Is High ICT Intensity Always the Ideal?: Lessons Learned From Contemporary Virtual Teams

Introduction

Modern organizations have been continuously seeking opportunities to grow virtual teams as both domestic and international markets require more collaborations. A recent report reveals that 85% of the respondents believe virtual collaboration is critical to their job, and one in five of them spent more than half of the day interacting on virtual teams (RW³ CultureWizard, 2016). A virtual team refers to a group of individuals who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries and who communicate with team members primarily via information and communication technologies (ICTs) (Warkentin, Sayeed, & Hightower, 1997). Regardless of their popularity, these teams are more difficult to manage than traditional ones (Flavian, Guinalíu, & Jordan, 2019). In another survey, only about one third of the participants reported improved productivity via their virtual collaborations (Alonso, Schmit, & Esen, 2012). The difficulties faced by virtual teams are often caused by poor quality of communication due to the lack of useful ICTs. The more ICT tools a team adopts, the more is its ICT intensity. Yet, it is not clear what ICT strategy and the level of ICT intensity are considered proper because virtual collaboration varies depending on its characteristics.

Effective communication is usually the key to successfully share information, maintain a common goal, and boost productivity. In contrast, fewer communication opportunities make these teams lack social presence and thus create conflicts (Mokline, 2017). Low quality communication caused by lack of or poor management of ICTs is likely to devastate the teamwork and trust between individuals in a virtual team. We identified several risks resulting in conflict between virtual team members. These risks are: limited modes of communication; social and cultural divergences; and difficulty in identifying conflicts (Mokline, 2017). Challenges that may arise from ICTs are related to software preference, platform type, software-task compatibility, security concern, and software trust. For example, many organizations are reluctant to use free software due to lack of trust to security and confidentiality.

Here are some other challenges and issues faced by many virtual teams. First, time zone difference poses challenges to both domestic and international virtual teams. The difficulties derived from time zone difference are not likely to be resolved with the available ICTs (Hoch & Dulebohn, 2017). Second, absence of human elements, such as the lack of face-to-face conversation in virtual teams, renders low level of media richness, which, in turn, creates communication boundary and hinders productivity. Face-to-face meetings are essential especially during the beginning of a virtual collaboration to facilitate a smooth transmission into the new teamwork. Third, cultural differences create another hurdle for many virtual teams. For example, workplace culture can differ drastically from one location to another for a domestic virtual team. In other words, established routines and subtle social norms in one office may require a period of time to learn at other locations of the team. For an international virtual team, co-workers may need even more time and effort to be familiar with each other’s office culture (e.g., acceptable/unacceptable norms, holidays, etc.).

To overcome the above challenges, companies have been utilizing different combination of ICTs as well as different level of ICT intensity to assist their virtual collaborations. In this study, we explore two critical research questions (RQs). RQ1: Does the combination of adopted ICTs vary among these teams for their virtual collaboration management? RQ2: What factors affect ICT intensity and the dependency between ICT tools and the project type? We adopted a multi-case approach supported by four interviews with four major companies headquartered in U.S., U.K., and China. Through our qualitative data analysis, important insights were revealed.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We begin this study by introducing the research background underlined by dynamic social impact theory (DSIT) of dispersed teams. Next, we present the rationale and design of our multi-case approach in details. In this section, the background information, challenges, and ICT strategy of each selected virtual team are discussed. Content generated during interviews is provided when needed. We then discuss the findings for each RQ, contribution for research and practice, and limitations.