'Effectiveness and Impact of Virtual Teams Essay\r'

'Technology is consistently evolving and impressing legion(predicate) organizations worldwide. It has changed many an(prenominal) aspects in the puddleplace, including work styles, chat, and squadwork. talk has been trans cau deliberated into the ways of the practical(prenominal)(prenominal) world, immediately affecting conference dynamics.\r\nOrganizations often form squads of employees to serve a variety of purposes and collide with purposes in a more than(prenominal) impelling manner than in low-level work. groups used to work strictly through with(predicate) opposite interactions, moreover with growing technology, virtual aggroups come been created and are used fairly often. â€Å"A virtual aggroup is any aggroup up whose element interactions are mediated by time, distance, and technology.\r\nThe meaning feature is not the technology, but that the aggroup works together on a tax while physically degage. crowd extremitys can communicate through e -mail, phonation mail, video conferencing, electronic bulletin boards, and intranets.” (Levi, 2007, p. 258) some(prenominal) research studies choose been done to task the in effect(p)ness of virtual teams, examining the validating and ban aspects.\r\nThis literature review is aimed to analyze several(prenominal) binds where researchers restrain explored many components of virtual teams and their impact. Vroman and Kovacich (2002) wrote an article that analyzed â€Å"the interactions of a virtual interdisciplinary team.” They explain computer-mediated chat (CMC) to be the hindquarters of virtual teams, which they then compare to cheek-to-face teams.\r\nThey examined the Interdisciplinary Training for Health carry on for Rural Areas (ITHCRA) project, which is a team comprised of many different types of health professionals (e.g. clinical psychologist, contain practitioner, nutritionist, etc.) The team’s ultimate goal was to develop an interdisciplina ry health mission curriculum, solely using CMC. ITHCRA functioned the very(prenominal) as any early(a) team functional together would, and faced the same challenges and teachingal routinees (forming, storming, averageing, performing, and transforming).\r\nThey additionally had to learn the ways of the radical communication technology, which was an obstacle for many of the caller processs. The developmental process of the virtual team was similar to that of a face-to-face team, however, a emergence of differences were found.\r\nThe forming phase was very regular(prenominal) for team development. Team building and average development took precedent of the project tasks initially. They had met face-to-face once, and after looking at their communication after this occurred, it was obvious they had formed companionable analogyships and were more committed.\r\nThis raised the question: what would have happened if the face-to-face meeting did not photograph place? It may ha ve been more effective to have two groups in this study so comparisons could be make (e.g. one group solely virtual, the other group allowed 1-3 face-to-face meetings). It is hard to pick up whether certain aspects of team development would have taken place without the opportunity to see their team members in a more personal way.\r\nStorming took place as well, which is when teams face certain conflicts. There were no unmixed differences for this development in the virtual team. Norming, performing, and transforming phases of development all contributed to the team’s succeeder and swear outed them complete their tasks and reach their goals.\r\nVroman and Kovacich (2002) addd a faithful analysis of ITHCRA and the ways in which it was booming and where the members were challenged. They portrayed virtual teams as cosmos more convenient, effective, and less time down when completing tasks. However, it allows for less personal converge and can be more rugged for some to communicate and fulfill the expectations of the group project.\r\nIt may have been more effective to have ITHCRA communicate solely through CMC and compare them to a team with the same tasks and goals, but who communicated through a compounding of CMC and face-to-face meetings. More valid results would be accessible to draw more straight conclusions. It was interesting to use a interdisciplinary team, however, it may have acted as some other variable besides CMC, which would then diversify the results.\r\nKirkman, Rosen, Tesluk, and Gibson (2004) conducted a research study on the impact of team say-so on virtual team performance. â€Å"Team sanction is defined as increased task motivation that is due to team members’ collective, positive assessments of their organizational tasks (Kirkman & Rosen, 2002).\r\nThey examined team empowerment through the teams potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact to determine its’ impact on process return and node ato nement. Kirkman et al. (2004) studied a service organization that utilized high technology and ofttimes formed virtual teams to complete the company’s tasks and goals.\r\nEach team member had different roles within the organization and was separated from each other geographically. The researchers moderated the effects of face-to-face meetings to examine the family relationship amongst team empowerment and both process improvement and client satisaction.\r\nKirkman et al. (2004) used surveys, observation, a team empowerment measure they had created, and customer satisfaction and process improvement scorecards to test their hypotheses, which were that 1. Team empowerment willinging have a positive relation to virtual team process improvement, 2.\r\nTeam empowerment will have a positive relation to virtual team customer satisfaction, and 3.\r\nThe number of team’s face-to-face meetings will alter the relationship between team empowerment and process improvement (the f ewer face-to-face meetings the stronger the relationship), and 4. The number of team’s face-to-face meetings will alter the relationship between team empowerment and customer satisfaction (the fewer face-to-face meetings the stronger the relationship).\r\nTheir results indicated endure for hypotheses one, two, and three, but did not sign the quartern hypothesis. The researchers produced a well-designed study with significant, meaningful results that help contribute to the understanding of virtual teams.\r\nThey operationally defined all of the terms and measures to provide an equal understanding for everyone. It seems that virtual teams have many positive characteristics that are more effective compared to the common face-to-face teams. With the acclivity technology, virtual teams may become the norm as researchers continue to understand their components and outfit them for optimal success. Montoya-Weiss, Massey, and Song (2001) wrote an article on the findings of their r esearch study.\r\nThey â€Å"examined the effects of temporal coordination on virtual teams supported by an asynchronous communication technology.” They measured the mechanism â€Å"process structure” to determine the relationship between conflict solicitude behavior and virtual team performance.\r\nThey measured conflict vigilance individually for each team member through a questionnaire they created. They defined their dependent variable, virtual team performance, as â€Å"the persona of the team rationale used to support the team decision.”\r\nThey examined the range, depth, and organization for each team decision. Lastly, they observed and analyzed all communication among the virtual team. Montoya-Weiss et al. (2001) had five hypotheses total, which were tested through statistical analysis. They predicted that for all conflict management behaviors, a positive interaction would result.\r\n'