Transforming Virtual Teams: Translucence and Pitbull Mentality

Investigating virtual team collaboration in industry using grounded theory this paper presents the in-dept analysis of empirical work conducted in a global organization of 100.000 employees where a global virtual team with participants from Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, and North America were studied. The research question investigated is how collaboration is negotiated within virtual teams? This paper presents findings concerning how collaboration is negotiated within a virtual team and elaborate the difficulties due to invisible articulation work and managing multiple communities in transforming the virtual team into a community. It is argued that translucence in communication structures within the virtual team and between team and management is essential for engaging in a positive transformation process of trustworthiness supporting the team becoming a community, managing the immanent multiple communities, and bringing visibility to articulation work, and that groupware technology should facilitate communication and negotiation instead of implementing the workflows just enhancing existing abilities, practices, and skills.