It Is Certainly a Different Manner!

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norhayati Zakaria ◽  
Shafiz Affendi Mohd Yusof ◽  
Nursakirah Ab Rahman Muton
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Communication Styles ◽  
Indirect Communication ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Verbal Responses ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
High Level

The present study seeks to understand intercultural communication patterns, characteristics, and styles of team members that engage in virtual collaboration with people from diverse backgrounds known as global virtual team (GVT). Twenty respondents were interviewed in order to develop a rich understanding of the intercultural communication and styles within a GVT, based on Edward Hall's cultural dimensions. The results reveal that GVT members from high context cultures demonstrate indirect communication styles, use non-verbal approaches, and employ silence and polite gestures in certain situations, while low context GVT members are more prone to direct and straightforward communication styles with many verbal responses in online team discussion. In essence, the findings provide key implication to global managers: be prepared to work with cultural diversity in terms of being open-minded, develop a high level of tolerance, and become culturally sensitive to different approaches and preferences of communication styles as employed by team members when working at a distance.

Mobile Collaboration Support for Virtual Teams

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

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

The Effect of Cultural Dimensions on the Development of Intra-Team Trust in Global Virtual Teams

2011 ◽  
pp. 64-81
Author(s):  
Kurt D. Kirstein
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Power Distance ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Uncertainty Avoidance ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Team Leaders ◽  
Global Virtual Teams ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Widespread Adoption ◽  
Team Trust

The widespread adoption of global virtual teams has been driven by an unprecedented need to draw upon talents of employees from around the globe in a manner that is both organizationally and financially feasible. The success of these teams depends largely on the levels of intra-team trust and collaboration they are able to establish throughout the life of their projects. Team members on global virtual teams may differ substantially on a number of cultural dimensions including preferences for individualistic versus collective teamwork, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and contextual communication. This chapter will investigate how these four cultural dimensions are likely to impact intra-team trust within a global virtual team. Suggestions that team leaders can utilize to address these cultural dimensions are also presented.

Creating Virtual Communities That Work

2021 ◽  
pp. 302-324
Author(s):  
Ashley Van Ostrand ◽  
Spencer Wolfe ◽  
Antonio Arredondo ◽  
Andrea M. Skinner ◽  
Ramon Visaiz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Exponential Rate ◽  
Cost Consideration ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Mobile Accessibility ◽  
Google Drive ◽  
Survey Responses

The use and import of virtual collaboration (VC) has increased at an exponential rate. Despite its potential advantages, however, VC continues to be hindered by feelings of distrust, detachment, and even isolation among virtual team members. For each of these reasons, the present study analyzed more than 1,500 survey responses to develop best practices for current users and developers of e-collaboration software. More specifically, this study used an expanded variation of Vorvoreanu's (2008) Website Experience Analysis (WEA) to explore participants' views of the seven most popular VC programs in use today: Basecamp, Dropbox, Google Drive, iDoneThis, Join.me, Skitch, and Skype. Qualitative results of this study revealed the significance of (1) name recognition, (2) interpersonal facilitation, (3) clarity/simplicity, (4) cost consideration, and (5) mobile accessibility. The study's results were then used to develop five corresponding implications for both users and developers: (1) increased integration, (2) expanded physicality, (3) supplemental training, (4) financial entrée, and (5) utilized flexibility.

Creating Virtual Communities That Work

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Van Ostrand ◽  
Spencer Wolfe ◽  
Antonio Arredondo ◽  
Andrea M. Skinner ◽  
Ramon Visaiz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Exponential Rate ◽  
Cost Consideration ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Mobile Accessibility ◽  
Google Drive ◽  
Survey Responses

The use and import of virtual collaboration (VC) has increased at an exponential rate. Despite its potential advantages, however, VC continues to be hindered by feelings of distrust, detachment, and even isolation among virtual team members. For each of these reasons, the present study analyzed more than 1,500 survey responses to develop best practices for current users and developers of e-collaboration software. More specifically, this study used an expanded variation of Vorvoreanu's (2008) Website Experience Analysis (WEA) to explore participants' views of the seven most popular VC programs in use today: Basecamp, Dropbox, Google Drive, iDoneThis, Join.me, Skitch, and Skype. Qualitative results of this study revealed the significance of (1) name recognition, (2) interpersonal facilitation, (3) clarity/simplicity, (4) cost consideration, and (5) mobile accessibility. The study's results were then used to develop five corresponding implications for both users and developers: (1) increased integration, (2) expanded physicality, (3) supplemental training, (4) financial entrée, and (5) utilized flexibility.

Trust, Rationality and the Virtual Team

Virtual Teams ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 316-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Collaborative Environment ◽  
Group Cooperation ◽  
National Organizations

Virtual teams need trust in order to function. Trust is an efficient way of gaining group cooperation. Online, trust is more effective than instruction or authority or status in getting people who are largely strangers to one another to work together. But trust is not a simple quality. The kind of trust that is the cement of distance relations of a global or virtual kind is different from the type of trust that binds face-to-face interactions and from the procedural kind of trust that operates in regional or national organizations of a traditional managerial kind. This study looks at the ways in which trust between virtual team members is generated. “Trust between strangers” is optimally generated when persons are allowed to self-organize complex orders and create objects and processes of high quality. Also looked at are the kinds of personalities best suited to working in a virtual collaborative environment. The study concludes that persons who prefer strong social or procedural environments will be less effective in a virtual environment. In contrast, self-steering (“stoic”) personality types have characteristics that are optimally suited to virtual collaboration.

