MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How to Manage Virtual Teams

Dispersed teams can actually outperform groups that are colocated. To succeed, however, virtual collaboration must be managed in specific ways.

Teams are the typical building blocks of an organization: They provide companies with the means to combine the various skills, talents and perspectives of a group of individuals to achieve corporate goals. In the past, managers used to colocate team members because of the high levels of interdependencies that are inherent in group work. Recently, though, more and more companies are beginning to organize projects over distance, with teams increasingly consisting of people who are based in dispersed geographical locations, come from different cultural backgrounds, speak different languages and were raised in different countries with different value systems.

About the Author

Frank Siebdrat is a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Munich, Germany. Martin Hoegl is a professor and holds the Chair of Leadership and Human Resource Management at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. Holger Ernst is a professor and holds the Chair of Technology and Innovation Management at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management.

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