Teams Work: Virtual and Real Teams

A major purpose of courses in intercultural communication is often to improve students ’ ability to perform well in situations with the potential to be both highly enlightening and highly difficult—in multicultural teams. This article reports the results of exercises in which members of a dysfunctional multicultural class were assigned to teams and given a task to perform in an anonymous, virtual-team setting, as well as in a real-team setting. Team members contributed in a much more balanced manner in the anonymous virtual-team exercise. However, team members nevertheless believed their input had been heard and appreciated in the real-team setting