Editing Virtual management (section)

== Life Cycle ==
To effectively use the management factors described above, it is important to know when in the life cycle of a virtual team they would be most useful. According to <ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Hertel|first1=Guido|last2=Geister|first2=Susanne|last3=Konradt|first3=Udo|date=2005-03-01|title=Managing virtual teams: A review of current empirical research|journal=Human Resource Management Review|volume=15|issue=1|pages=69–95|doi=10.1016/j.hrmr.2005.01.002}}</ref> the life cycle of virtual team management includes five stages:
# Preparations
# Launch
# Performance management
# Team development
# Disbanding

=== Preparations ===
The initial task during the implementation of a team is the definition of the general purpose of the team together with the determination of the level of virtuality that might be appropriate to achieve these goals. These decisions are usually determined by strategic factors such as mergers, increase of the market span, cost reductions, flexibility and reactivity to the market, etc. Management-related activities that should take place during preparation phase includes mission statement, personnel selection, task design, rewards system design, choose appropriate technology and organizational integration.<ref name=":0" />

In regards to personnel selection, virtual teams have an advantage. To maximize outcomes, management wants the best team it can have. Before virtual teams, they did this by gathering the "best available" workers and forming a team. These teams did not contain the best workers of the field, because they were busy with their own projects, or were too far away to meet the group. With virtual teams, managers can select personnel from anywhere in the world, and so from a wider pool.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Malhotra|first=Arvind|year=2001|title=Radical Innovation Without Collocation: A Case Study at Boeing-Rocketdyne|url=http://kraut.hciresearch.org/sites/kraut.hciresearch.org/files/protected/malhotra01-RadicalInnovationWithoutCollocation.pdf|journal=MIS Quarterly|volume=25|issue=2|pages=229–249|doi=10.2307/3250930|jstor=3250930}}</ref>

=== Launch ===
It is highly recommended that, in the beginning of virtual [[teamwork]], all members should meet each other face to face. Crucial elements of such a “kick-off” workshop are getting acquainted with the other team members, clarifying the team goals, clarifying the roles and functions of the team members, information and training how communication technologies can be used efficiently, and developing general rules for the teamwork. As a consequence, “kick-off” workshops are expected to promote clarification of team processes, trust building, building of a shared interpretive context, and high identification with the team.<ref name=":0" />

Getting acquainted, goal clarification and development of intra-team rules should also be accomplished during this phase. Initial field data that compare virtual teams with and without such “kick-off” meetings confirm a general positive effects on team effectiveness, although more differentiated research is necessary. Experimental studies demonstrate that getting acquainted before the start of computer-mediated work facilitates cooperation and trust.<ref name=":0" />

One of the manager's roles during launch is to create activities or events that allow for team building. These kickoff events should serve three major goals: everyone on the team is well versed in the technology involved, everyone knows what is expected of them and when it is expected, and finally have everyone get to know one another. By meeting all three goals the virtual team may be far more successful, and it lightens everyone's load.<ref name=":1" />

=== Performance management ===
After the launch of a virtual team, work effectiveness and a constructive team climate has to be maintained using performance management strategies. These comprehensive management strategies arise from the agreed upon difficulty of working in virtual teams.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hoch|first=J. E.|year=2014|title=Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership, structural supports, and shared team leadership|url=http://www.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Hoch_Kozlowski_2014.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161128195055/http://www.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Hoch_Kozlowski_2014.pdf |archive-date=2016-11-28 |url-status=live|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology|volume=99|issue=3|pages=390–403|doi=10.1037/a0030264|pmid=23205494}}</ref>  Research shows that constructs and expectations of team membership, leadership, goal setting, social loafing and conflict differ in cultural groups and therefore affects team performance a lot. In early team formation process, one thing to agree on within a team is the meaning of leadership and role differentiation for the team leader and other team members. To apply this, the leader must show active leadership to create a shared conceptualization of team meaning, its focus and function.<ref name=":3" />

The following discussion is again restricted to issues on which empirical results are already available. These issues are leadership, communication within virtual teams, team members' motivation, and knowledge management.<ref name=":0" />

Leadership is a central challenge in virtual teams. Particularly, all kinds of direct control are difficult when team managers are not at the same location as the team members. As a consequence, delegative management principles are considered that shift parts of classic managerial functions to the team members. However, team members only accept and fulfill such managerial functions when they are motivated and identify with the team and its goals, which is again more difficult to achieve in virtual teams. Next, empirical results on three leadership approaches are summarized that differ in the degree of autonomy of the team members: Electronic monitoring as an attempt to realize directive leadership over distance, management by objectives (MBO) as an example for delegative leadership principles, and self-managing teams as an example for rather autonomous teamwork.<ref name=":0" />

One way to maintain control over a virtual team is through motivators and incentives. Both are common techniques implemented by managers for collocated teams, but with slight adjustments they can be used effectively for virtual teams as well. A commonly held belief is that working online, is not particularly important or impactful. This belief can be changed by notifying employees that their work is being sent to the managers. This attaches the importance of career prospects to the work, and makes it more meaningful for the workers.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last1=Nunamaker|first1=Jay F. Jr.|last2=Reinig|first2=Bruce A.|last3=Briggs|first3=Robert O.|date=2009-04-01|title=Principles for Effective Virtual Teamwork|journal=Commun. ACM|volume=52|issue=4|pages=113–117|doi=10.1145/1498765.1498797|s2cid=23905817 |issn=0001-0782}}</ref>