Developing Content in a Reuse Environment

2010 ◽  
pp. 258-284
Author(s):  
Norma Emery
Keyword(s):  
Technical Writing ◽  
Writing Process ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Workplace Environments ◽  
High Level ◽  
Style Guides ◽  
Insight Into

The need for reusing content and automating the writing process to gain efficiency in workplace environments is a priority in many work settings. Writing teams seek effective strategies for integrating reuse principles, and increasingly they need to accomplish this work virtually. Reusing content across an organization requires coordinated collaboration in terms of both establishing standards and ensuring that all team members follow those standards. In view of this high-level requirement, setting up a reuse environment seems familiar; that is, developing and implementing a style guide to promote consistency always has been central to good technical writing. Also familiar is the fact that as long as there have been style guides, adherence to them has been difficult to achieve. What makes a reuse environment different from those less focused on reuse is that degree to which standardization among writers must occur. Whereas style guidelines typically have emphasized word or phrasing nuances, standards for reuse move beyond terminology or syntax, involving all aspects of the writing process. An effective reuse environment thus depends on collaborative input from writing teams, which poses significant challenges in virtual environments. This chapter provides insight into the principles of reuse and how virtual collaboration is essential to making content reusable.

Intercultural Competences as a Trust Factor in Virtual Team Work

2009 ◽  
pp. 563-569
Author(s):  
Maria Assumpta Aneas
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Training And Development ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Virtual Teamwork ◽  
Common Purpose ◽  
American Society ◽  
The One

Globalization is increasingly having a visible impact on the importance attached to interculturality in organizations, an impact which is even clearer in the context of virtual teamwork. Virtual teamwork is defined by Simsarian (2006) as a process whereby a group of people with a common purpose carry out interdependent tasks using technology as the key communicational interface. This phenomenon has both positive and negative aspects in that, on the one hand, it can produce a significant increase in the productivity, value added, and profitability associated with the deployment of organizational resources, whilst on the other it can lead to growing uncertainty, tension, and a feeling of failure among team members if they are not adequately prepared and trained. Just one illustration of the costs to organizations of ignoring the growing importance of intercultural communication is offered by Wederspalhn (2002) who highlights the conclusion reached in 2000 by the American Society for Training and Development that “American companies suffer losses of over $2.5 billion annually as a result of the inadequate training and preparation of employees sent overseas.”

scholarly journals MULTI-CULTURAL TEAMS AS SOURCES FOR CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: THE ROLE OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY ON TEAM PERFORMANCE

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 1650012 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICARDA BOUNCKEN ◽  
ALEXANDER BREM ◽  
SASCHA KRAUS
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Communication Styles ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Process Data ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Global Innovation ◽  
Creativity And Innovation

Multi-cultural teams are seen as a wellspring of creativity and innovativeness. Yet, we still miss an in-depth study of their potential and challenges during the innovation process in firms. This is a serious omission as many international firms are in need of improving their global innovation position by the inclusion of insights from team members of different nationalities with knowledge about markets and culture. To derive first insights, we conducted a longitudinal qualitative study in a large global company with 70 personal interviews in five innovation teams over a period of two years. These data, based on semi-structured interviews, provide us with rich information about effects of cultural diversity in teams in the innovation process. Data were analysed through a thematic network analysis and two coders inductively forming categories. Results indicate that cross-cultural teams have a high potential of creativity, but are confronted with difficulties arising from different working- and communication styles which have to be proactively managed from the beginning. While progressing, teams learn to cope with this diversity related to some more surface-level cultural dimensions and members even align. Yet, diversity of power distance induces conflicts that deeply impact the innovation process. Based on these findings, we develop a set of propositions, which lead into a conceptual model on the effects of multi-cultural team work on creativity and innovation. Finally, we discuss further implications for research and practice.

scholarly journals Developing a BIM-Based MUVR Treadmill System for Architectural Design Review and Collaboration

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 6881
Author(s):  
Calvin Chung Wai Keung ◽  
Jung In Kim ◽  
Qiao Min Ong
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Human Locomotion ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Design Review ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Physical Constraints ◽  
Simulated Environment ◽  
Set Up ◽  
High Level

Virtual reality (VR) is quickly becoming the medium of choice for various architecture, engineering, and construction applications, such as design visualization, construction planning, and safety training. In particular, this technology offers an immersive experience to enhance the way architects review their design with team members. Traditionally, VR has used a desktop PC or workstation setup inside a room, yielding the risk of two users bump into each other while using multiuser VR (MUVR) applications. MUVR offers shared experiences that disrupt the conventional single-user VR setup, where multiple users can communicate and interact in the same virtual space, providing more realistic scenarios for architects in the design stage. However, this shared virtual environment introduces challenges regarding limited human locomotion and interactions, due to physical constraints of normal room spaces. This study thus presented a system framework that integrates MUVR applications into omnidirectional treadmills. The treadmills allow users an immersive walking experience in the simulated environment, without space constraints or hurt potentialities. A prototype was set up and tested in several scenarios by practitioners and students. The validated MUVR treadmill system aims to promote high-level immersion in architectural design review and collaboration.

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

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

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

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