Virtual Teams as Sociotechnical Systems

A virtual team can be described as an organizational unit unconstrained by geographical, temporal, organizational, and/or national boundaries (Townsend, DeMarie & Hendrickson, 1998). Despite their rising popularity, numerous issues exist surrounding how virtual teams can productively coordinate their resources, activities, and information, often in dynamic and uncertain task environments (Fiore, Salas, Cuevas & Bowers, 2003; Townsend et al., 1998). With organizational structure increasing in complexity to include both co-located and virtual team members, explicit linkages between theory and practice are critically needed to mitigate the negative effects that technology-mediated interaction may have on virtual team productivity. Our goal here is to demonstrate how classic and current theories and principles from organizational psychology can be effectively integrated within a sociotechnical systems framework to address the unique challenges faced by this subset of teams. Specifically, we analyze the effects that collaborative information technology and lack of co-location may have on virtual team members. We conclude with suggested interventions for organizational practice