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Virtual Team Working
Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It’s going to be commercial and nasty at the same time. (J.G. Ballard)
Every year the progress of advanced capitalist society makes our population consist of more and more isolates. This is because of the infrastructure of the economy, especially electronic communications. (Mary Douglas)
Key Learning Points
- Knowing what is meant by virtual team working and understanding the dimensionality of the concept
- Understanding the dimensions that characterize virtual team working
- The key advantages and disadvantages of virtual team working
- The situations in which virtual team working is most useful and least useful
- How to develop effective virtual team working
- The life cycle of virtual teams
During the last century we have seen seismic shifts in our capacities for communication, including the widespread use of first fixed and now mobile telephony, air travel, the use of email and the Internet, videoconferencing, teleconferencing, fax, podcasts, vodcasts, television and radio as well as a variety of application-sharing devices. All of these developments have influenced the way we work in teams but the pace of change has been far quicker than the pace of our understanding of how these changes affect teamwork. Although our understanding is still limited, we can discern ...
