INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT & Globalization

Running head: INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT
INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
In recent times, the age of globalization has led to many organisations expanding their
business in other countries for more productivity and sales. This makes companies have different
set of employees working from the locations where the business has expanded their business
which leads to the creation of virtual teams in the organisation. Virtual terms are mainly defined
as the group of people who work coherently and together from various geographical locations
and operate solely based on the innovative communication technology like FAX, video
conferencing, e-mail and many more for effective and positive collaboration (Stocker et al 2017).
It is very difficult to handle and manage global virtual teams because of the distance thus, it is
important for companies and the managers to be able to manage virtual teams successfully. This
paper is going to focus on coming up with strategies that will help in training the managers to
ensure that they manage virtual teams effectively and also discuss the challenges that they face in
this scenario and provide recommendations to overcome the issue.
Discussion
I have been currently assigned as the Information Technology Director for a company.
The company is a multinational company which has their other offices set up in different
continents like Europe and Asia. The company has incorporated various virtual teams in their
organisations in order to lower their costs, have more availability of talent, reduction of the travel
time and many more. However, virtual teams often possess some challenges for the managers of
an organisation. A manager while managing the virtual teams may often face the following
challenges:

INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT2
Weak communication
According to research, communication is one of the biggest weaknesses in virtual teams
as it lacks the face to face communication which restricts from building a positive relationship
between the manager and the team which is essential for fruitful performances and productivity
of the organisation (Marlow, Lacerenza and Salas 2017). The members of the virtual teams often
go days without having any kind of contact with one another which can also make the members
of the teams feel isolated which can lead to demotivation in the workplace.
Lack of trust
Managing virtual team becomes difficult for the managers because of the geographical
distance. Lohikoski et al (2015) states virtual teams tend to create mistrust among the members
of the team. This is mainly because they do not work together for a sufficient amount of time,
they cannot see what the other is doing and the lack of immediate responses often leads to the
mistrust. This creates a negative atmosphere and relationship among the team members which
hampers the productivity of the organisation as well as the employees working in different teams
making it difficult for the managers to ensure the proper productivity of the teams.
Differences in the time zone
This is one of the major challenges while handling a virtual team. As the members of the
teams live in different geographical locations they have time differences. The team residing in
one country might work at the time when the members of the countries are not working which
can create difficulty in operating and also creates a huge challenge for the proper production.
Thus, meetings are conducted by the managers for coming up with solutions which will help
them in managing global virtual teams effectively.