DEGREE PROJECT
REAL ESTATE AND CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROJECT MANAGEMENT MASTER OF SCIENCE, 30 CREDITS, SECOND LEVEL
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2020
How Global and Virtual Teams are Efficiently
Managed by Project Managers
- From a Construction Management Perspective
Matilda Bernehjält & Isabella Carlbom
D CONSTRACTION MANAGEMENT
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF REAL ESTATE AND CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
i
Master of Science thesis
Title How Global and Virtual Teams are Efficiently Managed
by Project Managers - From a Construction Management Perspective
Authors Matilda Bernehjält & Isabella Carlbom Department
Master Thesis number
Real Estate and Construction Management
Supervisor Andreas Ekeskär
Keywords Global & Virtual Teams, Cultural Diversity, Virtual Work Settings, Communication, Project Management
Abstract
The acceleration of globalisation has forced companies to cope with its propulsion in order to become more competitive and internationalised, an internationalisation that creates the importance of knowing how to manage global and virtual teams (GVT). The knowledge in the area today has shown to be vague, generalised and hard to grasp, especially for the unexperienced GVT-project manager. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to study whether the literature regarding how to manage a GVT corresponds with the perceptions in practice and how these findings can contribute to a more efficient project management approach.
This study is examined using a qualitative method based upon literature and semi-structured interviews. This foundation is used to provide a deeper understanding of the subject as well as it puts this research questions into the proper context. The interview respondents are from the same organisation, however, from offices located in four different countries.
The result shows that there are different perspectives on how GVTs should be managed efficiently, and that different leadership preferences exits. Furthermore, there exists a lot of possibilities, but also challenges that must be coped with in order to reach the team’s full potential. These challenges are connected to the virtual work settings and practical problems as well as the team's heterogeneity and communication structure. It was found that it is important to consider the purpose of the collaboration in order to strategically plan for its initiation and execution.
TRITA-ABE-MBT-20532
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Acknowledgement
This master thesis has been conducted during the spring semester 2020 in collaboration with an international architect and engineering consultancy firm. It is the final part of the Degree Program in Civil Engineering and Urban Management within the Department of Real Estate and Construction Management at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH.
We would like to express our sincere appreciation to everyone who with great dedication contributed to this report with time, reflections and ideas. Without your help, knowledge and network the execution of this thesis would not have been possible.
Moreover, we would like to show our gratitude towards our two supervisors at KTH and the company as well as to our contact person in Denmark where the thesis was partly executed.
The support and encouragement have been highly appreciated, as well as valuable and developmental throughout the whole course. Thank you!
Stockholm, 2020-06-04
Matilda Bernehjält and Isabella Carlbom
iii
Examensarbete
Titel Effektiv projektledning av globala och virtuella team - från ett byggprojektlednings perspektiv
Författare Matilda Bernehjält & Isabella Carlbom
Institution Fastigheter och byggande
Examensarbete Master nivå
Handledare Andreas Ekeskär
Nyckelord Globala & virtuella team, kulturell diversitet, virtuellt arbetssätt, kommunikation, projektledning
Sammanfattning
Globaliseringens acceleration har tvingat företag att hantera sin framdrift för att bli mer konkurrenskraftiga och internationaliserade, en internationalisering som vidare leder till vikten av att veta hur man ska hantera globala och virtuella team (GVT). Kunskapen i området idag har visat sig vara vag, generaliserad och svår att ta till sig, särskilt för den oerfarna GVT- projektledaren. Syftet med detta examensarbete är därför att studera huruvida uppfattningen om hur man ska hantera GVT skiljer sig mellan litteratur och i praktiken samt hur dessa upptäckter kan bidra till ett mer effektivt projektledningssätt.
Denna studie undersöks med en kvalitativ metod baserad på litteratur och semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Grunden används sedan för att få en djupare förståelse av ämnet såväl som den sätter rapportens frågeställningar i rätt sammanhang. Intervjurespondenterna är från samma organisation, dock från kontor i fyra olika länder.
Resultatet visar att det finns olika perspektiv på hur GVT ska ledas effektivt och att olika ledarskapspreferenser existerar. Dessutom finns det många möjligheter, men också utmaningar som måste hanteras för att nå teamets fulla potential. Dessa utmaningar är kopplade till virtuella arbetssätt och praktiska problem samt teamets heterogenitet och kommunikationsstruktur. Det konstaterades att det är viktigt att överväga syftet med samarbetet för att strategiskt planera för dess initiering och genomförande.
TRITA-ABE-MBT-20532
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Förord
Detta examensarbete är utfört under vårterminen 2020 och är det avslutande arbetet vid Civilingenjörsprogrammet Samhällsbyggnad vid Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH) i Stockholm. Examensarbetet är utfört inom mastersprogrammet Fastigheter och Byggande – Byggprojektledning i samarbete med en internationell teknikkonsultfirma med inriktning mot anläggnings, byggnadskonstruktion och infrastruktur.
Vi vill tacka alla personer som med stort engagemang bidragit till denna rapport med tid, tankar, reflektioner och idéer. Utan er hjälp, kunskap och nätverk hade inte detta examensarbete vara möjligt att utföra.
Vi vill rikta ett extra stort tack till våra två handledare på KTH och konsultbolaget, samt till vår kontaktperson i Danmark där examensarbetet delvis utfördes. Det har varit väldigt lärorikt och utvecklande, och bemötandet har varit fantastiskt under arbetets gång. Tack!
