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Towards a Model of Collective Competences for Globally Distributed Collaborations

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Space, Place and Global Digital Work

Part of the book series: Dynamics of Virtual Work ((DVW))

Abstract

Besides the tendency to further standardise and break down globally distributed work, for companies as well as for more informal organisations, the importance of distributed team collaboration can be seen as a constant in global work (cf. Gilson et al. 2015; Hinds et al. 2011). In the global team literature (Berg 2006; Janssens and Brett 2006; Maynard et al. 2012; Maznevski and Chudoba 2000) the requirements of tasks which have the goal of integrating different local perspectives was conceptualised as a defining characteristic. Globally distributed team collaboration, thus, involves the work on complex, interdependent group tasks across boundaries in regard to cultural heterogeneity, geographical distance and computer-mediated communication (cf. Chudoba et al. 2012). According to Janssen and Brett (2006), in global distributed teams people involved in more creative and complex globally distributed work are required to extract and share locally embedded knowledge to be able to integrate and finally implement that work in global products, processes, services or new organisational designs. Through the articulation of respective differences people involved in global team collaboration experience emotionally and cognitively laden situations, in which behavioural expectations are broken (cf. Burgoon and Hubbard 2005 ). Thus, working in virtual team settings engenders the experience of ‘discontinuity in the performance of joint activities’, which requires ‘additional attention’ and extra effort ‘to manage the situation’ (Watson-Manheim et al. 2012: 35). If no effort is taken ‘to structure common set of work practices’, global teams working across boundaries will experience communication breakdowns (cf. Panteli and Fineman 2005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Applied science Northwestern Switzerland, Windisch, Switzerland

    Thomas Ryser & Elisabeth Angerer

  2. Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Sangareddy, India

    Mangadu Paramasivam Ganesh

  3. University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Hartmut Schulze

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  1. Thomas Ryser
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  2. Elisabeth Angerer
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  3. Mangadu Paramasivam Ganesh
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  4. Hartmut Schulze
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst fur Soziologie, Univ of Vienna Inst fur Soziologie, Wien, Austria

    Jörg Flecker

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© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

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Ryser, T., Angerer, E., Ganesh, M.P., Schulze, H. (2016). Towards a Model of Collective Competences for Globally Distributed Collaborations. In: Flecker, J. (eds) Space, Place and Global Digital Work. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48087-3_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48087-3_10

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