This Master thesis describes the internal communication in the group of external employees and focuses to the analysis of the effectiveness of two main communication channels in particular department of the organization. At first it describes internal communication in the field of virtual teams. Then it looks at the situation in the department of content in specific internet market. The main part is the study of efficiency of the communication channels, especially of the changes in the effectiveness after four-month hiatus in use. To perform the investigation the company internal data analysis was used. At the end, the thesis evaluates the phenomena studied.

This final thesis deals with a topic of multicultural cooperation in teams. It focuses namely on identifying ohow multicultural environment influences work in teams as well as on investigation how cooperation in multicultural teams can be enhanced. Attention is also paid to virtual teams as a subtopic of multicultural teams.

The focus of this thesis is to analyze how online hosted applications available free of charge can be used to support work in virtual teams. The objectives are first to characterize virtual teams and groupware applications, and then to analyze the scope and functionality of available applications including more detailed evaluation and comparison of certain selected applications (which also support collaborative document creation). Key factors that need to be considered when choosing applications for virtual teams are identified along with other characteristics of virtual teams and team processes. A brief outline of the characteristic features of groupware applications and the SaaS model is followed by comprehensive analysis of various categories of available applications and their functionality. This analysis includes recommendations regarding the suitability of different applications for specific teams and situations. Services offered by suppliers of more complex sets of applications, which include applications supporting collaborative document creation, are analyzed and compared in greater detail. Some of these sets are recommended as a suitable foundation for complex support of the work of a virtual team. The whole analysis is closed by an illustrative case scenario, which can be used as an educational tool to enable people to get to know the basic principles of virtual teamwork and of some of the applications analyzed in this thesis.

Virtual teams have emerged as a result of development in communication technologies and the inevitability for companies to compete in the global market. Differentiating features between traditional and virtual teams are minimal face-to-face interaction and a predominant use of technology-enabled communication. The objectives of this research were to investigate critical factors that contribute towards virtual team success and to further assess the role played by trust, communication, conflict and knowledge. Quantitative data collection methodology was employed for this research, using self-administered questionnaires. A total of 64 responses were received from a sample of 75. Most respondents were from South Africa (47%), while the remaining 53% were from India, United Kingdom and China. Four research questions were formulated based on gaps identified during the literature review. Factor analysis was performed by adding the outcomes of each factor and ranking them in descending order to determine the factor that was highly ranked. Based on this analysis, the study concluded that feedback about how well each team member was doing should be viewed as how well the entire team is doing. Moreover, the ability of team members to make good decisions and establishment of interim deadlines linked with celebration of the milestones, were also ranked as critical factors towards virtual teams success. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The adoption of advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is increasing in organizations which is altering organising and leading teams in many ways. Organizations are moving toward adopting more dynamic and global work structures namely virtual teams which mostly rely on ICTs as the main form of communication. The study investigates leaders’ practices and their appropriation of ICTs in virtual teams while applying a sociomaterial perspective which views technology and leaders’ interaction with technology as interlinked. The study employed qualitative approach based on data collected from two blogs run by Toptal which is a fully virtual company with no physical office. Additionally, cross-disciplinary journal articles were collected from Scopus database to perform an iterative content analysis and progressively develop meanings and results. The findings were organized according to two main categories: leaders’ practices and ICTs then analysed according to the five notions entailed in sociomateriality: materiality, inseparability, relationality, performativity and practices, as suggested by Jones (2014). The main contribution of the study was expanding knowledge about leadership practices and technology within virtual teams using a new theoretical lens. The study identified seven main practices of virtual team leaders including managing communication (formal, informal), supporting team technology adaptation, ensuring team alignment with goals, building team motivation, creating shared identity (culture), shaping trust, showing transparency, in addition to other practices like hiring self-motivated workers, managing time zones, encouraging innovation and creativity, leading by example, always being available, ensuring workers wellness and good listening. The study also identified ICTs that are commonly adopted by virtual team leaders such as Slack, email, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype and smartphones.

Globalization and technological developments have made it possible to engage in virtual work modes. Globalization also enabled an enormous spread of the ongoing pandemic of covid-19. A situation that forced previously co-located teams to become virtual teams. This required an adaption for leaders to lead in an environment that differs vastly from traditional ones.We conducted a multiple case study with an abductive approach and qualitative method in which 10 semi-structured interviews were held with practitioners across 3 business cases that were experiencing a transition into a virtual work mode.The findings suggest that the work relations between leaders and followers change in several ways when previously co-located teams become virtual teams. This entails new challenges and a shift in the use of leadership styles as well as follower behavior.

Technological developments have brought at the forefront the virtual communication in the business world. In our day and age it is difficult to find teams in organizations that do not rely in long distance communication even partially. Leaders bear the responsibility to secure quick and smooth transition of information among the members of their teams as well as to foster an environment that promotes trust and fuels motivation. We conducted this exploratory case study using the abductive approach and the qualitative method. Our aim was to gain a better understanding on how the leaders perceive trust and motivation in a virtual communication setting. Therefore, we send out questionnaires to leaders that volunteered to participate in our study and we adopted the pragmatist philosophy in an attempt to provide valuable insights and practical recommendations to leaders that are managing teams in an electronic environment. The results of our study suggest that leaders perceive the long distance communication mediated through technology to be something positive to the success of their teams as they consider it to actually increase efficiency, provide a more straightforward style of communication that enables their followers to take on more responsibility for the results of their work as well as an increase in productivity.

