Electronic immigrants: questions and answers

Electronic Immigrants 
The Pros and Cons of Virtual Teams
The value of hiring electronic immigrants is that a company is not restricted to a pool of candidates within its own country. On the contrary, it can use the Internet to look beyond borders and hire talent from the other side of the world—with the added bonus that the talent is under no compulsion to relocate to the employer’s country: the electronic immigrant can work from afar thanks to the innovative advancements made in digital communications technology (Blake & Surprenant, 1990; Targowski, 2015). With the possibility of telecommuting to work now a reality, companies are not required to relocate workers nor to confine their searches to local candidates. For both of these reasons, there is a great deal of value in hiring electronic immigrants: (a) doing so increases the odds that the firm will obtain the degree of talent it requires, and (b) doing so permits the firm to save on the costs traditionally associated with hiring abroad—there is no relocation cost, no fees associated with worker visas and permits, and no fees associated with cultural gaps and culture training (Pelton, 2004).
The disadvantages to employing electronic immigrants are that e-leadership effectiveness in virtual teams comes with its own set of challenges (Fang, Chen & Weng, 2014). Particularly when it comes to electronic immigrants generating creative ideas for problem solving, the distance barrier is still present because there is only so much management that can be achieved through virtual management (Fang et al., 2014). Workers are still on their own for most of the time and are not available for face to face communications (other than virtual telecommunications like Skype or FaceTime). And impressing upon electronic immigrants the kind of values that are promoted in the workplace where employees at the physical location are immersed in a specific workplace culture can make the process of maximizing potential rather difficult when it comes to hiring electronic immigrants.
I do foresee a time when many workers will be remote—but probably not “most” because there is still something to be said about the tangible workplace environment wherein workers are physically together, fostering a team spirit, engaging in a workplace culture, and daily interacting even if just in small ways to ensure that the right kind of camaraderie, vision, values, and mission are being achieved, pursued and developed. The hiring of electronic immigrants for virtual teams may have its benefits, as described above, but it also has its limitations and disadvantages. For instance, electronic immigrants can never really become part of the immediate community in the same way that workers can in the physical workplace—workers who get to know one another through sharing a cubicle or office space, work station or break room—workers who partake in the development of a real community by physical interaction (Krumm, Kanthak, Hartmann, & Hertel, 2016).
Electronic immigrants, moreover, can only become part of formal groups in the workplace and cannot become participants in informal groups, though the latter are where so much of workplace morale, incentive, and goal-orientation motivations are developed (Kaho, 2018). Though advancements in technology are fostering this type of work environment by breaking down time and space barriers, allowing for more digital communications to be conducting anytime and anywhere, and bringing minds together in telecommunicated conference calls, the reality is that sharing a real space still matters. Digital technology has opened the talent pool to outsiders from other parts of the world—but there remains something to be said for local candidates.
References
Blake, V. L., & Surprenant, T. T. (1990). Electronic immigrants in the information age:
Public policy considerations. The Information Society, 7(3), 233-244.
Fang, C., Chen, Y. & Wang, C. (2014) E-leadership effectiveness in virtual teams:
motivating language perspective.  Industrial Management & Data Systems, 114(3), 421 - 437
Kaho, M. (2018). Examples of informal groups. Retrieved from
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-informal-work-groups-24287.html
Krumm, S., Kanthak, J., Hartmann, K., & Hertel, G. (2016). What does it take to be a
virtual team player? The knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics required in virtual teams. Human Performance, 29(2), 123-142.
Pelton, J. N. (2004). Satellites as worldwide change agents. Communication satellites:
Global change agents. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbuam Associates.
Targowski, A. S. (2015). From information wave to virtual civilization. Editorial Staff,
24.