Factors impacting VT perfomance

Name : Fathy Mohamed Alazhary
ESL-61 FD C - Seminar In Global Management
FACTORS AFFECTING
PERFORMANCE IN VIRTUAL
TEAM IN MULTINATIONAL
COMPANIES
Fathy Alazhary under supervision of Dr. Abdel Moneim Elsaid
Master thesis In Global Management
NOVEMBER 1, 2020
ESLSCA
École Supérieure Libre des Sciences Commerciales

Factors affecting performance in virtual team in multinational companies
Contents
Abstract.........................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction...................................................................................................................................................3
Literature review...........................................................................................................................................8
Findings and Discussion .............................................................................................................................21
Conclusion and recommendation................................................................................................................23
References...................................................................................................................................................23

Abstract
Virtual teams is consisting of 2 or more team member might not in the same country,
many companies moves to implement this model in their work, so in the below paper we will
show the studies papers about the factors impacting the factors to enhance the success in virtual
teams and also will discuss the author point of view based on his experience and
recommendations to have successful virtual team.
Introduction
In this day and age Virtual communications, virtual teams work becomes mandatory and
part of workday life in 2020 in COVID-19 corona virus era where countries obligates the
employees to work from home whenever possible to stop the spread of the virus and start new
era of virtual team work, and having a critical business way of work due to many business
limitation and constraints such as environment, lack of face to face meeting, financial saving,
business models and time zone difference. this was also a main part of communication in some
certain teams in different industries which don’t need physical attendance and can replace it with
calls, emails and different telecommunications programs such as Zoom, skype and Microsoft
teams examples of these jobs are IT support and call centers to serve different people across the
country and even throughout different parts of the world which is clear definition of
globalization where companies can serve their customers 24 hours 7 days which having
competitive edge in the industry and serve the customer need all the time.
For more than twenty years, organizations have set up virtual teams to better value their
human resources to work as close to the markets. Virtual teams, made possible by information
and communication technologies, carry a promise for the organization at the global scale and
having the best calibers and expertise from scattered parts of the world. These teams temporarily
gather people from different professional specialties and organizational entities as their
competence is relevant to the achievement of the common goal. While the technical and
economic reasons for establishing such teams are clear for cost saving (Horwitz, Bravington and
Silvis, 2006)
This social dynamics of these new working groups raises questions. Can we team up
when the "members" are held at a distance, come from multiple different languages, belong to
different countries and relate to different professional identities and have different time zones? Is
the only formal formation of a team enough to make people feel like a team? What relationships

emerge from these intercultural and remote work interactions? What are the factors affecting the
performance of the virtual teams ? does mutual knowledge affect the team performance ? what is
the role of the leader and is it different than the leader in the traditional team and how this affect
team performance ? The purpose of this article is to propose avenues of response to these
questions affecting team performance in virtual teams. Our article first points out the features of
the virtual teams: what distinguishes them from the regular teams? What are the factors affecting
performance in virtual teams? Based on the literature, we present different variables affect the
teams to achieve their goals (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).
Level of communication richness technology
As part of this research, we will seek to find out what are the factors affecting
performance of the virtual team such as trust and self-reliance in order to meet the challenges of
remote control in telecommuting through virtual teams. We decided to focus on this part of the
virtual teams because it becomes one of the most important topics after COVID 19 crisis in the
world which makes all the world to move towards telecommunication in virtual teams. Many
employees, especially executives, are reluctant to deal with the lose of their control and trust in
their employees and team and how this affects the team performance. In this way, we decided to
go beyond the control and try to identify factors affecting performance of the virtual teams
respond to remote control in the context of telecommuting. In this way, we have some important
Email Texting phone call
video
conference
in person

dimensions including the trust of managers and the self-reliance of teleworkers. (Hacker,
Johnson, Saunders and Thayer, 2019)
We can define virtual teams as team consisting of 2 or more team members working
together in different locations and sometimes in different countries having different languages
and time zones and maybe never met before. This business model showed it’s success for
companies to save budget as they can choose good calibres from low-mid income countries and
having the world as a pool to choose the most talented calibres across the world playing vital
roles in the company and not limited to companies but also for freelancing jobs where it’s
demand is really increasing day after day. (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011)
The team members of virtual teams are typically geographically spread across different
locations and the coordination of their work processes. This is now found in working groups of
both virtual and traditional organizations (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011). In fact, the majority of
organizations are already working up to a determining degree with virtual teams (Martins &
Schilpzand, 2011). These are characterized by an alternative work design, such as the the use of
mobile offices, telework, modular organizations, which promotes the independence and
flexibility of individual team members. Compared to traditional teams that do not work across
multiple sites, virtual organizations and teams use more open and decentralized communication
channels and share decision-making processes with each other (Walsh, 2019)
The new forms of organization include the virtual work team. This method of work will
allow the company to significantly increase its productivity. Indeed, it will now be possible to
meet the demands of the market. The workforce, which has become very specialized, no longer
wishes to be relocated according to the requirements of the companies By working in a virtual
way, it is possible to save a lot of time and money, even if only in transport (Martins &
Schilpzand, 2011). The virtual team will bring together, for a given project, the best brains on the
planet. As in the case of a traditional team, the virtual team is first and foremost a group of
people who will interact through independent tasks in order to achieve a common goal (Han et
al., 2017). However, the virtual team will evolve in a different context at the border of time,
geographic and organizational space. The virtual team will work beyond the limits in which the
working teams are usually found (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).
The arrival of this new form of work requires many adaptations, both at the technological
and organizational level, if it wants to be able to take full advantage of the advantages that have

