Global Virtual Team Members Research Articles

Impact of the Timing of Entry and Team Diversity on Global Virtual Team Members’ Contributions

Impact of the Timing of Entry and Team Diversity on Global Virtual Team Members’ Contributions

Cultural Intelligence and Trust in Global Virtual Teams

A lack of cultural intelligence (CQ) creates a lack of trust in global virtual teams (GVTs). Study findings examine how leaders demonstrate CQ, trust in GVTs, and provide strategies for organizations. This qualitative single-case study explores how leaders of US-based GVTs in the financial industry demonstrate CQ and trust and strategies to develop trust. This study applies the social interaction theory, uncovering group identity and behaviors. Participants included GVT members and leaders having at least 1 year of experience on a GVT. The emerging themes were demonstrating CQ, demonstrating trust, and strategies to build trust.

Cultural code-switching in high context global virtual team members: A qualitative study

Global virtual teams (GVTs) are a prevalent work structure that enable people to accomplish tasks across time, space, and cultural boundaries and perform cross-culturally. However, few studies have highlighted what exact behaviors enable GVTs to share knowledge effectively. Based on a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with 22 respondents from various multinational corporations (MNCs) in Malaysia, we answer the following overarching research question: Why do high context members switch their communicative behaviors amongst foreign team members within global virtual teams? Our study provides detailed narratives of high-context team members becoming the behavioral “switchers” to collaborate and share knowledge with their foreign team members effectively. Our study defines and clarifies the concept of cross-cultural code-switching as a key behavior reflecting effective cross-cultural performance when accommodating foreign team members’ communicative behaviours by adopting (1) directness in speech, (2) openness during knowledge sharing, and (3) task-oriented aims. This study addresses several gaps in the field of cross-cultural management by extending Hall’s (1976) theoretical lens on high-context and low-context cultures, Molinsky’s (2007) cross-cultural code-switching concept in the context of the virtual work structure, and the criterion space surrounding cross cultural performance.

Reconceptualizing Extremes in Global Virtual Teams and Their Effect on Performance

In global virtual teams (GVTs), members need to navigate across various types of differences to achieve common goals, whereby cultural, language and organization-related distances have been at the center of attention of extant literature. Research has largely neglected to focus on the dispersion of cognitive ability among members and time zone differences. We integrate insight from social comparison theory and the choice effect to better understand how members of GVTs reconceptualize these differences in their efforts to achieve team performance. To test our hypotheses, we employed Hierarchical Linear Regression on 173 GVTs from the x-culture project. Our analysis reveals that the individual with the highest cognitive ability drives the performance of the team, while the team member with the farthest geographical positioning from the center of instruction depicts an impediment to team performance. Thereby, both the cultural diversity within the team as well as the dispersion of time zone differences among team members influence these relationships.

Conflict in Virtual Teams & Necessity of Cultural Intelligence for Effective Performance

Applying an Input-Processes-Output model of team processes, we view cultural intelligence as an input variable to global virtual teams, which could help reduce one procedural aspect of team dynamics – frequency of conflicts– and consequently influence the team outcome performance. Utilizing data from a sample of 1592 global virtual teams (consisting of 7029 individuals) we tested for the effects of cultural intelligence on conflict frequency by type and team performance at both the individual and team level. Results showed that cultural intelligence exerts its effect on both individual process performance (e.g., team member satisfaction with the project) and team outcome performance (e.g., grade of the final team report) indirectly via reduction of team conflict frequency. The effects of conflict on outcome performance were differential depending on the type of conflict, which corresponds with previous literature findings. Overall, the study suggests that educators and practitioners can utilize and develop the cultural intelligence of global virtual team members to decrease negative conflict frequency and ultimately increase global virtual team performance. The study contributes to research on cultural intelligence and conflict within the context of global virtual teams.

Should I accommodate you Cross-cultural code-switching behaviours of global virtual team members during swift trust formation

Should I accommodate you Cross-cultural code-switching behaviours of global virtual team members during swift trust formation

Should I accommodate you Cross-cultural code-switching behaviours of global virtual team members during swift trust formation

Should I accommodate you Cross-cultural code-switching behaviours of global virtual team members during swift trust formation

