ROLE OF MANAGER IN GEOGRAPHICALLY DISTRIBUTED TEAM; A REVIEW

Abstract

Geographically Distributed Team is a team where members are dispersed in different locations across the globe and collaborate together to achieve a common goal. Such kind of team have the characteristics of both virtual team and global team. The team members work from far flung locations and relying heavily on computer mediated communication tools to interact and to collaborate with each other. The members work in different time zones and are culturally diverse. Managing such distributed team requires a different set of competence than a collocated team. The team leader or manager not only have to manage a team who may have never met or worked with each other before but also have different cultural orientation, working style, values and behaviours. This paper reviews research studies highlighting the managerial challenges of geographically distributed teams as faced by team leaders/ managers and also discuss managerial roles and behaviours that have been found to be effective in overcoming those challenges and to build an effective distributed team.