Virtual Team Leadership, Operation, and Technology Deployment

The COVID-19 situation has shown many leaders that their face-to-face meetings leadership style may well now be a thing of the past. Tech-savvy companies are now deploying new technologies to support the creation and leadership of virtual teams, working remotely in different locations around the globe. This presents a range of new challenges for both project leaders and team members, who must now adopt new ways of working. Using an inductive approach based on an analysis of relevant literature, online surveys, and in-depth interviews with project leaders and other practitioners, this chapter examines the transitioning to virtual team leadership and operation, identifies critical success factors, and discusses the facilitating role of new technologies. An operational model (V-CORPS) to guide the building and operation of virtual teams is developed and explained with the aim of increasing the flexibility and efficiency of virtual project teams and establishing a checklist of action points for team building and leading.

Fault Lines in Virtual Team Leadership and Team Performance in Undergraduate Virtual Team Short-Term Projects

This article provides a literature review on virtual team leaderships impact on project quality, team effectiveness, and team commitment to short-term projects. The authors summarize several negative findings related to virtual teams and posit that these negative outcomes contribute to the negative impact of organisational fault lines. The article concludes by exploring a theoretical model on the relationship between fault lines in virtual teams and team performance. The authors specifically propose that transformational leadership in virtual teams will positively moderate this relationship.

Analysis of competencies for effective virtual team leadership in building successful organisations

Purpose Global competition and advances in technology have enhanced the growing trend of virtual teams in order to execute business strategies. Thus, understanding the competencies needed for virtual leadership effectiveness is essential and vital to organisational success. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the required competencies for virtual team leadership and its effectiveness in an organisation. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted case study methodology to undertake an exploratory study of a manufacturing organisation. Using a questionnaire that was designed following a focussed literature review to identify the specific virtual leadership competencies, structured interviews were conducted face-to-face with 14 respondents from two major virtual team groups. The interviews were designed to elucidate the opinions and perceptions of virtual team members with respect to selected characteristics of their virtual team leaders (VTLs). The responses obtained were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Findings The study identified the competencies required for effective leadership in virtual teams in order to achieve the organisational project success. The performance of the two VTLs in the organisation was then assessed in the light of these identified competencies. The study also identified transformational leaders as important to be considered when selecting VTLs because they are known to achieve high-performing team. However, the study found that considering the virtual leadership competencies, the two VTLs were found to have not, on the whole, performed well because they are lacking in some of the leadership competencies required for effective leadership in a virtual team and this has led to their organisation not achieving the required success in virtual teams. Practical implications The study has implications for organisations’ virtual team project leaders. The identification of specific leadership competencies for virtual team leadership will enable organisations to be more informed when looking for effective leaders in their virtual teams in order to achieve high-performing virtual teams, which will lead to organisational growth and success. The study is expected to enhance the success rate of any typical organisation using virtual teams. Originality/value The study would be highly beneficial to both the potential and current stakeholder organisations considering virtual teams to execute business strategies. This study has also added to the body of knowledge by further exploring the leadership competencies needed for virtual teams.

Getting Things Done, Virtually! - The Role of Virtual Team Leadership in Virtual Team Effectiveness

A virtual team’s success depends on the team's effectiveness. Accomplishing such a team’s effectiveness is far more difficult when compared with traditional work teams. This article is a result of an exploratory study of the role of leadership in virtual teams. Virtual teams’ leadership is seemingly situational and supervisory, depending on the task. This study reveals that (1) individual virtual team members act as leaders based on the specific requirements for getting things done, (2) classifies virtual team leadership under supervisory and facilitating leadership, (3) suggests that both leadership roles are essential for virtual team effectiveness and functioning and (4) recommends exploration of leadership-oriented communication competency, shared understanding and virtual team citizenship behaviour as these are required for the effective performance of a virtual team.

Editorial

The current issue of Ushus – Journal of Business Management is an eclectic mix of conceptual and empirical papers. The importance of conceptual papers cannot be denied as they reflect systems of concepts, assumptions, expectations, beliefs and theories as well as reflections and the various relationships between them. In this vein, the first paper argues that albeit much technical advancement, it is the human capital that provides enough thought and stamina for any industry or institution to run. Hence, it is imperative for any organisation to take proper care of their employees. Underscoring the need for better employee care the article, A Comparative Study to Analyse the Effectiveness of Sexual Harassment Policies of IT and Non-IT Companies aims to analyse the effectiveness of sexual harassment policies of IT and Non-IT companies working in India. The second article Getting things done, virtually! -Role of Virtual Team Leadership in Virtual Team Effectiveness highlights various dimensions of leaderships with reference to virtual teams in its review of the literature. The study’s key finding states that shared understanding is a vital force that promotes the smooth functioning of the virtual team’s performance. The third paper stands testimony to the never-ending conflictbetween empirical papers and conceptual papers are continual. Nevertheless,it cannot be denied that empirical research enables us to operationalise a paradigm and implement it. Impact of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Motivation on Job Satisfaction among mystery shoppers is one such empirical study. It focuses on how EI plays a mediating role between motivation and job satisfaction among mystery shoppers. The mystery shoppers may overcome negative emotions by increasing their emotional intelligence, helping them to attain greater career satisfaction.

Collaborative Approach to Successful Virtual Team Leadership

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

The impact of emergent virtual leadership competencies on team effectiveness

Purpose – The research on virtual team leadership does well to describe the skills that are needed to guide and direct effective teams. However, what is presupposed in the previous research is that virtual teams have assigned leaders. That is, leaders were either management, appointed by management or were chosen by the team itself. Yet in today's global economy not all virtual teams have assigned leaders, instead many virtual team leaders emerge on their own to direct the group's actions. The purpose of this paper is to examine which emergent leadership competencies most impact virtual team effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach – This is a mixed method study where both a participant survey and content analysis of actual participant messages are used to determine the competencies of emergent virtual team leaders. The research participants for the current study were required to work in assigned teams on organizational case analyses. At the end of each case, teams presented their solutions in the form of final recommendations designed to fix the problem present in the case. Findings – Results indicate that not only do leaders emerge in virtual teams, but in most cases multiple leaders emerge. Results also show that the model that best describes team effectiveness includes the competencies of asking questions, cognitive and creative ability and vision setting. Originality/value – The contribution of the current study is that it extends the research on emergent virtual team leadership by introducing the idea that this type of leadership is often a collective action among individuals. It also advances a model of emergent virtual team leadership as a practice of communication. The better emergent virtual team leaders are at communicating to team members the more effective the team will be in completing tasks and projects, which in turn can lead to a more effectively functioning business unit.