Collaboration has always been critical to the success of new product development teams, and the advent of geographically dispersed teams has significantly altered the way that team members interact. Multi-user computer-aided design (MUCAD) and crowdsourcing are two results of efforts to enable collaboration between geographically dispersed individuals. In this research, a study was done to investigate the differences in performance between MUCAD and single-user CAD teams, in which teams competed to create the best model of a hand drill. This was done across a three-day period to recreate the scenario found in industry. It was found that MUCAD increases awareness of teammates' activities and increases communication between team members. Different sources of frustration for single-user and multi-user teams were identified, as well as differing patterns of modeling style. These findings demonstrate that MUCAD software has significant potential to improve team collaboration and performance. A second study explored a number of potentially significant factors in MUCAD team performance, including leadership, design style, unfamiliar parts, knowledge transfer, individual experience, and team composition. In this study, teams of undergraduate mechanical engineering students worked together to complete tasks using NXConnect, a MUCAD plugin for NX developed at Brigham Young University. A primary finding was that having an appointed leader for a MUCAD team improves performance, in particular when that leader works with the team in creating the CAD model. It was also found that creating a framework to aid in organizing and coordinating the creation of the CAD model may decrease the time required for completion. In the final study, the possibility of using crowdsourcing to complete complex product design tasks was explored. In this study, a process for crowdsourcing complex product design tasks was developed, as well as a website to act as the platform for testing this process. A crowd consisting of engineering and technology students then worked together on the website to design a frisbee tracking device. The crowd was able to collaborate to accomplish some detailed product design tasks, but was not able to develop a complete product. Major findings include the need for more formal leadership and crowd organization, the need for better decision making mechanisms, and the need for a better model for engaging crowd members on a consistent basis. It was also found that crowd members had a greater willingness to pay for the product they developed than individuals who had not worked on the project. Results also show that although crowd members were often frustrated with the collaboration process, they enjoyed being able to work with a large group of people on a complex project.

The purpose of this paper was two-fold. The first was to investigate the impact of conflict as a mediator in the relationship between distribution and team performance. The second was to examine how that relationship was affected by virtuality. Four-member teams of different distributions (partially distributed, fully distributed, and fully collocated) and different virtuality conditions (videoconferencing, teleconferencing, and chat) played a team-oriented game. Significant results were found only in the videoconferencing condition, in which both distribution and task conflict had a negative impact on team performance, but task conflict did not mediate the relationship between distribution and team performance. Further research investigating how virtuality impacts distributed teams in needed.

This study examined factors that might impact student knowledge sharing within virtual teams through online discussion boards. These factors included: trust, mutual influence, conflict, leadership, and cohesion. A path model was developed to determine whether relationships exist among knowledge sharing from asynchronous group discussion and the above five factors. In addition, this study examined if there are any relationships between quality and quantity of knowledge sharing and students' grades. A correlation design was conducted to discover if there are any relationships among these five factors and knowledge sharing within virtual teams. Participants in this study were 148 undergraduate students from two classes in the Health Services Administration program in the College of Health and Public Affairs. The two classes were asynchronous online courses and both instructors used virtual teaming in their online courses. Online interaction occurred via online discussion boards, email, and online chat rooms. The results indicate that mutual influence and team cohesion are two major factors that directly affect knowledge sharing within virtual teams. Conflict mediates the relationship between trust and knowledge sharing. Leadership was also found to have a strong relationship with team cohesion, which then had a relationship with knowledge sharing. As far as the relationship between quality and quantity of knowledge sharing and the student's grade, it was found that there is relationship between the quantity of knowledge sharing and students' grades, however, no significant relationship exists between quality of knowledge sharing and students' grades. The implications of this research for use of virtual teams in online distance education are also discussed.

In recent years, remote work has been increasingly adopted globally, with manyorganizations adopting working in remote teams. Remote teams are a new phenomenon thathave unique challenges compared to traditional teams. Distance makes it more difficult tocommunicate and collaborate effectively which can lead to misunderstandings andmisinterpretation causing conflicts. There is existing literature specifically on conflictmanagement in remote teams but is to some extent out-of-date as technology has developed.This study aims to complement existing literature to better understand how conflicts inremote teams are best prevented and managed by answering the research question: “Whatare the unique challenges of conflict management in remote teams, main causes of conflictsin remote teams and how can they be resolved effectively?” This study had an inductive qualitative approach, utilizing interviews to answer our researchquestion. Six participants were interviewed, and the data was analyzed using a thematicanalysis. Our findings present unique challenges, with poor communication standing out asa primary concern causing conflicts. To overcome these challenges the findings concludesfour main strategies for leaders and managers to use in conflict management within remoteteams. These strategies are to enhance communication and provide structure, fosterinterpersonal connections and trust, practicing explicit management, and compromising asa method in conflict resolution