Stockholm, 2020-06-04
Matilda Bernehjält och Isabella Carlbom
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Table of Content
1 Introduction ... 1
1.1 Background ... 1
1.2 Problem ... 2
1.3 Purpose and Research Questions ... 2
1.4 Delimitations ... 2
1.5 Disposition ... 3
1.5.1 Introduction ... 3
1.5.2 Method ... 3
1.5.3 Literature review ... 3
1.5.4 Findings ... 3
1.5.5 Analysis and Discussion ... 3
1.5.6 Conclusion and Recommendations ... 3
2 Method ... 4
2.1 Research Approach ... 4
2.2 The Studied Organisation ... 4
2.3 Literature Review ... 4
2.4 Interviews ... 5
2.5 Analysis ... 7
2.6 Research Ethics ... 7
2.7 Limitations ... 8
3 Literature Review ... 9
3.1 Global Virtual Teams ... 9
3.1.1 Leadership of Global and Virtual Teams ... 9
3.1.2 Leadership and Cultural Diversity ... 11
3.2 Communication within GVTs ... 12
3.2.1 Communication Norm ... 12
3.2.2 Effective Communication and Cultural Intelligence ... 13
3.2.3 Electronic Communication Tools ... 15
3.3 Sustainability ... 16
4 Findings ... 17
4.1 Global and Virtual Teams ... 17
4.1.1 Work Procedures... 18
4.1.2 Management Support ... 19
4.1.3 Competences ... 20
4.1.4 Role Clarity ... 20
4.1.5 Delivery Quality ... 21
4.2 Culture Diversity and Leadership ... 21
4.2.1 Leadership Preferences ... 21
4.2.2 Cultural Background ... 22
4.2.3 Team Culture ... 23
4.2.4 Innovation and Creativity ... 23
4.2.5 Cultural Models ... 23
4.3 Communication within GVTs ... 24
4.3.1 Communication Norm ... 24
4.3.2 Knowledge Sharing ... 25
4.3.3 Cultural Intelligence ... 26
4.3.4 Miscommunication... 26
4.3.5 Asymmetric Information ... 27
4.3.6 Communication Tools ... 28
4.3.7 Real Time Communication ... 29
4.3.8 Interpersonal Relationships ... 29
4.4 Perception of Trust ... 30
vi
4.5 Covid-19 Impact ... 31
5 Analysis and Discussion ... 32
5.1 Global and Virtual Teams ... 32
5.1.1 Work Procedures... 33
5.1.2 Management Support ... 34
5.1.3 Competences ... 34
5.1.4 Role Clarity ... 35
5.1.5 Delivery Quality ... 35
5.2 Cultural Diversity and Leadership ... 36
5.2.1 Leadership Preferences ... 36
5.2.2 Cultural Background ... 38
5.2.3 Team Culture ... 39
5.2.4 Innovation and Creativity ... 39
5.2.5 Cultural Models ... 40
5.3 Communication within GVTs ... 40
5.3.1 Communication Norm ... 41
5.3.2 Knowledge Sharing ... 42
5.3.3 Cultural Intelligence ... 42
5.3.4 Miscommunication... 43
5.3.5 Asymmetric Information ... 44
5.3.6 Communication Tools ... 44
5.3.7 Real Time Communication ... 45
5.3.8 Interpersonal Relationships ... 46
5.4 Trust ... 46
5.5 Sustainability and Covid-19 Reflections ... 47
6 Conclusions and Recommendations ... 50
6.1 Conclusion ... 50
6.1.1 What are the challenges and possibilities with a GVT? ... 50
6.1.2 How are a GVT currently manged at an international consultancy firm?... 51
6.1.3 How are communication managed within GVTs? ... 51
6.2 Recommendations ... 52
6.3 Limitations ... 53
6.4 Future Research ... 53
7 References ... 54
Appendix A Interview Questions Project Perspective ... 58
Appendix B Interview Questions General Perspective ... 59
List of Tables Table 1. ... 6
List of Figures Figure 1. ... 37
Figure 2. ... 38
Figure 3. ... 44
1 1 Introduction
The introduction chapter clarifies the current situation within the field and the currently identified problems. Moreover, the introduction will present the purpose of the research and the following sub-questions that will be answered.
1.1 Background
The acceleration of globalisation has forced companies to cope with its propulsion in order to become more competitive and internationalised, an internationalisation that creates the importance of knowing how to manage global and virtual teams (Harvey & Griffith, 2007). This is furthermore a propulsion that has introduced the construction management industry to enter both domestic and international markets (Zilke & Taylor, 2015). The importance of managing virtual teams is even more accurate now with the pandemic of Covid-19, forcing people to work virtually. Employees must adapt to a virtual work setting and can no longer rely on the traditional face-to-face (F2F) settings. In the long run, it has been argued that globalisation enables smart solutions, new methods, and tools to cope with the expanded market.
Furthermore, it has been said that these investments would lead to increased productivity and innovation and thereby increase the success (Daim et al., 2012).
Globalisation together with digitalisation creates the possibility of working in global virtual teams (GVT). Such teams enable organisations to work efficiently and independently of location (McKinsey & Company, 2016). Thus, it enables colleagues from geographically dispersed offices to work together in a virtual and global environment and not necessarily F2F in a traditional physical team (Zander et al., 2012). The possibility of working in a GVT usually implies a working team consisting of colleagues with dispersed cultural backgrounds. For such teams, it has been found that cultural differences as well as the collaboration addressing different languages, could negatively affect the performance due to lack of trust and inefficient communication (Gordon, 2011; Munkvold & Zigurs, 2007).
Working virtually has many advantages for example sleepless teams, the possibility to combine competences and resources, to provide cost savings (Johnson et al., 2001) and to generate a stronger relationship with global clients (Hinds & Bailey, 2003). Moreover, it has been discovered that virtual teams could generate end products with higher quality, due to the possibility to work with the most qualified members regardless of location (Chatfield et al., 2014). However, a geographically distributed team must cope with challenges regarding traveling costs and stress, repeated delays, technology tools and having their project manager on a distance (Armstrong & Cole, cited in Hinds & Bailey, 2003). Thus, communication in virtual teams is complex, setting higher requirements regarding knowledge of team members and the technology being used (Burlea, cited in Chatfield et al., 2014).
To work efficiently with a global team, cultural challenges must be considered. Culture is by Hofstede (1984) called “collective mental programming” or the “software of the mind” and described as a man-made reality built on the values of the majority. Meaning, that culture, usually referred to something nationality bounded, could be generated by other factors e.g.
corporate culture, professional culture, gender etc. It was shown that scientists of different nationalities working together on research projects have such strong professional interests that the national cultural differences become unimportant (Chatfield et al., 2014). Meaning, there exists opportunities for GVTs to shape their own unique culture (Bennett, 2013).
2 1.2 Problem
As mentioned above, working in a GVT instead of F2F, could be more complex and therefore the need for new operational management knowledge would be beneficial for the construction management industry. The knowledge in the area today has shown to be vague, generalised and hard to grasp, especially for the unexperienced GVT-project manager. This could be a barrier for entering projects of this character and thereby reduce the company's opportunity to expand and compete both nationally and internationally.
In general, the literature within this field consists of case studies of students, e.g. Curşeu et al.
