Critical success factors in managing virtual teams

Abstract

The corporate world is changing from the boardroom meetings and group gatherings to a virtual team world. Mobile employees who work from home or a remote office are becoming more common. More and more companies are adopting virtual teams because they bring many advantages to organizations and their employees. However, virtual teams carry additional complexity and increase risk of unsuccessful projects in terms of reaching their goals. This paper defines virtual teams, discusses their advantages and challenges, and identifies several success factors to manage virtual teams. These factors are aggregated using a four-dimensional framework. This paper discusses factors from the structural, cognitive, relational, and technological dimensions and the relationships between them. Finally, the relationships between some factors of the previous dimensions and the performance of the virtual team are analyzed. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.