been mentioned above One of the things that will need to be given a lot of attention in the future
is leadership skills. leadership skills is the use of the knowledge, talents, resources and
techniques made available to us in order to accomplish the tasks that have been defined in order
to meet the requirements of the various stakeholders (PMI, 1996). In order to meet the
requirements, the leader will have to maintain a balance between the time and the financial
resources required to make the project as well as the characteristics and quality of the product.
(Bergiel, Bergiel and Balsmeier, 2008)
Many challenges and problems are facing virtual communication such as trust,
Knowledge sharing, communication method, time zone differences culture difference, language
barriers and IT infrastructure which all affecting cohesion of the team and team performance in
virtual communication. (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).
We can clearly state that there are common factors affecting team performance in F2F
team and virtual teams such as the stability of the team where low turnover remarkably affects
positive the team performance due to increase team cohesion, also evaluating the team size in
comparison to workload and clear communication of the goal and roles for each one in the team,
all these are common elements affecting both F2F and virtual teams, however there are some
factor specifically affecting virtual team due to it’s nature of lacking to facial expressions, so it
was critical to know these reasons. (Brahm and Kunze, 2012)
The same way of increasing the demand on virtual communication during the last decade
especially during COVID 19 period, It was increasingly important for a lot of researcher to
review the factors variables influencing team performance in virtual teams and communication
which is very critical to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the team where they have
Explored that goal teamness is directly related to the awareness of the team to the goal and
accountability of each other to achieve goal as one unit (de Jong, Schalk and Curşeu, 2008)also
the virtuality degree in the team if they have face to face communication from time to time or
just virtual communication and how they use virtual programs to collaborate in the way of work
and process (Horwitz, Bravington and Silvis, 2006). also the communication working through
different time zones which is sometimes hard to reach each other and work as one team in easy
way (Zoufa and Ochieng, 2018). Moreover the technology was also important how they are
proficient to use it and aligning between different team members (Walsh, 2019). We can see also
team diversity is another factor affecting team performance where different cultures affect the

performance of the team may leads to misunderstanding between team member as a cons and
may lead to brainstorming generation of new ideas (Horwitz, Bravington and Silvis, 2006). also
the language difference is considered as a barrier of the communication between team to express
their ideas (Bergiel, Bergiel and Balsmeier, 2008). also level of trustis affecting the level of
collaboration, participation and coordination between the team, and team process to be followed
by the team member (Jaakson, Reino and McClenaghan, 2019). manager leadership skills also
plays important role to increase the trust between team member which increase the performance
between team (Ben Sedrine, Bouderbala and Nasraoui, 2020). team member IT capabilities
difference also affects team performance (Owens and Khazanchi, 2018). Also knowledge sharing
increase the trust between team which in turn have a great effect in team performance(Davis and
Khazanchi, 2007).
So the hypothesis were as follow:
Hypothesis 1: there is a relationship between Team performance and different cultures such that
the relationship is stronger when team culture difference is high rather than low.
Hypothesis 2: there is a relationship between Team performance and language barriers such that
the relationship is stronger when language barriers difference is low rather than high.
Hypothesis 3: there is a relationship between Team performance and time zones such that the
relationship is stronger when time zones difference is low rather than high.
Hypothesis 4: there is a relationship between Team performance and knowledge sharing such
that the relationship is stronger when knowledge sharing is high rather than low.
Hypothesis 5: there is a relationship between Team performance and leadership such that the
relationship is stronger when leadership is high rather than low.
Hypothesis 6: there is a relationship between Team performance and team process such that the
relationship is stronger when team process is high rather than low.
Hypothesis 7: there is a relationship between Team performance and trust such that the
relationship is stronger when trust is high rather than low.
Hypothesis 8: there is a relationship between Team performance and goal teamness awareness
such that the relationship is stronger when trust is high rather than low.
Hypothesis 9: there is a relationship between Team performance and technology such that the
relationship is stronger when technology is high rather than low.

Hypothesis 10: there is a relationship between Team performance and virtuality degree such that
the relationship is stronger when virtuality degree is low rather than high.
Literature review
Changes bring about the creation of various virtual work organizations, such as virtual
organizational structures, network organizations, telecooperations, cooperative networks and
virtual teams. In addition to traditional teams, virtual teams and organizations are increasingly
becoming the subject of research and are increasingly finding the attention scientific
consideration in the areas of general management, of information systems as well as in the areas
of personnel management and human resources (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).. As the
importance of this topic is increasing due to COVID 19 period and how the world is changing
impacting business aspects, many researchers did their study about the factors impacting
performance of virtual teams
Current research results on the dynamics of leadership, trust, language barriers, face to
face, culture difference, work process, goal awareness knowledge sharing, time zones,
technology and conflict in virtual teams are presented with it’s impact in the team performance
and discussed in this paper.
VT
perfomance
different
cultures
language
barriers
time zones
knowledge
sharing
leadership
team
process
trust
goal
teamness
technology
Virtuality
degree

