In order to succeed in today’s global economy, more and more organizations are completely relying on the geographically dispersed workforce. Organizations are building teams which can offer the best expertise, from all across the world. The global or virtual teams are combined with deep and local knowledge of the most efficient and promising market segments. They tend to draw on the benefits from international diversity by bringing together individuals, belonging to different cultures, along with different perspectives and various work experiences on organizational and strategic challenges. However, the managers who are given the responsibility of managing or leading the global teams come across several challenges. According to Ayoko, Konrad and Boyle (2012) it is quite hard for a manager to create a work group, where everyone is local and share the same work space.
On top of it, while creating a team consisting of members from various backgrounds and countries can give rise to misunderstandings, if not managed carefully. The purpose of the report is to throw light on the challenges faced by managers while leading global or virtual teams. The report throws light on the project objective and scope by reviewing the existing literatures as well as journals. The organizational managers as well as leaders have to come across several challenges while managing virtual team, as communication can deteriorate rapidly, misunderstandings can take place and cooperation among the team members can degenerate to distrust. In the words of Morgan, Paucar-Caceres, and Wright (2014), sound communication is considered to be the most critical part for the overall success of the virtual or global teams. Therefore, along with the challenges, the report will focus on the comparative analysis of both advantages and disadvantages of leading virtual teams.
The objective of the project is to highlight the challenges faced by organizational leaders and managers on managing virtual or global teams. It also discusses about the advantages of global teams at organizations and how to manage or lead them effectively. Various journals are being reviewed and presented in an ethical manner, without any fabrication of the sources. Moreover, it also includes the overall skills and experiences required by the organizational leaders to lead the global teams in an efficient manner. The overall analysis shows that there are various challenges for the organizational managers as well as leaders, while managing the teams. However, proper and effective leadership can help curb those challenges to a huge extent.
According to Daim et al. (2012), project scope can be considered as the segment, where project planning takes place. This involves determining as well as documenting the lists of specific objectives or goals of the overall study. Moreover, it also takes into consideration the project features, functionalities, deliverables, ultimate costs, tasks as well as the final deadlines. However, in simpler terms, it can be regarded as something that needs to be achieved all throughout the project work as well as what needs to be done to deliver the assignment within the given deadline. The scope of this project is to gain an understanding of the overall challenges faced by the organizational managers while leading and managing global teams. Various literatures are being reviewed and presented in most ethical manner, for giving an overview of the challenges in managing global teams.
Defining Global Teams
Virtual as well as remote working is considered to be the reality of the modern day workplaces. According to Hoch and Kozlowski (2014), a virtual team can be referred to the group of employees, who work together from several geographical areas by completely relying on communication technologies such as, video conferencing, FAX, email or some other services in order to collaborate. In simpler terms, global teams can be referred to those work groups, which work in collaboration all across the levels of organization, asynchronously. Morgan, Paucar-Caceres and Wright (2014) defined global teams as a group of geographically, time and organizationally dispersed employees, who are brought in together by information technologies and telecommunication for accomplishing the organizational tasks.
Comparative Analysis
Advantages of Global Teams
Along with the advancement of the information technology and telecommunications, ever increasing demand of target customers, globalization, employee expectations and rapid growth of the competitive environment, the companies have started to adopt a culture of global teams. The global or virtual teams are growing continuously and the popularity is increasing in an enormous term, having their own advantages or benefits. Firstly, the affordability factor plays a major role in the company’s overall achievement or success. The companies are paying only for the level of support they are getting for setting up the global teams. The costs of the professional support it much lower than the others (Mukherjee et al. 2012).
According to Binder (2016), there are no such overhead costs for the associate services like computer, office space, communication lines between the in-house staff members and virtual teams. Moreover, apart than the mentioned factors, the organizations are being able to provide the global teams with right amount of flexible support. They can identify the requirements easily, such as the need for any senior compensation analyst or say, junior recruiter and others. The global teams need to fill up the requirements of the companies and set their length of the services.
Disadvantages of Global Teams
Along with advantages, come various disadvantages as well, which may give a different concept of the global teams. In the words of Goetsch and Davis (2014), there are certain challenges or disadvantages on leading or managing the global teams. In order to become more successful and efficient, the organizations should clearly gain an understanding of the challenges, which are inherent in the global teams. This can be easily done by avoiding those mistakes that lead to nothing, except failure. These challenges cover various areas such as poor management, poor leadership as well as poor communication. As per Carter et al. (2015), communication is a major factor here due to the physical location of the employees.
However, Lasserre (2017) stated that the organizations as well as companies have the potential of leveraging the technologies for reducing this major issue by video conferencing, phone discussions, detailed email updates and project management software. It can be said that poor management as well as leadership can affect the idea of virtual or global teams. It is immensely important for the organizational global team leaders to have the skills and experiences of managing global employees. It is important for the leaders to take certain initiatives so that the employees have a clear vision of organizational objectives or goals.
