Virtual team

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In international companies, there is a development towards virtual teams that work together across regional, national and cultural borders and time zones. The term virtual working group is a synonym for virtual team, especially in earlier literature. The term virtual is badly chosen, as Zaccaro and Bader explain, because it suggests that it is an unreal and artificial structure. Lipnack and Stamps already had the same idea in 1998. In order to avoid the ambivalent term “virtual” in German - it suggests that these teams are artificial, unreal and not “real” teams - other terms are often used, e.g. B. distributed or across locations.

With the spread of computer-controlled work processes in profit and non-profit organizations and with the advent of the Internet in production and administrative processes, the term virtual working group or virtual team has been appearing more and more since the 1990s.

In a contribution by Utz (2000), virtual working groups are described as teams whose members are made up of different and spatially separated companies and organizations. The characteristic element of virtual working groups is the predominantly media-mediated communication . In the early days of virtual collaboration, they can mainly be found in research and development.

Bergmann and Niederholtmeyer (2003) expanded the term to include any working group within one or more organizations, not only in the profit, but also in the non-profit area.

The virtual team as an organizational form

Virtual teams are a form of organization whose members

  • Temporary, occasionally also permanently
  • with common goals
  • in different places and possibly at different times
  • collaborate across regional, national or company boundaries and
  • communicate predominantly through the media

A “virtual team” can be the right form of work for many problems that require supraregional, international or cross-organizational cooperation.

According to Hertel / Konradt, virtual teams only differ slightly from co-present teams. Concepts that are used for conventional teams can also be transferred to virtual teams. Studies show, however, that teams that are distributed across different locations require a different weighting of individual team processes. Hertel developed the VIST model to identify specific motivational factors influencing team processes in virtual teams. The background to this is the assumption that motivation in virtual teams plays a key role in successful collaboration and increases both individual and group performance. In addition, motivation increases job satisfaction .

The VIST model, which is to be understood as a theoretical framework model, represents V alence - I nstrumentality - S elf-efficacy - T rust:

  • Valence : Subjective meaning of group goals
  • Instrumentality : Assessment of one's own contribution to the achievement of the group goal
  • Self-efficacy ( self-efficacy to make assessment of their own abilities and the abilities of the team, the necessary contribution to the achievement of the target group:)
  • Trust : expected security with which the service also leads to success (interpersonal trust, system-related trust)

When applying the model empirically, it can be assumed that the individual factors act independently of one another. In order to achieve the optimal motivation, all factors must be highly developed. Even if Hertel and colleagues have not yet been able to provide sufficient empirical evidence for the validity of the overall model, previous studies confirm the validity of the individual factors. A high level of instrumentality leads to an increase in performance in terms of quality and quantity within virtual teams.

In research, the question arose whether the instrumentality component is increased when management strengthens interdependence in the team. A distinction is made between three interdependencies:

  • Task interdependence means that team members are dependent on each other to carry out a task.
  • Goal interdependence means the mutual dependence of the team members with regard to their interests.
  • Result interdependence describes the team members' dependency on recognition for group work.

In theory, the three forms of interdependence are independent of each other and only slightly correlate with each other. It is assumed that the effectiveness of virtual teams is promoted if the interdependencies are high.

A field study by Hertel, Konradt and Orlikowski (2004) was able to confirm these assumptions to the greatest possible extent: A high degree of interdependence in the team leads to a higher perception of the instrumentality of one's own contributions. Task, goal and result interdependence have a positive relationship with the effectiveness of virtual teams, which is conveyed through the perception of the instrumentality of one's own performance. The following management practices have proven to be particularly positive for interdependence:

  • Goal management: goals are set and clearly formulated; they do not conflict with the employees' own goals;
  • Incentive management: Successes are rewarded, e.g. B. in the form of joint meals, publication of the outstanding success in the company newsletter or theater vouchers.

The VIST model can be used both in the diagnosis of work processes in virtual teams and in the subsequent optimization of collaboration. This would mean, for example, for instrumentality in the diagnostic phase: "Are the members convinced of the importance of their contributions?" If this were not the case, the feedback for the team members should be designed in such a way that the importance of their work for the team's success is given greater consideration. Furthermore, the contribution made must be assignable to the individual team members.

Virtual teams face a number of challenges:

  • The direct personal contact with one another is limited, which makes it difficult to build trust and anchor common goals.
  • The predominantly media-mediated communication requires additional skills in dealing with the respective media as well as extensive communication skills
  • The frequent distribution across time limits reduces the phases in which the team members are available at the same time, for example for telephone or video conferences. This requires a very good asynchronous organization of the collaboration in virtual teams.
  • The greater cultural differences (both national cultures and organizational cultures ) and the reduced opportunities for face-to-face meetings make it difficult to understand a common basis for cooperation and problem-solving.