Performance is the ability of the team to achieve their target within the time in the
required quality without affecting other team members progress on the contrary it should support
team members achieving team goals which team goals is a part of the company goals which will
affect positively the company assets assisting in the company growth. So leader has to walk the
talk which is really important to show team member real examples to achieve the required
quality in the timelines of the task so other can follow their footsteps (Ben Sedrine, Bouderbala
and Nasraoui, 2020).The different types of leadership (transformational and transactional) has
great effect on the employee satisfaction (Hacker, Johnson, Saunders and Thayer, 2019) both
leadership styles affect positively the trust within the team as the transformational leadership
which deal with members problem and needs and gain their trust to achieve the group vision also
transactional leaders play important role in rewarding and punishment for motivating the
employee which also builds trust that his work will be rewarded so both types is essentials in
building trust and increasing team performance. It is also suggested to create a system of reward
and recognition of the team's good performance. This could push employees to make an extra
effort to work well as a team. Regarding the relationship between employees, or between an
employee and the leader, it is necessary to establish clearly how to operate (Derven, 2016).
On all the dimensions that leader has to deal with, it is the human resources that is the
most important in the virtual teams Because the virtual team depends even more on the people
who compose it than the traditional team (Han et al., 2017). the members of the virtual team will
have to be able to work independently and to make independent decisions (Martins &
Schilpzand, 2011). The success of the team will depend, among other things, on the expertise,
knowledge and wisdom of its members (Davis and Khazanchi, 2007). This is why the leader will
have to carefully select the members of his team. This is a first challenge. When it comes to
teamwork, it is possible that it is not the leader who determines the composition of his team, but
rather the management (Han et al., 2017).
In a virtual team, members of a multinational can be found on the 5 continents, but also
experts from different organizations. This makes it more difficult to choose the employees for
leader. Often, the leader will have to negotiate the assignment of the employees he thinks is best
suited to do the job. These may already be assigned to a functional unit or to another project. On
the occasion, the leader may be required to impose a team that had already been assigned to the
project. In order to ensure that employees can function as much as possible, it is important to

develop a corporate culture that will promote the team spirit. The leader manager must make its
employees understand that the entire team will be responsible for the results, success or failure
(Davis and Khazanchi, 2007).
It will be important for the organization and the leader to develop a detailed human
resources management program. A system of recruitment of the best elements will have to be put
in place if the company wants to be able to get the best experts, regardless of their location.
There is also a need for a continuing education policy. It is a well-known fact; technology is
changing very quickly. The team members must be able to use the best means of communication
that the advancement of science can provide. In addition, employees will need to be able to
obtain support in the management of their career (Han et al., 2017). By evolving in a virtual
context, it can be easy to lose sight of the possibilities of promotion or its position in the
company. It will be important for the individual to feel in control of the situation. The
development of the individual's capacities, both professional and personal, is of importance to
achieve the maximum performance of the team (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).
The leadership becomes more challenging due to lack of face to face communication and
facial expression which facilitates the transfer of feelings and emotions moreover to manage
conflict is virtual teams is more difficult than face to face as maybe some of the team member
are just communicating through virtual channels and other may have face to face communication
where the team member will be diversified, all that challenges can be solved through spreading
trust in teams and making coordination between team members so they can overcome these
challenges which all of this be extra load for the leader to make to guarantee good team
performance (Ben Sedrine, Bouderbala and Nasraoui, 2020). Gaining trust in virtual team is
really slow as the participation of team member is not the same as face to face so leader
responsibility to share common tasks between team member to enhance their engagement and
promote their performance, if there is no trust at the team level this will hinder the
communication and sharing knowledge which in turns leads to difficulties in performance
(Jaakson, Reino and McClenaghan, 2019).
Various researchers see trust as a fundamental part of the dynamics of virtual teams. The
success or failure of virtual teams is and falls primarily with the predominant share of trust
(Breuer, Hüffmeier and Hertel, 2016). In this context, trust means that a person opens up to

another party at the moment, in which she assumes that this party will pursue positive intentions
and behave in good manning. Especially in virtual teams it is obviously very difficult to establish
a common basis of trust (Walsh, 2019)Various researchers have investigated in this context
whether it would be possible to build trust in a virtual environment. Again, other scientists have
found that trust can be built in a virtual environment, if it is also very difficult to establish a
common basis of trust. Once a virtual team has a trust base, it is still much more vulnerable than
the trust of a team that works together at one site (Han et al., 2017). Above all, in virtual teams,
however, the confidence in the respective leader plays a major role (Martins & Schilpzand,
2011).In the virtual world, trust is considered as an opportunity to direct team members who are
not visible to the leader so to speak (Han et al., 2017) Therefore, confidence in virtual leadership
is one of the most important ingredients for the introductory phase, the development phase and
the consolidation (Bergiel, Bergiel and Balsmeier, 2008).
The mutual lack of trust has a negative impact on the mutual cooperation processes and
the performance of the team members (de Jong, Schalk and Curşeu, 2008). This can create a trust
dilemma within a virtual team if the lack of trust severely affects the effective cooperation. In
short: To take advantage of the advantages of virtual teams, trust is crucial, yet the design of
virtual teams can make it difficult to develop confidence. Trust is the confidence in the potential
of someone to do the task without supervision and it is a cumulative consideration of past and
future actions, here we are going to show how is the trust can affect the performance of virtual
team and what is the relation between them, as we can see that trust is the most weighted factor
across the reference, where trust is positively contributes in the relation between leadership and
team performance acting as a mediator (Leadership style effect on virtual team efficiency: trust,
operational cohesion and media richness roles). where leading in a virtual team leads to a new
definition of e-leadership or virtual leadership by using technology to trigger the team member
for achieving more and being satisfied with their job (Bergiel, Bergiel and Balsmeier, 2008). As
every new step in business is faced by challenges the same was for leadership however
challenges were different than the normal face to face communication (Nandhakumar and
Baskerville, 2006).
The trust depends on the other person expectation to do the task which is subjective from
culture to culture which may leave a door for susceptibility (Dekker (2008). the trust is key
success factor for the success of virtual teams (Brahm and Kunze, 2012) and influence the