(2007), Cheshin et al. (2013), Wong et al. (2007), Beise et al. (2010), Munkvold and Zigurs (2007), and organisations, e.g. Tutar et al. (2014), Daim et al. (2012), Presbitero & Attar (2018), Henderson et al. (2016), Henderson et al. (2018), as well as reviews of previous research e.g. Hofstede (1984), Mehtab et al. (2018), Zander et al. (2012), Curşeu et al. (2008).
However, only Henderson et al. (2016) and Henderson et al. (2018) have case studies based on the engineering field but none of the studied literature are directly connected to management of GVT in the construction industry. Hence, in order to contribute to a useful research for intra-organisational actor dealing with GVTs in the construction management industry, more research must be executed in order to create a better understanding of the working environment.
1.3 Purpose and Research Questions
Challenges and possibilities regarding GVTs are many and have been widely elaborated over a long period of time. However, these findings are often given in general terms and considered standards for team building both within GVT as well as F2F teams. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to study whether the literature regarding how to manage a GVT corresponds with the perceptions in practice and how these findings can contribute to a more efficient project management.
The purpose of this research will be elaborated and answered throughout the following three research questions:
1. What are the challenges and possibilities with a GVT?
2. How are a GVT currently manged at an international consultancy firm?
3. How are communication managed within GVTs?
This research will contribute to broaden the knowledge regarding how to more efficiently manage a GVT and what to consider as a project manager. The study will map the currently known challenges, possibilities and theories regarding cultural diversity and virtual management. It will also narrate how the current management within a GVT is perceived in practice.
1.4 Delimitations
When executing this research, some delimitations have been made. Only a limited amount of European countries is represented in this research as well as only one Asian country. The study focuses on GVT collaborations that are intra-organisational from a consultancy firm’s point of view, hence, not joint ventures with sub-contractors. The research mainly focuses on social aspects and not economical aspects. Furthermore, a limited number of projects and respondents is included in this research due to time limitations.
3 1.5 Disposition
This chapter provides a simplified overview of the report's disposition. The distribution of this master thesis follows a logical order.
1.5.1 Introduction
The introduction chapter clarifies the current situation within the field and the currently identified problems. Moreover, the introduction will present the purpose of the research and the following sub-questions that will be answered.
1.5.2 Method
The method chapter will present how the research has been executed as well as which approaches and decisions that has been decided to investigate the research questions. It also presents the studied consultancy firm and the company's current international collaborations.
1.5.3 Literature review
This chapter presents the literature review that has been used in this study. Its purpose is to present what is already known within the area by studying other already existing research and their conclusions.
1.5.4 Findings
This chapter presents the collected findings from the performed interviews. The respondents actively work with or are connected to management of GVTs, either from a project perspective or a general management perspective. This is further explained in 2.4 Interviews and the respondents are presented in Table 1.
1.5.5 Analysis and Discussion
In the analysis and discussion chapter, the findings are discussed and analysed in accordance with the method chapter. It follows the same structure as the findings in order to compare the literature of management of GVTs and how they are managed in practice. The chapter is further meant to create a foundation for the conclusion and recommendation chapter. This chapter furthermore includes reflections on sustainability based on both the literature and the findings as well as the impact of Covid-19.
1.5.6 Conclusion and Recommendations
This chapter responds to the research questions and presents practical recommendations.
The recommendations are based on the comparison of the studied consultancy firm and the studied literature. At last, the chapter presents suggestions on possible future studies.
4 2 Method
The method chapter will present how the research has been executed as well as which approaches and decisions that has been decided to investigate the research questions. It also presents the studied consultancy firm and the company's current international collaborations.
2.1 Research Approach
To investigate and gather in-depth insights about the research questions and thereby fulfil the purpose a qualitative method has been chosen. Having a qualitative research is applicable for this study since it aims to describe and explore the subject to conceptualise the found problematics and possibilities (Saunders et al., 2009).
The executed literature review provides this research with knowledge from previously performed studies within relevant and corresponding fields regarding management of GVTs.
This foundation is used to provide a deeper understanding of the subject and the findings puts the research questions into the proper context. Furthermore, empirical data are gathered by performing semi-structured interviews in order to gather practical knowledge from relevant respondents in the construction management industry with experiences within the studied topic. The interviews are further anchored by the literature review.
2.2 The Studied Organisation
This study is performed in association with an international architect and engineering consultancy firm. The organisation has offices in 14 different European countries and India.
The European countries both have their own home market as well as they provide expertise and support to other European offices through cross-border collaborations, in this thesis named GVT. The office located in India, however, does not have their own home market but solely provide expertise and support to the European offices.
The studied organisation is flat, straight-lined and decentralised with no matrices. They perceive the team as the basic building block of the organisation whereas all employees share a common vision, purpose, values and code of conduct. They collaborate between organisational units, within and across borders, sharing knowledge and expertise while value adding as well as they share common systems and processes (Grönwall, 2020).
In the organisation, the usage of GVTs are from both an export and an import point of view.
For example, offices that have a home market (the 14 European countries mentioned above) either allocates employees to other offices within the organisation, export, or collect resources from other offices, import. The collaborations are of technical nature and are connected to infrastructural projects. The project outcomes are most often deliverables connected to project planning such as models, technical drawings and text specifications.
2.3 Literature Review
In order to gather a greater understanding of the subject and to capsulize what has been concluded and discussed before, previous studies have been reviewed and used as literature foundation to for this study.
The data used in the literature review have firstly been gathered by searching for keywords connected to the researched topic. This, throughout channels like: KTH primo, Google Scholar, Research gate and Science direct. The keywords searched for were global virtual teams, cultural intelligence, participative leadership, intercultural communication, virtual teams, global teams, global communication, and communication of global virtual teams.
5 Further data have been collected by viewing references used in the primarily gathered data.
When selecting the literature, the authors, publisher, publish date and if they were peer reviewed were checked in order to assess the trustworthiness of the chosen studies. This in order to select and find relevant and reliable literature published relatively close in time. We have chosen this relevant timeframe to be 10 years back due to the fast technology and digitalisation development. All the authors were not always checked when choosing the literature. When there were several authors, only the reliance, experience and previous work/research were checked on one or two of the authors. Further, the publisher was checked where we conducted the literature, not all the publishers. The specific criteria worked as a step to faster find reliable literature.
Some of the literature is not recently published. However, they are written by reliable authors and published in peer reviewed journals as well as cited in research published within the 10 years' time frame and therefore considered reliable and valuable for this research. In those cases when the literature is not peer reviewed or cited in other research during the last 10 years, the reliance on the authors and publisher have been extra checked.
