Raleigh, and San Francisco. Thereby, employees have choices to work
in their prefer cities otherwise finding a new job freely.
Besides, Michelle Peluso, who is the IBM‘s chief marketing officer, say that:‖ There is
something about a team being more powerful, more impactful, more creative, and frankly
hopefully having more fun when they are shoulder to shoulder". She believes that
―Bringing people together creates its own X Factor." (Weller, 2017, May 18). This
statement shares the same message to stop remote work and encourage the office time.
Why for backing the office?
Remote work is considered as a trend in this century. In fact, about 24% of US employees
work remotely full or a part of time (American Time Use Survey, 2015, p. 1). By the
development of ICT, it is not a barrier anymore to keep contact with teammates who are
geography dispersed. Email and video-conferencing are powerful tools to support remote
work. Many researches indicate that productivity and cost-saving are more beneficial when
applying virtual teams than traditional teams in the office. Besides, the company is able to
recruit talents and increases creativity. Moreover, IBM is considered as a leader in
encouraging remote working since the early 1980s. So, why IBM considers changing its
policy now?
As a giant in the technology industry, IBM is the pioneer in facilitating employees work
remotely and be proud of the benefits of saving and productivity (Isidore, 2017, May 19).
However, IBM spokeswoman Laurie Friedman claims that "In many fields, such as
software development and digital marketing, the nature of work is changing, which
requires new ways of working. We are bringing small, self-directed agile teams in these
fields together". Therefore, IBM is changing its policy which labors are calling back to the
office life (Boss, 2017, May 19; Isidore, 2017, May 19; White, 2017, May 23).
In an IBM‘s internal research, an IBM‘s spokesperson cites that "marketing teams that
work in a co-located, agile environment are more effective and have better job satisfaction.
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In fact, there has been a very positive response to making this universal across marketing.‖
(Weller, 2017, May 18). The evidence shows that IBM recognizes the effectiveness of
face-to-face teams in some specific teams for a greater productivity and a good working
environment.
Another reason is relevant to the profits annually. In IBM‘s quarterly report on February,
earnings are high but missed analyzed expectations on revenue. In fact, it points out the
decrease or revenue in the quarter over five years. Therefore, Martin Schroeter who is CFO
(Chief Financial Officer) of IBM has a speech in a conference about ―getting the teams
back together as opposed to so spread out‖. He also mentions about the effectiveness of
relocation in helping employees work quickly (White, 2017, May 23).
According to Boss (2017, May 19), face-to-face communication can bring many benefits to
organizations. The more employees make interaction, the more they can build new
conversations leading to share information and knowledge which are useful for
accomplishing their work and increasing the effectiveness.
In conclusion, the policy calling employees back to office would open a debate about
benefits and drawbacks to the organization. Actually, IBM is not the first technology
company planing to change its policy. In 2013, Yahoo under the lead of CEO (Chief
Excutive Officer) Marissa Mayer requires its employees who work remotely to relocate
company facilities (Isidore, 2017, May 19). "To become the absolute best place to work,
communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side.
That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices." - as mentioned in the
official message of Jacqueline Reses who is Human Resources Chief of Yahoo (Pepitone,
2013, February 25). There is no right answer for organizations to work or not in a virtual
environment. The decision of working which can be virtual collaboration or fixed in a brick
office should depend of the different types of work. In some situation, virtual teams bring
many benefits and support the creativity and innovation. For instance, virtual teams can be
the best choice for global projects in which coorperate with different co-workers from
various parts of the world without moving. However, a traditional team is easier for ideas
sharing or a direct conversation in some cases, such as making marketing plan for a
specific area. The reason is that a face-to-face team in the same location is able to deeply
understand their market and customer behavior.
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5. GLOBAL VIRTUAL TEAMS IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE
The aim of this chapter is to answer the question to find the key factors contributing to an
effective global virtual team. The first part will mention the emergence of global virtual
teams in the age of technology. The second part will identify the factors that affect virtual
teams from different studies and propose a research framework for this issue. Then, the
pieces of evidence and arguments from relevant studies will be discussed in the last part to
find the results for these propositions.
5.1. Emergence of Global Virtual Teams in the 21st Century
Employees have had more options in managing the times and choosing the places in which
they prefer to work. According to a study of the Families and Work Institute, 66 percent of
employers allowed their employees to work remotely in 2016, up from 34 percent in 2005.
The rate of employees allowed working in flex time raises from 66 % in 2005 to 81% in the
next 10 years. The year 2016 witnessed a slight increase in the choices of managing time,
up to 91% from 78% in 2005 (National Study of Employers, 2012, p. 6, 16; National Study
of Employers, 2016, p. 17).
It was witnessed a rocket to 800% in the number of virtual employees from 2003 to 2008 in
the world (Fisher, 2009) and nearly a half of organizations implement virtual teams in their
workplace (Society for Human Resource Management, 2012, July 13). These memberships
are people who are in one-or-two offices spread out all over the world, work remotely from
home or have to travel constantly. According to Fisher (2009), at present, 90% of U.S
employees are allowed to work somewhere not the headquarters and 84% people
implement their jobs in another place than their managers. In 2015, American Time Use
Survey (2015, p. 1) reveals that 82 percent of employees implement their works in the
offices while 24 percent of workers do a part or full of their works at home.
In 2016, a survey of 1,372 respondents from 80 countries is conducted to analyze the trend
of global virtual teams by RW3 CultureWizard (2016, p. 3). Now, virtual teams are more
universal with dispersed members from more countries. As mentioned in this survey, 48%
of respondents indicate that over half of their teams are operated by members from
different countries in 2016, increase up to 17% of that in 2014.
In fact, this phenomenon tends to increase quickly due to the development of technology.
By the support of ICT, large distances are no longer a barrier to make collaboration among
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teammates and leaders distributed in different locations. According to Laitinen and Valo
(2018, pp. 17-18), communication technology in virtual teams meetings provides some
meanings, such as technological tools, a challenge, a subject of guidance, a useful benefit,
an object of competence, a way to express affection, or a shared space. As a tool, the
communication technology helps interact and connect remote team members as well as
contributes as a platform to operate multiple tasks or achieve the team‘s work-realted goals.
Therefore, communicative technology is considered as a crucial element for virtual team
members to complete their tasks. Without communication technological tools, it is
impossible for distributed teams to work in such a virtual environment. It contributes as a
benefit in supporting virtual team meeting and providing some special functions, for
example, document sharing and web screens.
5.2. Identifying the factors affecting to global virtual teams and the research
framework
Ebrahim et al. (2009, p. 2660) mention about the ambiguity in the factors affecting the
effectiveness of virtual teams. In the virtual context, different authors provide various
factors upon their research.
According to Bal and Teo (2001), they once again confirm three main factors for effective
virtual team working, including Technology, People, and Process; those factors comprise
12 elements (Ebrahim et al., 2009, p. 2662). They are Selection, Location, Security and
Training; Team selection, Reward structure, Meeting training and Specify objectives;
Alignment, Meeting structure, Performance measurement and Team facilitation. As a
result, Ebrahim et al. (2009, p.2663)‗s study show that Processes and People are more
important in the success of virtual teams‗s operation than Technology. Figure 8 illustrates
those 12 elements.