Cultural Intelligence and Employee Engagement in Global Virtual Teams

The extant literature has been elaborate on multiple conceptualizations of employee engagement. However, there is dearth of literature which addresses employee engagement in varied organizational contexts, one such being the context of global virtual teams (GVTs). The practitioner literature reports reduced levels of employee engagement in members of GVTs. Furthermore, it has been proposed in scholarly literature that the drivers of employee engagement might change in the context of GVTs. One such significant driver influencing employee engagement in GVTs was found to be ‘cultural intelligence’ of the GVT members. In this study, we intend to study the influence of cultural intelligence on employee engagement by testing the relationship at GVT member level and team level. The research site for this study was a global engineering, and digital technology solutions company, Cyient Ltd., headquartered in Hyderabad, India. Cyient uses GVTs to organize its work and at the time of study it had around 1500 GVTs functioning in diverse geographic locations. Data for this study was collected through a survey across Communications Business Unit of Cyient. The survey was administered to 3500 employees across several locations of which we received 827 valid responses from across 102 teams. In this study, it was found that the levels of trust in a team (both at individual and team level) partially mediated the relationship between cultural intelligence and employee engagement. It meant that apart from cultural intelligence other factors might also be effecting employee engagement in GVTs both at individual and team levels. This study empirically evaluates the relationship between cultural intelligence and employee engagement both at GVT member and GVT levels using a multilevel modeling technique.

A critical success factors for software project manager in GVTs within covid-19 pandemic

The covid-19 pandemic sweeping the world and has rendered a large proportion of the workforce as they are unable to commute to work. This has resulted in employees and employers seeking alternative work arrangements, including the software industry. Then comes the need for the global market and international presence of many companies to implement the global virtual teams (GVTs). GVTs members are gradually engaged in globalized business environments across space, time and organizational boundaries via information and communication technologies. Despite the advancement of technology, the project managers are still facing many challenges in communication. Hense, to become a successful project manager still a big challenge for them. This study is trying to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for software project manager. A literature review was conducted to identify the CSFs. Next, an online survry was conducted to rank those factors according to their propriety. An online survey was distributed among the software developers, project managers, and academicans. The statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 22 was used to analyze the data collection. Twelfth CSFs were identified in this study. Also, the findings indicated that leadership skills factor is the highest factor level ranking in this study.

Team Dynamics and Performance in Virtual Teams During COVID-19: Does Leadership Structure Matter?

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people interact with each other, especially in the workplace and business settings. Based on a sample of 1,224 self-managed global virtual teams (GVTs) consisting of 4,096 members, we found that compared to the pre-pandemic time, during the pandemic, GVT members experienced decreased team conflict, leading to increased team members’ satisfaction and improved team performance. We also found support for the interaction effect between team leadership structure and pandemic condition, such that shared leadership was beneficial before the pandemic but not during. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.

Global virtual teams in education: Do peer assessments motivate student effort?

During the last decade, global virtual teams have become increasingly common in academic and work settings. Considering the recent global pandemic, now they seem to be more the rule than an exception. Drawing on expectancy theory and using a latent growth model approach, this paper investigates the relationship between peer assessments and student individual effort to complete a given task. The analysis of these two variables as parallel processes indicates that the more abrupt the decrease in peer assessments, the steeper the positive rate of change in effort in the context of global virtual teams. This longitudinal study suggests that peer assessments are a useful and effective means to boost global virtual team members’ individual effort. The paper concludes with implications and recommendations for researchers, managers and educators who use global virtual teams in education and practice.

When technological savviness overcomes cultural differences: millennials in global virtual teams

PurposeThere is a generalized belief that cultural differences can have more negative consequences than benefits within the international business (IB) literature. This study argues that cultural differences are not perceived as constrains in millennial global virtual teams (GVTs). Additionally, using the theory of cooperation and competition and the motivated information processing perspective, the purpose of this paper is to uncover the process by which millennials working in GVTs address various challenges to ensure effective functioning and accomplishment of desired team outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyzes a data set of 503 project journals from the global enterprise experience, a virtual team competition. It uses qualitative content analysis tools and secondary data sources.FindingsThe authors find that for millennials, cross-cultural issues are not the predominant challenge when working in GVTs, unlike the prevailing understanding in the IB literature. This is because contrary to expectations, cross-cultural problems are often not experienced, while other team phenomena become more relevant, such as interpersonal and task-based issues. In addition, the paper describes how members of GVTs apply distinct challenge reconstruction and solution generation cognitive schemes to deal with both, expected and unexpected challenges.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on virtual teams by identifying how millennials and post-millennials deal with the challenges embedded in the GVT interaction context by simplifying the unfamiliarity associated with the broader context rather than addressing each issue in isolation. Finally, the paper elaborates on factors that highlight the positive outcomes of multicultural teams while making cultural differences less salient in contemporary GVT contexts.