In order to cope successfully with this, there are options for intervention at both the individual and management level. At the individual level, the possibility of informal exchange of information in a personal meeting (kick-off event), result- and process-oriented feedback as well as team and conflict training facilitate cooperation in virtual teams. A participatory management style that sets SMART goals and uses Management by Objectives (MBO) to coordinate the goals individually with the employees, forms strategies that also have a positive effect.

Media literacy

The development of media skills is of particular importance for cooperation across locations . These include

  1. The ability to (technically) use the communication media.
  2. To be able to select and use media in a targeted manner.
  3. To be able to behave appropriately for the media and
  4. Be sensitized to the dynamics and logic of communication media.

The media richness theory developed by Draft and Lengel and published by Reichwald et al. is described. The model compares the complexity of the respective task with the wealth of information of a suitable communication medium. A wealth of information here means the possible channels for the transmission of relevant and social information.

Support applications for virtual teamwork

In order to adequately support the location-based collaboration from the technical side, various applications have emerged which, depending on the task at hand, tend to be synchronous communication ("meeting tools", "virtual classroom"), asynchronous cooperation ("groupware tools") or support the coordination within the framework of projects (project management software). Current trends show that providers are trying to combine more and more individual applications such as chat, video, discussion boards, document storage, calendars, etc. in integrated applications.

Web links

Wiktionary: Team  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ JS Zaccaro P. Bader (2003), E-Leadership and the Challenge of Leading E-Teams: Minimizing the Bad and Maximizing the Good, in: Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 31 (4), 2003, p. 377 ff.
  2. ↑ Lipnack, J. & Stamps, J. (1998), virtual teams, business Babicky, Vienna / Frankfurt 1998, p. 30
  3. ↑ Boos, Jonas, Sassenberg, Kai: Computer-mediated communication in organizations, Göttingen 2000
  4. ^ Bergmann, Niederholtmeyer: Working on the Internet. Virtual working groups in non-profit companies and educational organizations, Darmstadt 2003
  5. ^ Duarte, DL, Snyder, NT (2001) Mastering virtual Teams (2nd ed.), Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
  6. ↑ Stöger, G., Thomas, G. (2007) Teams without borders, Orell Füssli, Verlag AG, Zurich
  7. ↑ Hertel, G .; Konradt, U. (2007) Tele-cooperation and virtual teamwork, Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich
  8. ↑ Hertel, G. (2002) Management of Virtual Teams on the Basis of Social Psychological Theories: The VIST Model. In Witte, EH (ed.): Social psychology of economic processes. Lengerich: Pabst Verlag, 174-204.
  9. ↑ Hertel, G .; Konradt, U. (2003) Motivation gains in computer-supported groups. In: Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33 (10), 2080-2105.
  10. ↑ Hertel, G., Konradt, U., & Orlikowski, B. (2004). Managing distance by interdependence: Goal setting, task interdependence, and team-based rewards in virtual teams. European Journal of work and organizational psychology, 13 (1), 1-28.
  11. ↑ Hertel, G., Konradt, U., & Orlikowski, B. (2004). Managing distance by interdependence: Goal setting, task interdependence, and team-based rewards in virtual teams. European Journal of work and organizational psychology, 13 (1), 1-28.
  12. ↑ Schroll-Machl, S. (2000) Culture-related differences in the problem-solving process, Journal for Organizational Development, 1/2000, pp. 76–91.
  13. ^ Bauer, T. & B. Erdogan (2009). Chapter 6: Designing a Motivating Work Environment. In: Bauer, T. & B. Erdogan: Organizational Behavior. Nyack, NY: Flat World Knowledge, Inc., 111-134.
  14. ↑ D. Herrmann, K. Hüneke, A. Rohrberg (2004) Media Competence and More: Requirements for Changed Forms of (Collaboration) Work, Wirtschaftspsychologie aktuell, 03/2004, pp. 31–35.
  15. ^ D. Herrmann, K. Hüneke, A. Rohrberg (2012) Leadership at a Distance - With Virtual Teams to Success, Springer Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2nd edition, pp. 34–38.
  16. ^ Reichwald, R., Möslein, K., Sachsenbacher, H., Engelberger, H. (2000) Tele-cooperation, distributed forms of work and organization, Springer Verlag, Berlin
  17. ↑ Gärtner, Hans (2013) The Virtual Office, in New Rooms in Organizations: Virtual Leadership, Projects and Consulting ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 2nd Ed. Pages 61-66. iTunes Bookstore: Berlin. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / Vorteil-raeume.net