Communication Needs of Cross-Cultural Virtual Teams Identified

This digest is a basic HTML file, giving you control over the appearance through your Web browser's options.

In a study on communication methods for virtual teams, 90 graduate business students answered questionnaires about their experiences working together in small teams. The students interacted face-to-face and electronically for six weeks. Each team had members from at least two cultures. The researcher also interviewed four experienced international managers, and compared her results from both groups to develop suggestions for managers including:

• Some face time is important for virtual teams: "executives on virtual teams view travel as necessary to develop rapport," especially early in the team"s life.
• Humanize e-mail communications through exchanges of photos and announcements of personal celebrations, such as birthdays and birth announcements.
• E-mail is good for teams with language differences because writers have time to compose their thoughts and edit.
• Videoconferences are better than phone conferences for large groups because video makes it easier to track who is saying what, but poor production quality is a drawback.
• Don't fear cross-cultural teaming"study participants reported enjoying the cross-cultural experience and working well together.
• For cross-cultural teams:
• • Don't assign just anyone: assigned members should be people open to diversity, of course, but also especially capable, honest, and giving.
  • Take extra time at the start of the project to ensure everyone knows other members" strengths and backgrounds, and assign tasks accordingly (this helps to prevent stereotyping, because mistakes can't as easily be generalized to all members of a person"s culture).
  • Establishing formal team-level processes is especially important because assumptions are more likely to be wrong.

Source: Grosse, C. (02), "Managing Communication within Virtual Intercultural Teams," Business Communication Quarterly 65(4):22.