satisfaction of the team. Trust is a main key pillar in the development of virtual teams and
alignment on goal sharing supports team performance (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011). In virtual
teams it is more challenging to have common goal, in order to do this you need to have cohesion
and strong relationship between members (de Jong, Schalk and Curşeu, 2008). As far as the
individual goals are clear and specific this will lead to clear goals of the team so every individual
progress is a part of the team overall progress and cohesion which increase the team performance
(Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).
A potential impact of Trust on team performance made it highest variable studied
(Breuer, Hüffmeier and Hertel, 2016) where it directly related to the team performance we also
can state there is a relation between the culture and the trust where the nationality may affect the
grow and decline of trust during different timeline of the project where for instance in Holland it
begins and end with low trust, while in china there is a alight grow in the trust during the project
while in USA the trust is rise during the project so it culture difference has a relation to the trust
Individual performance also one of the variable investigated by (Jaakson, Reino and
McClenaghan, 2019) the studies moves from the question about what are the factors affecting
success of the team to why performance is different from one team to another where individual
abilities was one of it as they can do extra examination for the process and affect positively in
process improvement which in turn increase the performance of overall team, but her they also
compare the team of high talents member and team has trait of high trust it shows sometimes
high talent has greater effect on the performance than the trust (Jaakson, Reino and
McClenaghan, 2019). While on the contrary other studies showed that trust has the higher hand
than the individual team performance, as they show that team stars sometimes don’t like to share
their info with the rest of the team due to lack of trust which affects negatively the performance
So we can conclude that both induvial performance and trust are very important variable
(Hacker, Johnson, Saunders and Thayer, 2019)
It is through these relationships that the dynamics of the team will settle, that the
information will circulate. Working relationships can greatly facilitate coordination between the
different components of the team. A certain level of confidence must be established between the
members of the team (Horwitz, Bravington and Silvis, 2006). Trust will allow members of a
team to become involved in activities that they cannot control or evaluate. The notion of trust
becomes important as the risk of the project grows. Communication between members must

therefore be established in the most effective way. The communication may be established
verbally, in writing, in visual or by example (Davis and Khazanchi, 2007) In order to encourage
the development of good working relationships, the leader takes into account the cultural
differences that may exist between the members of his team (Horwitz, Bravington and Silvis,
2006) For example, a Japanese worker might be reluctant to ask for the help of the leader or of
one of his or her colleagues. This fact alone could cause enormous harm to the project.
The cultural origin of the team members of virtual teams also plays an important role in
the field of confidence building, because the process of confidence building depends very much
on such cultural norms and values that influence the behavior and the different ideas of team
members (Han et al., 2017). Due to different social norms, which result from the two cultural
dimensions, individualism and collectivism, team members from individualistic cultures tend to
trust less of a group than members of collective cultures. Individualistic cultures now prefer not
to be dependent on other people (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011). This cultural imprint is
particularly noticeable in such traditional teams, where team members work together in a
location, in personal contact. If you look at the virtual context, you can find that communication
processes affected by technology can result in changes. Above all, collectivistic cultures are
dependent on personal and direct contact. On the other hand, individualistic cultures should be
able to build trust in a communication affected by technology (Jarvenpaa and Leidner 1999).
(Jarvenpaa and Leidner 1999) has found in this context that individualistic groups better absorb
social structures for the reason of computer-based work, because they are more like their
individualistic culture. Collectivistic cultures, on the other hand, are harder to take on a
computer-based work, as their collective culture contributes to the social structure of work
In order to understand the different processes of virtual teams, it is therefore essential to
examine the influence of different cultures on their work processes. Another study of our
research group deals with the influence of culture, self-disclosure to other persons and
communication media on the perceived trustworthiness of the leader of a virtual team. It was
assumed that, due to the virtual context, players of individualistic cultures would bring more trust
to their superiors than players from collectivist cultures. In addition, the hypothesis was that a
high degree of self-disclosure between members of a virtual team and their superiors would lead
to a higher degree of trust. In the field of team communication, it was assumed that
communication width, i.e. the width of discussed topics, was communication depth, i.e. the

