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ENHANCING EFFECTIVENESS
ON VIRTUAL TEAMS
Understanding Why Traditional Team
Skills Are Insufficient
Gregory R. Berry
Central Connecticut State University
Virtual team interactions are almost always assisted by some form of computer-mediated communication technology. Computer-mediated communication is different in many ways from traditional faceto-face communication, perhaps most significantly because the communication is usually asynchronous
instead of synchronous. Temporal independence of communication changes the patterns of work,
decision making, and understandings about the work and the relationships between the individuals
involved in the work. As a consequence, managing virtual teams is different and more complex than
managing face-to-face teams, yet virtual teams are still groups of individuals that share most of the
characteristics and dynamics found on traditional teams. The effective management of virtual teams
requires knowledge and understanding of the fundamental principles of team dynamics regardless of
the time, space, and communication differences between virtual and face-to-face work environments.
Keywords:
virtual teams; virtual work; team effectiveness; asynchronous communication
Teams and teamwork are a ubiquitous part of getting work done in almost
every organization (Hackman, 2002). Generically, a team is a group of
individuals who interact interdependently and who are brought together or
come together voluntarily to achieve certain outcomes or accomplish particular tasks. Some research claims that the use of teams increases capability, responsiveness, and flexibility within organizations (Griffith, Sawyer,
& Neale, 2003; Maynard, 2006) partly because synergies are created among
team members who have different types of expertise, experience, or knowledge (Grimshaw & Kwok, 1998; Klein & Kleinhanns, 2003). The increased
use of teams in organizations is encouraged, in part, by computer-mediated
Gregory R. Berry (PhD, University of Alberta, 1997) currently teaches at Central Connecticut State
University. His research focuses on environmental management, online teaching and learning, and
Service Learning/Engaged Learning. Corresponding concerning this article should be addressed to
Gregory R. Berry, Vance Academic Center, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT
06050-4010; e-mail: berrygrr@ccsu .edu.
Journal of Business Communication, Volume 48, Number 2, April 2011 186-206
DOI: 10.1177/0021943610397270
© 2011 by the Association for Business Communication
Berry / ENHANCING EFFECTIVENESS ON VIRTUAL TEAMS 187
communication technologies, which has profoundly changed how organizational members collect and distribute data and has also changed the
dynamics and relationships between organizational members (Flanagin &
Waldeck, 2004). Computer-mediated communication technologies also
enable organizations or groups to use virtual or networked teams (May &
Gueldenzoph, 2006).
What Are Virtual Teams?
Virtual teams can use computer-mediated communication technologies
to work interdependently across space, time, and organizational boundaries (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002; Lipnack & Stamps, 2000). Virtual team
members may be located across the office, but almost as easily across the
country or across the world, and may rarely or perhaps never meet face to
face. Townsend, DeMarie, and Hendrickson (1998) characterize virtual
teams as “groups of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed
coworkers that are assembled using a combination of telecommunications
and information technologies to accomplish an organizational task” (p. 18).
Virtual teams are not required to use computer-mediated communication
technologies, but this is typical given the near-universalistic nature of
computer-mediated communication systems in organizations. Significantly,
the use of technology alone does not make a team virtual. Almost all teams
use technology to some degree, but virtuality increases as the degree of
reliance on electronic communication increases. Geographically dispersed
teams often have no choice except to communicate electronically, even
though some individual team members may strongly prefer face-to-face
interaction (Cohen & Gibson, 2003).
A virtual team has the following six attributes, sharing the first four
with almost all teams:
• The team usually but not always has a definable and limited membership, and
there is awareness by team members of this shared membership, and even if
membership changes somewhat the team remains intact (Alderfer, 1987).
• The members of the team function interdependently, usually with a shared
sense of purpose that is either given to them or constructed by the team
itself (Alderfer, 1987).
• The members of the team are jointly responsible for outcomes (Hackman,
1987).
• The members of the team collectively manage their relationships across
(and perhaps between) organizational boundaries (Hackman, 1987).
188 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
• The members of the team may be geographically dispersed (Johnson,
Chanidprapa, Yoon, Berrett & LaFleur, 2003).
• The members of the team predominately rely on computer-mediated communication rather than face-to-face communication to accomplish their
tasks (Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000).
A team that does most of its work through use of the telephone, e-mail,
electronic bulletin boards, chat groups, electronic databases, or teleconferences, and rarely if ever meets face to face, is more virtual than a team that
meets regularly face to face, even if both teams use exactly the same technologies to some extent in doing their work. The degree to which a team
is virtual is a complex and multidimensional construct (Gibson & Cohen,
2003), with the major determinant of virtualness simply being the amount
of time that members spend working thorough computer-mediated communication instead of face-to-face communication. The highest degree of
virtuality is when all members work apart from each other in distant locations and only communicate and interact through computer-mediated communication or other distance communication technologies (Kirkham, Rosen,
Gibson, Tesluk, & McPherson, 2002). An example of very limited virtualness may be a single office where files are sent across the office electronically for further work by another in the same office, yet face-to-face
communication is available almost without restriction if needed or wanted.
