Virtual team management: what is causing communication breakdown?

摘要

The combined effects of business offshoring, of flexible work practices and of rapid improvements in technology have resulted in workplace virtual communication becoming increasingly prevalent for business meetings. However, business leaders report them to be more challenging than face-to-face ones. Most global teams are located where diverse offshored work teams are using English as a lingua franca, and despite common business complaints that they are fraught with communication breakdown, the precise causes appear to be highly complex. This paper reports on a training needs analysis carried out in a large globalized workplace for a programme entitled 'Communicating in Virtual Teams'. Multiple sources such as surveys, interviews, document reviews and meeting observations were used to better understand the causes of virtual team communication breakdown. Whilst the analyses revealed different kinds of language and cultural misunderstandings, deeper problems of marginalization and identity confusion within global teams were also reported. This paper argues that without addressing the underlying struggles caused by offshoring, a training programme runs the risk of only addressing the surface communication problems of technology, leadership and meeting skills and even language and culture issues, which can arguably be seen as ' masking' deeper employee concerns and struggles.%在商业离岸外包，灵活的工作方式，以及快速发展的科技的共同作用下，用于商务会议的工作场合虚拟交流越来越流行。然而，商业领袖们称虚拟交流比面对面交流更富挑战性。频频的商业投诉显示虚拟交流充满了交流障碍，即便如此，绝大多数多元化的离岸工作团队仍然位于将英语作为通用语的地区。这其中的确切原因十分复杂。本论文报告了在一间大型全球化的工作场所中进行的培训需求分析的结果。该培训需求分析是为一个名为'虚拟团队中的交流'的项目而作的。为更好地了解引发虚拟团队中交流障碍的原因，本研究使用了多个资料来源，如问卷，访谈，文件检阅，和会议观察。数据分析结果显示出各种语言和文化的误解，同时，也报吿了全球性团队中的深展问題——边缘化和身份困惑。本文认为培训项目如不解决离岸外包导致的潜在挣扎这个问题，将有可能只解决了一些趋于表面的交流问題，包括技术，领导和会议技巧，乃至语言和文化的议题。可以认为这样的做法是'掩盖'了深层次的员工的忧虑和挣扎。