Leadership Competencies for Managing Global Virtual Teams

Abstract

The demand for leadership competencies to leverage performance from global virtual teams (GVTs) is growing as organizations continue to search for talent, regardless of location. This means that the work of virtual leaders is embedded in the global shifting of work (Tyran, Tyran & Shepherd, 2003). The phenomenon began with the financial industry as trading took place 24/7 with stock exchanges in different time zones. It is expanding into other industries such as software programming, law, engineering, and call centers. GVTs support the globalization of work by providing organizations with innovative, flexible, and rapid access to human capital. Several forces of competition contribute to the increasing adoption of GVTs, including globalizing of competition, growing service industries, flattening of organizational hierarchies, increasing number of strategic alliances, outsourcing, and growing use of teams (Pawar & Sharifi, 1997; Townsend, DeMarie & Hendrickson, 1998). The backbone of GVTs is innovation with computer-mediated communication systems (CMCSs). Advances with CMCSs facilitate and support virtual team environments.