An advantage of virtual teams is that team members are able to communicate, collaborate, and create outputs irrespective of time and space,
because they are not bound by temporal constraints or geographic location
as are most face-to-face teams.
The highest degree of virtuality is
when all members work apart from
each other in distant locations and
only communicate and interact
through computer-mediated communication or other distance communication technologies.
Virtual team members must communicate and collaborate to problem
solve, to continue the work process, and to produce a product or service,
Berry / ENHANCING EFFECTIVENESS ON VIRTUAL TEAMS 189
just as any team does (Thomas, 2007). However, choosing the most effective or efficient communication technology for these interactions is not a
simple process and is dependent on factors such as the nature and type of
team, the team’s task, the team members’ access to technology (Duarte &
Snyder, 2001), or even the sophistication and experience of team leaders
or team members in doing virtual work.
Interdisciplinary team members (virtual or not) deal with the pull of
competing loyalties and demands. One advantage of having interdisciplinary teams, including geographically dispersed teams, is that different
opinions and perspectives are represented within the team and thus greater
organizational learning and synergy are possible because of this added
diversity. Making sense of another’s beliefs or actions is a constant struggle in any team environment (Guribye, Andressen, & Wasson, 2003) and
this difficulty can be exacerbated in the virtual environment because of the
potential for greater diversity of the team. Yet, as noted by Jameson (2007),
components of cultural identity are often hidden in mediated encounters
unless intentionally revealed.
Shared goals and shared understandings are required on any team, and
negotiation of these common goals is an intrinsic part of the team-building
process. Effective social relationships are a required constant for effective
collaborative work, virtual or face to face. Overall, social information
exchange is similar in both virtual and face-to-face communication although
the computer-mediated sharing of social information appears to occur more
slowly at first, and so the difference is likely one of rate rather than depth
of content (Vroman & Kovachich, 2002; Walther, 1995).
Types of Virtual Teams
The most important and most simple distinction between virtual and
face-to-face teams may be that virtual team interactions are almost always
mediated by various forms of electronic communication and computermediated-collaboration technology (Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000).
Virtual interactions generally fall into one of four categories (Mittleman
& Briggs, 1998):
• Same time and same place interactions similar to face-to-face interaction
except using technologically assisted communication instead of face-toface communication, as with e-mail across an office
• Same time but different place interactions, such as using instant messaging
190 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
• Different time but same place interactions such as using a dedicated chat
room on a network
• Different time and different place interactions such as an exchange of
e-mail communications as is commonly found in online classrooms or multi
office settings
These categories illustrate that almost any team is virtual to some
extent at least some of the time. Face-to-face teams, for example, may use
an electronic medium to send out minutes from a meeting or even to confirm decisions reached during a hallway chat. Considering teams along this
continuum from only virtual to only face to face is appealing because most
teams utilize some combination of face-to-face and computer-mediated
communication in their interactions (Griffith & Neale, 2001). This continuum also reinforces the complexity of communication channels available to any configuration of team members and may reduce the tendency
to make stark comparisons of different types of team interactions, as if
virtual communication is a single type of interaction that can be easily
compared or understood.
Organizing Virtual Teams in the Workplace
It is relatively easy for virtual team members or leaders to establish
procedures for information sharing within the virtual team. Facilitators
can even establish different forums to distinguish among the task, social,
and contextual information typically shared by team members, if they
wish, and create procedures appropriate for sharing or transferring each
type of information (Maznevski & Athanassiou, 2003). Organizations often
establish these expectations of systems in advance of creating the virtual
team. Because differences in communication practices may also emerge
as members do their work across multiple boundaries including cultural,
geographical, or discipline, these procedures can also be established to
reconcile these issues as they arise (Gibson & Manuel, 2003). Team leaders
can establish themselves as norm setters and demonstrate through practice
what is expected of the team members, can teach these norms to new
members, or can enforce norms if members ignore these expectations. A
virtual team norm, for example, might be to encourage people to seek out
information through questions when problems or confusions arise and to
give the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous situations instead of making
negative attributions about the motives or intent of other team members
Berry / ENHANCING EFFECTIVENESS ON VIRTUAL TEAMS 191
(Maznevski & Athanassiou, 2003). Significantly, communication occurs
between the individuals on a team, even though this communication may
be visible to all team members (Varner, 2000). The most critical virtual
team norm is likely focused on the how of team interaction and collaboration (Dillenbourg, 1999; Hakkinen, 2004), and this virtual process may be
quite different from the process of working out team issues on a face-toface team.
Because many organizations have several or many virtual teams working simultaneously, most organizations prefer standard operating processes
for all virtual teams. These norms are assumed to reduce the time needed
for team startup and effective work processes and often eliminates the
need for unnecessary reinvention of operating practices every time a new
virtual team starts up. Common processes may include the following (Duarte
& Snyder, 2001):
•
•
•
•
•
Clear rules or expectations when using certain types of technology
Clear definition of what effective work completion means
Agreement to team charters laying out general team norms and expectations
Project planning including time lines and specified team member outcomes
Documentation and reporting systems, including the electronic archive
Most of these processes are usually shared with most face-to-face teams,
yet procedures and goals must be clear so that virtual team members know
how they are to work and what their objectives are. In colocated teams,
vague or unclear expectations can be clarified through casual conversation
in the hallway, but virtual teams need more structure because this casual
chat is not available to them, or at least not available in the same way. Again,
the how of interaction and collaboration is critical.
