Virtual teams and trust

The advent of the Internet has provided new opportunities for collaboration thought impossible just a few years ago. The term ‘virtual organization’ (VO) has been coined to show the way that technologies enable collaborators to work together in ways that parallel membership of a common institute. But the concept actually is more flexible. It might, for example, represent a formal entity associated with sharing of resources, with quality-of-service agreements and access control policies, but more generally the virtual organization is an expression of a task-oriented collaboration between members of geographically distinct institutes ("New tools to support collaboration and virtual organizations").

Due to the ever increasing trend towards globalization, virtual teams are becoming essential to enhancing a company's competitive advantage.  With the shift towards more decentralized organizational structures, companies are beginning to utilize the vast availability of individuals with high specialization and experience. This helps companies not only attain organizational goals and expand their financial success, but creates more opportunities for employees to advance their personal careers and also transform the future of any type of business.

One disadvantage of a virtual team stems from the improper use of communication channels and mediums (Piccoli, 2004). When using e-mail, chat, and other similar technologies, the richness of communication suffers because nonverbal communication is lost, making the development of a team much more difficult. This problem is magnified when dealing with individuals from multiple cultural backgrounds, which can create communication barriers and fault lines that impede the development of interpersonal relationships. Another disadvantage of virtual teams is their reliance on technology. Any type of malfunction with the technology being used will inhibit the team’s ability to interact, making it almost impossible to complete any task at that time. Additionally, communication lags are inevitable and unavoidable, further preventing the team from performing efficiently because information sharing becomes tedious (Piccoli).

One of the most important things with VO or VT is to select the right tools and technology. Find tools that foster communication and trust. It is important to ensure all team members are on the same page about what is happening in the organization as well on their dedicated projects. Social networking tools make it easy to keep the lines of communication open at all times, building deeper relationships and lessening isolation among geographically dispersed peers. The newness and social aspects of online tools can be exciting, however, it’s important to determine standards and protocols as to how and when your team will use social networking tools.When selecting the right tools, ensure they meet the needs of the diverse individuals who will use them. Do these tools assist in solving some of the typical challenges for virtual team members, such as adjustments to differing time zones, cultures and languages? For companies to grow, they must now rely on Internet collaboration and emphasize individual contributions. It is important for team members to control the brainstorm process, share research and generate new ideas online. Using social networking tools could help capture personal observations, invite comments from other team members and distribute new knowledge.

Many online teams communicate through a variety of online products such as Dimdim Online Collaboration, GoTo Meeting, Huddle, Vyew Instant Workspace, and Nomadesk, WebEx. Although the products provide ways to communicate, each varies in popularity and use, privacy and security, cost, technology, and training. Social networking sites also integrate many tools that are very useful for collaboration, unfortunately it is not practical to use many of the popular social network sites such as Facebook, or even Nature Network (a social networking site for scientists) for scientific collaboration.

One of the most important factors for virtual team will be TRUST. According to Fukuyama the culture of trust as the source of spontaneous sociability allows enterprises to grow beyond family into professionally managed organizations. Trust is the elixir of group life—the belief, or confidence in a person or organization's integrity, fairness, and reliability. This faith comes from experience, however brief or extensive. The importance of trust cuts across a team's life cycle. As trust accumulates—in teams, corporations, communities, and nations—it creates a new form of wealth. In the Network Age, human, social and knowledge capital are as potent a source of value as land, resources, skills, and technology. Trust will be one of the main ingredients in the future VT and the success of the innovative project from dispersed group members. 

One example could be Valent Software. The CEO lived in Massachusetts, the president worked from Utah, the engineering team was based in Ohio, and a few others worked out of their homes. Yet, while Valent Software’s ten employees never really co-located, they were able to sell their $700,000 investment and three years of work for $45 million to a major web portal.

Nowdays it doesn't really matter for tech startups where the geographical location of their employees are. Just check this article

Thefutureofwork

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