ENGR802:

Lesson 4: Globalization and the Impact on Communication & Knowledge Sharing

Global Virtual Teams

We saw in the early part of this lesson that one of the 10 skills that are needed for the future was virtual collaboration, which included the ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team (Davies et al., 2011). After reviewing potential barriers to intercultural communication in the previous section, imagine how much more difficult it would be to communicate on a virtual team without the personal interactions and ability to observe the nonverbal communications. Many of the take-away lessons in this section are important for all teams, but are of particular importance in virtual teams.

Watch the following video, Global Virtual Teams.

Who is using virtual teams and how will this affect you?

In a study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 46% of organizations surveyed reported that they use virtual teams (Minton-Eversole, 2012). The use of virtual teams was more than twice as much in organizations with multinational operations (66%) than those with U.S. based operations (28%). The top reasons cited for the use of virtual teams were to improve productivity, to minimize travel costs, and to collaborate more across global business because projects were becoming more global (Minton-Eversole, 2012). Of those surveyed, 43% indicated that a larger percent of their workforce will be telecommuting within the next five years.

Virtual Teams, Communication, and Knowledge Management

For virtual teams to be productive they must manage their knowledge creation, integration, and application. Productive knowledge creation and application occurs within social systems that can include problem solving groups and project teams (Alavi, 2002). The most valuable knowledge in any organization is the ability of the organizations's members to gather and use their tacit knowledge for productive collaboration (Davenport & Prusak, 1997). Tacit knowledge is difficult to transfer to another person through written or verbal communication and can be thought of as the expertise and know-how that is only held in an individual’s mind and expressed only through their actions (Alavi, 2002). An individuals’ knowledge can be combined into group-level knowledge within working groups.

Individuals in a group assume roles (by specialty and expertise), each helping their peers within given domains of specialization. Knowledge integration increases the likelihood that organizations will reliably respond to opportunities and threats. In social collectives, pre-existing essential knowledge may influence a group’s ability to interpret new information. Integration of diverse expertise of individuals in teams can result in new ways of doing things, beyond what is possible by known approaches.