intensity of conversations, would also lead to a higher degree of confidence (Hacker, Johnson,
Saunders and Thayer, 2019)
It turned out that culture has a significant impact on trustworthiness. As assumed, players
of individualistic cultures placed a higher degree of trust in their superiors as players who came
from collectivist cultures. It was also possible to confirm that the breadth and depth of virtual
communication has a positive and significant impact on trustworthiness. This means that team
members feel able to talk to their supervisor over a wide range of topics as well as personal
interests (depth of communication). which in turn promotes the relationship between employees
and supervisor and at the same time the trust of the superior. In the case of communication depth,
culture moderates the relationship between communication depth and trust(Ben Sedrine,
Bouderbala and Nasraoui, 2020).
Distance and cultural ignorance promote prejudices and reputation effects. Other tasks
such as control of the work by the project manager also lead to differences in reading according
to the cultures. Whether the team members enter different cultural backgrounds into the team or
whether they are all in the same cultural circle, cultural influences must be taken into account in
the investigation of various conflict situations, as in this study. The culture model of Hofstede is
suitable for this purpose, the most commonly used model for the investigations of cultural
influences (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010).It describes the relationship between an
individual and the groups to which it belongs. Individualism distinguishes cultures in which the
bonds between the individuals are rather loosely designed and these individuals strive above all
to increase their own well-being. Collectivism, on the other hand, is formed in cultures in which
individuals maintain strong ties to each other. Individuals who behave loyal to a group are in
return this group.
Conflicts regarding certain tasks were positively received by teams of both value-
orientations, even if this effect was intensified in collectivist teams. The team performance of
individualistic teams was almost indifferent in terms of conflicts affecting certain processes,
whereas the team performance of collectivist teams was strongly influenced by this kind of
conflict. Conflict types that affect the ideas of ideas have a positive influence on the team
performance of teams that are both collectivically and individualistically oriented(Owens and
Khazanchi, 2018).

On the other hand, conflicts regarding different ways of working have only a negative
influence on the team performance of collective-oriented teams, while they have almost no
influence on the team performance of individualistic teams. These insights provide a deep insight
into the dynamics of leadership and the way in which virtual teams operate. For leaders of these
teams this means that they should pay attention to the different cultural backgrounds of their
team members. Particularly in collectivically-influenced cultures, conflict types should be
avoided with regard to different processes, while conflict types should be promoted as team
tasks. In individualistic cultures, conflict types should also be promoted regarding team tasks.
However, in contrast to collectivically influenced team cultures, conflicts in different processes
have no impact and need to be therefore not be taken into account by the respective executive
(Horwitz, Bravington and Silvis, 2006).
Researchers identified four areas of activity that would have to be taken care of in a
specific way by the leader. These are those in the management of human resources ("people").
relationships ("relationship"). work ("work") and knowledge ("knowledge"). They also add a
fifth dimension, or the technology, Due to the advances in technology, virtual teams are also seen
as a further development of network organizations (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).
Thus, another key feature of virtual organizations and teams is the dependence on
technology, which at the same time drives the expansion of virtual structures. The constant
innovations and improvements of the technology result in improved access to information,
generally increase productivity (Derven, 2016)create new forms of working, guiding and
organizing, which can have a positive effect on the training of other virtual structures.
At the heart of exchanges Virtual teams can in principle rely on different communication
tools. In practice, these devices are not available on all sites where it requires to work in specific
premises. Some teams are using more simple tools like instant messaging and teleconferencing.
And the language of work is English. Outside of the meetings, the communication is different by
the tools, characterized by being general and transparent, even if exchanges spontaneous are also
held in a parties, possibly in the local language, in some subgroups. Distance and technological
mediation prevent informal discussions during coffee breaks and in the corridors.
Technology Communication is an effort which is not negligible, we do not develop here
the various technical problems that disturb remote communication; they result in loss of time,

poor sound quality, lack of fluidity of information and annoy on both sides. The low quality of
sound exchanges combined with the absence of non-verbal feedbacks and a second-language
conversation require a greater concentration of participants and, despite this effort, leads to a
lesser understanding of information (Derven, 2016).
But even the use of technology cannot replace the personal contact. This often leads to
individual members feeling isolated and marginalized (Nandhakumar and Baskerville,
2006).which in turn can reduce the flow of information among team members and thus reduce
their motivation. In other words, virtual teams are exposed to risks other than traditional teams
and can only make it more difficult to build social bonds that could offset these types of risks.
In order to understand these differences, many authors recommends face-to-face
meetings The diligent leader will ensure that all members of his team are aware of the
differences that exist within the group. It will organize the video or teleconference at different
times to take into account the changes of time zones. The leader will need to develop ways to
deal with everyday problems. For example, the group could give themselves a policy to deal with
conflicts that would arise by the requirement for a face-to-face meeting or a telephone meeting
could be considered. The leader should develop a set of techniques to facilitate the development
of the working group and transform it into "team" (Nandhakumar and Baskerville, 2006)So that
the members have the opportunity to get to know each other better and to develop informal
relationships.
Many challenges face the e-leader, conflict management is an example. The manager
could also involve members of his team in the planning of the project, so that they feel involved.
It would good to invite employees to a face to face meeting at a hotel or having regular outing.
All the means are good, both formal and informal, to solidify the links between the members of
the team (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).Some solutions (travel!) may be more difficult to
consider than others, but the leader must obtain the funds for such activities. Obviously, the
leader must also have the basic qualifications to be responsible for a team, such as the ability to
delegate, plan, manage stress and time, etc. (de Jong, Schalk and Curşeu, 2008).
Conflicts in teams have been awarded to researchers for some time more than the process
of team-internal decision-making. The sensitivity for conflicts in geographically dispersed teams

