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Distributed teams, sometimes called virtual teams, are becoming increasingly prevalent as businesses bring geographically dispersed members together to achieve a common goal. A framework for understanding geographically distributed teams based on their time span is yet to be developed. The authors believe that theory building in this area has centered on temporary teams and propose that many distributed teams have ongoing and recurring tasks. Using attention focus and the shadow of the future models, this article presents a framework for understanding the differences between temporary and ongoing distributed teams' structure, processes, and outcomes, suggesting that ongoing distributed teams must tackle more process and structural issues than temporary teams and that findings of virtual teams research thus far may not always apply here. The model also implies that ongoing distributed teams are more difficult to manage and experience greater variance in well-being outcome levels, whereas in temporary teams, members are more focused on task-related (production) outcomes.

Virtual organizations that use e-mail to communicate and coordinate their work toward a common goal are becoming ubiquitous. However, little is known about how these organizations work. Much prior research suggests that virtual organizations, for the most part because they use information technology to communicate, will be decentralized and nonhierarchical. This paper examines the behavior of one such organization. The analysis is based on a case study of the communication structure and content of communications among members of a virtual organization during a four-month period. We empirically measure the structure of a virtual organization and find evidence of hierarchy. The findings imply that the communication structure of a virtual organization may exhibit different properties on different dimensions of structure. We also examine the relationship among task routineness, organizational structure, and performance. Results indicate that the fit between structure and task routineness affects the perception of performance, but may not affect the actual performance of the organization. Thus, this virtual organization is similar to traditional organizations in some ways and dissimilar in other ways. It was similar to traditional organizations in so far as task-structure fit predicted perceived performance. However, it was dissimilar to traditional organizations in so far as fit did not predict objective performance. To the extent that the virtual organizations may be similar to traditional organizations, existing theories can be expanded to study the structure and perceived performance of virtual organizations. New theories may need to be developed to explain objective performance in virtual organizations.

Managing, working, and living in this information-rich and rapidly changing environment present major challenges. This e-book focuses on issues related to challenges presented by and the effectiveness of virtual work, teams and organizations. A range of issues are explored including: comparisons between collocated and virtual teams; the influence of various communication media on the task performance perception of virtual teams; global boundaries, Task Processes and Information systems project success; and the role of trust in virtual teamworking practices