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.
Figure 8. Model for effective virtual team working
Source: Bal and Teo (2001) as cited in Ebrahim et al. (2009, p. 2662)
Duarte and Snyder (2006, p. 11) suggest seven related dimensions which can affect to an
effective virtual team. They comprise human resource policies, training and on-the-job
education and development, standard organizational and team processes, the usage of
electronic collaboration and communication technology, the organizational culture,
leadership support of virtual teams, and team-leader and team-member competencies.
Another survey of 120 professionals from the high-technology telecommunication industry
in California‘s Silicon Valley is observed to determine the level of factors affecting virtual
team‘s performance. Five critical elements are identified in this study, including
communication tools, cohesion, and collaboration, leadership, trust, the location of team
members and team size (Saafein & Shaykhian, 2014, pp. 460-461). As a result, the
observation reveals that reliable communication tools and collaboration among teammates
contribute as one of the most important factors. Leadership is ranked as the third important
factor.
A survey of Horwitz et al. (2006, p. 472) is conducted by employees of global companies
based in 16 countries over the world. As a result, five important factors are recognized for
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effective virtual teams, including team development, cross-cultural variables, leadership,
communication and social cohesion.
Bergiel et al. (2008, pp. 101-104) suggest that high levels of trust, clear communication,
strong leadership, goals, and the application of technology are five key elements providing
opportunities for the success of virtual teams. This study also indicates the relationships
between two pairs of factors: (1) Communication and Trust, (2) Leadership and Goals, in
building such a team. While personal face-to-face communication can improve trust, trust
contributes as a key element to increase the quality of communication. Goals are crucial for
dispersed team members to keep the project running in the right direction. In order to
develop this function, a team leader contributes as an important key to clear the goals,
connect all the team members frequently and encourages them to pursue their missions.
Brandt et al. (2011, pp. 62-63) highlight the role of telecommunications technology in
accomplishing tasks or works in different ways. Besides, the authors reveal other factors
which are important for the success of those teams, including trust, cultural differences,
communication, social skills, mission and goal clarity, rewards and recognition.
Research framework
A research framework is conceptual model of how the relationships among several factors
are identified logically. It describes the interconnections among these factors which also are
called as variables and separated into independent and dependent variables. The purpose of
building a framework is to help researchers test the relationships and improve our
understanding of the issue ("Research Methods", 2012, pp. 48-49).
According to above, different studies show different factors having influence on global
virtual team‘s effectiveness. Due to the unique views from various authors, thereby, this
study will take the criteria for the improvement of performance or effectiveness to discuss
the research framework by strong and logical arguments in order to find the key elements
influencing the effective virtual team. This study suggests a model based on integrating
between two main studies from Bergiel et al. (2008) and Brandt et al. (2011). Thereby, five
factors are proposed to become the key factors contributing to the effectiveness of global
virtual teams, including technology, trust, diversity, leadership and communication (see
figure 9).
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Figure 9. Research Framework
Source: built by author
Trust is defined as a state of confidence of team members among each other (Pinjani &
Palvia, 2013, p. 145). Mayer et al. (1995, p. 712) defines trust which involves in ―the
willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the
expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor,
irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party‖. In this relationship, a
membership should believe in other group members during the collaboration to finish a
common task.
Communication may be understood as the process of transferring information, meaning,
and understanding between two or more parties and communication is mentioned as the
platform to getting any organizing or work done, as it provides the basic building blocks
for the collaboration, decision making and goal completion (Berry, 2011, p. 192).
Leadership: Advanced information technology is creating a new context in leadership. The
nature of leadership is changing in the virtual environment because leaders manage the
TECHNOLOGY
TRUST
DIVERSITY
COMMUNICATION
LEADERSHIP
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
GLOBAL VIRTUAL TEAM
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project teams operating with individuals who work remotely from different countries,
cultures and organizations. In virtual context, leadership becomes e-leadership which is
defined as a social influence process mediated by technology to produce a change in group
attitudes, feelings, thingking, behaviors, and/or performance (Avolio, 2000, p. 617).
Information Communication Technology (ICT) represents as a family collection of
technologies, services and applications which are possible to electronic processing, storing,
retrieving and transferring of information to a wide variety of users (Cohen et al., 2002, p.
35; Savulescu, 2015, p. 514).
Diversity is a characteristic of groups of people and refers to demographic differences
among team members (McGrath, Berdahl, & Arrow, 1995, p. 22). In the studies of
Harrison et al. (1998, pp. 97-98) and Price et al. (2002, pp. 1030-1031), the authors have
distinguished the types of diversity, including surface-level and deep-level diversity.
Surface-level diversity is defined as differences among team members in demographic
characteristics, such as race, age or gender. Deep-level diversity involves the differences
among team members‘ psychological characteristics, comprising personalities, values, and
attitudes. Cultural diversity relates to racial, sexual, organizational, professional, and
national heterogeneity (Shachaf, 2008, p. 132).
Team effectiveness is defined in terms of performance and satisfaction (Gladstein, 1984, p.
507). Hackman (1990) in Latif and Williams (2017, p. 21) clearly extends this definition
which responds the requirements in the criteria of quantity, quality, and performance;
enhances members‘s work ability and their individual satisfaction.
Propositions are statements involved in the logical relationships among concepts. It can
comprise one or more than one variable. Before suggesting a proposition, the researchers
have to build strong logical arguments to set up the relationships ("Research Methods",
2012, pp. 29, 38). The five propositions of this study comprise:
Proposition 1: Technology affects the effectiveness of global virtual teams
Proposition 2: Trust affects the effectiveness of global virtual teams
Proposition 3: Diversity affects the effectiveness of global virtual teams
Proposition 4: Leadership affects the effectiveness of global virtual teams
Proposition 5: Communication affects the effectiveness of global virtual teams
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5.3. Key Factors Contributing to an Effective Global Virtual Team
The framework of this thesis was set up with five factors impacting an effective global
virtual team, including technology, trust, diversity, leadership and communication. Based
on the criteria of team effectiveness or performance improvement, the pieces of evidence
and arguments will be discussed in this part to find the results for these propositions.
5.3.1. Technology
―Technology continues to make global collaboration more accessible, and participants‟
familiarity with meeting technology makes it easier ― – as mentioned in RW3
CultureWizard (2016, p. 3). The supporting of advanced technologies is considered as a
vital element for the existence of virtual teams or the desire to improve communication
across dispersed teams (Anderson, McEwan, Bal, & Carletta, 2007, p. 2567; Bergiel et al.,
2008, p. 103; Lilian, 2014, p. 1249) and overcome the challenges caused by remote and
multicultural workforce (Shachaf, 2008, p. 139). Besides, the development of new
technologies and applications can promote innovations in firms and create competitive
advantages (Savulescu, 2015, p. 513). More than 90 percent of participants suggest that the
reliable communication tools are considered as one of the critical virtual team performance
factors (Saafein & Shaykhian, 2014, p. 461).