is estimated to be higher than for teams working together in one location Despite a modern
evolving technology, communication processes in virtual teams are still very vulnerable
(Horwitz, Bravington and Silvis, 2006).Above all, there are certain gestures and nonverbal
language that are difficult to grasp for other members, because they are in transport virtual
cooperation. For the individual members of the team, the collaborative interaction and the
process of forming a consensus is more difficult The resulting difficulties in communication or
coordination processes have a high potential for conflict in virtual teams. On the other hand,
there are also results that confirm that virtuality is more likely to reduce the kind of difficulties
associated with conflicts than the personal contact in traditional teams (de Jong, Schalk and
Curşeu, 2008).
The use of English as primary language in oral communication, leads to a clear
dominance of English speakers and those who are very familiar with the language. Language
expertise determines both interventions and technical expertise. The poor control of the language
of communication marginalizes and even tends to decrease the team performance. Several non-
English-speaking members have expressed their frustration at not being able to make a well-
argued point of view in a foreign language. (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).
The degree of control of the basic tool of language is a source of power, on the contrary,
a factor of exclusion of the team. On the contrary, some members of the team were sometimes
chosen for this skill. When people express themselves – whether they are anglophone or they
have a strong accent different from listeners or confusing vocabulary, this often makes a positive
point to communicate well in the team and can express ideas strongly with other team members.
(Bergiel, Bergiel and Balsmeier, 2008)
Remote work leaves a high degree of autonomy and creates a difficulty in mobilizing and
controlling dispersed members as they are not within the reach of the leader. In order to address
this challenge, the leader in virtual teams set up a management by objective. The common goal is
subdivided into a plenty of goals fixed to subgroups and in fine to each individual. The
achievement of the set of individual objectives makes it possible to achieve the objectives of the
company. To the extent that, at a distance, the work process cannot be easily controlled and to
the extent that members have pointed expertise, leaders specify the expected contributions from
each. Coordination has been achieved through standardization of process(Han et al., 2017).

In a virtual context, work management becomes more complex. There are two
dimensions that the manager should be concerned about. On the one hand, there is the
management of the processes necessary to do the work. In view of the environment in which
virtual teams evolve, work processes may have to be greatly changed. This is why the project
manager will have to clearly establish the team's "mission" as well as a list of operating standards
The manager will have to establish a way of working that will be accepted by all (Brahm and
Kunze, 2012)As all of these will affect performance of the team members
The other dimension that needs to take the attention of the leader is the management of
the execution of the (work) procedures that will have been put in place To do this, the project
manager will first have to coordinate and to organize the various activities to achieve the goals
set by the organization (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011).Then it will have to control and evaluate
the performance.
In the traditional business, this task could be accomplished through face-to-face or
informal meetings. In the virtual team, the project manager will need to use the technology. The
use of voice boxes or e-mail can help this task. What is important is to let employees know the
preferred methods In this way, it will be possible to avoid duplication of tasks or that some are
"lost" and not carried out.
The management of a virtual team depends on the formal mechanisms of coordination
but also the style of the leader who prints his mark on the dynamics. The leader should
distinguishes behaviors centered on tasks and organization of work on the one hand, and
behaviors related to the construction and maintenance of the social bond such as encouragement
or recognition on the other hand. For (Martins & Schilpzand, 2011). the most effective leader is
"the integrator" who knows how to combine these two types of behaviors. In research on virtual
teams, these two axes are found. So (Ben Sedrine, Bouderbala and Nasraoui, 2020) point out that
the leader must define precisely the missions of the members, ensure the circulation of
information, follow the results but also establish mechanisms of socialization in order to create a
collective identity, to shape a team and to create confidence. Among the actions is to clarify and
align on the understanding of the tasks, we have already mentioned the fair distribution of work
and to be controlled by the commitments of each through the management by goal.

The control is to ensure that the members of the team will work to achieve the goals set
by the organization. However, in the virtual organization, leaders need to re orient their
positions. From the role of a controller to be shifted for the role of facilitator As already
mentioned, to work in a virtual team, the worker must be self-sufficient and has high degree of
autonomy. As a result, the leader will not have to control whether, indeed, the work is done.
Rather, he will seek to provide the members of his team with the best possible tools to
successfully complete the project (Han et al., 2017).
Editing the internal process can be modified to the team, such as setting up sets of rules
for the time of the meetings in the presentation or the maximum time to respond to an e-mail.
There is also the possibility to establish a list of documents to be delivered according to the
major stages of development of the project. A common practice is to keep the delivery deadline
very short . Beyond this time, there could be a loss of efficiency. Employees may feel less
focused on the task since the deadline is still far away. Also, keeping the deadlines short, it will
be easier for the leader to identify problems before they become too important (Martins &
Schilpzand, 2011)..
In other words, the leader of virtual teams does not do anything other than a classical
leader, he only has to do it with more intensity: more anticipation of the work to be done, more
responsibility structuring, more formalization in the distribution of tasks, more points of
advancement, more communication, more encouragement, more recognition, etc (Ben Sedrine,
Bouderbala and Nasraoui, 2020).
The leader must be aware that relationships can be influenced by many factors. For
example, you must consider the personality, the past experiences of the members with the
teamwork or the work experiences between the team members. If the work is to be done
effectively, it is necessary to ensure that the information will circulate appropriately between the
members of the team The experts usually present in the virtual context represent a new source of
knowledge for the company, which can prove very important. Just think about the high-tech field
to grasp the importance of having the most up-to-date and relevant information. We must
succeed in building what is to be called the memory of the company, namely the accumulation of
knowledge (Davis and Khazanchi, 2007).