The literature review consisting of reports and articles, including studies, were gathered and evaluated. The literature was evaluated by firstly going through abstract, background and conclusion, sometimes even findings and discussion, while highlighting in colours useful information. Furthermore, the different literatures were connected to each other by comparing their highlighted content. Thereafter, the literature review in this research were executed and the compared content resulted in the structure. A structure that highlighted leadership of GVTs, leadership of cultural diversity and communication within GVT. Important factors as well as discovered gaps in knowledge within the field were discovered. This was done by defining important keywords for the management of GVTs, by finding repetitive words in the literature review considered important for the topic. Existing gaps was discovered by comparing the amount of time different keywords occurred in the different literatures as well as to what extent they were studied and discussed. Further gaps were found by comparing the methodology behind the literature to map how many that was mainly based on reviews or case studies.
When they were based on case studies, further control on the participants was performed in order to check if it was executed with students or organisations. In the cases they were based on organisations, it was checked which field they worked within. The defined gaps, together with defined important factors was further on developed a suitable basis for the interview questions.
The gathered literature is relevant to use in order to gather information in a relative short amount of time. Furthermore, some tertiary data, defined as search tools, has been used as a tool to check the reliance of this data (Saunders et al., 2009). Such tools have been different search motors and digital tools, e.g. google.
2.4 Interviews
The interviews have been performed with employees at a consultancy firm to gather practical experiences. The participants have been chosen from a project and a general perspective;
hence two different types of interviews were held in order to create a greater understanding of how project managers of GVTs as well as their team members view and have experienced global and virtual collaborations. The participants were chosen in order to view the situation from several angles to achieve depth. Common for all is that they have experiences regarding GVT collaborations. The selected participants have been from four offices, located in four different countries. In total, ten people have been interviewed.
6 The interviews with a project perspective were held to get an insight in both parts of a previously executed or currently ongoing global and virtual collaboration. The chosen projects include collaborations with at least two offices located in different countries. The projects, except one, were located in Sweden and owned by the Swedish office. Hence the respondents from Sweden were most often managers while the foreign respondents were the international GVT members. The interviewed participants were therefore two members in a project, from both parts of the collaboration, meaning one team member from each country. The aim with this category was to provide a deeper understanding of intercultural differences and virtual work settings regarding operational work for example preferences, expectations and behaviours when it comes collaborating in GVTs from a construction management perspective The projects were within infrastructure where the deliverables were most often technical solutions e.g. drawings and specifications but also, operational work in forms of management support. Seven employees participated in this interview category covering five different projects, see Table 1. However, in two out of five project perspectives, the counterpart was not interviewed, and two of the projects were represented by the same counterpart.
The interviews with a general perspective were held with the goal to provide the organisational perspective as well as gather existing opinions on managing GVTs. The interviewed participants were therefore employees with broad experience and overall knowledge regarding management of GVTs. Hence, this category aims to provide insight in how a consultancy firm handles GVTs. Three employees from two different countries participated in this interview category, see Table 1.
The participants from the project perspective were gathered by:
1. Investigating previous GVT projects to select which Swedish colleagues in the studied organisation that was considered to have valuable experience for this research. No consideration was taken when it comes to years of experiences, formal roles or gender.
The most crucial factor for this selection were the composition of the collaboration, and believed experiences gathered from it.
2. The collected participants were thereafter contacted and asked if they would be interested in contributing to this study.
3. When the participants agreed, they were asked to initiate contact with one international colleague they had/have a collaboration with to provide information about this study.
This procedure ensured that the international counterpart was informed before being asked to participate.
4. The international colleagues where thereafter contacted as in the second step.
The participants from the general perspective were collected by recommendations from our supervisor at the studied organisation. The chosen participants have management and organisational knowledge about how these collaborations are performed.
Table 1 Interview respondents, date of interview, time, respondents’ location and type of interview.
Respondent Date Time Organisation Type of
perspective
R1 3/4-2020 60 min Sweden Project
R2 6/4-2020 60 min Sweden Project
R3 8/4-2020 60 min Sweden Project
R4 14/4-2020 53 min International General
R5 16/4-2020 70 min Sweden Project
R6 17/4-2020 49 min Sweden General
R7 20/4-2020 42 min International Project
R8 22/4-2020 54 min International Project
R9 24/4-2020 40 min International Project
R10 27/4-2020 50 min Sweden General
7 The interviews were of semi-structured character, meaning providing semi-open questions emphasising on the depth in the answers while letting the respondents expand the questions in directions of their interest. See Appendix A and Appendix B.
Both interview types followed one common structure based on the same chronological order as presented in the theoretical framework. The general structure was as followed:
1. General GVT questions focusing on general opinions, lessons learned and crucial factors when managing such teams.
2. Questions regarding leadership and cultural diversity focusing on cultural backgrounds, leadership preferences, cultural intelligence and perceptions/generalisations.
3. Questions regarding leadership of the virtual environment focusing on working procedures, role clarity, competences, management support and delivery quality.
4. Questions regarding communication, focusing on norms and collaboration, effective communication and cultural intelligence as well as communication tools and interpersonal relationships.
5. Questions about the Covid-19 situation and how they think it will affect future GVT collaborations.
6. In the end of each interview every participant got questions about how they view trust as well as how they maintain and considers trust in work relationships.
All interviews were about one hour long and held through Microsoft TEAMS where they also were recorded. After the interviews were performed, they were transcribed. Firstly, by documenting in text everything that was said, both the questions and the answers, by listening to the recordings. Thereafter, key words and summaries were appointed to each interview separately. The summaries were based on the key words and thereafter could a general view of the content be formed from all interviews. The content that further is presented in chapter 4 Findings.
2.5 Analysis
The analysis of the findings starts immediately after the interviews were transcribed. It was executed by coding the content. The coding was performed by using post-its, whiteboard and drawings on paper in order to find key words, themes, sub-categories, patterns and their connections. This along with multiple discussions and questioning of what was coded. The most important sub-categories defined, together with their connections, created the headings and outline for the findings and was further used as the structure for the analysis and discussion.
When the structure for the analysis and discussion was defined, the content presented in the findings was analysed with the literature review. This was done by searching for the defined sub-categories in the literature review and then analyse its content together with the connected content in the findings. Still, keeping the same headings and outline as in the findings.