Challenges in Managing Global Teams
It is immensely important for the global team leaders to have the abilities of managing and leading the teams effectively. Incompetent team members can pose a great threat to the overall concept of global teams. A weak member of the team has the power to affect the whole team in an adverse manner. Moreover, recruiting and selecting the right employees is also important for the overall success of the global teams. According to Lee (2016), the biggest challenge arises, when the organizational leaders as well as managers do not have a clear idea of managing the global teams, in an effective manner.
Due to globalization, the traditional boundaries which existed within the companies are increasingly becoming blurred. This has an impact on how the top teams of the companies are being organized and how they should be led. Moreover, Lilian (2014) mentioned that these factors are also creating greater challenges as well as difficulties for the organizations to manage and lead their virtual teams. Majority of the executives say that leading a global team can be a tough as well as frustrating job. Getting the global teams in shape can comparatively be a slow procedure and require great patience.
Several organizations have face various challenges as well as difficulties in managing the global teams due to the complications in the time-zone differences, language barriers, loss of face to face communication, different business styles at different regions or other technological issues. The specific challenges of the organization leading and managing the global teams as per Luthans and Doh (2018) are; the employees cannot trust what they cannot see, stifled diversity, old-school leadership, time-zone differences and others. At times, where there is a lack of direct contact, the employees find it challenging to build a bond or connection.
As per Barak (2016), force-fitting universal procedures can result into killing of creativity. In addition to this, old school leadership methods can mar the overall business approach as well as some employees may feel that the control or command style may be inappropriate. Moreover, due to time-zone differences, conducting meetings can create resentment to those who have to log in during the morning or leave the office at late evening. Therefore, it is immensely important for the organizational leaders or managers to develop the capabilities of uniting or building global workforces, in order to succeed in this competitive business environment.
According to Vance and Paik (2014), global team leaders need to have a global mindset, which is underpinned by a core set of qualities and skills. They should have a higher level of self awareness and competencies, strengths as well as weaknesses, beliefs and values. In addition to these factors, they need to ensure that every member of the team is highly collaborative as well as cooperative, ensuring that they have their own voice. Moreover, the global team members should raise their opinions and view points, be open as well as curious and eager to learn the customs, values and attitudes.
In the words of Moran, Abramson and Moran (2014), the major challenges faced by the organizational leaders and managers, while managing the global teams are specifically the lack of clarity within the teams, slow decision making, conflicts within the global teams and several others. In addition to this, there are other factors as well like conflicting culture of the organizations, lack of cultural training and others. Therefore, the organizational leaders or managers need to put some remedies on place, in order to keep curb these challenges. Moreover, the leaders are required to set up some communication strategies and face the issues by using information technologies. In reference to this, Deresky (2017) mentioned that video conferencing can be considered as an immensely necessary tool to help the global teams feel ‘present’ within the meetings. It will help the participants by giving them the abilities of sensing each other’s tone and body language as well.
As per Maranga’s and Sampayo’s (2015) opinion, one of the major challenges for the global teams is the noticeable disconnection between the international staffs and central management. According to the researchers, around 58% of international managers are not properly equipped to lead the cultural or global teams. According to the managers of the international companies, around 96% of them felt that they face several challenges, while managing and leading the virtual teams. They stated that global teams are more difficult to handle and majority of the challenges arise due to the disconnection between the managers and the team members’ opinions.
According to a survey conducted by the RW Culture Wizard, around 38% of the disconnections between the opinions of the staff members and the global team leaders or managers occur due to ineffective communication. Therefore, it can be said that the biggest reasons for ineffective global teams is the disconnection in the corporate communication, which leads to the specified challenges. The managers or leaders do not a have a clear idea or concept of the pre-required communication forms or infrastructures required for handling global teams in an effective, yet efficient manner (Reilly and Williams 2016).
In addition to this, according to Cascio and Boudreau (2016), another major reason for the disconnection of the virtual team managers and their employees can be the cultural differences. In fact, around 70% of the respondents in a survey reported that due to the cultural differences that exist within the international organizations, employees are facing huge difficulties in keeping the performance level higher. This factor proves to be a major challenge for the international organizations and therefore, proper leadership and management are necessary. Another major challenge for managing the global teams occurs, while managing the hierarchy of the virtual teams.
The problems might exist due to the various geographical settings and some teams may be larger than the others. In this context, the larger teams have a concept that they have more power than the smaller ones. This wrong or negative perception of powers may cause a negative effect on the overall global team and affect them as a whole. The individuals with perceived power may feel like the smaller teams yield smaller outcomes and gives fewer contributions to the global teams. This may cause the organizational leaders or managers to restrict the small teams’ power. The smaller team now may feel that the majority is drowning their potential, in terms of power and voice (Katzenbach and Smith 2015).
However, according to Brewster, Chung and Sparrow (2016), effective communication can solve these issues to a huge extent, at the workplaces. In the domestic workplaces, communication can be done effectively within the workplaces by face to face. There are more effective communication ways like instructing the team members to perform well and getting immediate feedback from them. In addition to this, as far as the international teams are concerned, communicating with the employees can be done by depending upon the information technologies like video conferencing and others.