In IBM, the improvement of technology has brought the success for the company for years.
Besides, IBM supposes that the association between technology and innovation can extend
the popularity of information technology leading to impove human ability (IBM, 2008, p.
4). Therefore, it is the reason for IBM to continue the offer of physical and virtual
environments to its workers in 2007. In addition, IBM and its employees works together to
enhance the value of virtual worlds by creating innovative communication tools, such as
3D- collaboration which is predicted to be a popular trend for many organizations in the
21st century (Hamilton, 2008)
Nevertheless, the application of rich technologies may be the reasons for unexpected and
unanticipated consequences (Anderson et al., 2007, p. 2576). To communicate, team
members are necessary to be available at the same time in flexible places when using some
ICT tools, such as telephone, teleconferencing, video conferencing and chat rooms (Bergiel
et al., 2008, p. 103).
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According to Shachaf (2008, p.139), information and communication technologies can
reduce the negative effect of miscommunication in cultural diversity while maintaining the
positive effects. Although technology contributes as an important tool to support
collaboration in the virtual environment, the quality of communication is highlighted as the
main obstacle which is able to interrupt the working process (Horwitz et al., 2006, pp. 486,
491). Therefore, team members have to work hard to cross the time zones, regions and
overcome the disturbance (Horwitz et al., 2006, p. 476).
Challenges for team leaders caused by technology
In a virtual environment, advanced and rich ICT still bring many challenges for e-leaders in
building trust, opening effective communication, overcoming the barriers of distance and
time and dealing with diversity (Lilian, 2014, pp. 1256-1259). Thereafter, the challenges
can come from the application of technology in a virtual environment.
Horwitz et al. (2006, p. 491) confirm that suitable technologies play as the most crucial
factor for the success of virtual teams. Despite the same point on the role of ICT in the
multicultural collaboration, face-to-face meetings still are examined as a necessity for a
good cooperation in virtual teams (Duran & Popescu, 2014, p. 369). Shachaf (2008, p. 131)
reveals that the choice of interactive tools depends on the cultural diversity. Thereby, some
effective technological tools are suggested for intercultural communication, such as email,
teleconferencing combined with e-Meetings, and team rooms. The application of suitable
communicative technologies can bring positive effects on virtual collaboration and vice
versa.
5.3.2. Trust
The importance of trust in virtual teams
In a virtual team, it is not easy for members to know each other before collaborating on a
common task. In such a team, there are no previous experiences and team members do not
know what their teammates know. So, it seems hard to trust people and cooperate with
strangers in a virtual environment. Trust is built from a process of interpersonal interactions
with people who desire to set up relationship each other. In virtual teams, trust is
established by members who are separated in different locations and have no past
experience to remember (Brandt et al., 2011, p. 62).
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Trust is contributed as a crucial element in not only the success of social relationships
(Coppola, Hiltz, & Rotter, 2004, p. 95) but also the failure based on their observation of
some virtual teams in various companies, especially IBM company (Lipnack & Stamps,
1997). Trust is acted as the glue which can connect and bring virtual team members closer
and closer. As mentioned in the previous chapter, trust is one of the most challenges in a
virtual team – from the IBM internal report written by IBM (2003, p. 3). Nearly 40 percent
of IBMers working remotely means that those employees could lack of opportunities for
face-to-face meetings and knowing each other. Thereby, buidling trust in virtual teams by
communication technologies is more difficult.
According to Coppola et al. (2004, p. 95), there is little opportunity for team members to
build a close relationship each other in a temporary group. Therefore, they reinforce trust
and shape perceptions which depend on past personal impressions. And then, a high level
of activity on the teams can support the swift trust. Meyerson et al. (1996, p. 180) claim
that ―the more forceful the action, the greater the willingness to trust and the more rapidly
does trust develop‖.
Finally, Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 225) state the importance of trust for groups as a
requirement, especially in the Industrial Age - ―In the networks and virtual teams of the
Information Age, trust is a need to have quality in productive relationships‖. Therefore, it
is necessary to build and encourage their relationship carefully to ensure the success of
virtual teams. Besides, Bergiel et al. (2008, p. 101) agree on the importance of trust that is
necessary for successful personal and team relationships. In a virtual team, trust contributes
as a vital factor because of the lack of physical interaction by face-to-face.
How trust effects on virtual teams?
According to Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 225), the benefits of trust are apparent in
enterprises. The higher levels of trust are, the more easily virtual teams cooperate. Then, it
helps teams operate rapidly and control team members more effectively. On the contrary,
virtual teams with lower levels of trust may get problems in establishing and reinforcing
the success of cross-organizational and boundary-crossing teams (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997,
p. 225) as well as bring negative impacts on the quality of communication and
interpersonal relationships (McDonough, 2001, p. 112).
In a virtual team, trust is perceived as the key for not only the improvement of individuals‗
performance (Sarker, Ajuja, Sarker, & Kirkeby, 2011, p. 302) but also the group‘s
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operation because the levels of trust between teammates affect the team‘s effectiveness and
success (Phadnis & Caplice, 2013, p. 9). By a study of Alsharo et al. (2017, p. 482), a
survey of 193 participants from major IT firms including Microsoft, Google, IBM... etc. is
observed to test the relationship between knowledge sharing, trust, collaboration, and team
effectiveness in virtual teams setting. The results of Multi-group analysis show that being a
member of a global virtual team impacts on trust significantly. Trust contributes as an
important part in the overall effectiveness of virtual teams. Although trust does not impact
directly on the effectiveness of teams, there is a mediate influence by collaboration.
However, a study of Engelmann et al. (2014, pp. 211, 228) reveals that the influence of
trust on effectiveness and efficiency of virtual teams is different up to the conditions.
Mutual trust does not have an impact on team effectiveness in the experimental condition,
while it can reduce the group effectiveness with a high mutual trust in the control
condition. According to the authors, a high level of mutual trust provides a negative effect
due to the lacks of mutual control among teammates, so, the detection of mistakes is low.
As a result, this leads to the decrease in group effectiveness. Moreover, it is confirmed that
mutual trust can impact on group effectiveness, but not on efficiency.
While trust brings a positive impact on group efficiency (Aubert & Kelsey, 2003, p. 597)
and group collaboration (Alsharo et al., 2017, p. 479), it does not have a direct effect on
team effectiveness (Alsharo et al., 2017, p. 479; Aubert & Kelsey, 2003, p. 597). Trust is
not considered as an important element influencing the performance of virtual teams. In
Aubert and Kelsey‘s study, high performance can be provided by some teams with a low
level of trust. Nevertheless, it is recommended to these teams to work more effort than high
trust teams. In an inter-trust team, furthermore, team members can not only easily
understand the working process of their co-workers but also reduce the time required to
cooperate and extra messages to control each other. Therefore, the agency cost can be
decreased by trust (Aubert & Kelsey, 2003, pp. 604-605).
