The world is not flat: Examining the interactive multidimensionality of culture and virtuality in teams

As organizations continue to spread their influence into foreign countries and take on increasingly complex tasks, the need for an accurate understanding as to how global, virtual teams function becomes more integral. At this time, although there are many organizations utilizing global, virtual teams, there is a dearth of literature that examines the impact of cultural differences within these teams. This paper aims to bridge this gap by offering an integrative interdisciplinary theoretical review, merging a lens of relevant cultural values, including Hofstede's five dimensions and extending to other conceptualizations such as the Triandis (1995) typology, with the Kirkman and Mathieu (2005) conceptualization of virtuality. Ultimately, theoretical propositions are provided for future examination of each cultural dimension. Finally, implications and future research are discussed in the hopes of providing invaluable insight as to the currently under-researched ‘global’ aspect of global, virtual teams.     

Training for virtual teams: An investigation of current practices and future needs

Organizations are creating virtual teams at an ever‐faster rate. Virtual team leaders and members from distant locations work together and communicate with each other using a variety of information technologies. Results from a survey of 440 training and development professionals identify current organizational training practices aimed at preparing leaders and members for virtual team assignments. Comparing organizations with more effective and less effective virtual team training programs allowed us to identify a set of “best practices.” We offer practical guidance regarding the effective use of training to promote high‐quality virtual team performance. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effects of virtualness on teamwork behavioral components: The role of shared mental models

Virtual teams are an essential part of work organizations. They help organizations utilize skills and expertise regardless of where they are located. The virtual team literature suggests that these teams often experience process losses compared to their face-to-face counterparts. In this paper we propose that as virtualness increases, a team's shared mental models become more complex; this limits the effectiveness of particular teamwork behaviors: mutual performance monitoring, backup behavior and adaptation. We identify specific factors that are reflected in increased mental model complexity of virtual teams. Further we examine the moderating role that the accuracy and similarity of these shared mental models as well as the level of virtualness has on the relation between complexity and teamwork behaviors. Finally, we examine the effects of training inventions on mental model accuracy. To this end, we review the existing literature to develop a model and specific propositions.     

The important but neglected legal context of virtual teams: Research implications and opportunities

The potential for the legal context in which an organization operates to significantly impact its HRM function is widely, if not universally accepted. Nonetheless, to date, the legal context of virtual teams has received very little attention from researchers. This article helps address that limitation in the literature by providing readers a foundational understanding of the primary legal constraints and legal issues affecting virtual teams, identifying important research questions related to the impact of legal context on virtual teams, and stimulating further thinking about the potential relevance of legal context to the role of trust, cultural differences, discriminatory behavior, and other phenomena in virtual teams.     

Participation and communication in virtual teams using representational avatars

The study examined how quantitative formative assessment tools may be applied to virtual team communication and provide quality and progress metrics to virtual team leaders. Representational avatars benefit virtual team communication and productivity. Organizational leaders need measurement tools to assess avatar innovation and monitor progress in virtual teams. A goal of this research was to supply a suite of tools to evaluate the potential for avatars to improve as well as monitor and measure virtual team participation and communication. The virtual teams were composed of students (N= 97) at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand and Uppsala University in Sweden. Students enrolled in the Intelligent Business Systems (IBS) course formed teams by country and were randomly assigned to a text‐only or avatar‐enriched communication format. Survey results indicated that text‐based teams were perceived as efficient but lacking in inspired participation. Avatar‐enriched teams noted frustration with software but rated their experience as enjoyable. No significant difference in communication quality between teams was indicated, but avatar‐enriched teams posted significantly more words on weekly logbooks than text‐based teams. Recommendations include a model for data disaggregation that may be of value to improve assessment, productivity, and administrative costs of technology‐enhanced virtual teams.     

