Case Study Analysis: Virtual Teams' Role in R&D and Innovation

This case study examines the increasing importance of virtual teams within the Research and Development (R&D) industry, highlighting their role in fostering innovation and overcoming geographical limitations. It discusses the background of virtual teams, the challenges they face in new prod...Read More

CASE STUDY ON: IMPORTANCE OF VIRTUAL TEAM IN R&D INDUSTRY
CASE STUDY ON: IMPORTANCE OF VIRTUAL TEAM IN R&D
INDUSTRY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction
In the modern digitalized era of evolution and innovation of science and technology,
organizations are required to build more effectively and efficiently through the eminent usage of
Research and Development procedures. It is a necessity for the company to combine capabilities
and facilities to the achievement of desired goal. In the present R&D industries, the influence
and emergence of virtual teams has been noticed to create an alternative to traditional working
process.
Moreover, the following study aims to provide deep insights on background of virtual
teams in R&D, how virtual teams possesses certain issues during development of new products,
how it influences innovation and has future usage benefits. The paper finally concludes to a
deployment of appropriate strategy to produce profit according to the concerned environmental
circumstance.
Discussion
Background
According to Walvoord et al. (2015), the growing reputation of virtual team are evidently
observed in innumerable organizations. According to a jounal by Martins et al. (2014), he
concludes that the rare exceptions of all organizational teams are held virtual to some extents.
The working process of virtual teams are bounded across space and time by appropriate
utilization of computer-driven technologies. The term offers a wide variety of forms and
activities in a technology-supported working environment (Anderson et al., 2017). The influence
of the teams are popularly known in the field of research and development sectors. The

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importance of virtual team in overcoming temporal and geographical separations have been
observed to be working in many different fields around the world (Cascio and Shurygailo, 2013).
Current Issues
While, virtual teams produces an efficient way of development of new products in an
organization, it also initiates certain mentionable issues that are detected to occur during
continuous implementation in the R&D industry. Some of them are-
 Lack of physical interaction and communication
 Reinforcement in a much structured and formal way
 Project management is challenging due to the distance between team individuals and their
language and cultural dissimilarities. Thought-process and trust issues are also included.
 The exchange of knowledge and tactics are also a concerning factor.
 Working exclusively in a specific location, rather than in a workplace has issues to
deflection of opportunities by the individuals. Necessary judgements should be evaluated
for selection of team members.
 At times, some products require complex technological applications that may sometimes
seem to become a challenge of determining the appropriate task for an individual.
Innovation
The complex structure of organizational innovation, productivity and labor in the
industries of R&D has been extensively explored in many recent studies (Mote, 2015). New
product development is a crucial part where dynamic customer requirements increases
complexity of product design and technologies. However, the innovation of a project remains
unsuccessful unless the information and knowledge are successfully shared, abducted and

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internalized by members of the virtual team. The study by Gassmann and von Zedtwitz (2002)
stated the four patterns of noticeable virtual team’s distinction during creation, as-
 Decentralized self-coordination: All R&D evaluated by decentralized divisions that
coordinate loosely with each other.
 System Integrator as Coordinator: Most R&D activities are conducted by the
decentralized divisions, while each coordinates with central integrator.
 Core Team as System Architect: The lead role in R&D activity. Also coordinating the
activities of decentralized divisions.
 Centralized Venture Team: Transfer of R&D resources to centralized venture team and
they conduct all R&D activities.
Among these, the centralized venture teams are very likely to product strategic innovations of
greater importance. The adoption of virtual teams has innovated a new way of product
development in shorter time period and mitigation of pressure of increasing globalization
competition across multiple nations. Virtual NPD processes are receiving greater attention
due to the efforts of team members executing tasks in different time zones and distances
while having same time-period and work submission portal, respectively. Hence,
multinational corporations are very likely expected to become integrated to global R&D
network systems than smaller units (Boehe, 2017). The process of employee distribution are
efficient to evaluate critical productivity projects with their required decision supported
knowledge and mainly, technology.

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Future Use and Strategical Planning
The availability of configurable and flexible base infrastructure is one of the noted
benefits of virtual team in product development. Virtual teams tend to reduce time-to-market
(May and Carter, 2013). The introduction of these team members make effective R&D
continuation decisions. Again, the allocation of members produce greater productivity under
shorter development time, which is the current requirement criterion in the market of high
demand. Resultantly, it enables better outcomes that attracts new employees too. With correct
identification during the selection of required skilled and ethical employee, the company can
utilize his capabilities to any extent. Thus, the inheritance of virtual teaming instead of traditional
teaming also provides extendable benefits that creates an attraction to the minds of the investors.
However, to correctively control, implement and execute the productivity across the
chain of virtual teaming, the issues with respect to the cultural diversities should be resolved.
One of the strategies that can be implemented to support and enhance the absence of informal
interaction by scheduling a routine online conference call in the group. This has the potential to
connect the team members and distribute different ideas to the community. More identifiable
factors can be resolved with appropriate planning that will keep the method of ‘Virtual teaming’
intact and error-free in the modern society (Kankanhalli, Tan and Wei, 2016).
Conclusion
Virtual teams enhance flourishment of innovation and knowledge within an R&D
enterprise while bridging place and time factors and, also better decision-making options too.
Therefore, the choice of opting virtual teaming is not taken as a choice but a requirement. This

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paper has considerably provided the conception of virtual teams and their innovation with
respect to the influence in R&D industries. Clearly, identified issues are needed to be resolved
for the fruitful outcome of the product. However, more research in the future would seem to be
an essentiality in development of comprehensive study to combine the case study to different
sized companies and various activities, to gain extensive knowledge of the types, practices and
patterns of activities for effective continuation of a task by the virtual team members and also,
more knowledgeable insightful questionable scenarios needs to be covered.

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References
ANDERSON, A. H., MCEWAN, R., BAL, J. & CARLETTA, J. (2017) Virtual team meetings:
An analysis of communication and context. Computers in Human Behavior, 23, 2558–
2580.
BOEHE, D. M. (2017) Product development in MNC subsidiaries: Local linkages and global
interdependencies. Journal of International Management, 13, 488–512.
CASCIO, W. F. & SHURYGAILO, S. (2013) E-Leadership and Virtual Teams. Organizational
Dynamics, 31, 362-376
GASSMANN, O. & VON ZEDTWITZ, M. (2002) Trends and determinants of managing virtual
R&D teams. R&D Management 33, 243-262.
KANKANHALLI, A., TAN, B. C. Y. & WEI, K.-K. (2016) Conflict and Performance in Global
Virtual Teams. Journal of Management Information Systems, 23, 237-274
MARTINS, L. L., GILSON, L. L. & MAYNARD, M. T. (2014) Virtual teams: What do we
know and where do we go from here? Journal of Management, 30, 805–835.
MAY, A. & CARTER, C. (2001) A case study of virtual team working in the European
automotive industry. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 27, 171-186.
MOTE, J. E. (2015) R&D ecology: using 2-mode network analysis to explore complexity in
R&D environments. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 22, 93-111.

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WALVOORD, A. A. G., REDDEN, E. R., ELLIOTT, L. R. & COOVERT, M. D. (2015)
Empowering followers in virtual teams: Guiding principles from theory and practice”,
Computers in Human Behavior (article in press).