Using Far-Flung Virtual Teams for Managing Knowledge in Global Companies
By Arvind Malhotra

s companies leverage global supply-and-demand conditions, they are realizing that their core competency is based in managing knowledge resources. What differentiates leading-edge companies from their competition is the understanding of the unique needs and demands of growing economies. They sense the slightest changes in the supply market and respond quicker than the competition. By doing so, they create innovative products using the growing intellectual capital based in countries such as China, India and South Korea.

The challenge facing global companies is to identify, pool and deploy their knowledge resources across different locations. Bringing together knowledge resources from remote corners of the world requires a radical new approach to deploying these resources globally and locally simultaneously, without the physical movement of bearers of the knowledge.

Sponsored by the Society for Information Management, my co-authors and I studied how companies in diverse industries were managing and leveraging their global intellectual capital. What we found surprised us. The leading-edge companies are making extensive use of “far-flung” virtual teams, i.e., groups of individuals representing very different areas of functional and geographical expertise, working interdependently on a task and rarely (if ever) meeting face-to-face. In all, we studied 54 far-flung teams in 31 different companies, including Intel, Textronic and Royal Dutch Shell. We found that these teams were not only productive but also more innovative than face-to-face teams. They make decisions faster with more input from others and develop policies that are implemented worldwide with fewer problems than conventional teams meeting face-to-face often and regularly. These teams were turning conventional logic about far-flung virtual teams on its head, exploding several myths related to such teams along the way:

• Myth: Far-flung teams are deployed to save money on travel.
  Reality: High-performing far-flung teams are measured on faster, better responses to rapidly changing environments.
  
• Myth: Far-flung teams require hands-off leadership.
  Reality: Far-flung teams require communication-intensive leaders. Far-flung team leaders check in on each of their members frequently, mentor them, establish and communicate team norms and continuously monitor adherence to norms and adjust them as frequently as required.
  
• Myth: Far-flung team leaders don’t deal directly with diversity.
  Reality: Far-flung team leaders handle diversity purposefully, recognizing it early in the team’s life cycle and leveraging it throughout the team’s life cycle.
  
• Myth: Face-to-face meetings are required early in a far-flung team’s life cycle to build trust.
  Reality: Far-flung teams build trust through a planned team communication strategy and frequent in-process, team-tuning sessions (mostly without ever meeting face-to-face).
  
• Myth: Given the restrictions of time and space differences, far-flung teams are best served by allocating one task to every member.
  Reality: Far-flung teams build trust and simulate intellectual growth by pairing diverse members into subteams that perform highly interdependent tasks.
  
• Myth: Face-to-face meetings are required for brainstorming.
  Reality: Electronic brainstorming gives far-flung team members more time for reflection and produces quality ideas.
  
• Myth: Far-flung teams only need weekly conference calls to stay connected.
  Reality: The joint use of real-time synchronous (audioconferencing, electronic white-boarding, application-sharing and instant messaging) and persisting asynchronous communication (living virtual team rooms with document repositories and electronic discussion boards) enables far-flung teams to coordinate and collaborate across space and time.

In summary, if managing global knowledge resources is to become the core competency of leading-edge organizations, then managing far-flung teams is paramount to their success. Ensuring success of far-flung teams requires a clear strategy, communication-intensive leadership, well-designed work practices that continuously evolve and IT support that allows for coordination and collaboration across space and time.

Contact Malhotra, a professor of information and technology management, at (919) 962-3157, .

UNC Kenan-Flagler professors Ben Rosen and Dick Blackburn also research virtual teams. Contact Rosen at (919) 962-3166, ; and Blackburn at (919) 962-3162, .