Does it really work? Re-assessing the impact of pre-departure cross-cultural training on expatriate adjustment

Cultural adjustment is considered to be a prerequisite for expatriate success abroad. One way to enhance adjustment is to provide employees with knowledge and awareness of appropriate norms and behaviours of the host country through cross-cultural training (CCT). This article analyses the impact of pre-departure CCT on expatriate adjustment and focuses on variations in participation, length and the comprehensiveness of training. Unlike previous research, the study focuses on the effectiveness of pre-departure CCT for non-US employees expatriated to a broad range of host country settings. Employing data from 339 expatriates from 20 German Multinational Corporations (MNCs) the study finds CCT has little if any effect on general, interactional or work-setting expatriate adjustment. However, a significant impact of foreign language competence was found for all three dimensions of expatriate adjustment. We used interviews with 20 expatriates to supplement our discussion and provide further implications for practice.     

Becoming a Working Mother: Managing Identity and Efficacy Uncertainties During Resocialization

The work reentry period following the birth of a first child is a time of uncertainty for a professional woman. During reentry, a new mother is often questioning who she is and how effective she can be as a mother and working professional. In this study, we conceptualize reentry as a period of resocialization as we explore the first‐time mother's changing self‐concept during this time. Specifically, we develop a model that explores the identity and efficacy uncertainties that women experience during resocialization. This model draws attention to the influence organizational context has on the degree of uncertainty women experience and to the adjustment tactics women engage to manage their identity and efficacy uncertainty. We discuss the implications these findings have for both socialization research and work‐life theory and practice. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Making the right friends: A social network perspective on newcomer socialization in teams

Despite the prevalence of work teams in organizations, how newcomers become integrated into teams remains an understudied area. Drawing on research related to indirect social resources, in this paper we employ a social network perspective to examine how close teammates' friendship centrality can facilitate newcomers' adjustment by fostering the newcomers' own social capital in teams and promoting their subsequent task performance. Furthermore, our model incorporates institutionalized socialization tactics and political skill as two contingencies that can further strengthen the positive effects of indirect social resources on newcomers' adjustment. In a time-lagged study using multiple sources of data, we found good support for our hypotheses. Specifically, close teammates' friendship centrality was positively related to newcomers' task performance through the mediating effect of newcomers' own friendship centrality in teams. The two moderators further strengthened this indirect effect. Overall, this study highlights the importance of “making the right friends” to facilitate newcomer adjustment into teams.     

Dissemination of Accruals Information,Role of Semi‐Annual Reporting,and Analysts' Earnings Forecasts: Evidence from Japan

Our study investigates the effects of dissemination of accounting accruals information on stock prices using Japanese annual reports as our sample. We conduct month‐by‐month detailed analyses of price adjustment behavior with a particular focus on revisions of analysts' earnings forecasts and changes in trading volume around the period of upcoming semi‐annual reports. We find that analysts' forecasts are often revised around this time, and analysts use this as auxiliary information. In addition, an accompanying re‐adjustment of abnormal returns and an increase in trading volume are observed. Our findings demonstrate that informational uncertainty initially triggered by the announcement of annual reports decreases as semi‐annual reports are disclosed and analysts change their earnings forecasts, and confirms the importance of semi‐annual reporting.     

The effect of personality on virtual communications in warfare

Individuals and corporations worldwide are increasing their use of computer‐mediated‐communications (CMC) systems and processes. Such endeavors are shortening lines of communications, yet simultaneously distancing understanding. Winston Churchill once opined that the British and the Americans are two great peoples separated by a common language. Some relate aspects of culture as the source of Churchill's quote. Separating factors may be more engrained than was previously believed or theorized. The authors examined a high‐stress setting in which the trappings of culture disappear leaving only the basic emotional and cognitive survival aspects of personality: the environment of military combat. The study examined the relationship of an individual's ability to function efficiently using virtual communications and processes while under extreme stress. Observing the results of the study's individual‐environment relations raise the question of whether personality is a factor in virtual team efficiency.     