The world of today allows groups of people who are geographically-distributed to communicate through information and communication technologies (ICTs). In the workplace, these geographically-distributed teams are referred to as virtual teams. Quantifying and understanding issues in virtual teams has been a focus of research for the past two decades. This thesis aims to quantify generational differences between the Millennials and the Baby Boomers in the context of virtual teams in the engineering and construction sectors. This thesis consists of two studies. The first study broadly focuses on generational differences in regards to cultural, temporal, and technological issues faced in virtual teams. The results from the first study show that Millennials may be better suited to deal with cultural and language differences as well as time-distributed team members when compared to the Baby Boomers. However, the results for the technology hypothesis were mixed and motivated further research. Therefore, the second study focused on generational differences in views on specific ICTs. This study found that Millennials favored some ICTs more than their Baby Boomer counterparts. However, these generations also had indistinguishable views for many of the ICTs examined. The second study shows that the digital divide between generations is true for certain technologies but is unobservable in others. This thesis indicates that Millennials have relative strengths when handling the difficulties of virtual teaming when compared to the Baby Boomers. / Master of Science

Virtual teams often fail to achieve their objectives because virtual team leaders lack strategies for nurturing trust among dispersed team members. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies virtual team leaders in large corporate banks use to build trust among virtual team members. The population of this study included 6 virtual team leaders from a large corporate bank located in the northeast region of the United States. The interpersonal trust theory was the conceptual framework of this study. Data were collected via semistructured telephone interviews and review of company documents. The data analysis process included content analysis and thematic analysis for theme identification. Data analysis revealed four themes related to strategies that leaders of virtual teams can use to build trust among team members: reliable technology, effective communication, teamwork and participation, and respect for people and culture. A fifth theme emerged related to barriers to trust strategies. The implications for positive social change include the potential to improve work environments for virtual team members isolated because of the absence of a social context.

Globalization is a phenomena that is, because of the advances in technology, becoming more and more common. New tools for communication enables project teams to collaborate across the globe. Hence, Virtual Teams are emerging to become the new routine way of working. However, even though virtual teams are a new way of working, many project managers are expected to lead in the same way as in traditional project teams. In this qualitative bachelor thesis in informatic we have studied how trust emerges in virtual teams, and what challenges this presents. Moreover, we used these results in order to investigate and present how project managers can foster trust in virtual teams. We conducted three interviews at one of Sweden’s largest organizations with project managers well experienced with working in virtual teams. The conclusion indicates that project managers through several activities indeed can foster trust in virtual teams. In virtual teams the project manager’s interaction with the other team members is limited by the technical tools used for communication. This results in a strong dependency between trust and virtual communication. The project manager can, by establishing a continuous communication within the team, reach a higher level of coordination. This enables every team member to move forward in the same direction, towards the same end result, despite the distance between them, fostering trust. / Globalisering är ett fenomen som tack vare teknikens framsteg, blir allt vanligare. Då tekniska kommunikationsverktyg gör det möjligt för individer att kommunicera med varandra oavsett plats, har virtuella team blivit en allt mer alldaglig arbetsform. Trots att detta är ett nytt sätt att arbeta på, förväntas dock projektledare att koordinera sitt virtuella team enligt samma projektledningsmetodik som för traditionella team. Vi har i denna kvalitativa uppsats utrett hur tillit uppkommer i virtuella team, och vilka utmaningar som kan finnas för att skapa tillit i virtuella team. Med utgångspunkt i detta drar vi slutsatser om hur projektledare kan arbeta för att främja tillit i virtuella team. För att svara på uppsatsens forskningsfrågor genomfördes tre intervjuer på en av Sveriges största organisationer. Respondenterna har en lång erfarenhet av projektledning och av att arbeta i virtuella team. Slutsatsen visar att projektledare kan främja tillit i virtuella team genom olika virtuella kommunikationsaktiviteter. I virtuella team har projektledaren en begränsad kommunikationskanal till övriga projektmedlemmar, en kanal som består av tekniska kommunikationsverktyg och som skapar förutsättningar för virtuell kommunikation. Detta skapar ett starkt beroende mellan kommunikation och tillit i virtuella team. Genom att etablera en kontinuerlig kommunikation kan projektledare bättre koordinera varje projektmedlem att röra sig i rätt riktning mot ett och samma mål, vilket främjar tillit.

