Definition and Overview of Virtual Teams
Technological evolution have brought monumental change on how humans live and work. It is the driving force that pushed the boundaries of human limitations in terms revolutionizing the way people live on a daily basis whether on a personal or professional level. When talking about professional level, it means the practical application of technology in a working environment that creates an impact to the success of an organization. One example of that application is the Virtual Team.
Virtual Team is defined as an organized group of people working as one unit similar to an organizational department such as marketing, accounting or sales. The only difference that sets virtual team apart from the conventional is that the team members are interacting electronically (Gould 1). Another unique characteristics of the virtual team is that its members are not confined within a single location, it varies from the same building to as far as overseas. The best example of virtual teams are the online contracting agencies that employ people regardless of distance. The only bridge that brings the members of the team together are telecommuting or internet connection. Convenience is the key element in the process, the vast existence of telecommunication from mobile phones to broadband internet makes it possible for virtual organization to exist in perfect harmony.
History and Popularity
The history of virtual team cannot be clearly determined because as soon as technology emerged the practice of coordinating work remotely to the members of the team is already being practiced. It was able to gain popularity from a decade ago, from the time internet communication was diversified even further by the fast phased IT development. At first, virtual teams are created when an undergoing project needs to be coordinated from one location to another at one time. Ten years ago, team members in many organizations lacked the cohesive understanding of how virtual teamwork (Naik and Kim 16). Most of the people in the working environment were not fully introduced yet to technology and communication within the team relies only on a face-to-face basis. But the growing demand for off location jobs to be done was driven by the lack of available experts within the immediate community where the business is located.
Since the magnitude of technology's reach is unbound by geographical limitation, virtual teams gained popularity among the many organizations operating on and offshore to communicate with each other because of several benefits. One of the many benefits of virtual team is the ability to communicate project or work related developments in real tine even without an actual face-to-face meeting. This approach allowed several organizations to do business and source out talents without leaving the comfort of their desks, yet still able to manage the business effectively just like what it is in actual office setting. Virtual teams became popular as soon as the introduction of more advanced wireless technology happened back in the late 90s. People have realized that it is possible for one person to share information regarding a project even from great distances as long as the line of communication is always open. The arrival of e-commerce also changed the way people works because electronic commerce basically conducts business through the virtual environment and the need for individuals to support the business are high.
Who uses virtual team?
A lot of organizations and large companies are recognizing the potential of virtual team as a feasible means to manage a task. Price Warehouse for example is among the companies that are using virtual teams to work on their client projects. The company currently has 45,000 employees dispersed in 120 countries around the world and they usually meet together online online for two weeks work on a particular project (Bell and Kozlowski 5). The same thing with the top home appliance company Whirlpool that also uses virtual team to work with experts from Brazil, United States and Italy. The way they use virtual team is by communicating with the experts during their two-year work in developing chlorofluorocarbon-free refrigerator (Bell and Kozlowski 5).
E-commerce websites similar to e-bay and Amazon are also using virtual teams to work for the company. Because of the fact that e-commerce business involves transactions done entirely over the internet and the coverage of the business is relatively wide, some of the people owning the e-commerce websites employ people from varies locations. In order for the e-commerce website to expand business in another country without physically visiting the state is to get people from that country to work for them. The reason that organizations choose to create a virtual team is basically to make a quick response to an issue that may arise along the way of the business operations. If the decision maker found it hard to personally see the situation because of distance, it would be more efficient for them to have a person local in the area of concern to fix the problem for the organization. That way the organization would be able to hit two birds with one stone, ones is to resolve the issue and the other is to save resources which could have been spent for unnecessary efforts to response. What's good about the companies that are using virtual team is that they are working at their own convenience while effectively delivering service.
Virtual team popularity
Virtual teams are imperative to many organizations because of the existence of many technological tools for communication such as instant messaging, internet, intranet, audio/video conference and discussion boards (Loh and Smyth 1). The use of this technology is made it easier to communicate even in great distances. The popularity of virtual team was derived from the idea of convenience and savings value for the organization. The availability of the technological tools did not only make communication easier, but it also allows a more efficient way of coordinating with the rest of the people from even halfway across the world. Virtual team's approach is popular to businesses because of the fact described earlier about communication convenience and savings. Having to operate a business from another location is costly when it comes to building up infrastructure for a new office, equipment as well as management. However, virtual team can also make that happen, but for a fraction of the price.