Virtual teams work around project timelines and stages of team process
just as face-to-face teams do. Interestingly, the virtual team formation processes typically includes forming, norming, and performing activities as
identified by Tuckman (1977), but the storming stage is apparently often
folded into other stages, or ignored (Johnson et al., 2003). This lack of
storming may be because virtual teams have more of a task than personality focus, or perhaps because they often have established predetermined
communication structures that resolve or otherwise deal with how to do
work conflicts. Finally, although technology’s function in the virtual team
enables the completion of work and overcomes many of the complexities
created by time and distance, these technologies still need to be understood
as only a communication and collaboration tool and not as communication
or collaboration itself.
192 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
The use of virtual teams adds complexity for management in many
organizations because virtual teams are sociological and social systems
just as is any team, but virtual teams also have their work processes intertwined with technological systems (Maznevski & Athanassiou, 2003).
Virtual teams may also have enhanced levels of diversity as compared
with traditional face-to-face teams because of the multitude of different
disciplines, functions, professions, organizations, countries, and cultures
that can be easily added into the team (Griffith & Neale, 2001). Thus, the
technological element, which allows asynchronous communication to
happen at different times (Yates & Orlikowski, 2002), when combined
with the diversity element, adds complexity that may create additional
barriers that management or leaders need to be overcome when working
to create effective teams. Flanagin and Waldeck (2004) note that employee
membership and identification is a challenging concern as organizations
become increasingly dispersed, decentralized, and virtual. Thus, members
may well have competing allegiances, and overcoming these barriers will
require purposeful management strategies.
Virtual Communication
Generically, communication is the process of transferring information,
meaning, and understanding between two or more parties, and there is a
huge literature on how this process can be made more efficient and effective. Communication, whether virtual or face to face, is fundamental to
getting any organizing or work done, as communication provides the
basic building blocks with which people collaborate, make decisions, and
act to achieve organizational objectives. Communication is also central to
organizational socialization including sense making and affiliation (Flanagin
& Waldeck, 2004).
Generically, communication is the process of transferring information, meaning, and understanding between two or
more parties, and there is a huge literature on how this process can be made
more efficient and effective.
Berry / ENHANCING EFFECTIVENESS ON VIRTUAL TEAMS 193
Virtual teams typically use computer-mediated asynchronous communication (CMAC). CMAC typically allows for multiple threads or concurrent themes of conversation to occur from multiple contributors all at the
same time, instead of being restricted to turn-taking (with communication
blocking) as is common with synchronous face-to-face communication
(Berry, 2006). As well as expressing ideas simultaneously, team members
in the virtual environment can express their ideas completely without
interruption by others and can make these contributions at a time personally
convenient or available to them (Cappel & Windsor, 2000), thus removing
competition for immediate airtime. Computer-mediated communication
has fewer social, political, or power context cues as found in face-to-face
communication. Verbal cues such as intonation, facial expression, gestures, and contextual cues that enable listeners to read (or misread) the
speaker’s intent are missing in computer-mediated communication, and
this can aid (or hinder) understanding (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991; Vroman
& Kovachich, 2002). Another concern with CMAC virtual teams is that
with geographically dispersed teams it is less likely that informal or unintentional information will be shared in parallel along with the text-based
information, such as casual chats in the hallway or parking lot, and this
may constrain understanding.
A frequently documented benefit of CMAC is that collaboration is
largely unrestricted by location or time zone (Harasim, 1990). This may
seem obvious, but temporal independence of communications can also
change the patterns of work, discourse about work, and the relationships
between the individuals involved in the work (Vroman & Kovachich, 2002).
There is ongoing debate whether the lack of nonverbal cues is a hindrance
or advantage in computer-mediated text-based communication, but a
common although not consistent finding is that computer-mediated group
interactions possess less social presence than face-to-face communication
(Sproull & Kiesler, 1986), at least in the short term. This can result with
work interactions being more task focused than on face-to-face teams
(Hiltz, Johnson, & Turoff, 1986; Maynard, 2006), which is considered to
be a beneficial difference, at least by some. Scott and Timmerman (1999)
found that the degree of mediated communication had some minor effects
on team or work identification. Johnson et al. (2003) found that virtual team
members were less inhibited because of not being colocated and that ideas
and feedback in the virtual environment were more frank. Confounding
these apparent advantages may be differences in the technology resources
available at the various sites; a lack of overlap in work hours between
194 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
locations, which may result in slowed response time; and the constraints
of local work priorities and culture.
Shared understanding of task and process has a significant impact on
the ability of teams to coordinate and perform well, and in creating consistency. Consistency in process and expectations results in more efficient
implementation s …
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