Organizational managers as well as leaders face some major issues in managing the global teams, especially at the beginning. There is no direct communication or face to face meetings with the global team members. However, thanks to the information technologies, as it has helped in lessening the challenges of the global teams. Proper infrastructure and internet connection can remove the possible roadblocks and help in planning for the meetings and current activities. The meetings over video conferencing can prove to be beneficial for the virtual teams, given the fact that each and every team member is present and adequately paying attention (Oshri, Kotlarsky and Willcocks 2015).
In the words of Brewster, Chung and Sparrow (2016), employees easily lose their focus and it is even worse when they have to work in a different workplace environment. In order to avoid such awkward situations, the organizational leaders should make sure that the team members are productive enough to set new goals as well as objectives for the organizations. Moreover, the employees need to understand that the team goals are their individual goals and in order to achieve them, they need to gain an understanding of the global teams’ advantages.
The organizations and companies need to leverage their technologies in order to reduce these major challenges. Moreover, adoption of video conferencing, phone discussions, management software and others can help the companies to a large extent. In addition to this, Morgan, Paucar-Caceres and Wright (2014) mentioned that the organizational leaders should manage their global teams in the most effective manner. They should have a clear concept regarding the advantages of the virtual teams. Furthermore, it is immensely important for the team leaders to take initiatives and manage the global employees so that they have a clear vision of the company’s aims and go
als.
Conclusion
To conclude, managing and leading the virtual teams effectively can yield better outcomes for the companies. It can prove to be an ideal solution for the start-up companies and smaller organizations to engage with their employees through video conferencing, in order to cut costs and travel expenses. The organizations or companies which are delivering these services of business are finding themselves into the innovative and growing niche. However, the incompetent team members may pose a great threat to the overall concept or idea of global teams. Even a weak member in the global team has the power to affect the overall team in an adverse manner.
The report throws light on the challenges faced by the managers, while managing as well as leading global or virtual teams. Moreover, several scholars have revealed the fact that recruiting or selecting the right employee plays the most critical role in the success of the global teams. To sum up, effectively organizing the virtual teams will prove to be highly beneficial for the success of the companies or organizations. It is also true that there are several challenges, but managing or leading them in an efficient manner can change the overall pattern of the business an help in yielding better outcomes.
References
Ayoko, O.B., Konrad, A.M. and Boyle, M.V., 2012. Online work: Managing conflict and emotions for performance in virtual teams. European Management Journal, 30(2), pp.156-174.
Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.
Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.
Brewster, C., Chung, C. and Sparrow, P., 2016. Globalizing human resource management. Routledge.
Carter, D.R., Seely, P.W., Dagosta, J., DeChurch, L.A. and Zaccaro, S.J., 2015. Leadership for global virtual teams: Facilitating teamwork processes. In Leading global teams (pp. 225-252). Springer, New York, NY.
Cascio, W.F. and Boudreau, J.W., 2016. The search for global competence: From international HR to talent management. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.103-114.
Daim, T.U., Ha, A., Reutiman, S., Hughes, B., Pathak, U., Bynum, W. and Bhatla, A., 2012. Exploring the communication breakdown in global virtual teams. International Journal of Project Management, 30(2), pp.199-212.
Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson Education India.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hoch, J.E. and Kozlowski, S.W., 2014. Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership, structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 99(3), p.390.
Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K., 2015. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
Lasserre, P., 2017. Global strategic management. Palgrave.
Lee, M.R., 2016. Leading virtual project teams: Adapting leadership theories and communications techniques to 21st century organizations. Auerbach Publications.
Lilian, S.C., 2014. Virtual teams: Opportunities and challenges for e-leaders. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 110, pp.1251-1261.
Luthans, F. and Doh, J.P., 2018. International management: Culture, strategy, and behavior. McGraw-Hill.
Maranga, K. and Sampayo, J., 2015. Management and leadership in a global environment. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 16(1), p.83.
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R. and Moran, S.V., 2014. Managing cultural differences. Routledge.
Morgan, L., Paucar-Caceres, A. and Wright, G., 2014. Leading effective global virtual teams: The consequences of methods of communication. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 27(6), pp.607-624.
Mukherjee, D., Lahiri, S., Mukherjee, D. and Billing, T.K., 2012. Leading virtual teams: how do social, cognitive, and behavioral capabilities matter?. Management Decision, 50(2), pp.273-290.
Oshri, I., Kotlarsky, J. and Willcocks, L.P., 2015. The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring 3rd Edition. Springer.
Reilly, P. and Williams, T., 2016. Global HR: Challenges facing the function. Routledge.
Vance, C.M. and Paik, Y., 2014. Managing a global workforce: challenges and opportunities in international human resource management. Routledge.
7.Appendix
Figure: Management of Global Teams
Figure: Importance of New Trends in Businesses
Figure: Global Teams Success and Failure Rates
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