Speaker: Dr. Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, The University of Texas at Austin, USA.

Abstract: Global virtual teams represent temporary work systems that are assembled for a joint task, performed by team members who collaborate primarily via digital technologies. Team members span geography and culture and often have only a narrow period of shared work hours. Within highly constrained temporal spaces, team members coordinate and collaborate on joint tasks with many task interdependencies, requiring constant back-and-forth workflows among members. Leveraging various synchronous and asynchronous virtual communication modes, the teams must communicate effectively to prevent prolonged misunderstandings and work delays. The virtual team environment is challenging because virtual space reduces opportunities for team members to grasp important aspects of the actual social surroundings of the members that are critical for understanding.