Organizational transformation for virtual team integration – A technological perspective

Abstract

The ongoing digitalization bears chances and challenges for our everyday lives, including how we work, e.g. by enhancing mobility. Deploying virtual teams as workforce is a way to meet some of these chances and challenges. The performance of virtual teams depends on organizational structures and team integration, e.g. composition of the team, business goals, and technological solutions. Regarding technology choice it is essential to understand which solutions support which tasks of virtual teamwork and should be chosen accordingly. The choice of the right technology can be supported by using the media synchronicity theory and carrying out a structured analysis of the embedding of the virtual teams in the organization, considering all organizational elements, e.g. context, governance and corporate culture. Therefore, we analyze technology along the media synchronicity theory for the integration of virtual teams, taking a holistic view on these organizational elements. The results contribute to the state of the art by proposing a matching of technology on organizational elements and provide insights for further research interests as well as for technology choice in practice. The matching shows that the functional, cultural, governance related and contextual elements of an organization and most corresponding tasks are especially supported by asynchronous technology.