Thesis on "Virtual Teams"

Thesis 16 pages (6056 words) Sources: 10

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Virtual Teams

A Study of the U.S. Army Logistics Network

The concept of virtual teams has grown exponentially with the pervasive adoption of the Internet and the corresponding growth of technologies that enable greater levels of collaboration, coordination of complex tasks, and greater shared ownership of tasks as well. Organizations, whose strategic objectives rely on specific skills sets in specific locations, as is the case with supply chain and logistics functions, have found virtual teams to be highly effective (Barki, Pinsonneault, 2005). The potential for creating virtual teams to more efficiently streamline complex processes in supply chains showed early promise (Bal, Gundry, 1999) and has since led to the development of knowledge-based virtual teams that are strategic and process-driven in nature (Lee-Kelley, Sankey, 2008). As virtual teams and the systems, technologies and processes used to support them have grown more collaborative in nature, knowledge development and retention, not merely production, has become the new measure of their effectiveness (Stevens, Karkkainen, Lampela, 2009). With these core concepts in mind, the intent of this analysis is to analyze how the U.S. Army Logistics Network use virtual teams to ensure supply chain processes are made more efficient and continually improved upon. In conjunction with this goal, the effectiveness, social dynamics and decision making of virtual teams will be assessed, in addition to the obstacles and success factors as well. The communication within virtual teams and the logistics of telecommuting are also discussed. Virtual teams' ability to generate knowledge is an evolving strength.

Effectiveness, Social Dynamics, and Decision Making of Virtual Teams

Assessing Effectiveness

Key to the effectiveness of virtual teams is first the composition of the team itself, and second, the leadership styles and approaches used to impart ownership of key tasks. The formation of a virtual team, to ensure the highest levels of effectiveness possible, requires team members who perceive their value as individual contributors first yet also see their contributory effects as critical to the success of the overall team (Bal, Teo, 2001). For any virtual team to be effective, the team members must see the success of the entire team as a critical part of their own credibility within the broader organization as well. Team creation must be focused on selecting candidates who have a sense of accountability and responsibility to the performance of the team as a unit, and see their contributions as not standing alone, but integral to the entire team's success (Bal, Teo, 2001). As a result, often those included in virtual teams are often senior members of organizations who may have managed in-house teams on their own before, and can see the implications of team performance organization-wide. Effectiveness of a virtual team is highly dependent on the level of shared ownership that each team member has for its vision, mission, objectives, processes and daily tasks.

As a result of these many shared aspects of ownership and the need to continually keep remotely located team members motivated, leadership is critical to the success of any virtual team (Kerber, Buono, 2004). Clearly transactional leadership where the focus is purely on activity-based metrics and the use of balanced scorecards to evaluate individual contributions can only go so far in terms of leading a virtual team. This is especially the case in the U.S. Army Logistics Network, where it is more important to commanders of purchasing and procurement teams to concentrate on enabling collaboration vs. spending time on transactional leadership. In this context, transactional leadership is comparable to micro-managing, and often does not nurture and sustain cross-department or cross-division collaboration which is so critical for the success of the Logistics Network in general and the performance of the purchasing and procurement divisions and departments specifically. As the U.S. Army Logistics Network is comprised entirely of enlisted and career military personnel, retention is not as much of an issue for leaders as is it in the commercial sector, yet morale is critical for learning to occur. Mastery of a specific knowledge area is critical for job satisfaction, especially for remote employees (Weiss, 2002). For the U.S. Army Logistics Network and its purchasing and procurement virtual work teams, this translates into the requirement on the part of leaders to be more focused on transformational vs. transactional leadership. Just as virtual teams require team members to be more focused on the entire groups' performance over just their own, a virtual team also requires leaders to shift from a being transactional to transformational. In fact this aspect of virtual teams is considered to be the most critical in terms of team's ability to get to their goals and accomplish their missions. Transformational leadership is critically important in virtual teams so that trust between team members, often separated by significantly long distances and multiple time zones, can be achieved. A transformational leader of a virtual team can also do much to avert potential conflicts and even crises that may impact their team over time as well. Studies have shown that virtual team leaders who have high levels of transformational leadership in fact are just as effective as leaders who regularly see their subordinates face-to-face (Purvanova, Bono, 2009). Transformational leadership, it can be inferred, is critically important to the success of any virtual team. The extent to which the U.S., Army Logistics Network continually invests in officers' training to continually strengthen their ability to be transformational leaders is a critical success factor that will be discussed later in this analysis. Assessing Social Dynamics

The social dynamics of virtual teams, over time, are more determined by the leadership style and its level of consistency in terms of being transformational (Purvanova, Bono, 2009) than any nearly any other series of factors. That's because a leader of a virtual team must instill a very high level of trust individually with each virtual team member and also amongst all members of the team as a group. This instilling of trust is what can lead to significant advances and performance gains over time as a virtual team works to accomplish objectives together (Jong, Schalk, Curseu, 2008). Transactional or micromanaging leadership styles on the other hand tend to isolate team members and often lead to factions being created throughout a virtual work team. In the case of the U.S., Army Logistics Network and sits purchasing and procurement virtual teams located across five continents, the use of balanced scorecards that measure and incent greater levels of collaboration across teams are often used to ensure productive social dynamics both within and between teams are attained.

Social dynamics within the U.S., Army Logistics Network's purchasing and procurement teams can also become highly competitive over time. As one of the most critical processes these teams work on is pricing, the tendency to compete on how far one team member can drive a supplier down in terms of price and then post their accomplishment to the teams' Intranet pages, a securely protected website is commonplace. The front page of the Intranet site at times can be seen as a leader-board of who is getting the greatest price concessions over time from suppliers. In the context of this pricing competition leaders of these virtual teams need to be careful to nurture healthy interdepartmental and even independent competition without sacrificing team accomplishment. This is one of the paradoxes of managing global virtual teams to attain the highest levels of performance possible, which is the managing of collaboration vs. competition (Lee-Kelley, Sankey, 2008). The team dynamics needed to accomplish this balance is critically important, and calls on leaders to continually stay focused on building trust and transparency (Purvanova, Bono, 2009). The essence of transformation leaderships' contribution to virtual teams' effectiveness is the creating of a trust-based approach to communication. As difficult as this is to do from distances, the purchasing and procurement teams in the U.S. Army Logistics Network regularly hold offsite meetings where the team members get to interact in person with each other. These events are held at the departmental level every six months and at the divisional level every year. Commanders of these specific divisions also ensure there are a series of workshops of purchasing, procurement, price negotiation strategies and strategic sourcing also held to ensure additional training goals are met. The goal of creating more trust by giving virtual team members an opportunity to meet each other face-to-face while also providing for one-one-one conversations with the team leaders and in larger divisions, commanders, also helps to create more shared ownership of team goals as well. Creating more opportunities for teams to get to know each other in person helps social dynamics over the long-term, creating greater opportunities for knowledge sharing over time (Karayaz, 2008). The U.S. Army Logistics Network has found that performance scores significantly increase for teams when they are trained on new processes and systems in the same location as well (Shipley, Johnson, Hashemi, 2009). This is attributable to virtual team members assisting each other and further reinforcing the lessons learned from training sessions held at their offsite meetings.

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