Addressing cultural differences across virtual teams
As a result of growing global competition, today's businesses are no longer confined by geographic borders. Globalization drives many businesses into emerging markets and low wage countries to take advantage of their intellectual capital, and lower cost of operation. These changes have given rise to the "virtual team"; a cross-cultural group of co-workers that span international borders and typically communicate by means of technology rather than face-to-face meetings. A recent study by the Garner Group, states that by the year 2008, 41 million corporate employees will work in a virtual workplace at least one day per week [4]. Teams geographically separated not only must work in separate time zones, but also overcome cultural norms and differences, which have been described as one of the major issues of project management when dealing with virtual teams [1]. In this paper we will look at the challenges of the virtual team communication across different cultures. Initially we will explore the communication problems associated with time differences and language barriers often magnified by the lack of face-to-face experience and cultural differences. Then we will move further to investigate cultural value differences between virtual team members, different power relationships and hierarchical arrangements, diverse communication styles and how are these enhanced in the virtual environments.
"Culture is an all inclusive system of communication which incorporates the biological and technical behavior of human beings with their verbal and non-verbal systems of expressive behavior. Culture is the sum of a way of life, including such things as expected behavior, beliefs, values, language, and living ...