Work and non-work identities in global virtual teams

PurposeIncreasing digitization has transformed ways of work in modern age. Organizations are increasingly relying on global virtual teams (GVTs) as new forms of working. However, the challenges of configuration of GVTs have been reported to reduce the levels of employee engagement, especially so in multicultural GVTs. Extant research indicates cultural intelligence as one of the drivers of employee engagement in GVTs, though the nature of this relationship has remained unclear. As there is scarce literature on the nature of this relationship, the purpose of this paper is to examine the linkages between cultural intelligence and employee engagement and the authors explain the findings using the identity lens.Design/methodology/approachThis study is an ethnographic inquiry to understand the nature of the relationship between cultural intelligence and employee engagement.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that the inclusionary pressures of non-work identities (national culture) are high in context of GVTs owing to their configuration. However, preferences (alignment or misalignment) of team members either initiate gain cycles or loss cycles, thus effecting the levels of employee engagement. Further, it was found that individual preferences may dynamically change from misalignment toward alignment with improved levels of cultural intelligence among team members of GVTs. The relationship between cultural intelligence and employee engagement has been found to be mediated by trust among team members in GVTs.Originality/valueThis is one of the first papers to understand the dynamics of this relationship in an organizational GVT context. The authors also propose a unique framework combining cultural intelligence, trust and employee engagement in the context of GVTs.

Establishing a Three-Dimension Model of Metadiscourse Taxonomy Based on Global Virtual Team’s Internal Communication

As COVID-19 epidemic is rampant over the globe, a large amount of enterprises turn to the virtual team to sustain business operations. Among them, international enterprises’ business communication and management rely on global virtual teams (GVT) whose members are in different time zones and locations, with different nationalities, cultures and languages, who communicate, manage and operate through the Internet. Based on video conferences of a multinational IT company’s GVT, this study explores how GVT members use metadiscourse strategies to bridge cultural differences, business English as lingua franca (BELF) proficiency gap and unstable internet traffic to achieve effective communication. The findings suggest that 1) metadiscourse use of GVT can be divided into three dimensions: relational metadiscourse, textual metadiscourse and BELF-facilitating metadiscourse; 2) to bridge cultural differences, relational metadiscourses that realize the function of “negotiating status distance” and “clarifying speaker’s standpoint” help moderate divide in cultural perceptions towards power distance and face management; 3) to cope with BELF proficiency gap, BELF-facilitating metadiscourses of “repetition”, “self repair” and “co-construction of meaning” are the most commonly used and realize the function of enhancing intelligibility of BELF speakers’ utterance; 4) in response to the Internet-mediated communication barriers, textual metadiscourses of “turn-manipulator” manipulate the number and length of speech turn to ensure the coherence and accuracy of information transmission.

Foreign language skill, anxiety, cultural intelligence and individual task performance in global virtual teams: A cognitive perspective

Global virtual teams (GVTs) operate in a globally dispersed work environment, principally relying on communication and information technologies to achieve work tasks. In this work context, using language effectively is crucial. We utilize the cognitive perspective to explain how foreign language use in a GVT influences individual task performance. This study employs (a) cognitive neuroscience of foreign language processing perspective to explain the relationship between foreign language skills and individual task performance; (b) the theory of cognitive load to explain foreign language anxiety as a pathway that further explains how low-level foreign language skill negatively influences individual task performance; and (c) the theory of intelligence to examine the conditional role of cultural intelligence in the mediation process. Utilizing 294 data pairs (collected from GVT members and their respective supervisors) in a multinational offshoring firm, we found support for the mediation process and the conditional influence of the dimensions of cultural intelligence in reducing the negative effect of foreign language anxiety on individual task performance in GVT.

Global virtual team communication, coordination, and performance across three peer feedback strategies.

Global virtual teams (GVTs) are faced with numerous communication and coordination difficulties. This study examined whether peer feedback, implemented via a quasi-experiment, strengthened linkages between GVT communication, coordination, and performance. Drawing upon self-regulation as a critical mechanism underlying team effectiveness, we proposed a model in which the indirect relation between communication and performance, mediated by process coordination, would be stronger as peer feedback intensity increased. The effects of 3 feedback strategies were investigated: (a) feedback given and received only at project completion, (b) feedback given weekly, but not distributed until project completion, and (c) feedback given and received weekly. We examined this model using a large sample of GVTs (n = 1,839 teams; n = 13,224 individuals) and multilevel, multisource data. Results supported a stronger indirect effect between communication frequency and performance, via process coordination, when GVT members gave and received weekly feedback. These findings suggest GVTs should use structured peer feedback systems that allows giving and receiving regular feedback. Further implications for research and practice are considered.

