Managing Virtual Team: Advantages and Disadvantages

This report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of managing virtual teams in the context of economic and environmental sustainability. It argues that virtual teams are cost-effective and environmentally sustainable, but also highlights the challenges of cultural and geographical differences.

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Managing Virtual Team
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Introduction
Virtual team is an emerging technique in the context of modern business. As very
different from face-to-face meetings, virtual team meetings can create conflicts and
confusions. In addition, it requires a complete different approach and process than the
conventional way of business meetings. Despite the disadvantages, virtual team meeting is
becoming a useful and convenient way of business communication. Given this context, it is
vital to understand how a virtual team is a more convenient way to conduct business
meetings. This report intends to establish the key advantages of using a virtual team and
prove it as a convenient way to manage business meetings in the modern day context. The
report will first argues how virtual team can be cost effective and increase environmental
sustainability, and then will make a counter argument on the disadvantages of it regarding the
cultural diversities, in order to establish that considering all facts, virtual team is indeed a
competent mode of communication in business.
Discussion
Economic Sustainability
Virtual team is becoming a significant medium to manage the business operations of
an organization on a global scale. With the help of modern technologies and
telecommunication systems, team members from various parts of the world can built a virtual
team to discuss common agendas towards achieving the company objective (Dulebohn and

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Hoch 2017). As telecommunication is the medium of conducting virtual team meetings, the
organizations have the advantage of reducing the expense it allots for business meetings. In
this world of global capitalism, business is not bounded in a single country or even continent
(Smith 2018). In order to grow the business, organizations are expanding in multiple
countries by using them as the manufacturing places and market for the products or services.
This requires frequent communication between the offices in different countries, which
would have cost a lot more without the use of virtual team. Virtual team meetings save the
cost of the venue, accommodation, and travel which are required in a face-to-face meeting.
Therefore, it is evident that virtual team is a cost efficient way to hold business meetings.
Environmental Sustainability
Conducting meetings with virtual team does not require travelling and lodging, and
hence, it reduces the energy consumption rate and carbon footprint to develop a sustainable
environment. According to Wadud, MacKenzie and Leiby (2016), changes in travel demand
could result into less carbon footprint and energy consumption. Carbon footprint is the
amount of total carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere by the activities of an
organization, event or individual. Travelling is an essential part of the organizations that have
offices in multiple countries. As discussed by Cadarso et al. (2016), the growing demand of
tourism industry is responsible for a large portion of carbon footprint. Various organizations
utilizes these tourism programs throughout the year to organize business meetings. Virtual
team meeting reduces travelling and by that, it decreases the possibility of the carbon
footprint and energy consumptions. In the context of global warming and environmental
pollution, it is crucial to find ways that will increase the environmental sustainability, and
virtual team provides that opportunity.

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Cultural and Geographical Difference
It is widely discussed that the major problems in managing virtual team are the time
zone and the mode of communication for the cultural and geographical diversity of the
organizations. Effective communication is the way of achieving success in any field of work.
In business, it is one of the crucial concerns as the process of decision-making depends on it.
In an organization that operates on global scale, it is usual to build a virtual team with skilled
members from different geographic locations and cultures. As discussed by Lockwood
(2015), this develops a conflict regarding the language to be used in the meetings as a few
countries may have been using English as lingua franca, and the others may not. The
geographical difference creates confusion in respect of the time of meetings. As different
members belong to different geographical areas, they live in different time zone. Therefore,
when it is business hour in a country, it could be midnight in another country. The difference
in time zone creates obstacles in scheduling the meetings. Thus, it can be said that the cultural
and geographical difference are major disadvantages of virtual team.
Conclusion
Virtual team is becoming a common practice among the multinational companies.
Thus, it is important to evaluate its effectiveness in the current global context of economic
and environmental sustainability. The report firmly supports the virtual team as a useful
medium of business communication. Although, there are potential concerns regarding the
diversity of cultures and geographical areas that are evident in virtual teams. Yet, these issues
can be resolved by taking decisions in advance regarding the languages and plan training
programs to prepare the team members. The problem of different time zone can also be
resolved by clarity in agenda and the adjustments in schedules. As a conclusion, it can be said

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that with the proper planning it is possible to manage virtual team and conduct successful
business meetings with the help of it.

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Reference
Cadarso, M.Á., Gómez, N., López, L.A. and Tobarra, M.Á., 2016. Calculating tourism's
carbon footprint: measuring the impact of investments. Journal of Cleaner Production, 111,
pp.529-537.
Dulebohn, J.H. and Hoch, J.E., 2017. Virtual teams in organizations.
Lockwood, J., 2015. Virtual team management: what is causing communication breakdown?.
Language and Intercultural Communication, 15(1), pp.125-140.
Smith, K.E.I., 2018. What Is Globalization?. In Sociology of Globalization (pp. 3-10).
Routledge.
Wadud, Z., MacKenzie, D. and Leiby, P., 2016. Help or hindrance? The travel, energy and
carbon impacts of highly automated vehicles. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and
Practice, 86, pp.1-18.

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