In spite of the impact of trust on team performance and success, trust brings challenges to
the longevity of global virtual teams (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999, p. 813). In fact, building
trust is considered as a complicated task because of the shortage of shared norms, beliefs
and experiences which are different in global team members and used to develop levels of
trust (McDonough, 2001, p. 112). Therefore, it will take more time to establish trust among
virtual team members. Differing from face-to-face teams, furthermore, it is impossible for
virtual teams to observe physical behaviors which are used to develop trust. Besides, the
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level of trust is affected by the past and future interaction which lacks in the virtual
environment (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999, p. 809). Handy (1995, p. 46) states that trust
needed physical touch without the relevance of current technology. According to Handy, it
is beneficial to applying video conferences but the advantages will be more developed in
case of knowing each other. In many occasions, additionally, members of a virtual team
work in short-term projects, therefore they do not have enough opportunities to collect
necessary information about their co-workers to determine their reliability
(Kanawattanachai & Yoo, 2002, p. 191).
How to build trust on virtual teams?
According to Duran and Popescu (2014, p. 366), communication is considered as the most
important factor contributing to trust establishment among members. Pinjani and Palvia
(2013, p. 145) indicate that there is a positive link between trust and team performance
through effective interaction among teammates. Therefore, trust may be enhanced by social
communication rather than task communication. In a traditional team, members have
various opportunities to open direct communication and discussions about their work which
are operated by different methods in a virtual team. Despite these challenges, virtual
―personal touch‖ from pictures or video images is a positive improvement and also bring a
variety of benefits to teammates (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 102).
In conclusion, trust contributes as the most vital factor to teams‘ success in the virtual
environment (Duran & Popescu, 2014, p. 366; Engelmann et al., 2014, p. 211; Sarker et al.,
2011, p. 302) and obviously impacts virtual team performance (Paul, Drake, & Liang,
2016, p. 189). Trust is the only element to help team members understand and rely
altogether (Duran & Popescu, 2014, p. 366). Trust can bring both positive and negative
sides to global virtual teams‘ effectiveness. The higher trust team members can build, the
greater collaboration and effectiveness the global virtual teams can gain. In a low
trustworthy relationship, the team performance can be decreased significantly.
5.3.3. Diversity
As mentioned in the previous part, diversity is a characteristic of groups of people and
refers to demographic differences among team members (McGrath et al., 1995, p. 22). In
the United States of America, IBM proposed eight diversity groups, including Asian,
Black, Hispanic, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT), Men, Native American,
People with Disabilities, and Women in 1995 (IBM, 2015, p. 1). However, IBM company
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in Australia and New Zealand conduct local strategies and form five diversity networking
groups consisting of their employees, comprising People with Disabilities, Flexibility,
Women in Technology, Cultural Diversity and LGBT (IBM, 2008, p. 1). This shows the
different local strategies implementing diversity of IBM in different continents, but it has to
respond the high standards of IBM in its global diversity strategy.
How diversity affects global virtual teams
Van Knippenberg et al. (2013, p. 184) mention that diversity and performance are the “the
double-edged sword of diversity”. It is evidenced that groups with various backgrounds are
related to differences in values, life experiences, expertise and perspectives (Milliken &
Martins, 1996, p. 415). Despite many challenges, diversity is likely to bring both positive
and negative influences on team performance (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992, p. 338; Jackson
& Joshi, 2011, p. 666). Jackson and Joshi (2011, pp. 662-663) claim that team diversity is
considered as the reason for arising conflicts in teams, including task conflict and
emotional conflict. Task conflicts tend to increase when team members are different in
knowledge, expertise, and experience in task accomplishment. Therefore, task conflicts
relate to functional diversity while that diversity does not involve an emotional conflict
which associates with gender and age diversity. According to the authors, the higher
combinations of diversity including tenure, gender and ethnicity are, the lower team
performance is. However, task conflicts are able to be profitable for team performance
because team members might be creative to find suitable and effective solutions to solve
those conflicts.
Similarly, a diverse culture could bring two sides of effects on global virtual teams built
upon the specific criterion (Shachaf, 2008, p. 133; Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Jonsen,
2010, p. 702). While diverse teams help rise creativity, satisfaction, and conflicts (Stahl et
al., 2010, p. 702), they witness the decrease of social interaction (Milliken & Martins,
1996, p. 415; Stahl et al., 2010, p. 702). It is interesting that the diversity does not lead to
the reduction of effective communication among team members. However, the authors
indicate the relationship between communication and team diversity through two types of
cultural diversity. While cultural diversity experiences a negative effect on the
effectiveness of communication in surface-level diversity, culture measured by deep-level
indicators shows a positive impact between cultural diversity and communication
effectiveness (Stahl et al., 2010, p. 703).
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A team diversity is able to cover a large range of information and networks as well as open
the network and perspectives. Therefore, it can enhance creativity, problem-solving,
product development and innovation (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992, p. 321) and improve the
quality of decisions (Milliken & Martins, 1996, p. 415; Shachaf, 2008, p. 139). According
to Milliken and Martins (1996), the more realisticity and complexity in the ways of
members thinking lead to the higher decision-making in a diverse team. Although some
sides of teamwork are improved, the diversity brings a direct negative influence on
performance because of lower flexibility and capability of implementing work in virtual
teams than face-to-face teams (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992, p. 321). The higher levels of
diversity are, the lower levels of performance become.
In a survey of RW3 CultureWizard (2016, pp. 3- 4), participants working in the
international workplace and interacting with multicultural colleagues indicate that culture
significantly impact on work styles and expectation. Besides, 68% participants reveals that
cultural challenges is considered as the biggest obstacle to global virtual team‗s
productivity.
Within a single location and employees coming from the same region, it is easy to
communicate and interact due to a common culture and language. However, when virtual
work is implemented in different geographies, the diversity brings cultural conflicts as well
as misunderstandings (Horwitz et al., 2006, p. 478). Therefore, it is necessary for global
organizations to transfer business policies and cultures in order to cooperate with virtual
team members across geography and cultures. This activity can bring conflicts to business
and national cultures.
Shachaf (2008, p. 134) argues that diversity experiences a negative effect on
communication which comes from the raised complexities from heterogeneity and
dispersion. It is revealed in her study that the complexities involve in the high cost of
communication and the effects of communication across cultures on miscommunication. In
virtual communication, the barriers in cultural and language differences lead to the
difficulties in writing and speaking. Therefore, team members would spend more time and
effort in encoding and decoding messages during the communication process leading to the
rising cost of interaction.
In addtion, Shachaf (2008, p. 134) mentions that the negative effect of intercultural
communication due to cultural diversity is likely to be presented by the styles of
communication. For instance, While Americans and Israelis are direct in interacting, their
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global virtual members from Eastern cultures, for example Japan or China, follow an
indirect communication style. Thus, they are confused and uncomfortable during the
communication process. In addition, the differences in culture may lead to the
misunderstandings and difficulties. While global virtual teams are multicultural with
different characteristics, team members lack physical interaction (Cascio, 2000, p. 87;
Zander et al., 2013, p. 229). Therefore, it is complex and hard to understand during the
interaction (Zander et al., 2013, p. 229).
