Case Study Analysis
What Would You Do?
Achieving Success in Virtual Teams
CASE STUDY “Harnessing the power of virtual worlds is now a neces- sity as industry penetrates every comer of our planet and workers are required to be in touch with teammates on the next block and on distant continents at any time. In most companies, participating in virtual teams is no lon- ger an exotic exercise, but a bottom-line requirement.”R. Ubell, “Virtual Team Learning,” T + D 64(8) (August 2010): ( pages).R. Ubell, “Virtual Team Learning,” T + D 64(8) (August 2010): 52 (7 pages).
“Often widely separated geographically and located in distant time zones, virtual teams are frequently com- posed of members from different cultures who work in different organizations with unfamiliar standards and models of behavior.”R. Ubell, “Virtual Team Learning,” T + D 64(8) (August 2010): ( pages).R. Ubell, “Virtu- al Team Learning,” T + D 64(8) (August 2010): 52 (7 pages). Members of virtual teams most likely have never met each other in person.W.D. Gardner, “Enterprise 2.0: Making Virtual Collaboration Work,” Information- week, http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/ collaboration/218101362.W.D. Gardner, “Enterprise 2.0: Making Virtual Collaboration Work,” Information- week, http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/ collaboration/218101362.
NetAge, a company that provides consulting servic- es for networked organizations, maintains that the se- cret to successful virtual teams is 10 percent technology and 90 percent people.Anonymous, “Virtual Teams,” NetAge web site, http:www.netage.com/virtualteams/in- dex.html (accessed June 21, 2011).Anonymous, “Virtual Teams,” NetAge web site, http:www.netage.com/virtu- alteams/index.html (accessed June 21, 2011). Likewise the failure of virtual teams is largely due to people. The substantial role of people in the success of virtual teams prompts the question: What are some human factors that contribute to the success of virtual teams, and what are some human factors that contribute to the failure of virtual teams?
Virtual teams require interdependent work relation- ships. “Interdependent work teams share common goals and responsibilities; at the same time, the team members are self-reliant and self-motivated.”B. Leonard, “Manag- ing Virtual Teams,” HRMagazine 56(6) (June 2011): 39 ( pages).B. Leonard, “Managing Virtual Teams,” HRMa-
gazine 56(6) (June 2011): 39 (4 pages). Effective virtual collaboration requires an understanding of people, cul- tures, and organizations.W.D. Gardner, “Enterprise 2.0: Making Virtual Collaboration Work,” Informationweek, http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/col- laboration/218101362 (accessed June 20, 2011).W.D. Gardner, “Enterprise 2.0: Making Virtual Collaboration Work,” Informationweek, http://www.informationweek. com/news/telecom/collaboration/218101362 (accessed June 20, 2011). Employees who can tolerate or even rel- ish ambiguity in their job responsibilities tend to func- tion well in virtual teams, whereas employees “who like regimented schedules and concrete instructions on how to do their jobs won’t perform as well in virtual work settings.”B. Leonard, “Managing Virtual Teams,” HRMagazine 56(6) (June 2011): ( pages).B. Leonard, “Managing Virtual Teams,” HRMagazine 56(6) (June 2011): 39 (4 pages).
Two very key human factors that determine the suc- cess or failure of virtual teams are communication effec- tiveness and stimulating work.
When it comes to communications in virtual team settings, ambiguity increases the chances of failure and clarity of communication contributes to success. “Em- ployees must write well to draft easy-to-understand and to-the-point communications. Ambiguity can be a detri- ment because the way virtual workers write and com- prehend written communications can alter meaning and generate unneeded tension among team members and managers.”B. Leonard, “Managing Virtual Teams,” HRMagazine 56(6) (June 2011): ( pages).B. Leonard, “Managing Virtual Teams,” HRMagazine 56(6) (June 2011): 39 (4 pages). As Joseph Grenny, writing in Lead- ership Excellence, observes: “The challenge [that] virtual teams face is productively brainstorming ideas, solving problems, and executing on projects with people whose physical location—not to mention specialty, and in some cases, culture—makes it difficult to freely and clearly speak one’s mind.”J. Grenny, “Virtual Teams,” Leader- ship Excellence 27(5) (May 2010): .J. Grenny, “Virtual Teams,” Leadership Excellence 27(5) (May 2010): 20.
