A guide to global virtual teaming

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this article is to share with readers details of this consortium's multicultural virtual teaming project implementation and the lessons learned from experiences of the participating students and professors. Design/methodology/approach -To establish a preliminary relationship, virtual student teams exchange e-mail messages with team mates at participating universities that provide introductions for each member of the team. Each team member uses these individual introductions to write a brief paper that introduces all team mates. Next, the students virtually interview one another to obtain answers to culture-specific questions for each culture that is represented on the team. In some courses, this information is analysed using Hofstede's four dimensions of culture: power distance, individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity versus femininity. Findings -Based on participants' experiences in these virtual teaming projects, the following recommendations are presented: emphasise relationship building; solicit widespread input for planning; and balance individual control with shared objectives. Originality/value -These cultural virtual teaming projects proved to be valuable learning experiences for both the students and faculty who were involved.

Culture and the processes of virtual teaming for training

“…2005), flexibility of access and ease of use (King & Moreggi 2007), highly specific interaction (Dowling 2005), more enjoyable learning (Fong 2005), better adaptation (Alamaki & Makinen 2005), provision of a less threatening environment for individuals with special traits (such as shyness, low self‐confidence, etc) (Lewis et al . 2005; Panteli & Fineman 2005), improvement of cultural understanding (Gatlin‐Watts et al . 2007), and cost and time saving (Bal & Gundry 1999).…”

“…Cultural differences are among some of the most important factors that should be taken account of when developing virtual teams (e.g. Cinnirella & Green 2007; Gatlin‐Watts et al . 2007; Haythornthwaite & Nielsen 2007; Murphy & Scharl 2007).…”

“…The use of communication technologies may result in various behaviours (Leah 2006; Penz 2007; Roy & Siva Kumar 2007). Individualist societies appear to be more accepting of digital activities than collectivist ones (Gush 1999; Lahenius & Järvenpää 2004; Gatlin‐Watts et al . 2007).…”

“…Kirkman et al . 2002; Allan & Lewis 2006; Gatlin‐Watts et al . 2007) have claimed that collaboration takes a particular form in VTT.…”

“…CMC encompasses networked computing systems such as electronic mail, interactive messaging, bulletin boards, discussion groups and list servers, as well as conferencing (Gush 1999). CMC assists people, who traditionally would not be able to do so, to work in teams (Gatlin-Watts et al 2007). This could influence organizations worldwide to move generally more and more to networking through CMC (Montoya-Weiss et al 2001).…”