Glen Boreham, General Manager, IBM Australia and New Zealand, Chairperson of the
IBM Diversity Council (IBM, 2008, p. 1) claims that ―Diversity at IBM means that
difference is expected, respected and encouraged so that every employee can be
productive, innovative and achieve to their fullest potential. Our mission is to help create
and maintain an IBM culture, climate, and environment in which all people feel welcomed
and valued; and to maximise the utilisation of our diverse talent, and position IBM as the
company of choice within our community and to our clients and our workforce".
According to the Forbes, IBM is a successful global company in information technology
field and ranked at the top 10 largest tech companies in the world in 2017 (Stoller, 2017).
By operating over more than 170 countries, IBM experiences a diversity in cultures with
over 400,000 IBMers around the world with more than 70 language spoken. These
employees would be different in nationality, cultures, lifestyle and knowledge
backgrounds. IBM views this diversity is the greatest strength because it opens chances to
link the best talents and ideas to satisfy customer‘s demands effectively (IBM, 2008, p. 6).
In IBM, workforce diversity means the various of thought leading to innovation. IBM
accepts the diversity to open more opportunities for their employees to explore their full
ability. Therefore, both diversity and innovation are considered as the important factors to
the success of firm (IBM, 2015, p. 1). For more than a century, IBM has witnessed the
diversity of cultures, people, thoughts and ideas which can create the innovative and
advanced technologies for their business. (IBM, 2015, p. 3). In particular, those varieties
become more special in virtual context in which team members are not in the same
geographies and have fewer opportunities to show their differences which can lead to some
conflicts (IBM, 2003, p. 3). As a result, cultural diversity can create both pros and cons for
virtual teams.
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How to solve the diversity
Cultural diversity is an emergent issue which possibly occurs in any global virtual team
(Wakefield et al., 2008, p. 452). Therefore, the perception of differences in diverse teams
relating to values and beliefs, communication styles, decision-making process,
troubleshooting can win the multicultural issues (Grosse, 2002, p. 34). Besides, the cultural
barriers can be overcome by nurturing cultural understanding which brings to a higher
performance for global virtual teams (Brandt et al., 2011, p. 62). As a result, it is claimed
that the cultural difference would not be a big challenge if virtual team members are
tolerant and acceptable (Duran & Popescu, 2014, p. 369).
IBM sets up its goal in order to improve the ―awareness, openmindness, knowledge,
tolerance and respect to other cultures― to create high effective teams (IBM, 2008, p. 1).
Therefore, many different diversity networking events are celebrated in order to help
IBMers closer to various cultures. Those activities acttract members from many groups,
such as Lunar New Year or Diwali – the the Indian Cultural Festival of Lights (IBM, 2008,
p. 6). Besides, a special program named Asian Constituency Networking Group in
Australia is established by Asian Employee Constituency Networking Group IBM
employees. The purpose of this program is to build the awareness and understanding of
Asian culture as well as honor the contribution of Asian employees in IBM. Especially, an
annual Cultural Intelligence Awareness Week is held in order to improve the cultural
intelligence for the whole organization starting from the highest managers to the newest
IBMer (IBM, 2015, p. 9).
In addition, IBMers are asked to join the Global IBMers Community which is run in IBM
internal website (IBM, 2014, p. 69). Employees can join some activities to enhance their
awareness of cross-cultural challenges and improve the way they cooperate with co-
workers and do business around the world. For example, IBMers can join the Amazing
Global Race which is a contest that people can learn and test their knowledge about other
cultures. Participants can have opportunities to learn a new language or new managing-
across-borders skills. IBMers also can make ―This is us‖ videos which are video clips to
introduce their own location and share with others.
As a result, it is interesting to find that diversity can bring both positive and negative
effects on the effectiveness of global virtual teams. On the one hand, diversity can increase
the performance of these teams by increase the creativity, innovation and satisfaction.
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Diversity also contributes as a reason for team‘s conflicts and misunderstanding in the
multicultural corporations.
5.3.4. Leadership
By implementing virtual teams, team members can complete their duty more efficiently
and quickly, and be able to connect co-workers around the world. However, global virtual
teams are groups of different people in various locations, knowledge backgrounds, and
time zones. Therefore, leading virtual teams is a complex duty for leaders to control and
manage groups in an effective way. Besides, it is unable for team members to see or have a
physical contact with their leader in a global virtual team (Gonçalves, Ferreira, Gonçalves,
Putnik, & Cruz-Cunha, 2014, p. 6; Zander, Mockaitis, & Butler, 2012, p. 593), so virtual
team leaders are required to have a special competence to deal with these challenges
(Zander et al., 2012, p. 593).
The roles of leadership in virtual teams
Many authors agree the important role of leadership in the success in both virtual teams and
traditional teams (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 102). Wakefield et al. (2008, p. 452) recognize the
dynamic role of leaders in solving various types of conflict in a global virtual team.
According to Hinds & Bailey (2003, p. 616), three forms of conflict are mentioned in their
study, including task conflict, relational conflict, and process conflict. Task conflict
involves the disagreements among team members in work content happening when task
knowledge required activities to reach team goals is not understood or shared by
teammates. Relational conflict (or emotional conflict) leads to the negative emotions and
team disagreements which occur in case of the insufficiency of individual knowledge in
cultures and norms among group members. The process of conflict relates to disagreements
when team members do not have the same point of views on the methods and necessary
processes to accomplish their tasks. According to Wakefield et al. (2008, p. 452), the
strategies which leaders apply in order to manage those mentioned conflicts have
significant influence in the success of a virtual team. Besides, leaders who accomplish a
perfect internal role in leadership have a positive relationship in managing virtual teams.
In virtual teams, moreover, transformational leadership has a significant influence in
increasing and monitoring the team performance (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002, p. 17; Carte,
Chidambaram, & Becker, 2006, p. 340; Purvanova & Bono, 2009, p. 352) and project
satisfaction (Purvanova & Bono, 2009, p. 352). Furthermore, Andressen et al. (2012, p. 77)
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indicate the relationship between transformational leadership and motivation. In the study,
self-leadership contributes as a mediated variation leading to a high impact on motivation
in a virtual team by transformational leadership.
According to Henderson (2008, pp. 56, 57), managers lead to the performance and success
of teams in their relationship to team satisfaction and productivity based on decoding and
encoding communication. Encoding involves the activities in transforming information
such as speech or writing, while decoding relates the transforming them into meaning,
including listening and reading (Littlejohn, 1983, pp. 123-124). Continuing the
Henderson‘s study, while leader‘s decoding competency has a positive effect on both
team‘s satisfaction and productivity, encoding competency just affects team‘s productivity.
Besides, team members are more satisfied with their teammates and manager and recognize
that it will be better in the geographical distance by several face-to-face communications
with their leader.
IBM recognizes the role of its top leaders in contributing to the company‘s growth (IBM,
2014, p. 70). With a large scale of employees spreading around the world, the process of
managing such these teams is a rich history of leadership in IBM. It results from a constant
focus on developing leaders at all levels of the company. In particular, the constant
transformation is considered as an important aspect of leadership in IBM. This issue
becomes more specific in virtual teams where team members are not located in the same
place and have few opportunities to face-to-face meetings with their leaders.
