Can We Count on You at a Distance? The Impact of Culture on Formation of Swift Trust Within Global Virtual Teams

Explanations for cultural differences in thinking: Easterners’ dialectical thinking and Westerners’ linear thinking

“…In support of this, Gallois, Ogay, and Giles (2005) Based on such theorizing, Gudykunst (1991) further questioned the contextual condition that exists when one communicates with a stranger from a different cultural group-whether or not the individual is able to employ a communication style that is suited to a rich or weak contextual environment? Zakaria and Yusof (2014;in press) asserted that at the inception stage of multicultural collaboration, when communication is challenged, it is difficult for high context people to develop swift trust in strangers. A high-context communication style is reliant on a shared understanding that is based on an established relationship between two people who interpret meanings effectively.…”

The Effect of Ethnicity on Collectivist Families’ Meal Social Interaction Behaviour in Sierra Leone.

“…Another useful analysis of culture in several academic discussions is the one developed by Hofstede (2001); and Zakaria (2014), who suggested an "onion" model to describe the different layers and features of culture, proclaiming that culture in itself is a difficult topic to research due to its lack of measureability both objectively and subjectively as it is difficult to unravel what is embedded in human behaviours, whether overt or tacit. The model illustrates the different layers of culture, with the degree of complexity increasing as one move from the outer layer to the core of the inner layer.…”

An Analysis of Virtual Team Characteristics: A Model for Virtual Project Managers

“…Similarly, the 'creation/management level' provides detailed support for what may be termed 'team processes' and 'virtual environmental' factors. Zakaria and Yusof, (2015) outline the need for favorable interaction opportunities in virtual teaming, virtual team visibility, support for different work modes (including the mixing of face-to-face and virtual team meetings (Maznevski and Chudoba, 2000;Zigurs, 2003;Rezgui, 2007), and the provision of an integrated service environment for the operation of the virtual team, including the avoidance of 'intercultural miscommunication' (Shachaf, 2008). Team empowerment and team-based reward systems (Kirkman et al, 2004;Bryant et al, 2009) are also…”

“…The model widely supports the tenets proposed by Johnson et al (2001) on this subject: self-discipline of virtual team members, individual accountability for results, a focus on team participation skills, and issues of trust. In particular, virtual team trust (Schiller et al, 2014;Germain and McGuire, 2014;Fan et al, 2011) is tackled in the 'creation/management level' of the model, as too is the issue of instilling all members of a virtual team with a sense of cultural awareness (Zakaria and Yusof, 2015). Managing virtual teams is also not neglected (Lee-Kelley, 2006;Greenberg et al, 2007;Lee, 2009): tools for tackling personality characteristics and psychological profiling of team members, building teams with appropriate skills, and management's role in team creation are addressed in the 'organizational level' segment, and the 'creation/ management level' segment of the virtual team model.…”