Reporting in The Wall Street Journal, Lynda Gratton observes that the work of virtual teams is fre- quently unsupervised and consequently team mem- bers’ tasks should be challenging and stimulating. Otherwise, disinterest could cause the virtual team to
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disintegrate.L. Gratton, “Business Insight (A Special Re- port): Organization; Working Together…When Apart: As employees scatter around the globe, virtual team- work has become crucial; Here are 10 rules for making it work,” The Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition) (June 16, 2007): .L. Gratton, “Business Insight (A Special Re- port): Organization; Working Together…When Apart: As employees scatter around the globe, virtual team- work has become crucial; Here are 10 rules for making it work,” The Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition) (June 16, 2007): R4. When team members do not experience the work as stimulating and challenging, “[t]hey simply fade away, with fewer and fewer dialing into the weekly conference calls or posting ideas on the shared site. It’s not that the members don’t like one another. It’s simply that the atmosphere becomes more like a country club than a dynamic collection of inspired people.”L. Grat- ton, “Business Insight (A Special Report): Organization; Working Together…When Apart: As employees scatter around the globe, virtual teamwork has become crucial; Here are 10 rules for making it work,” The Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition) (June 16, 2007): .L. Gratton, “Business Insight (A Special Report): Organization; Working Together…When Apart: As employees scatter around the globe, virtual teamwork has become crucial; Here are 10 rules for making it work,” The Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition) (June 16, 2007): R4.
Volvo is one company that has taken the issues of communication effectiveness and stimulating work to heart in working toward making its virtual teams as ef- fective as possible.W.D. Gardner, “Enterprise 2.0: Mak- ing Virtual Collaboration Work,” Informationweek, http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/col- laboration/218101362 (accessed June 20, 2011).W.D. Gardner, “Enterprise 2.0: Making Virtual Collaboration Work,” Informationweek, http://www.informationweek. com/news/telecom/collaboration/218101362 (accessed June 20, 2011). With a very significant global footprint of manufacturing in 19 countries and sales in 180 countries, and 120,000 employees with half of those being informa- tion workers, the Volvo Information Technology (VIT) unit seeks to support team effectiveness around the world.V. Adamson, “Volvo: Driving Virtual Team Produc- tivity,” Enterprise 2.0 Conference (June 22-25, 2009): .V. Adamson, “Volvo: Driving Virtual Team Productivity,” Enterprise 2.0 Conference (June 22-25, 2009): 2. The mission for improving the effectiveness of the compa- ny’s virtual teams is to “[a]ssist teams with establishing
effective ways of communicating and collaborating to reach business objectives.”V. Adamson, “Volvo: Driving Virtual Team Productivity,” Enterprise 2.0 Conference (June 22-25, 2009): .V. Adamson, “Volvo: Driving Virtual Team Productivity,” Enterprise 2.0 Conference (June 22- 25, 2009): 3.
Volvo evaluates the effectiveness of its virtual teams with a variety of metrics in four major categories that can be framed in the form of the following four ques- tions: “How aligned is the team’s understanding of goals, actions, and expected results? How familiar is the team with roles and responsibilities? How comfortable is the team with communicating internally? How clear are project timelines and milestones?”V. Adamson, “Volvo: Driving Virtual Team Productivity,” Enterprise 2.0 Con- ference (June 22-25, 2009): .V. Adamson, “Volvo: Driv- ing Virtual Team Productivity,” Enterprise 2.0 Confer- ence (June 22-25, 2009): 5.
At peak performance, Volvo’s virtual teams would be judged as having attained “shared accountability [and] shared leadership for achieving team objectives.”V. Adamson, “Volvo: Driving Virtual Team Productivity,” Enterprise 2.0 Conference (June 22-25, 2009): .V. Ad- amson, “Volvo: Driving Virtual Team Productivity,” En- terprise 2.0 Conference (June 22-25, 2009): 5. Attaining this level of virtual team performance is possible only by having interesting work for the team members to do and effective communications among them.
D I S C U S S I O N Q U E S T I O N S
1Describe the attributes that contribute to the success of virtual teams and those that contribute to the failure of virtual teams.
2Discuss the extent to which the characteristics of well-functioning, effective groups overlap the attributes that contribute to the success of virtual teams.
3Explain how cultural diversity can affect the effective functioning of virtual teams operating in a global economy.
4Is Volvo’s approach to evaluating the effectiveness of its virtual teams one that could serve as a useful model for other organizations to follow in evaluating their own virtual teams? Justify your answer.
SOURCE: This case was written by Michael K. McCuddy, The Louis S. and Mary L. Morgal Chair of Christian Business Ethics and Professor of Management, College of Business Administration, Valparaiso University.Michael K. McCuddy, The Louis S. and Mary L. Morgal Chair of Christian Business Ethics and Professor of Management, College of Business Administration, Valparaiso University.
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