MG302 Case 3

A rapidly growing trend in the business world is the growth of
virtual teams. Some companies are allowing teleworking, which means that
more and more workers have to coordinate their activities with other
team members through the phone or Internet. Even among workers who are
working from their office, more and more companies are having employees
work in teams with employees who work at other locations who they may or
may not have ever met in person. New technologies have been developed
to help facilitate virtual teamwork, but challenges still remain.

Review the background materials and also do some research on virtual
teams. Here are a few articles on virtual teams to get you started:

Garfoot, A. (May 2003). The reality of virtual teams. IT Training, 32-34. [ProQuest]

Sadri, G., & Condia, J. (2012). Managing the virtual world. Industrial Management, 54(1), 21-25. [ProQuest]

Rigby, R. (2013). How best to manage a virtual team. The Financial Times [ProQuest]

Case Assignment

When you are finished with your research, integrate what you learned
in general about group dynamics in the background materials with more
specific information you learned about virtual teams. Write a 4- to
5-page paper addressing the following issues:

1. How do you think the five stages of group development (forming,
   storming, norming, performing, adjourning) will be different for virtual
   teams as compared to traditional teams? Discuss in regard to all five
   stages of group development as covered in Nair (2010) and Aswathappa
   (2010).
2. Do you think virtual teams will be more or less cohesive than
   traditional teams? Include a discussion of the issue of groupthink in
   your discussion, and use Nair (2010) and Aswathappa (2010) as your guide
   to the concepts of group cohesiveness and groupthink.
3. Overall, do you think virtual teams will perform better or worse
   than traditional teams? Explain your answer with references to the
   background readings.

Assignment Expectations

• Answer the assignment questions directly
• Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don’t go off on
  tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background
  materials
• Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references.
  Articles published in established newspapers or business
  journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the internet,
  make sure it is from a credible source.
• Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide”, which is found under “My Resources” in the TLC portal.