Virtual working in organisations is becoming more popular with the regular developments oftechnology and swift globalization. In this virtual environment, the teams working dispersed arebetter work-life balance, feeling less stress while enjoying flexible working times. However, onthe other hand, working at a distance leaves the leaders a set of unique challenges. Managingteams remotely without daily face-to-face interactions will also influence their behaviours orunderstandings towards the context of virtual leadership, such as leadership styles, motivation oradoption of communication technology and culture. Therefore, leaders will also focus oncultivating their virtual interactions with employees, tending to excel at remote leadership. In this research, under the research philosophy of pragmatism, we adopted a qualitative methodto conduct a descriptive case study, using an abductive method. Our purpose is to understand andidentify the leadership perception in virtual teams regarding the following factors: Leadershipstyles, motivation, technology and culture. Moreover, as the environment is dynamic, thebenefits and difficulties to lead virtual teams exist everywhere. Therefore, the paper also studiesleaders’ perception of these elements when facing various opportunities and challenges in thedigital world. Hence, we designed a questionnaire to interview six leaders to gain their practicalinsights and valuable opinions, providing the virtual leaders with some professionalrecommendations when leading in the virtual context. Our results in the study suggest that the leaders perceive that in order to lead virtual teamssuccessfully, the leaders need to be aware and vigilant, as it is more challenging than leadingco-located traditional teams. The leadership styles should depend upon the task at hand andwould be influenced by the leader’s characteristics; they believe the most important thing invirtual teams is communication technology and it is a leader’s responsibility to select the rightone keeping the requirements in view. About motivation, majority leaders believe that it shouldbe intrinsic, they also discuss the various ways they use to motivate their teams. Moreover, aboutCultural elements, they claim that a leader should be accepting and promoting harmony inmulticultural teams, and stress the importance of cultural training and sensitivity.

La presente investigación bibliográfica tiene como propósito explicar el rol que desempeña el líder en un entorno dinámico y evolutivo denominado era del conocimiento, en la cual la globalización, los avances tecnológicos y las nuevas formas organizativas han valorado al trabajador del conocimiento como el principal generador de innovación para el desarrollo de las organizaciones. El impacto de dichos cambios ha generado en los líderes no sólo la necesidad de potenciar sus conocimientos, destrezas y habilidades sino también de desarrollar su capacidad para generar una rápida adaptación al entorno a fin de no perder su posicionamiento. En principio, se expondrán las diferentes definiciones de liderazgo para un entorno organizacional cada vez más dinámico, altamente competitivo e intercultural, entorno que ha promovido diversas tendencias de liderazgo generando nuevos desafíos para el líder quién debe potenciar sus competencias y habilidades para la continuidad de su desempeño ante el surgimiento de los equipos virtuales y los diferentes contextos de trabajo a futuro debido a las evolutivas demandas de las tecnologías de información y comunicación virtual. / The purpose of this bibliographical research is to explain the role played by the leader in a dynamic and evolving environment called the knowledge age, in which globalization, technological advances and new organizational forms have valued the knowledge worker as the main generator of knowledge. innovation for the development of organizations. The impact of these changes has generated leaders not only the need to enhance their knowledge, skills and abilities but also to develop their capacity to generate rapid adaptation to the environment in order not to lose their positioning. In principle, the different definitions of leadership will be exposed to an increasingly dynamic, highly competitive and intercultural organizational environment, an environment that has promoted various leadership tendencies generating new challenges for the leader who should enhance their skills and abilities for the continuity of their performance before the emergence of virtual teams and the different contexts of work in the future due to the evolving demands of information and virtual communication technologies. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional

Global teams have become commonplace. As teams have become more dispersed, leveraging outsourced resources has gained popularity. Outsourcing can be a prudent move financially; however, when it is inappropriately applied, the damage it produces can easily overshadow any financial gains. Such ill effects can include impaired employee performance and morale caused by decreased job security. Moreover, it can lead to a less favorable team atmosphere and increased task conflict. This study examined the effects of team virtuality along with the strategic alignment of outsourcing on team performance. The research utilized the intervening processes theory (IPT). The IPT posits that the relationship between certain constructs cannot be measured directly; however, the impact can be measured through other constructs. In the case of this study, it was the impacts of the constructs of virtuality, job security, outsourcing, and team temporariness on team performance. The intervening constructs were team atmosphere and task conflict. The research instrument was an online survey. The results of this survey supported the hypotheses that task conflict was impacted by team virtualization, job security, and team atmosphere. Weak support was provided for the influence of team temporariness on task conflict. The impacts of team virtualization and job security on team atmosphere were not supported. Finally, team performance was influenced by team atmosphere but not task conflict.