Effectiveness and Impact of Virtual Teams Essay

Technology is consistently evolving and impacting m many(prenominal) organizations worldwide. It has changed many aspects in the cipherplace, including change by reversal styles, confabulation, and police squadwork. Communication has been transformed into the ways of the virtual world, directly affecting convocation dynamics.Organizations often form squads of employees to serve a variety of purposes and r from apiece one designs in a more efficacious manner than independent work. Teams used to work strictly by means of opposite interactions, but with growing applied science, virtual squads bring on been created and are used fairly often. A virtual team up is any team whose member interactions are mediated by time, distance, and technology.The core own is not the technology, but that the team works together on a task while physic each(prenominal)y separated. Group members can communicate by dint of e-mail, voice mail, video conferencing, electronic bulletin boards, an d intranets. (Levi, 2007, p. 258) Many investigate studies exact been done to assess the effectiveness of virtual teams, examining the authoritative and negative aspects.This publications review is aimed to analyze several conditions where researchers piddle explored many components of virtual teams and their impact. Vroman and Kovacich (2002) wrote an article that analyzed the interactions of a virtual interdisciplinary team. They explain computer-mediated communication (CMC) to be the basis of virtual teams, which they then compare to personal teams.They examined the Interdisciplinary cookery for Health Care for Rural Areas (ITHCRA) project, which is a team comprised of many disparate types of health professionals (e.g. clinical psychologist, nurse practitioner, nutritionist, etc.) The teams ultimate goal was to develop an interdisciplinary health care curriculum, solely using CMC. ITHCRA functioned the kindred as any other team working together would, and go about the same challenges and developmental processes (forming, storming, norming, performing, and transforming).They additionally had to learn the ways of the new communication technology, which was an obstacle for many of the classify members. The developmental process of the virtual team was similar to that of a face-to-face team, however, a number of differences were found.The forming phase was genuinelytypical for team development. Team building and norm development took origin of the project tasks initially. They had met face-to-face once, and later looking at their communication after this occurred, it was obvious they had formed social kinds and were more committed.This raised the question what would keep happened if the face-to-face meeting did not take place? It may keep back been more effective to throw two groups in this submit so comparisons could be made (e.g. one group solely virtual, the other group allowed 1-3 face-to-face meetings). It is hard to determine whether certain aspects of team development would have taken place without the opportunity to see their team members in a more personal way.Storming took place as well, which is when teams face certain conflicts. thither were no apparent differences for this development in the virtual team. Norming, performing, and transforming phases of development all contributed to the teams success and helped them complete their tasks and reach their goals.Vroman and Kovacich (2002) provided a total analysis of ITHCRA and the ways in which it was successful and where the members were challenged. They portrayed virtual teams as being more convenient, effective, and slight time consuming when completing tasks. However, it allows for less personal contact and can be more difficult for some to communicate and fulfill the expectations of the group project.It may have been more effective to have ITHCRA communicate solely with CMC and compare them to a team with the same tasks and goals, but who communicate d through a combination of CMC and face-to-face meetings. more(prenominal) valid results would be accessible to draw more accurate conclusions. It was arouse to use a interdisciplinary team, however, it may have acted as other variable besides CMC, which would then alter the results.Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk, and Gibson (2004) conducted a research landing field on the impact of team empowerment on virtual team performance. Team empowerment is delineate as increased task want that is due to team members collective, positive assessments of their organizational tasks (Kirkman & Rosen, 2002).They examined team empowerment through the teams potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact to determine its impact on process progression and guest satisfaction. Kirkman et al. (2004) studied a service organization that utilized high technology and frequently formed virtual teams to complete the companys tasks and goals. from each one team member had different roles within the organization and was separated from eachother geographically. The researchers moderated the effects of face-to-face meetings to examine the human kin between team empowerment and both process improvement and client satisaction.Kirkman et al. (2004) used surveys, observation, a team empowerment measure they had created, and customer satisfaction and process improvement scorecards to test their hypotheses, which were that 1. Team empowerment depart have a positive relation to virtual team process improvement, 2.Team empowerment will have a positive relation to virtual team customer satisfaction, and 3.The number of teams face-to-face meetings will alter the relationship between team empowerment and process improvement (the fewer face-to-face meetings the stronger the relationship), and 4. The number of teams face-to-face meetings will alter the relationship between team empowerment and customer satisfaction (the fewer face-to-face meetings the stronger the relationship).Their results indicated support for hypotheses one, two, and three, but did not support the fourth hypothesis. The researchers produced a well-designed study with significant, meaningful results that help contribute to the understanding of virtual teams.They operationally defined all of the terms and measures to provide an equal understanding for everyone. It seems that virtual teams have many positive characteristics that are more effective compared to the common face-to-face teams. With the rising technology, virtual teams may become the norm as researchers impact to understand their components and wire them for optimal success. Montoya-Weiss, Massey, and Song (2001) wrote an article on the findings of their research study.They examined the effects of temporal coordination on virtual teams supported by an asynchronous communication technology. They measurable the mechanism process structure to determine the relationship between conflict management behavior and virtual team performance.They measured con flict management individually for each team member through a questionnaire they created. They defined their dependent variable, virtual team performance, as the part of the team rationale used to support the team decision.They examined the range, depth, and organization for each team decision. Lastly, they observed and analyzed all communication among the virtual team. Montoya-Weiss et al. (2001) had vanadium hypotheses total, which were tested through statistical analysis. They predicted that for all conflict management behaviors, a positive interaction would result.