2.6 Research Ethics
The participants were in advance given information regarding the subject of the interviews, its length and its purpose as well as a short explanation of the thesis. They were furthermore informed about it being confidential and performed according to the GDPR requirements. The interviews were recorded after the participant’s acceptance and informed to only be used for the report.
8 2.7 Limitations
Since the interviews were held with a few chosen individuals, no general conclusions can be withdrawn regarding how the whole organisation operates. This, because the provided responses solely provide individual insights and perceptions about the subject. However, the diversity of the representatives provides a broad collection of opinions.
The respondents are all from one consultancy firm, which implies that the responses might be coloured by the organisational culture and not applicable for all consultancy firms or organisations. However, the interviews were performed in order to gather overall opinions and experiences, thus, not asking for specific information directly connected to the studied organisation. The outcome can therefore be considered to reflect general perceptions.
9 3 Literature Review
This chapter presents the literature review that has been used in this study. Its purpose is to present what is already known within the area by studying other already existing research and their conclusions.
3.1 Global Virtual Teams
The definition of global virtual teams (GVT) is that they are nationally, geographically and culturally diverse groups that mainly communicate through electronic media who are brought together to accomplish assigned tasks (Beise et al., 2010). However, the definition of what a virtual team is, is somewhat discussed. It has been found that most researchers define virtual teams as a team that can interact face-to-face (F2F), but mainly communicate through electronic medias (Curşeu et al., 2008), a definition that will be used in this research. Moreover, global teams differ from other teams in the sense that the environment is globally dispersed and that there exist, on multiple dimensions, heterogeneity (Maloney and Zellmer-Bruhn, cited in Zander et al., 2012).
In contrast to leaders acting on one national level with a centralised team, the added challenge for global and virtual leaders are significant due to the two characteristics mentioned above.
Firstly, they consist of globally dispersed work environment and secondly, they need to be able to handle heterogeneity in several dimensions (Zander et al., 2012). However, heterogeneity in GVTs is not only problematic issues for the leader, but also developmental for the team regarding the creation of complex knowledge structures. These structures have been found to be essential for information processing (Curşeu et al., 2007).
The globally dispersed locations of the team members push the team to work in virtual settings, which has been found to lead to a slow development of trust, as well as a difficulty in understanding idioms and humour (Knoll & Jarvenpaa; Jarvenpaa & Leidner, cited in Beise et al., 2010). Furthermore, computer-mediated settings tend to delay relational development (Powell et al., 2004) as well as duplicated efforts due to asymmetric communication (Beise et al., 2010). However, according to Zander et al. (2012), national cultural heterogeneity is the most important aspect to take into consideration, since it has been found that nationality override other demographic attributes in GVTs (Butler, 2006).
3.1.1 Leadership of Global and Virtual Teams
A well-run virtual organisation should function regardless of geographic dispersion and time barriers (Gordon, 2011), as well as cultural differences, time zones and languages (Mehtab et al., 2018). It must be technologically seamless, responsive to local needs, and consist of a centralised team who provides efficiency even though the team is dispersed in composition (Gordon, 2011).
Virtual leaders must therefore provide training on participation to each member and not assume that the best practices in F2F teams can be used in the same amount in virtual ones (Mehtab et al., 2018). For instance, misunderstandings regarding written information can easily be solved instantly F2F but has in a virtual environment the need to be managed in other ways (Gordon, 2011). This is also accurate when it comes to appreciation. Gordon (2011) further argues for the importance of having qualified managers assigned to the virtual project. However, he does not explicitly mention how these necessary competences
10 categorises as qualified. According to Mehtab et al. (2018) the leader must be able to provide virtual work settings to enhance the collaboration, communication standards to manage internal communication as well as select and approve tools that support these settings. Also, when and how to use them (Daim et al., 2012).
Trust is a widely discussed topic when it comes to virtual teams. In order to establish trust and ensure that the right competences are reachable when needed, Gordon (2011) argues for the importance of leaders identifying talents within the organisation. Something that furthermore promotes innovative processes. One way to perform this is to provide a so-called skills matrix visible for the virtual team to provide expertise information, and thus, increase competence- trust (Mehtab et al., 2018). The leader should also provide clarity in tasks and relational roles, enabling monitoring and the possibility to assign them as well as having a positive introduction (Mehtab et al., 2018; Daim et al., 2012). This, since virtual teams were found to be mostly task-based (Beise et al., 2010). However, the most crucial factor to establish group culture providing psychological safety, and thereby trust, is F2F interaction in the project's initial phases. Since F2F is rare in teams with this character, it should be used wisely, and merely to establish common goals and project specifications to leverage productivity and innovation.
Moreover, it has been shown that it is beneficial for a manager to maintain trust by having the ability to respond calmly to crises and the presence of positive leadership (Daim et al., 2012).
Global virtual teams usually have a flat, decentralised management structure, relying on peer- to-peer interaction. Projects are thereby highly reliant on the team's ability to use each other's knowledge and that they work synchronously (Daim et al., 2012), meaning real time interactions (Mehtab et al., 2018). It is therefore important for the manager to choose the best adapted communication media in order to have an initial communication contributing to the first positive interaction between the GVT members (Daim et al., 2012). Moreover, also supporting the outcome of high-performance virtual teams, since they were found to be more engaged in dynamic process management throughout the entire project (Beise et al., 2010).
However, these real time interactions could lead to misinterpretations of expectations regarding roles and goals and consequently competing lines of authority, weak leadership and poor delegation (Daim et al., 2012).
The leader of a GVT should as mentioned above work with clear roles, but also clear expectations, delegations of responsibilities and explicitly communicate ownerships to clarify intended results and outcomes (Daim et al., 2012). The team should feel comfortable knowing what is considered successful, who has the authority and responsibility, and thereby establish trust with the leader and team members. Daim et al. (2012) also discuss the importance of cultural skills of the manager, such as cultural differences and language, when it comes to delegation. Meaning that lack of “global thinking” would be a source of lack in effective delegation. Therefore, organisations should train the importance and effects of delegation (Daim et al., 2012).
To conclude, the leadership of a virtual team must provide settings suitable for virtual teams, role clarity, finding the right competences for every unique virtual project and engage dynamic process management adaptable to changes in order to be efficient. The manager should also provide a suitable technologically communication framework, and establish mutual understanding about expectations, responsibilities, and task-ownership.
