Global Virtual Team Leadership Scale (GVTLS) Development in Multinational Companies

Abstract

As a result of developments in technology, globalization and digitalization, virtual teams have become indispensable for many industries. Transformations in information and communication technology have provided new opportunities for businesses to create and manage virtual teams. Today, all organizations have had to introduce new methods of communication and have started to continue their conversations through digital platforms. It has become inevitable for teams to form in such virtual environments. Virtual team members are made up of individuals from different genders, experiences, cultures and geographic locations. While there are leaders in virtual teams as in face-to-face environments, this type of leadership performs its function through information and communication technologies, unlike traditional types. Although there are many studies on face-to-face leadership in academic studies and despite the increasing use of digital platforms, it is observed that there is a need for studies on leadership styles in virtual organizations. The main purpose of this study is to create a scale about leadership characteristics in virtual teams. With the present study, it is aimed to develop a valid and reliable scale in order to discover and analyze the virtual team leadership characteristics of individuals within the multinational companies. During the scale development process, literature review, focus group interviews and statistical analysis were used to create the items to be included in the scale. First of all, focus group discussions were conducted by examining the scale developments on the leadership phenomenon. A total of three focus group interviews were held; expert opinions were used to ensure the content validity of the results, and a draft scale with 29 items was created as a result.

Global virtual teams management system: project manager guide

“…Global virtual teams (GVTs) cut across the borders of time, space, culture, and sometimes organizations [1]. Technological developments and global mobility have resulted in increase of the scope of teams outside the traditional collocated forms [2], [3] towards geographically dispersed and global forms of teams working virtually and connected through information and communication technology (ICT) such as zoom, google meet, skype, Microsoft teams, GitHup, and even messages and email usually known as the global virtual teams (GVTs) [4], [5].…”

Modeling the factors determining a virtual team’s decision-making

“…87% of the time, teams that are diverse in age and location make better business decisions. Decision-making in VT is an important component of its performance (Batırlık, Gencer & Akkucuk, 2022). The Middle East, especially UAE, is no exception to these changes, as 80% of the companies shifted to VTs (Meluso et al, 2021).…”

“…Despite these changes, the fundamental concept of virtual organizations remains the same: they are groups of individuals and companies that collaborate using technology, often without a physical office or centralized location. As technology continues to evolve and the nature of work continues to change, the definition of virtual organizations can be expected to continue evolving as well (Batırlık et al, 2022;Laudon, 2021;Plotnick et al, 2016) In response to the growing need to access talent on demand, many organizations have searched for outsourcing workers who offer complementary skills, flexible schedules, and locations. The dispersion of teams has made it challenging for organizations to manage teams from different locations and cultures (Panteli, Yalabik & Rapti, 2019).…”

“…In addition to the technological and organizational aspects, the definition of virtual teams has also evolved to include considerations of the social and cultural dimensions of virtual work (Batırlık et al, 2022;Bhat et al, 2017;Presbitero, 2019).…”

“…Cultural intelligence, conflict (task and relationship), transformational leadership, trust, ICT, information sharing, and language are factors that received the greatest attention and citations by several authors, as shown in Table 2.1. Flavián et al, 2022;Majzoub, 2019;Zhang, 2022) Cultural intelligence (Batırlık et al, 2022;Hiran & Henten, 2020;Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020;Shaik et al, 2019) Transformational leadership Han & Hazard, 2022;Kanthawongs, 2022;Panteli et al, 2019) (Task & relationship) conflict (Klonek et al, 2022;Morrison-Smith & Ruiz, 2020;Wang, Wang, & Chang, 2019;Wu & Abdul-Nour, 2020) Table 2.1 summarizes the factors studied by the author. These factors will be discussed further in detail.…”