Covid-19-pandemin och de åtföljande restriktionerna i samhället har haft stor effekt på våra liv och ekonomi. Företag har fått anpassa sig och digitala lösningar har implementerats för att möjliggöra arbete på distans, i hopp om att minska pandemins spridning. Distansarbete har hindrat fysiska träffar och därför har företag tvingats att hitta nya lösningar för att hjälpa de anställda att fortsätta sitt arbete. Följaktligen har kommunikation och samarbete på distans blivit viktiga faktorer för att kringgå de utmaningar som har uppstått till följd av pandemin. Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att undersöka vilka utmaningar som finns inom semi-virtuella teams från medarbetarnas perspektiv. Även medarbetarnas upplevelser har undersökts med fokus på samarbete och kommunikation.  En kvalitativ intervjustudie har genomförts för att samla empiriska data om kommunikation och utmaningar inom semi-virtuella teams baserat på fynd av Daim et al. (2012). Författarna beskriver att kommunikation och utmaningar inom virtuella grupper är baserat på tillit, relationer, ledarskap och teknologi.  Empiriska resultatet har sedan analyserats och jämförts med litteraturen från litteraturstudien, samt har en metodreflektion gjorts om undersökningens metodval och genomförande. Utmaningar inom semi-virtuella teams har hittats och presenterats och likaså har informanternas erfarenheter angående samarbete och kommunikation undersökts och presenterats. Kommunikation räknas som det viktigaste kriteriet för ett lyckat samarbete. Även att samarbete och kommunikation i semi-virtuella grupper är sammanhängande eftersom bra kommunikation är avgörande för ett lyckat samarbete vid distansarbete. Svårigheten att kommunicera eller komma i kontakt med gruppmedlemmar är en utmaning. Brist på sociala interaktioner gör det svårt att främja relationer. Det leder till minskat förtroende inom gruppen speciellt för nya medarbetare. Forskning visar att teknologen har varit en har varit en utmaning när arbetet skiftades digitalt. / The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent restrictions in society have had a major impact on our lives and economy. Businesses have had to adapt and digital solutions have been implemented to allow remote work in the hopes of minimizing the spread of the pandemic. However, remote work has hindered physical encounters and so companies have been forced to find new solutions to help employees continue their work. Subsequently, communication and remote collaboration have become important factors in evading the challenges that have emerged due to the pandemic. The purpose of the thesis has been to investigate the challenges that exist within semi-virtual teams from the employees' perspective. Also, the employees' experience has also been examined with a focus on cooperation and communication. A qualitative interview study has been conducted to gather empirical data on communication and challenges within semi-virtual teams based on the findings by Daim et al. (2012). The authors explain that communication and challenges within virtual teams are based on trust, relationships, leadership, and technology. The empirical results has been analysed and compared with the literature from the literature study, and a method reflection has been made on the survey's method choice and implementation. Challenges within semi-virtual teams were found and presented and the informants' experience regarding cooperation and communication has also been investigated and presented. Communication is considered the most important criterion for a successful collaboration. Also that collaboration and communication in semi-virtual groups are coherent because good communication is crucial for successful collaboration in telework. The difficulty of communicating or getting in touch with team members is a challenge. Lack of social interactions makes it difficult to promote relationships. This leads to reduced trust within the group, especially for new employees. Research shows that technology has been a challenge when the work was shifted digitally.

Global virtual (GV) teams provide an opportunity for engineering students to participate in meaningful, cross-cultural learning projects without additional costs of time and money associated with study abroad programs. However, students must learn how to communicate effectively with international team members. Instruction to help students learn which virtual communication technologies to use and how to use them is needed. Training must include cross-cultural training that facilitates team communications and interactions with people from different cultural backgrounds. This study focused on how 10 specialized lessons, Principles of Global Virtual Teams (PGVT), facilitated the communications and interactions of students participating on GV teams in an advanced engineering design course. All GV teams provided evidence that communications and interactions on GV teams are different than Co-located teams. However, teams receiving the PGVT instruction showed indications of increased communication ability on GV teams. These indicators included technology use, vernacular phrase use, communication competence ratings and descriptors from team emails.

Business need required a holistic and focussed framework for best practices in the functioning of effective virtual teams, despite the fragmented nature of empirical studies in this field. This study endeavoured to explore the best practices in the functioning of effective virtual teams against four prominent and unique themes linked to purpose, processes, people and technology. The value of this study does not vest in the existence of virtual teams, but in their orderly operation, in terms of best practice and the value proposition of effectiveness. Following an exploratory qualitative strategy, the research was conducted according to the interpretivist branch of the phenomenological tradition, with a transcendental orientation in the social research field. A qualitative multi-case research design for the empirical study was selected, resulting in a non-probability sample within the software sector of the technology industry in South Africa. An original and pre-tested Lime Survey 2.0+ electronic questionnaire instrument was utilised as the instrument to collect information within a cross-sectional time horizon, to work in synchronisation with the collaborative asynchronous electronic architecture of virtual teams. Content analysis was applied to analyse data. The main findings indicated that effective virtual teams purposefully orientate themselves toward excellence through electronic management systems, a specific value system, with a knowledge seeking focus, and a seamless linkage in electronic infrastructure, applications, and platforms which contribute to the functionality of the effective virtual team. The main recommendations were that a pre-existing, functional, collaborative, integrated, electronic management system is regarded as the primary step in founding an effective virtual team. The focus of organisational leadership should be to embrace a holistic value system approach encapsulating specific elements of excellence, such as trust and independence. Human networking practices pursuing and sustaining knowledge are regarded as the key enabler for functioning of effective virtual teams. Lastly, a focussed seamless interface between the various electronic applications, platforms and infrastructures is recommended. / Human Resource Management / D. Com. (Human Resource Management)