Virtual vs Face to Face Teams

More and more organizations today are moving away from the traditional tall hierarchical structure towards a more flexible and team work based structure. Generally speaking, working in teams has proved more efficient and effective than in separate departments, although tall structures are still in operation in many industries depending on their competitive environment. Working in teams helps employees make important decisions on their own, instead of relying on an often delayed response from a superior. This increases productivity and flexibility and helps an organization respond faster to opportunities in the environment.

Teams also consist of employees from across several departments which allow them to work together more cohesively, increasing interdependence toward common goals. Teams have many more advantages over a tall organizational structure, but this essay will focus more on the types of team structures. The two types of teams here are virtual teams and face to face teams. This essay will compare and contrast the benefits received when interacting with these two mediums in a team environment. It will also highlight any shortfalls between the two forms of team structures. The first part of this essay will focus on virtual teams.

Virtual Teams

Wikipedia also terms a virtual team as a Geographically Dispersed Team (GDT) and defines it as a group of individuals who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology. They have complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose, have interdependent performance goals, and share an approach to work for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Geographically dispersed teams allow organizations to hire and retain the best people regardless of location. Many virtual team members never meet face to face, and often comprise of teleworkers. Teleworkers are those virtual team members who connect and work from home. Yet there can also be many virtual team members working in the same building but from different geographic locations.

The technology used by virtual team members has been termed computer-mediated communication systems (CMCS), and help in overcoming the barriers of time, space and level of group support (Alavi & Keen, 1989; DeSanctis & Gallupe, 1987; Johansen, 1988). Virtual teams can communicate synchronously, i.e. interact in real time through facilities like teleconferencing. Or they can communicate asynchronously, which involves some delays during responses between the team members, like during e-mails or text messaging.

Synchronous meetings are spontaneous, where ideas are exchanged with little structure. Participants communicate with each other in such a way that it is sometimes difficult to attribute an idea to one participant or to establish the reason behind a particular decision. It is estimated that managers spend 60% of their communication time in synchronous meetings (Panko, 1992), which include face to face meetings, telephone calls, desktop conferencing, Web-based "chat rooms," and the Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

If we compare synchronous meetings with asynchronous meetings, we find that members using the latter form of communication have a longer time to reflect upon the messages, and can come up with a better response. However, such meetings can be more time consuming as there are often lengthy delays during responses. CMCS technologies that facilitate asynchronous meetings include electronic mail (email), Electronic Document Management, bulletin board systems, and Internet Usenet newsgroups. One study (Straub & Karahanna, 1990) indicated that email (the most popular medium of communication in the workplace) users who share pre-meeting information report more effective communication during the meeting.

Virtual teams are a new norm in the workplace filling in the next step in the evolution of organizational structure. Costs of providing CMCS into workplaces has fallen considerably, which has made the adaptation to virtual teams easier.The benefits of team work and knowledge sharing, and more importantly, globalization has made them a necessity in today’s workplace. When companies expand across national boundaries, there is increasing pressure to form a virtual team that will coordinate the international operations between the headquarters and the subsidiaries. According to McShane and Travaglione (2005), the idea is to create virtual teams that leverage their knowledge across the region as well as create more efficient use of transportation and office space.

Virtual teams allow companies to reduce costs because they don’t have to make adjustments for additional employee offices or parking spaces. Costs are also minimized because employees may not need to travel long distances for important meetings. Virtual team working will help to conduct long distance meetings through CMCS through video calling or teleconferencing.

Another important advantage of adapting to a virtual team is that companies are able to search for employees with the best talents and skills without geographic restrictions. Companies operating in one company can hire a person living in another continent without ever meeting him. This flexibility allows more employees to be included in the pool of applicants applying for the job, thus increasing competition.

Virtual teams mean that the global work day increases from the average standard of eight hours to a full twenty four hours. Team members can communicate and work on projects at any time of the day or night, often across different time zones, which further adds to flexibility and productivity.

From a third party perspective, virtual teams result in positive externalities for the society. Less commuting and travel means that there will be less traffic congestion on the roads, making rush hours more bearable for other commuters. Less traffic also means that there will be less air pollution, leading to a better environment.

Face to Face Teams

Face to Face teams as the name implies, are teams which operate within the same physical vicinity, with members interacting with each other personally to accomplish their goals. Although it seems that the rise in technology has made traditional face to face team work out of style, it is still a very important means of accomplishing certain goals.

One of the biggest advantages offered by face to face teams is that it helps in the establishment of social and emotional links between the team members. Development of relational links is important because researchers have associated strong relational links with many positive outcomes including enhanced creativity and motivation, increased morale, better decisions, and fewer process losses (Walther & Burgoon, 1992). These relational links can develop best when employees interact with each other face to face and get to know each other.

People rely on multiple modes of communication in face-to-face conversation, such as paraverbal (tone of voice, inflection, voice volume) and nonverbal (eye movement, facial expression, hand gestures, and other body language) cues. These cues help regulate the flow of conversation, facilitate turn taking, provide feedback, and convey subtle meanings. As a result, face-to-face conversation is a remarkably orderly process. In normal face-to-face conversation, there are few interruptions or long pauses and the distribution of participation is consistent, though skewed toward higher status members (McGrath, 1990). Such freedom of expression cannot be exercised through many CMCS and leads to a few communication problems in virtual teams, thus altering the orderliness and effectiveness of information exchange (Hightower, Sayeed, Warkentin, & McHaney, 1997).

Many employees also feel that face to face team work is better than virtual team work because it helps fulfill their desires of social networking and belongingness. According to Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory, employee behavior is motivated through several need levels. Two very important levels are belongingness and esteem. Belongingness includes the needs for love, affection and interaction with other people. Esteem includes social esteem through recognition and appreciation from colleagues. These needs can be achieved through interaction in face to face teams, leading to employee motivation and thus better results in the workplace.

Now if we compare virtual teams with face to face teams, we also find several other faults with the virtual way of approaching work. One big setback when working across national boundaries is the difference in culture. Virtual team members who have different cultures often have a hard time interacting with each other, this can often lead to poor cohesiveness and unsatisfactory results.

Members across countries also have problems with the time zones. Time zones can work as an advantage by offering flexible work hours, but they can also be a big disadvantage when team members in China have to join a meeting at 3.00 AM local time with company heads in America, who will be signing in at 4.00 PM according to their time zone.

Virtual teams are not able to duplicate the normal "give and take" of face-to-face discussion. For example, comments of group members using a synchronous CMCS sometimes appear to be out of context, or the conversation may appear to lack focus because multiple group members are "talking" at once. This is exacerbated by the inefficiency inherent in the use of a keyboard and the fact that people type and read at different rates (Siegal et al., 1986). Group members who type slowly or edit more thoroughly may find their comments are no longer relevant when they are ready to transmit them. Moreover, because everyone can transmit their comments simultaneously, group members may be required to process a large number of comments in a short period of time.

Thus, where virtual teams speed up decision making and many work processes, research has shown that they are not always the best solution for all work problems. The type of solution required is contingent to the situation and environmental factors present, and a face to face team can be readily used where appropriate.

Syed Ali Nadir Hashmi,
BBA-IV, section 3.
Organizational Behavior.

Submitted to: Ms Nyla Ansari.
Date: April 13, 2009.