Communication processes are perhaps the most frequently investigated variables relevant for the regulation of virtual teamwork. By definition, communication in virtual teams is predominantly based on electronic media such as e-mail, telephone, video-conference, etc. The main concern here is that electronic media reduce the richness of [[information exchange]] compared to [[Face-to-face interaction|face-to-face]] communication.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> This difference in richness of information is an idea shared by multiple researchers, and there are some methods to move around the drop created by working in a virtual environment. One such method is to use the anonymity provided by working digitally. It lets people share concerns without worrying about being identified.<ref name=":1" /> This serves to over come the lack of richness by providing a safe method to honestly provide feedback and information. Predominant research issues have been conflict escalation and disinhibited communication (“flaming”), the fit between communication media and communication contents, and the role of non-job-related communication.<ref name=":0" /> These research issues revolve around the idea that people become more hostile over a virtual medium making the working environment unhealthy.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Kiesler | first1 = S. | last2 = Siegel | first2 = J. | last3 = McGuire | first3 = T. W. | year = 1984 | title = Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication | doi = 10.1037/0003-066x.39.10.1123 | journal = American Psychologist | volume = 39 | issue = 10 | pages = 1123–1134 | s2cid = 3896692 }}</ref> These findings were quickly dismissed in the presence of virtual teams due to the fact that virtual teams have the expectation that one will work longer together, and the level of anonymity is different from just a one off online interaction.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Reinig | first1 = B. A. | last2 = Briggs | first2 = R. O. | last3 = Nunamaker | first3 = J. F. | year = 1998 | title = Flaming in the electronic classroom | journal = Journal of Management Information Systems | volume = 14 | issue = 3| pages = 45–59 | doi=10.1080/07421222.1997.11518174}}</ref> One of the important needs for successful communication is the ability to have every member of the group together repeatedly over time. Effective dispersed groups show spikes in presence during communication over time, while ineffective groups do not have as dramatic spikes.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Maznevski|first1=M|last2=Chudoba|first2=C|year=2000|title=Bridging space over time: Global virtual team dynamics and effectiveness.|url=http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=mis_facpubs|journal=Organization Science|volume=11|issue=5|pages=473–492|doi=10.1287/orsc.11.5.473.15200|citeseerx=10.1.1.682.8612|s2cid=13441261|access-date=2016-11-08|archive-date=2016-11-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109025056/http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=mis_facpubs|url-status=live}}</ref>

For the management of motivational and emotional processes, three groups of such processes have been addressed in empirical investigations so far: motivation and trust, team identification and cohesion, and satisfaction of the team members. Since most of the variables are originated within the person, they can vary considerably among the members of a team, requiring appropriate aggregation procedures for multilevel analyses (e.g. motivation may be mediated by interpersonal trust <ref>Geister et al. (2006). http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.129.6781&rep=rep1&type=pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150429071200/http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.129.6781&rep=rep1&type=pdf |date=2015-04-29 }}</ref>).<ref name=":0" />

Systematic research is needed on the management of knowledge and the development of shared understanding within the teams, particularly since theoretical analyses sometimes lead to conflicting expectations. The development of such “common ground” might be particularly difficult in virtual teams because sharing of information and the development of a “transactive memory” (i.e., who knows what in the team) is harder due to the reduced amount of face-to-face communication and the reduced information about individual work contexts.<ref name=":0" />

=== Team development ===
Virtual teams can be supported by personnel and team development interventions. The development of such training concepts should be based on an empirical assessment of the needs and/or deficits of the team and its members, and the effectiveness of the trainings should be evaluated empirically.<ref>Curseu et al. (2008).https://pure.uvt.nl/portal/files/1024958/OW_Curseu_virtual_teams_2008.pdf</ref> The steps of team developments include assessment of needs/deficits, individual and team training, and evaluation of training effects.<ref name=":0" />

One such development intervention is to have the virtual team self-facilitate. Normally, a team brings in an outside facilitator to ensure that the team is correctly using the technology. This is a costly method of developing the team, but virtual teams can self-facilitate. This lessens the need for an outside facilitator, and saves the team time, effort, and resources.<ref name=":1" />

=== Disbanding and reintegration ===
Finally, the disbanding of virtual teams and the re-integration of the team members is an important issue that has been neglected not only in empirical but also in most of the conceptual work on virtual teams. However, particularly when virtual project teams have only a short life-time and reform again quickly, careful and constructive disbanding is mandatory to maintain high motivation and satisfaction among the employees. Members of transient project teams anticipate the end of the teamwork in the foreseeable future, which in turn overshadows the interaction and shared outcomes. The final stage of group development should be a gradual emotional disengagement that includes both sadness about separation and (at least in successful groups) joy and pride in the achievements of the team.<ref name=":0" />

=== Pandemic factor ===
Post pandemic the virtual team concept has been further popularized although even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations were actively shifting toward remote work. As per market sources, around 80% of global corporate remote work policies had shifted to virtual and mixed forms of team collaboration during the pandemic.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Anthony |first=James |date=8 August 2024 |title=12 Virtual Team Trends for 2024: Top Forecasts To Watch Out For |url=https://financesonline.com/virtual-team-trends/ |website=financesonline.com/}}</ref> With the onslaught of worldwide lockdowns and challenging time management, remote work has become a necessity for the majority and virtual management has become a way of life for business owners/leaders.