11 3.1.2 Leadership and Cultural Diversity
A dispersed culture within a team has been found to contribute to a higher level of innovation and creativity. Hence, in order to efficiently manage such teams, cultural intelligence is needed (Tutar et al., 2014). In order to seize the unique opportunities with a GVT consisting of cultural differences the arising unique challenges must be managed. As argued above, people of different nationalities coming together adds unique challenges regarding diverse beliefs, value systems, perceptions, competences and actions taken (Youssef & Luthans, 2012).
Furthermore, different leadership preferences and expectations of the GVT manager. It is therefore important to have the knowledge of the existing cultural differences as a manager, and for the decision-makers when choosing the leaders for GVTs (Zander et al., 2012).
It was found that it takes time for a GVT member to understand the ideological differences of other nationalities (Daim et al., 2012) but that is crucial for the leader to understand and have the awareness of the employee's cultural background, ethnic origins, functional expertise and education (Tutar et al., 2014). Two conceptual frameworks, further on called cultural models, made to pinpoint cultural differences and how to adapt to them are GLOBE (Youssef &
Luthans, 2012) and the culture map by Meyer (2014).
The culture map by Meyer (2014) is based on management experiences and is in an eight- scale test showing the management behaviours and the most common gaps. This scale is showing the cultural pedigree of different cultures preferences regarding communication, evaluation, persuasion, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing and scheduling. Further it is not only important to understand the other cultures, but also how one's own are perceived.
Meyer’s map thereby adds important knowledge to broaden the perspectives and understanding of countries cultural norms in comparison to each other (Meyer, 2014).
Moreover, Meyer’s map could also be used by leaders to get a complete picture of the teams' preferences by letting the members do the test individually (Champion, 2014).
GLOBE, the Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness, is a research program focusing on social culture and leadership. The program explores the complex and organisational effectiveness on leaderships from a cultural perspective, by identifying critical attributes. For this, six identified culturally endorsed implicit leadership dimensions are identified (CLT); charismatic/Value-based, Team-oriented, Participative, Humane-oriented, Autonomous, self-protective and mapped against culture clusters/groups of GLOBE societies.
It has been shown that leaders tend to act in accordance with the preferred leadership style in their national culture. However, the national culture does not normally work as a tool to predict a leader's behaviour but a tool to predict their expectations. Moreover, it was found that the most adaptive leaders were the most effective, meaning that they act according to expectations, since certain behaviours might be desirable in one nation and undesirable in another (Dorfman et al., 2012).
According to Meyer (2014) it is common that managers rely on clichés and stereotypes and thereby have the wrong expectations on how other cultures operate. These could lead to misinterpretations since culture is more complex. For a manager to efficiently manage intercultural differences, he or she needs the knowledge regarding how to counteract conflicts that might appear and to create a unique and unbiased organisational culture. It is therefore also important that the GVT manager sees the opportunity with cultural variety rather than its threats by increasing the awareness of cultural differences (Tutar et al., 2014).
12 Furthermore, Dorfman et al. (2012) found that some leadership styles are more universally effective and others more culturally sensitive. Universally effective leaderships tend to be charismatic and value based while one of the leadership styles, participative leadership, tend to be more culturally sensitive. A participative leadership, also named democratic leadership, is defined by Gastil (1994) to be:
“... distinct from positions of authority; rather, it is defined as the performance of three functions: distributing responsibility among the membership, empowering group members, and aiding the group’s decision-making process.”
Participative leadership therefore empowers the team members with distributed responsibilities to together solve problems and deliberates before decisions are made. A problem with participative leadership is that it can be interpreted differently. In some countries it means decision behaviours while it in other countries it can mean institutional settings and information behaviour. It can therefore explain why expectations on the team members may differ between cultures (Lang, 2014). A problem that could be a contributing factor to cultural sensitiveness when having participative leadership.
To conclude, the GVT manager must have a greater understanding and awareness of cultural differences, as well as its advantages and disadvantages, to create a more suitable and efficient GVT management (Tutar et al., 2014). The manager must take into consideration how the leadership style is perceived by the members and their leadership preferences in order to manage effectively (Zander et al., 2012). This awareness could be created by viewing and use existing models mentioned above.
3.2 Communication within GVTs
It is commonly known that trust is a crucial factor for a successful project management (Bond- Barnard et al., 2018) together with an increased effort of getting to know the other team members. Another factor of importance within a team, regardless of whether it is virtual, global or traditional is communication, but communication can also develop challenges (Beise et al., 2010).
3.2.1 Communication Norm
To foster information exchange, interactions, diminish conflicts and to develop efficient collaborations, a common understanding of the task and a common communication norm within a GVT must be established in order to meet the team's diverse behavioural expectations and standards. The reason why one common communication norm should be established is because the vulnerability of arising sub-group divisions increases when having several norms interacting within a group (Henderson et al., 2016; Cheshin et al., 2013). Having a common communication norm means that the team members share expectations or a code of conduct explaining their behaviour regarding for example how to initiate, respond, share information and which messages to prioritise (Cramton and Orvis, cited in Henderson et al., 2016).
In order to create a communication norm and to have a common understanding of the task, it is important to have role clarity, trust and to thoroughly communicate requirements and expectations (Wong et al., 2007). If the team knows how to efficiently manage and acknowledge difficulties and shape their own communication norm, they become more effective (Munkvold & Zigurs, 2007). Henderson et al., (2018) established in their study that the relationship between communication norms, trust and role clarity is reciprocal. An effective communication norm contributes to trust and role clarity as well as a high trust contributes to
13 effective communication and role clarity. Trust, especially during the initiation phase, is named to be the most important source for a successful project and is both based on and strengthened by the informal/interpersonal communication that takes place between the team members (Curşeu et al., 2008). In order to gain an early trust establishment, communication behaviours such as social communication and communication of enthusiasm is essential. Moreover, to maintain trust, predictable, substantial and timely responded communication is important (Daim et al., 2012).
Daim et al. (2012) argues that innovation effectiveness heavily corresponds to the effectiveness of participative communication, meaning that the team members share ideas more openly and frequently with each other, through so called cognitive thinking. A way of thinking that could contribute to the creation of a communication norm as well as generating better problem solving, knowledge and expertise. Moreover, virtual teams were by Curşeu et al. (2008) found to better overcome information biases and exchange information than F2F teams. However, since a greater amount of knowledge creates increased memory interference it is harder to integrate and exchange information. Other factors that limits the integration and exchange of information is due to the challenges that comes with virtual teams regarding coordination, planning, creating trust and cohesion (Curşeu et al., 2008). Moreover, coordination has by Curşeu et al. (2008) been said to be the most important factor in virtual teams due to its complexity which also emphasise the importance of available as well as beneficial communication tools.
