The article describes case studies which show high productivity of teams working remotely in different locations as opposed to those that work in one location closely together. This is dependent on a strong team leader who from a distance takes on and implements the managerial tasks of the team. But not all projects and work places can be carried out without face to face discussions between team members.
Core position of the author
Majchrzak et al, (2004) favors the idea of teams that are far flung to be more productive than face to face working environments but on condition that they are given correct management. With examples of dating back to the cold war, the author lays an extensive benchmark in case studies of virtual teams that have become successful from their revelation on how they turned into such competitive advantage the negative effects of diversity and distance.
Merits of Virtual Teams
The excellence of team culture results in dependable teams and consistence in the work by opinions being voiced openly, innovation, and creativity demonstration that sees job conclusion in time. Different specialists are needed to work on projects with requirements that may be diverse in nature and technicality. Personnel best qualified for the job cannot be sourced from one location only. But rather, they are scattered in different companies and institutions across the globe. Remarkably the study reveals that there is no necessity of bringing together the team members to achieve their best results in fact the separation and virtual collaboration increases productivity.
The virtual teams examined by Majchrzak et al, (2004) lacked the practical and psychological obstacles that are a torn to the traditional face to face teams. Contrary to their counterparts, virtual team members feel free to give contribution even outside the established boundaries of their expertise. Since there is no time wasted in assembling or coming together makes the projects move faster, as team members need not wait for meetings before making decisions, and individuals work their own office at their comfort with full access to personal information their files which can be complemented by knowledge of the local colleagues at their place of work.
Demerits of Virtual Teams
Differences cannot be effectively ironed out in teleconferences, and the team leaders cannot manage the problem of fostering group identity or solidarity when members interact but only virtually. Furthermore the community is not all that highly cerebral specialized as is generalized in this study and this gives birth to the question about the sample being a true representative of the population. If I was to take an unscientific sample of my own, then the conclusion would be that upfront meetings result in establishment of connections that greatly improve production in subsequent virtual engagements which could be missed since it is the mental picture we create that goes all the way in determining our successes and or failures (Hause, 2003).
As a globe we enjoy a varied and vast traditional and cross cultural difference that plays part in our work places and way of life which if not taken into account can easily slip over to our places of work with negative results. For example in a Nordic country where there is the highest and wild use of internet and mobile phones globally is reasoned that the population prefers to not to work face to face but rather remotely. Think of other African cultures where the reverse is true and people prefer a personal touch and handshake engagement to the virtual. The diverse technology reviewed by the article are used to a larger extend to facilitate best the virtual teams and not their counterparts.
Major Implications for application to organizations
To reap all those advantages aforementioned demands shrewd management of the virtual teams’ social dynamics and work procedures. This makes one to rely on videoconferencing and or e-mail that are almost exclusionary, thus virtual teams to be successful incur extra costs by the extensive use of sophisticated online rooms for their teams, where members can easily talk about and see work progress, reminded of decisions and commitments which is what often happens in face to face work environments. Besides the financial cost, preliminary research on the team’s ability to adopt virtual engagements without affecting the efficiency and productivity should be done in order to prevent adverse and negative results in work environment. Academic environment especially the practical part need performed face to face in order for one to get the concept thus not all projects can adopt working remotely as is the case (Kerr, 2004)
Conclusion
In the global arena today teamwork is most essential for competition, where a high level of teamwork or collective performance is desired as opposed to personal or individual perfection. It is increasingly becoming vital that teams work and function productively under minimum supervision. Team culture calls for participation of individual members in the demonstration of their best abilities and talent to synergistically function to achieve the common goals as a unit.