Companies have taken steps towards deeper and more meaningful technology integration. Meaning, virtual teams have become the new way to form and develop teams. David Kauffman and Golan Karmi's article titled: "How Team Leaders Can Use ICT to Improve Trust Among Virtual Teams to Increase Collaboration?" suggest trust building can lead to effective team building in virtual teams via the use of ICTs. "This improvement in the level of team trust through proper use of ICTs will allow achieving a higher level of collaboration within the virtual team" (Kauffmann, 2015, p. 204). ICT stands for Information and Communication Technologies. ICT factors may enable communication by taking advantage of already available tools like the internet and social media. The aim of the article is to offer through search, strategies and tools leaders can use to grow trust in virtual teams.
The authors begin by defining trust. The first definition they give is, "Trust, or more precisely perceived trustworthiness, is a crucial ingredient of effective and productive collaborations" (Kauffmann & Karmi, 2015, p. 204). They emphasize the importance of trust by suggesting organizations are built on trust and not on force. To remain competitive, organizations must be innovative, dynamic, and adapt fast to new scenarios. The introduction concludes with stating the role of the team leader is to develop trust and how team leaders can utilize ICTs for improving trust within virtual teams and consequently, improve the outcome of any project.
The authors continue their analysis on trust and suggest people build trust through willingness of each party member to be vulnerable. "...one party's willingness...
205). The literature review expands the idea of trust through exploration of team and virtual team. They discovered a working a definition of team as an identifiable set of two or more individuals interacting adaptively, dynamically, and interdependently towards a valued, common goal/aim/mission that have been tasked specific functions/role to perform and who possess a limited time of membership.
The section continues with identifying traditional teams as face-to-face teams that work within the same space-time. Virtual teams unlike traditional teams have six main discontinuities,
culture,
geography, work practices, time, technology, and organization. Virtual team unlike traditional teams or even temporary teams, have limited to no physical contact making it harder to establish bonds and strong relationships that lead to the building of trust. This then leads to a difficult time developing proper communication. While the literature review included trust again, the next section team leader, used functional leadership theory to base their definition of a team leader.
Team leaders are what enables growth and communication in a team. As Kauffmann &Karmi state, "...team leaders must foster a
climate of trust among their team members" (Kauffmann & Karmi, 2015, p. 207-208). Leaders are the social problem solvers responsible for diagnosing any potential problem that may impede group progress as well as assist in organizational aim attainment through
generation, planning, and execution of appropriate solutions. The literature review continues by explaining the difficulties of virtual teams such as the absence of face-to-face interaction. "In a…