The thing is even more true in virtual teams. Employees evolve in different locations.
They are then subject to various sources of information. They are influenced by factors that can
be unique to their location. All this will ensure that the information obtained will be of the most
complete, given the large number of views shared. It is more difficult to ensure that the team has
access to all relevant information, given the dispersion of members. In a traditional team, it
would be enough to group information on the project in one place so that all members of the
team could have access to it (Walsh, 2019). In a virtual context, the leader will have to put in
place the most appropriate technology to facilitate access to the data. One of the difficulties is in
the tacit knowledge of the organization about the processes of work. Normally, this information
is conveyed informally through employee socialization. In the virtual context, it will be up to the
project manager to recognize this information and to transmit it appropriately. It will need to be
made aware of the latest information available to each member of the team (Martins &
Schilpzand, 2011).established a list of the challenges facing the project manager when dealing
with information in virtual organizations.
As we have just mentioned, technology is one of the most important elements when it
comes to virtual teams. In fact, technology is part of the very concept of virtual team Without
the new tools that have been provided by the advancement in telecommunications, the existence
of forms of virtual work would have been a difficult thing to consider(Owens and Khazanchi,
2018).
Another variable is the distance between the members and the structure of the dispersion.
The distance covers both the physical distance and the time distance. For example, it may be
simpler to work with an African-Europe regions, which allows to interact widely in nearby time
zones, than on an African-American axis, which reduces the working time in common due to the
time lag. the dynamics of a team of eight members will be quite different depending on whether
the eight members are each on a different site, that they are spread over two sites of four people
or that a site has five members while the other three are scattered across three sites. These
dispersion structure promote a loose integration and leads to the creation of subgroups and
decrease the performance of the team (Zoufa and Ochieng, 2018).

Findings and Discussion
In the literature review, we observed more than one factor is affecting the virtual team
performance varies in the direction of the relationship and also the weight where some variables
are studied in many literature review showing it’s significant impact and implication to be strong
factor to maintain performance of the team, one of these common studied variable is trust, based
on my work in virtual teams in many multinational companies, I can see that the development
phase for trust takes time and depends on culture on the persons and recurrent assignment
between team member, where team building activities and sharing thoughts has significant
impact on the team performance, trust creates high preforming team that are interactively
working together to achieve company objectives. so the hypothesis that trust affects positively in
the team performance
We also saw that characteristics of high performing virtual teams is having a good leader
deals with the team members in both aspects personally and technically, and trying to spread the
spirit of the team by integration of the social team bonds to empower the each member to do his
tasks as a part of the overall team goals, In view of the fact that a good leader has strong impact
on the team performance, we can state that leadership skills affects positively in the team
performance
The different culturally background of team members had sometimes positive impact and
negative impact on the team performance based on the measures of the culture model,on one
hand individualism culture has less conflicting issues than collectively teams, while on the other
hand difference cultural background may also has positive impact as team brainstorming with
different background and this leads to increase of innovative solution in the team which impact
positively the team performance, however the leader plays a big role to handle the cultural
difference misunderstanding between team member to avoid any conflicts and maintain strong
bond between team members.
Being in a virtual team means that there is high probability in facing difference in the
Time zones which leads to slower interaction between team members and decrease the chance of
working together at the same time, which will decrease the communication channels between
team so this is an important aspect to be taken into consideration when creating and choosing
team member as it the bigger difference in time zones the lesser team performance we will have

One of the most significant variable as well is the knowledge sharing based on practical
experience the more team member trust each other, the more flow of information occurs which
increase the overall team performance and leads to increase the capabilities of the team
enhancing their skills and develop their competencies helping in creating what is called memory
of the company, so there is a positive relationship between the performance of the virtual teams
and the knowledge sharing concept in the team
Working separate but together is the thing which is important to have in the virtual team
and to assure making this we need to have common team process and the more degree of
uniformity of the process, the more performance of the team will be and this will improve their
productivity and decrease confusing between team member , so for this context common process
positively influence the dynamics and process of the virtual team promoting the success of the
project team
In virtual teams the Communication and coordination of work is mainly based on
technology (e-mail, fax, telephone, videoconference, community database, etc.). so team member
being aware and qualified to proficient the use of these tools will help them to facilitate their
work and save time, having better communication which in turns reflect positively in the team
performance
Also we see that Goal awareness having utmost importance for a better team
performance, many authors investigate the relationship between the goal awareness and it’s
interdependency to the team performance which improve communication between the team
member which helps in built of hierarchical decision-making processes and traditional
information structures among the team and decrease conflicts of interest between the
participants, so we can state that there is a positive relationship between the goal awareness of
the team and the virtual team performance.
We cannot deny level of communication richness increase starting from email to texting
to phone call to video conference to the most effective communication way which is face to face
(in person) communication, which means that from time to time virtual teams needs to have face
to face meeting from time to time which increase the cohesion of the team and will grow the
social bond between team member, so this is a clear indication the less virtuality degree the more