The rationale behind that is that the company needs not to build up infrastructure. Thi is because what they do is just hire someone local in the area and pay him slightly higher than the usual wage and demand to do all the operational side of the business in the contractor's locality. All interactions are being done online though chat, e-mail, phone or VoIP (voice over IP). With the aid of fast broadband connection and suitable computer hardware to operate the communicating tools, virtual team is becoming even more popular than ever. The high availability of the equipment to use for virtual team communication also contribute to its own popularity. This momental increase in popularity did not only changed the usual working environment, but it has been adopted in many sectors in the society. Virtual team also became popular in the education sector because of the emerging popularity of distant learning (Loh and Smyth 1). This approach in education allowed students to earn college degrees from online classes set up by universities.
Disadvantages of Virtual team
Virtual team may have been a breakthrough in the business sector. It works as a management strategy and alternative to an actual working environment that often seen in a normal organizational department setting. However, like any other strategies it also has its downsides and disadvantages that needs to be pointed out in order to assess its total workability. The importance of understanding the disadvantages of virtual team is to ensure efficiency and success of the business using it, mainly to avoid any further mistakes that may threaten the organization to failure. The first disadvantage that virtual team has is with the issue of communication efficiency. The legitimacy of the person's intentions and actions as opposed to what he might be saying during a remote meeting could not be fully validated in a distant work settings (Exforsys Inc. 1a).
The problem with team members distributed in several locations in great distances such as offshore assignments is monitoring. It becomes difficult because of the fact that certain factors affect the availability of each team member to be contacted. One of which, is timezone when members of the team are from different countries. Getting in touch with one another would mean calculating daylights in order to come up with a convenient time that everyone could spare for a conference. It was mentioned earlier that there could be a problem with the team member's legitimacy of reported accomplishments due to the lack of immediate and actual supervision that virtual team approach cannot provide. The existence of this problem will lead to poor management and effective leadership. In context, it is much easier to manage a team of individuals that are within the reach of plain eyesight. The amount of supervision is much intensified in a virtual team as compared to a normal office setting because the distant factor creates a blind spot on the team manager's view of what the team is actually doing.
Virtual team advantages
The advantages are essentially relevant to building competitiveness. Not only that taking advantage of virtual teams could expand the capability of the organization to as far extending the reach of their operation is concerned. It is also an avenue for the organization to harness the full potential of information technology as a crucial tool for development and organization success. Several businesses that are using virtual teams in their operations have already saved millions of dollars on a yearly basis. The reason behind huge savings on operational expenses is that of the limited infrastructure needed to manage the team. Organizations save rent expenses on office space because having a virtual team ensures higher productivity even with a limited working space (Exforsys Inc. 1b).
(Mihhailova 5)
Statistics show that managers and owners does not prefer to let their employees to have the freedom to choose their own time and work location based on the above graph. The graph indicates that the response to select own time and workplace by the employee is always no. However, because of the efficiency and phenomenal growth of productivity that virtual team delivers, employers are now undermining the workplace and schedule rules to allow productivity to happen. Choosing to work at home and communicate electronically is most likely preferred by most employees because of the lesser stress they experience when working at home rather than in the office (Mihhailova 5). The table below also shows the communication channel and satisfaction level that employees provide when using alternative platform.
The table indicates that using e-mail and telephone conference delivers the same satisfaction rate as seeing the team members eye-to-eye. This explains why virtual team is much preferred by both organization leaders and team members. It is because they did not only saved money during the operation, but they have also allowed their team to experience stress free working condition while increasing productivity.
(Mihhailova 6)
Works Cited
Bell, Bradford S., and Steve W. Kozlowski. "A Typology of Virtual Teams: Implications for Effective Leadership." Faculty Publications - Human Resource Studies 1.1 (2002): 6. Print.
Exforsys Inc. "Virtual Team Benefits." Exforsys Inc.. exforsys.com, 3 May 2009. Web. 14 June 2012.
Exforsys Inc. "Virtual Team Disadvantages." Exforsys Inc.. exforsys.com, 4 May 2009. Web. 14 June 2012.
Gould, David. "Virtual Teams." Fifth Generation Work - Virtual Organization. seanet.com, 5 June 2006. Web. 14 June 2012.
Loh, Jennifer, and Robyn Smyth. "Understanding Students’ Online Learning Experiences in Virtual Teams." Journal of Online learning and Teaching. http://jolt.merlot.org, 2 June 2010. Web. 14 June 2012.
Mihhailova, Gerda. "Virtual teams – just a theoretical concept or a widely used practice?." Munich Personal RePEc Archive 1.1 (2007): 5. Print.
Naik, Ninad, and Dan Kim. "An Extended Adaptive Structuration Theory Framework for Determinants of Virtual Team Success." Working Papers on Information Systems 1.1 (2010): 16. Print.