Characteristics and challenges for virtual team leaders
In a dispersed or collocated team, leaders carry out many responsibilities for the operation
and development of all teams. Their responsibilities are shown in selecting, mentoring and
motivating the right members of teams, developing the correct norms of behaviors,
building trust, setting and sharing goals, recognizing and rewarding contributions
(Malhotra, Majchrzak, & Rosen, 2007, p. 61). Accordingly, leaders are required for the
technical knowledge, abilities, skills and other characteristics to build the effectiveness of
virtual teams (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002, p. 26).
There could be a challenge for team leaders and members coming from different cultural
backgrounds to corporate in order to gain the effectiveness. Leaders can apply various
leadership styles, while employees indicate the different preferences in confirmed cultural
leadership. For instance, it is not the same for employees' leadership preferences in
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communicating, managing, coaching and controlling them. While employees in the USA
prefer to be trained and receive positive feedback, workers in Spain would like to have
regular contacts and reviews. Laborers in Australia prefer communication without reviews,
while Japanese employees desire to have implicitly control and make their works be proud
(Zander et al., 2013, p. 231).
Another great challenge involves in a lack of physical interaction which is considered as
one of the roots leading to the difficulty for virtual team leaders. Therefore, the power of
leaders is not the same between virtual teams and face-to-face teams in the issue of
physical observation (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002, p. 26; Lilian, 2014, p. 1255). While leaders
of a traditional team can directly control and communicate their teammates anytime or any
events, leaders of virtual teams complete their responsibilities in the observation through
creative tools under the support of communication technology. As a result, leadership in
virtual environment deals with more challenges in managing team performance and solving
the problems in comparison with face-to-face team due to the lack of physical contact (Bell
& Kozlowski, 2002, p. 26). In regard to the physical contact, leaders are able to face with
other challenges in maintaining communication, building the relationship within team
members and managing conflicts (Zander et al., 2012, p. 593), and establishing trust
(Handy, 1995, p. 47).
The biggest challenge in a virtual working environment is performance management,
requires managers do three things well: define, facilitate, and encourage performance
(Cascio, 2000, p. 87). According to Cascio (2000, p. 89), new virtual working environment
offers employees with more flexibility and empowerment. Knowledge employees in these
environments will be accepted to take more autonomy and responsibility than in traditional
organizations. However, these principles are complex and ambiguous in virtual work, and
then the roles and responsibilities are necessary to be defined clearly. It is not simple for
managers to train, give advice and feedback to their team members who are not in the same
location even though the development of ICT.
Due to the transforming information technology and business processes into digital
services, IBM leaders meet many new challenges when the world is changing rapidly. In
terms of the new trend about social, mobile and accessing data, people are changing the
ways to understand and participate. Therefore, this leads to the change and improvement of
leader‘s characteristics to adapt to the new trend. Thereby, leaders must think, act, manage
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and control employees differently; take opportunities to attract talents and make decisions
(IBM, 2014, p. 70).
To conclude, Indra Kumar, Head of Human Resources Chennai and US operations at
NTrust Infotech, impresses the vital role of leadership in virtual teams: ‗‗Without a leader,
the virtual teams could become directionless and could find themselves in a „tug-of-
war‟ kind of situation. The leader plays a vital role in helping the teams to see the
bigger picture/purpose and aligns them to the organizational goals. The leader has
got huge responsibility not just in terms of setting goals and getting it done, but
giving definite direction through on-going communication, building a „sense of
belonging‟ among various teams and keeping the motivation high.‘‘ as mentioned in
Zander et al. (2013, p. 231). Therefore, the leaders have a huge amount of influence over
the effectiveness of global virtual teams in guiding, mentoring, setting goal, encouraging
and keeping teammates in a right way. However, many e-leaders are able to face many
challenges and opportunities to manage global virtual teams. In order to overcome the
obstacles and improve the working implement of virtual groups, the leaders should develop
their behavior in adapting the new virtual environment, adopt new skills and the suitable
ICT selection (Lilian, 2014, p. 1259).
5.3.5. Communication
In a virtual team, communication is operated indirectly through the support of ICT and
used by all team members. Therefore, the method of communication is mentioned as one of
the main differences between virtual teams and face-to-face teams (Bell & Kozlowski,
2002, p. 25; Kratzer et al., 2005, p. 13; Zander et al., 2013, p. 229). Communicating by
computer mediation will lack of physical interaction (Cascio, 2000, p. 84; Rice et al., 2007,
p. 587; RW3 CultureWizard, 2016, p. 31; Zander et al., 2013, p. 229) and has fewer social,
political or power context cues as shown in traditional communication (Berry, 2011, p.
193).
How virtual communication has influence on virtual teams
A close relationship of interpersonal communication between leaders and members is
possible to enhance the activity of organizations in the long term. According to Mitrofan
and Bulborea (2013, p. 515), the employees feel their value and become more loyal during
an open communication. Thereafter, it can lead to better interpersonal and professional
relationships between members and leaders.
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High levels of communication by an individual experience a positive relationship on their
performance. Morgeson et al. (2005, p. 588) mention that individual communication would
play the crucial role in teams for three reasons. First, employees who are talkative and
sociable want to cooperate with others and have higher confidence and ability to work
effectively in a team structure. Second, these sociable individuals are well- provided with
social skills and communication skills which help discuss ―performance strategies and
development of norms‖. Therefore, communicators are considered as the vital elements to
team success. Third, communication skills bring a positive effect on encouraging the
effective interactions among team members.
Simultaneously, Sarker et al. (2011, p. 302) demonstrate that communication affects the
individual performance through trust. Communication can improve their performance in
the relationship with reliable teammates; otherwise, the level of communication can be
reduced in case of cooperating with less trustworthy members.
However, Gonçalves et al. (2014, p. 9) indicate that virtual communication does not
experience the influence on communication from the emotional aspect. The authors prove
that the confidence and comfort among team members are not decreased by the virtual
environments and interfaces. Therefore, virtual environments contribute as an effective
solution for dispersed collaboration.
According to IBM (2003, p. 3), some of problems might come from virtual communication,
such as the lack of physical interaction. During the communication process, teammates
have few chances for face-to-face meetings or expressing their emotion directly. In term of
using communicative technology tools, therefore, it can bring both positive and negative
effects for virtual teams. While the support of communicative tools can link virtual team
members together, it is difficult to know the level of teammates in understanding or
enjoying the conversation. However, by its effort in creating the effective communicative
technology, for example applying 3D technique into virtual interactive tools, IBM desires
to break down the distances and brings something beyond a virtual space for participants in
order to achieve the best results.
Challenges for communication
As mentioned in the previous chapter, communication in global virtual teams could bring
the quick interaction for different people in various continents, cultures, and languages
(Cascio, 2000, p. 83). Thereby, it is claimed that virtual communication could bring various
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challenges for e-leaders (Cascio, 2000, p. 87; Grosse, 2002, p. 30; Lilian, 2014, p. 1259) to
open effective communication across cultures, including trust-building capacity, skills to
create and retain good relationships among virtual team members and sensitivity (Grosse,
2002, p. 30). Furthermore, it is necessary for virtual team leaders to learn new
communication skills to connect their members who have the isolated feeling in a virtual
group (Cascio, 2000, p. 87).
