Managing and Leading Virtual Teams: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Recommendations

This memo discusses the advantages and disadvantages of managing and leading virtual teams, along with recommendations for betterment. It also highlights the importance of good communication for virtual teams.

Running head: MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
Management Communication
Name of the University:
Name of the Student:
Author Note:

1MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
To: Alec Johnson
From: Christine Simpson
Date: 10th August 2018
Subject: Managing and leading virtual teams
Remote as well as virtual working is regarded as the reality of the modern workplace. As per
Dulebohn and Hoch (2017), good communication is regarded as the vital part for the overall
success of any business and most importantly, for virtual or global teams. For this purpose,
the company has decided to design a new virtual team for marketing that is located at various
places like Beijing, Sydney, New York and Mumbai. This memo will be discussing about
several advantages and disadvantages of managing as well as leading a global or virtual team.
Moreover, it is immensely important to take some critical areas into consideration, which
should be addressed in order to lead such virtual teams. Additionally, the memo will also
include some recommendations for the betterment of the company and finally, a conclusion.
To begin with, it is important to give a brief introduction of what a virtual team actually is. A
global or virtual team can be considered as the most important part of any business.
Generally, a virtual team comprises a group of people, who perform their activities together
from different geographic areas. Mostly, they rely on to the communication technologies, like
video conferencing, email, FAX or other services in order to collaborate and communicate. In
simpler terms, it refers to the working groups, who perform or work together all across the
levels of organization, asynchronously (Krumm et al. 2016). Morgan, Paucar-Caceres and
Wright (2014) defined the words as a group of geographically, timely and organizationally
dispersed workers, who works together through information technologies and
telecommunication for accomplishing the organizational tasks.

2MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
Advantages
Along with the advancement in information technology, the ever growing demand of
employee expectations, target customers, ever increasing environment of competitiveness and
globalization, the organizations and global companies have started to adopt a virtual team
culture. The global and virtual teams have witnessed a rapid growth and moreover, its
popularity helped it in gaining huge benefits. Firstly, the affordability factor comes into
consideration. The organizations pay for the level of support they require for setting the
virtual teams up. The total expenses are lower than that with professional support. In addition
to this, there are least overhead expenses and associated services such as computer, office
space, communication among the virtual teams, benefits and in-house staffs (Archibald and
Archibald 2016).
Additionally, the companies provide the teams with the above mentioned factors in order to
support them in a flexible manner. They are able to identify the requirements easily, such as
the need for senior compensation analysts, junior recruiters and others, which helps in
meeting the demands and needs of the virtual teams. According to the needs, the
organizations set up their length of services. In addition to this, the virtual groups provide
with accessibility to the multiple disciplinary numbers in different regions of geography. Last
but not the least; the virtual teams are able to assemble with the talented groups from
different parts for competing with the complex projects. Moreover, on a practical level, the
teams have the potential of saving the time of the employees as well as cut additional
expenses of travelling (Ellwart et al. 2015).
Disadvantages
Now along with advantages, come several disadvantages. There are few challenges or say
disadvantages, for leading as well as managing the virtual teams. It is highly important for

3MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
gaining a proper understanding of the general disadvantages, which are inherent for the
teams. It will enable the companies in becoming more successful, effective and efficient. This
can also be done by keeping away the specific mistakes, which lead to no good, but failure.
These challenges however, lie in different regions such as poor management, poor leadership
and poor communication. As per Hoch and Kozlowski (2014), the communication should be
regarded as the major aspect here. It is because the employees or individuals do not generally
belong in the same geographic location. This can cause certain issues related to
communication.
Recommendations
The organizations should have the potential of leveraging the information technology as it
reduces the major problem. Utilizing project management software, detailed updates in the
email, video conference and others, can help in reducing the issues. It can be recommended
that the team members should be able to lead as well as manage the virtual teams in the most
effective manner possible. This would benefit the organization on the long run. Furthermore,
it will be an ideal solution for the start up businesses or small organizations.
To conclude, the organizations should be able to manage the virtual teams as it proves to be
highly beneficial for them. I hope that this memo solves the issues of virtual teams. For
further queries, contact me.
Regards

4MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
References
Archibald, R.D. and Archibald, S., 2016. Leading and Managing Innovation: What Every
Executive Team Must Know about Project, Program, and Portfolio Management. Auerbach
Publications.
Dulebohn, J.H. and Hoch, J.E., 2017. Virtual teams in organizations.
Ellwart, T., Happ, C., Gurtner, A. and Rack, O., 2015. Managing information overload in
virtual teams: Effects of a structured online team adaptation on cognition and
performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24(5), pp.812-826.
Hoch, J.E. and Kozlowski, S.W., 2014. Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership,
structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 99(3), p.390.
Krumm, S., Kanthak, J., Hartmann, K. and Hertel, G., 2016. What does it take to be a virtual
team player? The knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics required in virtual
teams. Human Performance, 29(2), pp.123-142.
Morgan, L., Paucar-Caceres, A. and Wright, G., 2014. Leading effective global virtual teams:
The consequences of methods of communication. Systemic Practice and Action
Research, 27(6), pp.607-624.