For a project to become successful, it is important that a GVT put a great effort in the initial phase (Curşeu et al., 2008). It is where the important factors as communication behaviours are established which enhances innovation through created cognitive thinking (Daim et al., 2012). It is also where the creation of the unique GVT communication norm (Henderson et al., 2016), establishment of role clarity, trust and the creation of mutual understanding of the task's accomplishments (Wong et al., 2007) are established. These are all factors that counteract to the disadvantage of not having F2F interactions and together with a clearly defined coordination the increased knowledge interference will be positive (Curşeu et al., 2008).
3.2.2 Effective Communication and Cultural Intelligence
When managing a GVT it is important to have an effective intercultural communication which enhances e.g. responsiveness and productivity (Daim et al., 2012). A GVT has a higher degree of anxiety and uncertainty which may affect the communication negatively as well as it negatively affects information exchange and knowledge sharing (Presbitero & Attar, 2018).
Furthermore, the effectiveness relies on the team members’ possibility to use electronic communication tools (Beise et al., 2010).
Effective communication is by the Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) theory dependent on individual´s possibility to manage their own anxiety, uncertainty and to predict other people’s behaviour and attitudes (Gudykunst & Nishida, 2001). Within a GVT, there will be various cultures which may imply low effectiveness regarding information exchange hence it will negatively affect the communication effectiveness (Presbitero & Attar, 2018). In order to handle such challenges, information and knowledge sharing must be managed which can be improved by an effective formulated communication strategy (Mei et al., 2004). Presbitero and Attar (2018) mentions that one way to decrease uncertainty and anxiety and increase knowledge sharing is with a higher level of cultural intelligence, since it is established by a higher level of cultural skills and self-efficacy (Presbitero & Attar, 2018). A higher level of cultural intelligence therefore contributes to a higher performance in intercultural situations.
14 Hence, it can improve intercultural communication effectiveness.
Cultural intelligence is defined as individuals' ability to effectively adapt to cultural diversity, meaning cultural knowledge, metacognition, verbal flexibility and necessary behaviours when working in international contexts (Earley & Ang, cited in Presbitero and Attar 2018). Cultural intelligence is therefore also of importance when it comes to contributing to the lack of human communication arising within a GVT. Human communication, such as voice tones and body language, appearing in F2F meeting can only be substituted with video and phone calls. It is therefore easy to misinterpret attitudes among the team members, a problem that is even more exacerbated by cultural differences (Daim et al., 2012), implying even more the importance of high cultural intelligence. Presbitero and Attar (2018) declare that cultural intelligence can be improved by previous experiences in intercultural contexts or programs and interventions that correspond to such experiences.
The communication efficiency further on depends on the GVT members knowledge regarding how to use the electronic communication media (Beise et al., 2010) as well as they must rely on it in order to build interpersonal relationships (Daim et al., 2012). However, how to use the media is most often not clearly defined outside real-time meetings (Daim et al., 2012) hence it is of importance that the manager provides such knowledge within the team (Beise et al., 2010). Moreover, electronic communication tools inhibit social interactions and can more easily lead to misunderstandings, reducing success and innovation, which negatively affect communication effectiveness (Daim et al., 2012). Another important factor, in order to achieve effective communication, is that the leader must know how to effectively communicate motivational messages in order to encourage their team members to manage tough deadline pressure. Moreover, it is important that communication, especially within a GVT, explicitly defines ownership, delegate responsibilities and clearly interpret everyone’s authority in order to become more effective (Daim et al., 2012).
For a GVT to have an effective communication, actions regarding how to minimise the occurrence of communication conflict must be taken. Such actions, for voice and email communication are mentioned by Daim et al. (2012) to be as follows
For voice communication:
“a) establishing a timeline for response to a sender b) what to do if the receiver cannot provide all of the information requested, or nor quickly enough c) how and when senders may be reached d) what to do if the sender thinks a message could be misunderstood and e) what to do if a receiver does not understand a message.” (Smith, cited in Daim et al. 2012)
For email communication:
“a) All requested actions should appear in the final paragraph and b) only pertinent sentences from previous emails are quoted in replies.” (Smith, cited in Daim et al. 2012)
In order to have an effective intercultural communication, it is important to have effective formulated strategies, a higher level of cultural intelligence (Presbitero & Attar, 2018), to know how and when to use the communication tools (Beise et al., 2010), create motivation, define ownership, role clarity and responsibility delegation (Daim et al., 2012). With an increased understanding that comes with a higher cultural intelligence, it is easier to have a communication that can work as a substitute to F2F meetings by creating interpersonal
15 relationships through electronic communication (Daim et al., 2012). Moreover, a deeper understanding of communication tools, the initial efforts, unique communication norms (Beise et al., 2010), role clarity, interpersonal trust (Henderson et al., 2016; Daim et al. 2012), cultural intelligence and knowledge sharing (Presbitero & Attar, 2018). Having an effective electronic communication is crucial for a GVT in order to develop social interaction that in turn can improve innovation.
3.2.3 Electronic Communication Tools
Electronic communication tools have shown to increase cognitive effort, knowledge sharing and the outcome quality. Furthermore, electronic communication tools can be perceived more natural and user friendly, especially for passing on information. However, it is mostly perceived more demanding, and a harder tool for knowledge sharing (Daim et al., 2012). Communication within virtual teams mainly go through so called virtual references, meaning communication often in real time through computers or other internet technologies. Communication channels often used in virtual reference are chat, email, videoconferencing, instant messaging, co- browsing and voice over IP (Bridgewater & Cole, 2009).