Brandt et al. (2011, p. 62) indicate that communication in virtual teams comprises two main
issues: (1) the tools or technologies for interactions, (2) the rules of engagement. A range of
communication tools are created and implemented in the virtual environment to bring
effective results, however there still many conflicts about how it is beneficial. Despite the
advantages of email and video conferencing, Brandt and his colleagues still argue about
their distraction and ineffectiveness in applying those tools for virtual teams. In the second
point, rules of engagement for virtual teams involve in the forms showing the actions which
members are able to do or not during the communication time.
Another challenge on communication belongs to verbal style differences, especially
nonverbal communication including the cultural difference in time orientation and body
language. In a global virtual team, it could be a conflict in the time issue for members
coming from polychronic cultures, such as Portugal and France and monochronic cultures,
such as the United States and the United Kingdom. The scheduling of meetings is
considered as a flexible way and be able to be not on time by teammates from polychronic
cultures. Therefore, members from monochronic cultures may feel uncomfortable with
others‘ behavior about time orientation (Shachaf, 2008, pp. 133-134).
During the communication process, culture and language barriers can produce challenges
for employees (Shachaf, 2008, p. 134). Within a dispersed geographical team, members
feel challenges to cooperate with teammates from different language backgrounds (Grosse,
2002, p. 33). While the varieties in nonverbal communication have impacts on face-to-face
meetings, the differences in languages, verbal styles, and nonverbal styles affect team
effectiveness (Shachaf, 2008, p. 139). In IBM, it operates and hires employees from 175
countries (IBM, 2016, p. 76) with more than 70 languages (IBM, 2008, p. 6) and different
communication styles. In such a team, therefore, language barrier is also a problem for
team members to create an effective way to interact, cooperate, share the ideas and work
together.
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How to enhance virtual communication?
The operation of global virtual teams significantly depends on ICT in order to connect,
distribute and implement tasks among team members. Therefore, communication among
dispersed teammates are significantly impacted by the technological tools applied
(Anderson et al., 2007, pp. 2574-2577). Besides, the authors highly appreciate the
explicitness and specification in preparation and training for global virtual teams in order to
cooperate and work effectively in the virtual environment. For a sustained success, a team
leader and their group members should link together frequently by daily communication
(Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 102)
Email helps overcome miscommunication due to language differences among global virtual
team members (Grosse, 2002, p. 28; Shachaf, 2008, p. 136). Email is an easy, comfortable
and effective method to interact with users who are not native English speakers. However,
Shachaf also reveals that some problems can come from using email because it is overload
for a team with more than five or seven members. For example, it is hard to keep track of
the correct versions of attachments or get troubles in sending large files. During the
communicative process by email, users can spend time to compose and process messages
that seem difficult in case of making a phone call (Grosse, 2002, p. 28; Shachaf, 2008, p.
136). These days, the development of ICTs brings many advanced and effective selections
for virtual collaboration. Conference calls and video-conferencing contribute as the most
beneficial tools in virtual teams to maintain a good working relationship (RW3
CultureWizard, 2016, pp. 16, 26).
There are three basic methods to solve the obstacles of communication: patience, respect,
and listening skills (Grosse, 2002, p. 34). The result will be changed by open-minding and
respecting in the different cultural crossing in communication. During the meetings, team
members should be patient to identify and adapt to various communication styles and the
ways to solve troubles. Besides, listening can handle the problems by collecting a lot of
useful information from the conversations.
As for managers, understanding communication across cultures will be useful to gain better
performance and reduce the costly delays during interaction process and decision making.
Besides, it helps improve the awareness about cultural diversity and the importance of
technology to contact without the limitation of time and regions (Grosse, 2002, p. 37). For
the team members aspect, it is possible for them to reduce the language barriers due to
expressing their respect for other cultures and languages (Grosse, 2002, p. 34).
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Within an organization or even a team, the success or failures significantly relies on the
efficient communication in the workplace (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 102; Mitrofan
& Bulborea, 2013, p. 515). Besides, communication is more highlighted as the important
role because of their contribution as a virtual factor in building trust among teammates
(Duran & Popescu, 2014, p. 366). The role of good communication passes beyond to the
performance improvement, but also brings effective knowledge sharing, decision making
and coordination (Tsedal, 2015, p. 78). Mitrofan and Bulborea (2013, p. 515) recommend
organizations to build a friendly working environment to improve interpersonal
relationships among members. Therefore, it is proposed that communication affects the
effectiveness of global virtual teams. In addition, two specific results are found : (1) High
level of communication can bring a positive impact on the effectiveness of global virtual
teams; (2) Low level of communication can bring a negative impact on the effectiveness of
global virtual teams.
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6. CONCLUSION
6.1. Conclusion and Discussion
This research examined the virtual collaboration in the age of technology and the key
factors affecting the effectiveness of global virtual teams. The aim is to help leaders, team
members and organizations have a clear and bright perspective on the virtual context, in
order to implement virtual environment for remote cooperation and creating competitive
advantages. This paper is conducted by a secondary research which involves in collecting,
summarizing, and synthesizing of existing research.
In the first stage, the paper defines virtual teams and ICT, the emergence of these issues as
well as summary their benefits and drawbacks. One of the great advantages of virtual teams
is the ability to work across time zones and places (Ebrahim et al., 2009, p. 2658; Lipnack
& Stamps, 1997, p. 7). Second, virtual teams can help organizations save time (May
& Carter, 2001, p. 171; Rice et al., 2007, p. 581) and expenditure for a brick-building,
employee relocation costs or travel expense (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 105; Dulebohn
& Hoch, 2017, p. 1; Grosse, 2002, p. 25). Third, it could bring opportunities for creativity
and attract talented workers from any regions, nationalities and physical ability (Joinson,
2002, p.73; Kerber & Buono, 2004, p. 4; Rice et al., 2007, p. 588). Forth, virtual teams help
complete work more quickly and efficiently, then lead to increase productivity and profit
(Grosse, 2002, p. 25; McDonough, 2001, p. 110). Other benefits are knowledge sharing, the
possibility of equal opportunities in the workplace, the reduction of age and race
discrimination.
The IBM practice highlights the same views for the benefits of virtual teams on the
development and success of the organization. A list of reasons for implementing virtual
collaboration explains how the great advantages are produced by virtual teams, including
cost saving, the ability to connect talents (Fisher, 2009; Hegar & Hodgetts, 2012, p. 157;
IBM, 2003, p. 2) and recruit excellent employees from any regions in the world, taking the
competitive advantages by the diversity (IBM, 2003, p. 2), and the improvement of
productivity (Hill et al., 2003, pp. 232-233). Furthermore, IBM find an additional benefit
that is the ability in enhancing job motivation by creating greater autonomies for employees
(Hill et al., 2003, pp. 233). Besides, the company mentions about the role of virtual
working on providing a better balance between their workers' work and family life (Hill et
al., 2003, p. 234). This result is contrary to some studies which indicate the disturbance of
virtual working on employees' private time (Cascio, 2000, p. 87; Davis, 2002, p. 70).