Multi‐Level Efficacy Evidence of a Combined Interprofessional Collaboration and Project Management Training Program for Healthcare Project Teams

Project work is essential for the improvement of healthcare organizations; yet, project management and collaboration in the project context are not taught to healthcare professionals. Three half‐day training workshops integrating project management and collaboration were designed and delivered to 14 interprofessional healthcare project teams. Multivariate measures were taken over the course of 36 weeks. Individual, team, and project‐level results showed high satisfaction and perceptions of utility; improved self‐efficacy for project‐specific task work and teamwork; increased goal clarity and coordination; and a significant impact on the functional performance of projects. This study provides initial benchmark measures regarding the pertinence of project management and interprofessional collaboration training for healthcare project teams.     

‘Who Knows What?’ in New Venture Teams: Transactive Memory Systems as a Micro‐Foundation of Entrepreneurial Orientation

The increasing importance of entrepreneurial behaviour has led scholars to embrace the idea that an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is an important predictor of firm performance. While EO occupies a central position in strategic entrepreneurship research, scholars have yet to explore its origins in new ventures. Drawing on the knowledge‐based and cognitive views, we theorize that a new venture team's transactive memory system is a cognitive mechanism that spurs the development of an EO. In a field study of high‐tech new ventures in China, we examined the relationship between venture teams’ transactive memory systems (representing the distribution, integration, and utilization of the teams’ knowledge) and EO and the moderating influence of team‐, firm‐, and environment‐level factors. We found that the transactive memory system of a new venture team enhanced their EO and that this relationship was positively influenced by intra‐team trust, the structural organicity of a venture, and environmental dynamism. Our findings provide novel insights into the micro‐foundations of TMS in developing an EO in new ventures.     

The uncertainty challenge of contingent collaboration

Contingent knowledge workers will play an increasingly important role in organisational success as workers transition in and out of project‐based innovation teams with more frequency. Our research finds that collaborators in the contingent, high‐skill workforce face uncertainty challenges to their work that are unique from the independent, contingent professionals more often studied. The article proposes a theoretical framework of uncertainty to guide us in understanding collaborative contingent knowledge workers’ work experience. Interviews with postdoctoral researchers reveal four findings about the influence of these highly uncertain work environments on collaborative contingent knowledge workers – collaboration isolation, frustrated independence, performance anxiety and internalised blame. Perhaps most concerning is that the workers internalise the negative impacts as personal failings instead of recognising them as consequences of a poorly designed work environment. This study argues for the need to manage and mitigate different sources of uncertainty to avoid creating an unnecessary burden on contingent knowledge workers, and to enable a sustainable, contingent knowledge workforce.     

The migration response to local labour market shocks: Evidence from EU regions during the global economic crisis

The global economic crisis has strongly affected Europe's economic geography. This study investigates the role of local labour market disparities in determining regional net in‐migration rates. While only a weak link is detected in the precrisis period, the local labour market context of migration grows significantly stronger during the crisis. Decompositions of the estimation results show that changes in migration rates are firstly a result of widened disparities across European regions throughout the crisis. However, also behavioural adjustment processes occur, e.g. an orientation of migrants towards urban areas and away from regions with persistently high long‐run unemployment rates.     

Working in the Middle East: Western female expatriates' experiences in the United Arab Emirates

This study is about the experiences of Western female expatriates working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Muslim Arab country in the Middle East. We reveal these expatriates' own interpretations of their adjustment, cross-cultural training (CCT) and social ties and support experiences. On the basis of a survey of 86 female expatriates from Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA and subsequent interviews with 26 of them, we find that Western women successfully adjust to life and work in the UAE despite significant cultural differences between their home countries and the UAE. Surprisingly, Western female expatriates do not find lengthy rigorous CCT critical to their assignments in this country. They see such training as an unjustified cost due to the fact that they rarely interact with host nationals and are much more frequently exposed to other Westerners and representatives of other cultures while undertaking their assignments. The large Western expatriate community is highly appreciated as the primary source of social ties and support for our respondents, whereas interacting with host country nationals is rather an exception and does not provide essential ties and support. Our findings have implications for multinational companies (MNCs) operating via expatriation in the UAE and for Western female expatriates who consider this country as their assignment destination.     

