Virtual Teams That Work Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness [Paperback]

Virtual Teams That Work offers a much-needed, comprehensive guidebook for business leaders and managers who want to create the organizational conditions that will help virtual teams thrive. Each chapter in this important book focuses on best practices and includes case studies and illustrative examples from a wide variety of companies, including British Petroleum, Lucent Technologies, Ramtech, SoftCo, and Whirlpool Corporation. These real-life examples demonstrate how the principles identified in the book play out within virtual teams. Virtual Teams That Work shows how organizations can put in place the structure to help team members who speak different languages and have different cultural values develop effective ways of communicating when there is little opportunity for the members to meet face-to-face. The authors also reveal how organizations can implement performance management and reward systems that will motivate team members to cooperate across multiple boundaries. And they offer the information to determine which technologies best fit a variety of virtual-team tasks and the level of information technology support needed.

Tables, Figures, and Exhibits xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

The Authors xix

1 In the Beginning: Introduction and Framework 1
Susan G. Cohen, Cristina B. Gibson

PART ONE: ESTABLISHING THE FOUNDATION: SHARED UNDERSTANDING, INTEGRATION, AND TRUST 15

Part One Introduction 17

2 Knowledge Sharing and Shared Understanding in Virtual Teams 21
Pamela J. Hinds, Suzanne P. Weisband

3 Managing the Global New Product Development Network: A Sense-Making Perspective 37
Susan Albers Mohrman, Janice A. Klein, David Finegold

4 Building Trust: Effective Multicultural Communication Processes in VlÃ#