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Despite a variety of positive sides, dispersed working can bring some negative effects for
team working and managers. Team members may face to some conflicts involving task
conflicts or interpersonal conflicts (Hinds & Bailey, 2000, p. 3; Stark & Bierly, 2009, p.
467), the shortage of physical interaction (Cascio, 2000, p. 84; Zander et al., 2013, p. 229),
the problems in culture diversity and trust issues (Joinson, 2002, p. 73; McLean, 2007, p.
72), the challenges for leaders (Jelavic & Salter, 2017, p. 14; Joinson, 2002, p. 73).
Regarding this paper‗s example, IBM confronts most of those diffuculties (IBM, 2003, p.
3) and confirms the challenges when an organization decides to apply the virtual context.
The study proposes five critical factors contributing to an effective global virtual team,
including technology, trust, diversity, leadership and communication, as follows:
Technology is perceived as a vital element for the existence of virtual team to keep in
contact among team members. However, communication tools implemented in global
virtual teams should be taken care of because the two side of effects that the technologies
can bring in reducing or increasing social distance (Tsedal, 2015, p. 80). ICT is beneficial
in decreasing the negative effects of miscommunication in cultural diversity and supporting
collaboration (Shachaf, 2008, p. 139). The quality of communication is the main obstacle
leading to the interference during the interaction process (Horwitz et al., 2006, pp. 486,
491).
Many authors prove the strong relationship between trust and virtual team performance;
different studies show contradictory results. While many studies reveal the positive effects
that trust impacts on team effectiveness (Alsharo et al., 2017, p. 482; Phadnis & Caplice,
2013, p. 9; Sarker et al., 2011, p. 302), others fail to find a positive relationship between
trust and effectiveness (Aubert & Kelsey, 2003, p. 579; Engelmann et al., 2014, p. 211).
Lipnack and Stamps (1997, p. 225) state that trust is an important and required element in
virtual teams. It is proved by the observations of several virtual teams in many companies,
such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Motorola that the success and failure of virtual teams
significantly rely on trust. This point is more consolidated in IBM (2004, p. 1) which
emphasizes the vital role of trust in virtual teams and how to build relationship among team
members. The establishment of trust among virtual team members is essential for their
operation and the virtual team cannot work as a virtual team without trust.
Cultural diversity is considered as one of the feature of global virtual teams because of the
differences among team members in races, gender, organizations and nations (Shachaf,
2008, p. 132). Many studies agree ―the double-edged sword of diversity‖ in both bringing
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positive and negative effects on team performance (Jackson & Joshi, 2011, p. 666; Shachaf,
2008, p. 133; Stahl et al., 2010, p. 702; Van Knippenberg et al., 2013, p. 184). While
diverse teams can help increase creativity, satisfaction, enhance problem-solving, product
development and innovation (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992, p. 321; Stahl et al., 2010, p. 702),
it is proved that team diversity will lead to the decrease of social interaction (Milliken
& Martins, 1996, p. 415; Stahl et al., 2010, p. 702) and bring a negative effect on both
performance (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992, p. 321) and communication (Shachaf, 2008, p.
134).
Leadership is recognized as an important factor leading to the success of both virtual teams
and traditional meeting teams (Bergiel et al., 2008, p. 102) and could bring many
challenges for e-leaders because of the difference in team‗s operation (Gonçalves et al.,
2014, p. 9; Zander et al., 2012, p. 593). Wakefield et al. (2008, p. 452) prove the role of
virtual team leaders in solving various types of conflict which can significantly affect the
success of a virtual team. Besides, the role of leadership is shown in team performance
(Bell & Kozlowski, 2002, p. 17; Carte et al., 2006, p. 340; Purvanova & Bono, 2009, p.
352), project satisfaction (Purvanova & Bono, 2009, p. 352), motivation (Andressen et al.,
2012, p. 77).
Communication is conducted through the support of ICT which is frequently used by
virtual team members. There are many different points of view about the influence of
communication on virtual teams. While some authors agree with the positive effect of high
level of communication on team performance (Morgeson et al., 2005, p. 588; Sarker et al.,
2011, p. 302), a recent study shows that virtual communication does not experience the
influence on communication from the emotional aspect (Gonçalves et al., 2014, p. 9).
A global virtual team is a useful method for remote working with many benefits. The world
now is closer and closer due to the booming of the internet and many smart tools
supporting people to work and keep in contact with people anyplaces, anywhere, and
anytime. It is hard to think that how people can work without communicative technology
and network. IBM company is a good practice for applying virtual teams. Despite a variety
of objectively given reasons, the company may face many challenges when using virtual
teams in their global organizations. Five factors are recognized to the effectiveness of
global virtual teams. In IBM, technology, leadership, and communication affect the
operation of their virtual collaboration and can be managed well in global virtual teams.
Many intelligent tools are created and applied to satisfy the virtual collaboration‘s demands
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as well as help increase the effects of remote working without the constraints of time and
space. Besides, the company highlights the vital role of diversity in their operation and
development. In fact, in such as a virtual team, multicultural cooperation among team
members occurs popularly and contributes as the key success for IBM. It enables bring
competitive advantages for the company as mentioned in the statement “diversity is the
bridge between the workplace and the marketplace” (IBM, 2014, p. 66). In IBM, trust is
perceived as an invisible factor, the most challenge and it highly affects the quality of
virtual collaboration. It is hard to be controlled or predicted during the communicative
process. Therefore, to overcome the obstacles coming from trust, virtual teams will operate
effectively.
In summary, the benefits and challenges for applying virtual teams in the IBM company
once again confirm for the reviews in many previous related studies. Besides, five factors
impacting on the effectiveness of global virtual teams were proved and might be helpful for
organizations to manage their teams. By the time, virtual teams will become ―natural way―
(Lipnack & Stamps, 1997, p. 241) and commonly used in many organizations (Marlow,
Lacerenza, & Salas, 2017, p. 586). The cooperation between virtual teams and technologies
brings opportunities to reshape the shared world by affecting to effectiveness, value-based,
performance, expenditure and decentralization (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997, p. 241).
However, it can be a difficult task to implement and manage a virtual workforce because of
the unique organizations in challenges and demands (Garff, 2011, p. 18).
6.2. Limitation
This study starts with the existing literature and uses the previous research to summarize
and synthetize the needed information. However, different authors show various point of
views about one issue. Some studies contain contrary results in comparison with others.
Different authors indicate various factors contributing to an effective global virtual team.
Therefore, the results are unique and confused to collect the ideas. This master thesis has to
rely on the main criteria which can be team effectiveness or team performance to measure
the influence of each factor.
6.3. Suggestions for further studies
The master thesis is conducted by the secondary research and explores the literature from
every industry. For future research, therefore, it will be interesting to make a large scale by
looking at more international companies, and comparing the differences among them.
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