Towards an Integrated Approach for Leading and Managing Transcultural Virtual Teams

Abstract

Many industries have observed the rise of Virtual Teams (VTs) as highly productive team structures taking advantage of members scattered around the globe while being able to accomplish assigned tasks by communicating through internet based technologies. Nonetheless, the looked-for achievable gains of VTs working heavily rest on meeting the requirements prescribed by the antecedents and critical success factors associated with specific idiosyncrasies of VTs such as the multiculturalism dominating their working environment. In this regard, it is widely recognized that when it comes to adopting VTs, the managerial/leadership matters are among the main challenges facing organisations. The major parts of foregoing issues are stemmed from the limitations of mediums of communications exacerbated by cultural diversity and disparity of members. This chapter first aims at critically analysing the different approaches of managing and leading virtual teams and ascertaining the main influential variables. This is followed by presenting a management/leadership model for VTs based on a dynamic integrated approach, thus labelled, ‘Leading and Managing Virtual Teams’ (LeManViT).