team performance will take place and many authors highlighted this by studies conduct on more
than one team.
We can find also that Virtual project teams are also marked by the complexity, where
language barrier may increase this type of complexity and challenge hindering exchange of ideas
in an easy way and make an upper hand for anglophone to communicate better than team
member having English as second language and don’t proficient it, this made it more difficult to
express their thoughts and discuss for opinions, we can find this especially in conversations with
Asian people as their language is a bit different than English and the accent of the words is more
difficult and unrelated to English which acts as a barrier for common understanding which for
sure affects the overall team performance.
Conclusion and recommendation
We can see that the virtual teams works become mandatory in our normal life due to
many environmental constrains and issues we faced lately and some due to evolution of the
business model, so we don’t have only to adapt to this new way of working but also to make our
self more familiar with how it is working and structured to be able to take full advantage of it. as
we can see in this paper there are more than one aspect to study and take into consideration to
have a successful virtual team performance, any company wants to apply virtual teams business
model should take care of implementation of these variables between team member and for sure
this is consider newborn business topic which needs more researches, studies and investigation it
is not limited to only these factors but we can state that we have to deal with humanization of
virtual work by the same way dealing with face to face but here more challenges we might face
and the success is to face it and overcome it.
The future will always be for the people who analysis yesterday’s result and prepare
today for tomorrow.
References
Martins, L., & Schilpzand, M. (2011). Global Virtual Teams: Key Developments, Research
Gaps, and Future Directions. Research In Personnel And Human Resources
Management,30, 1-72. doi:10.1108/s0742-7301(2011)0000030003

Brahm, T. and Kunze, F., 2012. The role of trust climate in virtual teams. Journal of Managerial
Psychology, 27(6), pp.595-614. doi: 10.1108/02683941211252446
Ben Sedrine, S., Bouderbala, A. and Nasraoui, H., 2020. Leadership style effect on virtual team
efficiency: trust, operational cohesion and media richness roles. Journal of Management
Development, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). doi: 10.1108/JMD-10-2018-0289
Jaakson, K., Reino, A. and McClenaghan, P., 2019. The space between – linking trust with
individual and team performance in virtual teams. Team Performance Management: An
International Journal, 25(1/2), pp.30-46. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/TPM-03-2018-0024
Hacker, J., Johnson, M., Saunders, C. and Thayer, A., 2019. Trust in Virtual Teams: A
Multidisciplinary Review and Integration. Australasian Journal of Information Systems,
23.
Walsh, T., 2019. Chapter 9 Virtual Team Success with the Power of Technology
Advancements. Advances in the Technology of Managing People: Contemporary Issues
in Business, pp.99-107. doi:10.1108/978-1-78973-073-920191009
Breuer, C., Hüffmeier, J. and Hertel, G., 2016. Does trust matter more in virtual teams? A meta-
analysis of trust and team effectiveness considering virtuality and documentation as
moderators. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(8), pp.1151-1177.
Nandhakumar, J. and Baskerville, R., 2006. Durability of online teamworking: patterns of
trust. Information Technology & People, 19(4), pp.371-389.
Derven, M., 2016. Four drivers to enhance global virtual teams. Industrial and Commercial
Training, 48(1), pp.1-8.
Owens, D. and Khazanchi, D., 2018. Exploring the impact of technology capabilities on trust in
virtual teams. American Journal of Business, 33(4), pp.157-178.
Zoufa, T., & Ochieng, D. E. (2018). Working separately but together: Appraising virtual project
team challenges. SSRN Electronic Journal, 23(5/6), 227-
242. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3105485

Han, S., Chae, C., Macko, P., Park, W. and Beyerlein, M., 2017. How virtual team leaders cope
with creativity challenges. European Journal of Training and Development, 41(3),
pp.261-276.
de Jong, R., Schalk, R. and Curşeu, P., 2008. Virtual communicating, conflicts and performance
in teams. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 14(7/8), pp.364-
380.
Bergiel, B., Bergiel, E. and Balsmeier, P., 2008. Nature of virtual teams: a summary of their
advantages and disadvantages. Management Research News, 31(2), pp.99-110.
Horwitz, F., Bravington, D. and Silvis, U., 2006. The promise of virtual teams: identifying key
factors in effectiveness and failure. Journal of European Industrial Training, 30(6),
pp.472-494.
Davis, A. and Khazanchi, D., 2007. Does Mutual Knowledge Affect Virtual Team Performance?
Theoretical Analysis and Anecdotal Evidence. American Journal of Business, 22(2),
pp.57-66.
Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Leidner, D. E. (2006). Communication and trust in global virtual
teams. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(6), 791-
815. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1998.tb00080.x
Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Hofstede, G. ,Hofstede, G., (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context.
Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-
0919.1014

Factors impacting VT perfomance

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Factors impacting VT perfomance

Similar to Factors impacting VT perfomance (19)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Factors impacting VT perfomance