Steffen Schmidt 
Leading Virtual Intercultural Teams. Recognizing and Counteracting the Problems of Workplace Isolation [PDF ebook] 

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics – Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1, 0, , language: English, abstract: In an environment of fast and consistent technological progress, globalization and growing competition, companies are facing a strong pressure nowadays. The knowledge-based economy leads to a growing extent of client-side requirements forcing more and more companies and organizations to realign their business activities in a new way in order to cope with the current economic situation. Cost-efficiency, presence in the markets and the possibility to gather the best employees in their own organization are the central starting points of a strategy to position for the future. One specific measure is the decentralization of teams, that shall work together to jointly reach their targets. The proceeding digitalization of the media and virtualization of several areas of life pander to this development of decentralization as the new electronic communication systems facilitate the interaction between the decentralized team members and enable the companies to enlarge their attempts concerning remote offices.
The present term paper particularly deals with the problems arising within decentralized teams. It examines the negative consequences of group efficiency in virtual intercultural teams, making several assumptions how the perception of Workplace Isolation affects the employees negatively and provides recommendations for virtual team leaders in order to recognize and counteract these problems. In the form of a flow chart, this term paper provides a course of procedure for the successful implementation of a virtual team with a minimized risk of workplace isolation. This flow chart considers the prevailing scientific view on this topic.
The author works for a listed multinational corporation as a member of an international sales team with intercultural structures. For this reason, from the very start there has been a particular interest in the findings and insights to be obtained in the framework of the work for this term paper. In course of the work the author gained further knowledge about the design and successful implementation of high-performing virtual teams.