Ecom201 Sem 2 Assignment 1: Managing Virtual Team Challenges

This report addresses the challenges of managing virtual teams, a critical topic in today's business environment. The assignment defines and analyzes key issues like communication breakdowns due to lack of face-to-face interaction, language differences, and technical glitches. It also highlights productivity concerns stemming from remote work and lack of boundaries, and trust issues that arise from limited interaction. For each issue, the report proposes practical solutions. These include cultural training and technological investments to improve communication, establishing clear expectations and encouraging team building to boost productivity and building shared goals to foster trust. The report emphasizes the importance of strong leadership in overcoming these challenges to achieve team success. The report is supported by references to academic research on virtual teams.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT 0
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MANAGEMENT
Introduction - In the corporate world, virtual teams are becoming more and more
common and with the greater availability of internet, work can be done effectively across the
borders (El-Sofany et al, 2014). However, rolling out the latest technology platform to
connect disparate parts of the enterprise does not guarantee enhanced communication and
improved performance. Working as and within a virtual team also presents various concerns
in terms of communication, productivity and trust factor.
Communication Issue and Solution
Team members can communicate with one another with virtual messaging services
and organise their work in a more central way. However, there can be challenging in relation
to loss of information as of absence of face-to-face contact. The language of body and visual
cues presents significant insights that are often lost during interactions in virtual
communication. Cultural and language difference can also create misunderstandings between
the virtual team members from other nations or territories from the same country (Marlow et
al, 2017). During a critical virtual meeting, it is quite common concern almost faced by
everyone related to network or software connection. Such issue also raises as a barrier to
communication with introducing extra “noise”.
Considering solution to communication issue in the virtual teams, the language barrier
and cultural differences can be resolved with introducing cultural training allowing team
members to build greater awareness of other cultures. The next big issue is of malfunction in
technology and it can effectively resolve by budgeting for software and hardware solutions
such as with dedicated bandwidth or a stable, reliable meeting stage (Marlow et al, 2017). In
addition, to facilitate communication effectively in virtual teams, business requires to choose
the best tools and bundles like for project management – Jira and Trello, and for web and
video conferencing – Google Meet, Cisco and Zoom.
Productivity Issue and Solution
The most significant thing to focus on with virtual teams is that everyone still works
to the greatest efficient level that they can lead the productivity as high as likely. Low
productivity is a clear risk when staff work outside of a traditional workplace and also, the
risk burnout for particular employees when working remotely as of lack of boundaries (Ford
et al, 2017). Developing a productive and efficient virtual team requires planning, foresight,
commitment and hard work.
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The first solution for the productivity issue in virtual teams includes ensuring adequate
accountability with setting up clear expectation for each individual role prior to the meeting
as well as placing consistent check-ins to evaluate improvement. It is challenging and
impractical to expect all to work at the same efficiency, however, there is a need for broad
awareness of how long works take and how much every individual is achieving week by
week. The next solution is to recognise the conversations during telecommunication as it
should not be limited to only professional topics. It will develop an opportunity to discover
common interests help to bond with co-employees over time (Ford et al, 2017). In addition,
one should also acknowledge that there will always be the members of the team who will not
have the opportunity to speak up as much as others and considering them showing respect for
one another will help in overall increase of the performance.
Trust Issue and Solution
In any form of communication or relationship, trust has a greater significance as when
staffs have belief on their managers and trust they are functioning towards a common goal,
engagement and collaboration, it will automatically instil trust in onsite and remote workers
alike. However, trust can be even harder to maintain in virtual team environment as every
conversation is strictly making relates to business and at the time of meeting, people are show
reluctance while asking for help. Hence, it is important for the effective virtual leader to
discover ways and break down the barriers imposed by distance via combination of
innovative tools and technologies and strong management techniques (Alsharo et al, 2017).
The first solution to this issue is encouraging team building and collaboration as it
will help in building trust with allowing to know one another’s thought procedures and
working panaches. It will help team members to play as per the strengths and specifically
with the remote employees, it is necessary for individuals to know where they belong and to
whom they require to report. In addition, building a shared goal is another solution and these
goals must be communicated by wider corporate goals while also offering better opportunity
in the strategic planning process (Alsharo et al, 2017).
Conclusion – Ultimately, managing a virtual team can be challenging, however, there is a
head-on worth when the leader or manager overcome those challenges by being a crucial link
and drive engagement and generating substantial impact in various ways.
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References
Alsharo, M., Gregg, D., & Ramirez, R. (2017). Virtual team effectiveness: The role of
knowledge sharing and trust. Information & Management, 54(4), 479-490.
Botero, A. (2012). Framework for Evaluating Supply Chain Execution Systems. Retrieved
from https://www.industryweek.com/logistics/framework-evaluating-supply-chain-
execution-systems
El-Sofany, H. F., Alwadani, H. M., & Alwadani, A. (2014). Managing virtual team work in
IT projects: Survey. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning
(iJAC), 7(4), 28-33.
Ford, R. C., Piccolo, R. F., & Ford, L. R. (2017). Strategies for building effective virtual
teams: Trust is key. Business Horizons, 60(1), 25-34.
Marlow, S. L., Lacerenza, C. N., & Salas, E. (2017). Communication in virtual teams: A
conceptual framework and research agenda. Human Resource Management
Review, 27(4), 575-589.
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