Continuing the discussions of cultural diversity in virtual teams, the cultural concept of uncertainty avoidance is that each regional or national group has a level of uncertainty they expect in general life and consequently communications. Similar to power distance, individuality, cultural masculinity and long term orientation they are largely ingrained into the fabric of the society... read more →
Aug
06
Aug
04
Continuing the series of posts on cultural diversity in virtual teams, I will next discuss the concept of individuality. The impact of individuality in a cultural sense can be important to the efficient functioning of a virtual team. The concept of individuality and its opposite pole of collectivism was explored... read more →
Aug
01
Continuing the series of posts that began with a brief overview of cultural diversity in virtual teams , Long Term Orientation sits along with Power Distance, Individuality, Cultural Masculinity and Uncertainly Avoidance as one of the measured cultural differences from Hofstede's research. As the name of this characteristic suggests, long term orientation is a measure of a culture's... read more →
Jul
30
Continuing the discussion and series of posts in cultural diversity in virtual teams, I will next turn to the concept of cultural masculinity. The impact of the level of masculinity in a culture on the functioning of virtual teams is an interesting one to consider. Cultural Masculinity, along with Power Distance, Individuality, Uncertainty Avoidance and Long Term... read more →
Jul
26
The term Power Distance Index (PDI) was coined by Geert Hofstede to enable him to describe the way different cultures manage working and social relationships, relationships between manager and subordinate or between elder and younger members of families or communities, essentially identifying the level of formality in these relationships. It... read more →
Jul
23
Cultural diversity is something that is never far away in any discussion of virtual teams. Culture must be considered in the planning of any virtual team in much the same way as cultural fit should be considered in hiring a new employee for a co-located team. There are, of course many different forms... read more →
Jul
21
OK, I'll come clean right at the start, this post has nothing to do with the zombie's depicted by popular fiction, I am not going to be discussing employees who have recently risen from the dead and who will wander the halls of your project leaving a trail of body... read more →
Jul
19
We are delighted to say that we have just had a guest post published on Actionmint. The post is a discussion on managing communications in distributed teams written by Francis Norman. Please do check out their website, it has some excellent articles, and of course please do read our post... read more →
Jul
15
Establishing virtual teams can often seem like a relatively simple process, and as such many organisations jump in without really taking the time to plan things out, their process seems to be as follows; Identify that you believe you need a virtual team Determine where is going to be most... read more →
Jul
01
When virtual teams are part of an organisations strategy, say, to build a global footprint without too much unnecessary duplication of skills, the organisation has a vision that includes the use of their virtual teams and as such personnel forming part of those teams know the value they bring and... read more →