When studying challenges and possibilities regarding communication tools, it is important to distinguish the differences between synchronous and asynchronous communication (Curşeu et al., 2008). Synchronous communication is by Carlson & George (2004) defined as communication that are directly received and responded to without any lag. Meaning, that everyone within the team are engaged in a communication in real time, for example through instant messaging and videoconferences (Bridgewater & Cole, 2009). While asynchronous communication is when the response between conversations lags. Curşeu et al. (2008) argues in their study that the main factor for shaping knowledge information within a virtual team, is by providing synchronous communication. Hence it is important to use real time communication technology that can work as a substitute for F2F communication. Moreover, using asynchronous communication as a complement to the synchronous communication can be more time efficient as well as it costs less than gathering a GVT to a F2F meeting (Daim et al., 2012). Even though it in general takes more time for a GVT to accomplish the task due to asynchronous media communication (Montoya-Weiss et al., 2001), Daim et al. (2012) found that the task quality outcome was not significantly affected when using asynchronous communication, instead, when using electronic communication effectively, it enhances responsiveness and productivity.
The technology facilitates the knowledge exchange across space and time, as well as it creates challenges due to changed team processes, new interpersonal relationship developments, status and leadership differences (Curşeu et al., 2008). Curşeu et al. (2008) also argues for the communication technologies direct effect on the teams compounded knowledge and its use within a virtual team as well as its indirect effect on how team processes information. As found by Daim et al. (2012), synchronous communications and devices tend to work well within a GVT which makes it important for the manager to find the best adapted communication media.
Due to the virtual communication tools limited capacity to facilitate efficient coordination, the information integration within a virtual team can be negatively affected. Interpersonal relationship is usually created throughout informal communication and is crucial for knowledge
16 exchange (Curşeu et al., 2008). However, informal communication is harder to facilitate in GVTs than in F2F teams, leading to the importance of establishing communication tools with high possibility to transfer both verbal and non-verbal information.
As mentioned, GVTs implies differences in location, time zones, available technology, cultures and practices which generate challenges when maintaining norms of communication and collaborative work effort (Moser & Axtell, cited in Henderson et al., 2016). The risk of asymmetric information arising between team members is greater within virtual teams than in traditional teams (Beise et al., 2010) and is therefore another challenge that must be managed.
By increasing the understanding of the communication tools, Beise et al. (2010) argues that the amount of possible constraint and asymmetric information could be minimised. Moreover, for the GVT to establish efficient communication within the team, the team members must understand its functionality, availability, and usefulness (Curşeu et al., 2008). Thus, the GVT requires the use of electronic communication norms (Cheshin et al., 2013). Beise et al. (2010) further argues that a team's performance depends on its initial efforts. That regardless of task efforts and distribution, the initial efforts providing early and efficiently developed practices, including good communication norms, a common understanding regarding task accomplishment and creating trust, generates more task related time for the team members (Beise et al., 2010; Daim et al., 2012). Hence, the earlier a communication norm is established, the better.
An electronic community platform within a GVT improves work-life balance, effort, contribution and utilisation of tools (Daim et al., 2012). It provides the possibility to communicate in real- time (Curşeu et al., 2008) as well as efficiently manage asynchronous communication. It is therefore important to find the most appropriate electronic communication tools, tools that also contributes to the creation of interpersonal relationships by providing verbal and non-verbal information (Daim et al., 2012).
3.3 Sustainability
Sustainability is a concept important to consider when managing GVTs. The concept sustainability can be divided into three sub-categories, ecological, social and economic who are equally significant from a sustainable project management perspective (Chawla et al., 2018). It is important for the construction management industry to ensure ecological sustainability, meaning that the project should be environmentally friendly (Kiani Mavi &
Standing, 2018). As well as it is important to ensure economic sustainability by considering e.g. quality issues, development profitability, employment and life cycle cost (Kiani Mavi &
Standing, 2018), but also social sustainability by considering employee satisfaction (Persson
& Nilsson, 2019).
To ensure employees satisfaction within virtual teams, it is important to manage the following three key factors. Ensure proper technology, work-life balance and clarity, including leadership (Persson & Nilsson, 2019). Employees will feel frustration and dissatisfaction if the required technology tool cannot achieve the right quality. Secondly, having a clear communication and leadership diminish the feeling of isolation as well as it further enhances structure and role clarity. Thirdly, virtual teams are highly valued in terms of flexibility, however, it is harder to find a work-life-balance since it is harder to separate the two of them (Persson & Nilsson, 2019).
17 4 Findings
This chapter presents the collected findings from the performed interviews. The respondents actively work with or are connected to management of GVTs, either from a project perspective or a general management perspective. This is further explained in 2.4 Interviews and the respondents are presented in Table 1 Interview respondents, date of interview, time, respondents’ location and type of interview.
4.1 Global and Virtual Teams
The possibilities with a GVT were according to the respondents of both positive and negative character. From the general perspective it was expressed that it strengthens the organisation’s expertise by enabling the usage of unique competences and unique experiences in projects, leading to the possibility and flexibility to develop the scope. Moreover, it was said to create positive possibilities when using the company´s full capacity to cope with the market, to maintain and extend market shares. However, the general perspective highlighted that previous negative outcomes of GVT collaborations set a negative tone among the colleagues for these collaborations. This opinion was however said to slowly decrease when these collaborations were more frequently used. Furthermore, the general perspective said that once the collaboration was established, the diverse nationalities did not matter, only the individual.
It was further expressed that some of the participants from the general perspective did not agree that cultural differences had a huge impact on the work performance. As one mentioned when asked about cultural differences (citation is translated):
“I feel that you are paying too much attention to these cultural differences.” - R10
Furthermore, the cultural differences were usually highlighted as critical parts of the collaboration, which some participants from the general perspective were said to be broken when working closely in the GVT in the initial phases. As one respondent said (citation is translated):
“Sometimes we are gathered a lot to discuss hypothetical collaborations which lead to discussions that are not anchored in reality which most often leads nowhere, it is more important to get to a concrete project or concrete tender fast and start working together, it is then the cultural barriers are broken quickly” - R10
Very little emphasis was putted into tools and software from the general perspective, but it was expressed that there existed different traditions between the offices regarding which software to use, which was also expressed to be an issue. One other concern argued among the respondents was regarding how the GVT development might affect/concur with the domestic organisation's workload.
“Other colleagues are a bit reluctant to it, because they think if I give some work to XXX what shall I do the without losing my own workload? And they do not see the benefit from it.” - R4
From the project perspective, it was expressed that there existed curiosity of working in GVTs.
The respondents expressed how this would add to their professional and personal growth, by being a new, fun and interesting way to be challenged in the day to day work while providing value adding experiences. However, the opinion differed regarding working in GVTs. It was expressed that it could be more exciting than effective and considered less comfortable than working in F2F teams. It was also said that these teams were manageable but not
