A Case Study of Key Factors Driving Global Virtual Team Effectiveness

摘要

The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of the factors contributing to global virtual team effectiveness. We report on a case study on global virtual teams whose members differed in location and nationalities, worked on common collaborative projects, and used media to communicate and coordinate their work. This paper examines the relationships between input factors such as goal commitment, planning and resource availability and team outcomes. Data were collected from 14 teams in an international Master's program in Quality Management, Safety and Environmental Impact hosted in Bolivia and Chile. Students were from nine different countries in South America and they all shared a common language. Students were assigned to teams of size 3 and participated in 15-week project as part of a virtual team. The project consisted of an applied project involving the identification of a specific problem or need in an organization and designing a solution. A survey-based approach was used combining quantitative and qualitative data collection. The survey instrument included Likert scale and open-ended items evaluating different aspects of team input, process and output variables. This paper reports on the quantitative analysis of the survey data.