Developing Strategies for Success in a Cross-Disciplinary Global Virtual Team Project: Collaboration Among Student Writers and Translators

Abstract

This article reports on a qualitative study of strategies and competencies used by technical communication and translation students to address challenges inherent in global virtual team collaboration. The study involved students from three universities collaborating in virtual teams to write and translate instructional documents. Qualitative content analysis of students' reflective blogs and team transcripts was used to examine their experiences while collaborating. Students faced challenges related to communication, leadership, and technology, and developed various strategies to address those challenges. Although the students did not face cultural challenges, they reported increased awareness of cultural issues. Students also reported that the project helped them better understand the workplace and define career goals.

International Online Collaboration Competencies in Higher Education Students: A Systematic Review

“…Despite the technological sophistication of many students, studies show they are not prepared for online collaboration, because the aspects of virtuality and internationality add additional challenges to collaborating, for example, in communication, technology use, leadership, project management, and cultural diversity (Cleary et al, 2019; Robey et al, 2000). There is, thus, a need to train IOCCs for effectively working in international VTs (Ford et al, 2017; Wang & Haggerty, 2011).…”

“…This study analyses studies reporting competencies involved in IOC. Research on this topic is fragmented, as most studies focus on specific moderators involved in IOC such as knowledge sharing and trust (Alsharo et al, 2017), communication strategies, trust formation, leadership, technology selection and use, and culture (Cleary et al, 2019; Robey et al, 2000). Few studies cover a broad enough set of IOCCs.…”

Student innovation capability in virtual team projects: lessons learnt from COVID-19 pandemic era

“…Despite the importance of virtual teamwork projects in innovation activities, the empirical studies on student innovation capability and propensity to innovate in a virtual environment are largely unexplored. Virtual team project literature largely focuses on cultural intelligence, success in the global environment, team performance and fuzzy front-end of innovation in virtual teams (Cleary et al , 2019; Dibble et al , 2019; Gressgård, 2011; Chamakiotis et al , 2020). For instance, Cleary et al (2019) showed that the missing link between strategies for success in a global virtual team project among students includes leadership, communication and technology.…”

Nonverbal Component Of Engineer’s Communicative Competence

“…One of the most remarkable trends has been the coming of era Industry 4.0, characterized by the rise of complex interactive and integrated manufacturing systems (Roblek, Meško, & Krapež, 2016;Tareva & Tarev, 2018). This interconnectedness is creating new opportunities for cross-industry relationships and entails collaborative engineering practices (Cleary, Slattery, Flammia, & Minacori, 2018;Jeyaraj, 2017). The idea behind the collaborative nature of gaining knowledge is that it is "never a solitary act but a community affair" (Rifkin, 2013, p. 247).…”