Virtual Team Successes and Stresses: A Case Study

Virtual Team Successes and Stresses: A Case Study

What did the team leader notice during the team meeting (calls) and what did she try to do to enhance the situation?

Culture shock is one of the leading causes of failure of virtual teamwork and inability to embrace or anticipate cultural traits can lead to significant failure. Based on the case study; team leader noticed during the team meeting (calls) that Rebecca had failed to do her due diligence in preparing the team to accommodate different cultural preferences among its members which is why her efforts were snag. In addition; the leader also noticed that Rebecca tried to enhance the situation by running cultural due diligence and careful preparation which are necessary components of working with a virtual team as well as failed to exercise cultural awareness and cultural competence all along the way (Hacker, et al., 2019).

• What should Rebecca had to do for each virtual worker and why?

Management experts argue that a good understanding of culture is quite useful in running an organization and managing team members. Based on this; one of the main things that Rebecca should have done for each virtual work was to have a face-to-face meeting which would have enable her to fully understand different cultural preferences for each team member and decide how to allocate duties to each member based on their cultural preferences.

• What were the special situations with the Korean and the Japanese workers?

Naturally; there are more than a few special situations with the Korean and the Japanese workers such as strong influence of culture among others. Korean as well as Japanese workers has high regards for culture and therefore; cultural practices have significant impact on workers and how they perform in their duties (Hacker, et.al, 2019).

• What the virtual leaders and the virtual members need to exercise?

The main element for virtual leaders and virtual members that need to be great exercise is effective communication. According to organization research; both virtual leaders and the virtual members need to exercise effective communication by setting out clear guidelines that will be used before communicating with each team member virtually. Some of the things that should be include in these guidelines include but not limited to regular scheduled calls based on the significance of the issue at hand and good management of time zones. Another issue that both virtual leaders and the virtual members need to exercise is trust. While establishing trust among virtual team members can be hard to achieve, it is imperative for virtual team leader to ensure they have open and honest relationship with their virtual team members as well as encourage feedback (Mukherjee & Natrajan, 2019).

• How can the virtual teams be as effective and productive as their traditional equivalents?

Virtual teams can be as effective and productive as their traditional equivalents by first establishing excellent communication and enforcing trust among team members.  With the right communication, it is possible for virtual teams to be as effective and productive as their traditional equivalents based on the time frame of communication especially ensuring communication is established base on the right time zone frame among other things (Mukherjee & Natrajan, 2019). Lastly; trust and creativity can make Virtual teams be as effective and productive as their traditional equivalents.

References

Hacker, J. V., Johnson, M., Saunders, C., & Thayer, A. L. (2019). Trust in Virtual Teams: A Multidisciplinary Review and Integration. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 23.

Mukherjee, D., & Natrajan, N. S. (2019). Managing Virtual Teams in Software Projects through Social Media: A Multi-case Approach. South Asian Journal of Management, 26(1).