The theory of met expectations applied to expatriate adjustment: the role of crosscultural training

This study will test two hypotheses to determine whether the formation of expectations (prior to the global assignment) affects expatriates' adjustment. This study utilized a sample of seventy-three expatriates who completed questionnaires approximately ten months after arriving in their host countries. All the expatriates had predeparture cross-cultural training, but the training varied in perceived relevance. The expatriates were assigned either to countries where their native language was spoken (e.g. Americans in the UK) or to countries where their native language was not spoken (e.g. Americans in France). The results of the mediated regression analysis suggest that the more tailored and relevant the pre-departure cross-cultural training, the more expectations were either met or positively exceeded. Analyses suggest that both cross-cultural training and the language spoken in the host country affect the accuracy of expatriates' expectations prior to the assignment - and that having accurate expectations, in turn, positively affects cross-cultural adjustment. The results from this study encourage organizations to develop programmes that will ensure their expatriates have realistic expectations prior to their global assignments (e.g. through tailored cross-cultural training).     

Optimal Two‐part Pricing under Cost Uncertainty

This paper examines the optimal two‐part pricing under cost uncertainty. We consider a risk‐averse monopolistic firm that is subject to a cost shock to its constant marginal cost of production. The firm uses two‐part pricing to sell its output to a continuum of heterogeneous consumers. We show that the global and marginal effects of risk aversion on the firm's optimal two‐part pricing are to raise the unit price and lower the fixed payment. We further show that an increase in the fixed cost of production induces the firm to raise (lower) the unit price and lower (raise) the fixed payment under decreasing (increasing) absolute risk aversion. The firm's optimal two‐part pricing is unaffected by changes in the fixed cost under constant absolute risk aversion. Finally, we show that a mean‐preserving spread increase in cost uncertainty induces the firm to raise the unit price and lower the fixed payment under either decreasing or constant absolute risk aversion. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategic human resource management at Praxair

This article describes the human resource management system in place at Praxair. Key emphases of Praxair's HRM infrastructure include (1) competency development and performance‐management processes and (2) team‐based performance systems, which include four levels of measurement: company‐wide, business‐unit, cross‐functional teams within business units, and special‐initiative project teams. Key challenges for the future include (1) prioritization of choices in support of the firm's global growth initiatives, (2) employee development and new talent acquisition, (3) designing more effective methods to anticipate business needs and provide strong, proactive leadership, (4) accelerating leadership development and influencing adequate investment in education and development programs, and (5) designing and implementing effective methods to acquire new talent to support business strategies. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

An exploratory study of gender in project management: Interrelationships with role,location, technology,and project cost

This study explores whether gender differences in project managers are related to gender differences in their team members. Gender differences are explored in the context of project managers' and team members' location to one another, the project team's use of technology, and the cost and size of the project teams. Using log‐linear analysis of 563 project team members' responses, several significant findings are reported—including the likelihood of same‐gender project manager and team member dyads as well as gender differences in project contextual factors. Implications for organizational and project management researchers and decision makers conclude the article.     

An empirical analysis of managers' adjustment to working in multi-national project teams in the pipeline and plant construction sector

This article empirically investigates the adjustment of managers to working in multi-national project teams in the pipeline and plant construction industry. The members of such teams come from diverse national backgrounds and there is no single culture dominating the team. While there has been a lot of research on multi-cultural teams, organizational socialization and expatriate issues, so far these areas have been investigated separately. This article contributes to research in these fields by developing and empirically testing a model containing a number of antecedents and consequences of the adjustment of individuals when working in multi-cultural project teams. The findings highlight the importance of cross-cultural sensitivity for individuals' adjustment in such teams, as well as the positive role of adjustment for individuals' satisfaction, commitment and intention to stay with the team.