Drivers of Employee Engagement in Global Virtual Teams

Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) comprise geographically distributed groups of people collaborating with each other through technology-mediated communication. Members of GVTs are from different cultural backgrounds and time zones, who may (or may not) meet in person to take complex decisions or to deliver on the tasks that are of strategic importance. Though technology has enabled GVTs in almost all multinational organisations across all industries, keeping the members of GVTs engaged over the duration of the team's task or project could still pose a challenge for organisations. Employee engagement is defined as an employee's cognitive, behavioural and physical state directed towards organisational outcomes. While employee engagement has been researched in a collocated team context, it remains an under-researched area in the context of GVTs. Given that there are several characteristics of GVTs which are distinct from the collocated team, it warrants a separate inquiry, which we undertake in this study. This study uses the Job Demands-Resources theory of employee engagement to derive the drivers of employee engagement in GVTs. Through interpretive analysis of the lived experiences of members working in an organisation which extensively uses GVTs for achieving its strategic goals, we conceptualise five drivers of employee engagement, namely, cultural intelligence, communication (formal and informal), technology, trust and individual maturity.

Crossing Cultural Boundaries Using the Internet: Toward Building a Model of Swift Trust Formation in Global Virtual Teams

This study employs a qualitative research method to advance understanding of the process of swift trust formation in global virtual teams (GVTs), which rely heavily on the Internet for virtual collaboration. We explore two key research questions: 1) What is the process of swift trust formation in GVTs? 2) How do GVTs develop swift trust behaviors during virtual collaboration? Over a period of two years (2014–2016), we interviewed 57 individuals from 16 countries. The interviewees had been GVT members in an international experiential learning project, and our aim was to explore their in-depth experiences of teamwork dynamics and swift trust formation. Our key contributions to the international management literature are 1) the development of a descriptive model of global virtual collaboration that explains the cyclical process of swift trust formation and 2) the formulations of prescriptions for promoting high-trust behaviors in GVTs. In the conclusion, this study reviews the theoretical and practical implications of understanding swift trust behaviors in the GVT context in order for firms to achieve business excellence and management effectiveness internationally.

Absorptive capacity in virtual teams: examining the influence on diversity and innovation

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to empirically extend and validate a measure of absorptive capacity (ACAP) and examine its role in leveraging the benefits of diversity on innovation within global virtual teams (GVTs). This study validates a multidimensional measure of ACAP for use within the GVT. GVTs are increasingly utilized in industry given their ability to bring together diverse knowledge and experience from geographically dispersed individuals.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses of this research were tested using a field survey to collect real world knowledge about GVTs. The survey method is a research technique in which data is collected from a sample of individuals using a questionnaire.FindingsUsing a sample of GVT members, the authors find that ACAP significantly mediates the relationships between diversity (deep-level diversity, functional-level) and innovation.Practical implicationsThe implications for the study of GVTs is discussed and recommendations are offered. GVTs, as investigated in this study, include members that use electronic media for some or all of their interactions and collaboration with other team members.Originality/valueThis study validates and operationalizes the multi-dimensional ACAP construct at the GVT level: its relationship with diversity and its influence on GVT innovation.

An employee-focused human resource management perspective for the management of global virtual teams

The number of global virtual teams (GVTs) has increased in recent years due to globalization of business, improved information and communication technology, and higher innovation needs. Practitioners expect GVTs to be creative, innovative, and high-performing. However, GVT members suffer from interpersonal problems, stress, and misunderstandings based on cultural differences. It is therefore important that the HRM function intervenes in the functioning of GVTs. HRM and GVT research has mostly focused on instrumental practices to improve performance, but globalization and the dynamic business environment require international organizations to adopt new HRM perspectives. To advance research on GVTs and HRM, we draw on the job demands-resources model and research on quality of work life to introduce an employee-focused HRM perspective for the management of GVTs. This new perspective focuses explicitly on improving employee wellbeing in GVTs. We develop a novel theoretical framework that provides HR practitioners and leaders with several employee-focused management tools such as flexible work practices, international training and development opportunities, and fair pay and procedures. These tools are likely to help GVT members to cope with job demands and to improve their wellbeing, and are particularly useful for GVTs due to their interpersonal problems, stressful environment, and cultural differences.