Tomi Räsänen

Key Challenges of Virtual Teams: the Common Challenges of Small Virtual Teams in the Early Stages of Team Development Tomi Räsänen

Think about teams, groups, networks, collaboration and alliances. They all have a common feature of doing things together. As people and organizations are distributed across the globe, new ways of working have been developed. Working in virtual teams is one of these new ways. Virtual teams are teams consisting of individuals working apart together to gain the goals agreed among the team. Like in traditional teams, also in virtual teams some problems and challenges may appear. Motivation, trust issues and the ways of working are all aspects that must be noticed regardless which kind of a team is being used. This book focuses on identifying these challenges and on testing them in practice. At first the main challenges mentioned in the prior literature are brought together. Then these challenges are evaluated and discussed with a case study. By reading this book you will have a good general view on the issues concerning small virtual teams. This book can also be suggested as an additional course material for school courses dealing with teams in general.