Teams and Electronic Technologies

Abstract

Teams are integral elements in today’s corporate and industrial worlds, considered by some to be the fundamental units of organizations, and technology has become essential to teamwork. Just as it is nearly impossible to engage in any type of organizational task without team support today, it is equally impossible to engage in effective teamwork without technological support. Technology, particularly computer and digital technology, has become essential to the functioning of both traditional teams (face-to-face) and virtual (distributed or geographically separated) teams. Technology and virtuality arguably change work groups in three important ways: they introduce new dimensions of communication among members by breaking down traditional barriers of space and time; they modify traditional group processes; and they enormously enhance the group’s capacity to access, share, manipulate, retrieve, and store information.