Advantages And Disadvantages Of Virtual Teams And Factors For Success

1. Identify and explain the advantages and disadvantages of virtual teams. Outline the factors required for virtual teams to be successful.

2. Describe the kinds of behaviours that individual team members can engage in that positively impact overall team effectiveness. 

3. Describe the kinds of behaviours that individual team members can engage in that negatively impact overall team effectiveness. 

4. Outline how you intend to approach participation in your group project, explaining how your plans for participation will likely impact your project team. Include an analysis of your results from the Group/Team Skills activity you completed from the Module 6 reading. 

Factors Required for Virtual Teams to Be Successful

Advantages of virtual teams:

The virtual team has great potential despite the possible challenges and several considerations. Formulation of appropriate processes and actions by Wilson Bros would help in utilizing the potential of such teams.

• One of the major concerns of company is cost of transportation and this poses a significant threat to profits of company on daily basis. This can be handled by way of strategically managing the human resource that can be a contributory factor in maintaining the level of profits. The cost and travel time can be reduced drastically if the organization forms virtual team. Individual member of company would be able to contribute from dispersed locations as the virtual channels are used as mode of communication without unnecessary travelling for face to face meetings (Reiche et al., 2016).
• The limitations of virtual team are limited by the geographical constraints when it comes to acquisition of resource virtual team and specialized workforce. The potential for effectively leveraging diffused skills and knowledge leading to collaborative innovation is provided by virtual team. Forming virtual team would enable company to take advantage of pool of global talent available and is regarded as one of the most effective tools of management (Stone et al., 2015). Therefore, it can be proposed that geographical boundaries do not limit the findings of suitable professionals with increased superior problem solving skills.
• Virtual team comes with greater degree of flexibility as team members can work simultaneously in multiple teams as for the team membership, the geographical location no longer remains a criteria. Such team also has potential for generation of social capital in terms of their unique contact networks that is brought into availability of team (Pinder, 2014).

Disadvantages of virtual teams:

• One of the key challenges that are faced by virtual team is that different team members would be working in time zones. There can be difficulty in creating seamless communication due to members working in different time zones and due to short time contact window has the consequence of delaying in scheduling and different tasks.
• There exists possibility that contact window might become almost nonexistent due to working from different parts of world as for communication, there will be overlapping of time window. It leads to creation of creation of frustration and personal conflicts among team members because of possible delays and working time discordances (Klotz & Neubaum, 2016). Therefore, a considerable amount of risk is posed due to misinterpretation and communication failures.

For making a successful virtual team, it is considered essential for both members and leaders to acknowledge the issues and challenges faced by such teams and paying considerable amount of attention to appropriate scheduling, communication and use of technology. There should be employment of process of effective knowledge sharing by Wilson Bros for better performance of virtual teams. Deep sharing of knowledge is supported by use of technology in virtual teams and the level of effectiveness, communication, relationship, efficiency and commitment of team is significantly impacted by wider use of media and different channels (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).

The overall effectiveness of teams can be impacted in positive way can be explained by the application of theory such as Fredrickson theory that comprise of two fundamental concepts. These concepts include effects of positive impact at individual level due to drawing from extensive research. It is argued that people are stimulated by the positive affective for broadening “thought action repertories”. This is so because the scope of alternatives considered by people in approaching cognitive problems emotions and positive moods. It is proposed by Fredrickson that the vehicle for social connection and individual growth are positive emotions of human at individual level that contributes to human flourishing. Building components are second fundamental components of theory which suggest that there is accumulation of momentary benefits of broader mindsets and such benefit compounds into intellectual and social resources. The positive moods and emotions of individual team member broadens the approach of team to its task, capabilities and membership overtime, high team efficacy and dense friendship network (Shen, 2016). Moreover, individual member should have a positive attitude towards experience and learning acquisition. For meeting the interpersonal and social demand of team, it is required by individual members to possess behavior of extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness.

The performance of team is determinately affected by negative mood of individual team members as it was found that such mood would influence the process and virtual teams and consequently the performance of teams. Negative moods are found to be negatively associated with the commitment of organization, perception of job satisfaction and personal accomplishment. Effectiveness of team’s performance can be predicted by the negative affective tone along with reducing the motivation of team. The functioning of working team can be diminished substantially by the dysfunctional behavior of team members. It is so because such behavior leads to generation of negative emotions and ultimately declining performance of team. Nonetheless, the dysfunctional behavior on part of individual employees such as social undermining, sabotage, anti social activities hampers the overall performance of team and ultimately on the success of organization. An individual team member who is not motivated enough to work would create a climate where other members would not be willing to work. This would also hamper the effective mutual performance and monitoring of mutual performance is the norm that intends to maximize the performance of team. Providing team members with adequate assistance would help them in properly fulfilling their responsibilities (Marchington et al., 2016)s. Negative moods would fail to create such environment leading to decline in performance as a whole.

Positive Behaviors that Impact Overall Team Effectiveness

Group projects can be an effective way of motivating employees, developing critical thinking communication, encouraging active learning and skills of decision making. Working in group projects in an organization involves sharing of resources, learned valued and ways of doing things. Participation in group project should be approached by way of introduction about what they would be bringing into the projects with the help of qualifications and interests. Individual should undergo process stage that involves performance of analysis of research such as identification of key issues and concepts, consolidation and appearances of difficulties. Other participation plan incorporates determination of strategy of how often team members should meet in person or through technology. An individual should be motivated to actively participate in the activities and affairs of the group by participating more. It is so because interpersonal relationship is involved for the cohesiveness of group. Participation in the project team should be done by identification of instructional objectives for determining of what should be achieved by group work (Albrecht et al., 2015).

Participation in project should be done using collaborative model and by carrying out tasks where team members should settle into individual roles and thereby facilitating team inter team interactions. Any emotional disturbance resulting from opposing and clash of views in group should be managed using moral and realistic considerations. Participation in the group work can be facilitated by taking measures to keep flow of communications and sharing discussions by suggesting some procedures. Furthermore, individual members of the group should indulge in complimentary interactions as it is considered to be desirable and positively impacts the performance. The project team will have increased effectiveness in terms of achieving the objectives or goals pertaining to any task by direct participation in group work (Lazaroiu, 2015). For creating effective project team, it is required to put the team members who are highly motivated and skilled by meticulously putting together. This will enable group members to have clear picture of what should be attained.

References list:

Albrecht, S. L., Bakker, A. B., Gruman, J. A., Macey, W. H., & Saks, A. M. (2015). Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), 7-35.

Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.

Klotz, A. C., & Neubaum, D. O. (2016). Research on the dark side of personality traits in entrepreneurship: observations from an organizational behavior perspective. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 40(1), 7-17.

Lazaroiu, G. (2015). Work motivation and organizational behavior. Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice, 7(2), 66.

Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

Pinder, C. C. (2014). Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.

Reiche, B. S., Stahl, G. K., Mendenhall, M. E., & Oddou, G. R. (Eds.). (2016). Readings and cases in international human resource management. Taylor & Francis.

Shen, J. (2016). Principles and applications of multilevel modeling in human resource management research. Human Resource Management, 55(6), 951-965.

Stone, D. L., Deadrick, D. L., Lukaszewski, K. M., & Johnson, R. (2015). The influence of technology on the future of human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), 216-231.