EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL TEAMS FOR NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Abstract:
Literature shows the factors that impact on the effectiveness of virtual teams for new product development, are still ambiguous. To address this problem, we developed a research design that included a literature review, a preliminary model and field survey. The literature identified factors which impact on the effectiveness of virtual teams. These factors were then modified by a field survey. We explore the relationship between knowledge worker (people), process and technology in virtual teams. The results of the study suggest that technology and process are tightly correlated and need to be considered early in virtual teams. Software as a service, web solution, report generator and tracking system in effective virtual teams should consider for leading such a new phenomena.

Keywords
Virtual teams; Collaboration; Questionnaires; Communication; Information; Integration; Performance; Success; Cross-Functional Teams; Product Development;

1           INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, a virtual team allows work to be carried out over computer networks and reduces the need for teams to be collocated. Virtual teams are defined as “small temporary groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed knowledge workers who coordinate their work, mainly with electronic information and communication technologies to carry out one or more organization tasks” (Ale Ebrahim et al., 2009b). We are becoming more virtual all the time!” is heard in many global corporations today (Chudoba et al., 2005). On the other hand, new product development (NPD) is widely recognized as a key to corporate prosperity (Lam et al., 2007). Different products may need different processes. A new product idea needs to be conceived, selected, developed, tested and launched to the market (Martinez-Sanchez et al., 2006). The specialized skills and talents required for the development of new products often reside (and develop) locally in pockets of excellence around the company or even around the world. Firms, therefore, have no choice but to disperse their new product units to access such dispersed knowledge and skills (Kratzer et al., 2005). As a result, firms are finding that internal development of all technology needed for new products and processes are difficult or impossible. They must increasingly receive technology from external sources (Stock and Tatikonda, 2004).
Virtualization in NPD has recently started to make serious headway due to developments in technology - virtuality in NPD which is now technically possible (Leenders et al., 2003). As product development becomes the more complex, supply chain also have to collaborate more closely than in the past. These kinds of collaborations almost always involve individuals from different locations, so virtual team working supported by information technology (IT), offers notable potential benefits (Anderson et al., 2007). Although the use of the internet in NPD has received notable attention in the literature, little is written about collaborative tool and effective virtual teams for NPD (Ale Ebrahim et al., 2009a).
This paper is structured as follows. First, the motivation for the study is initially described. Next, we draw on prior research to derive the items that comprise the effectiveness of virtual teams. Then we present our methods and results of our analyses. The paper infers with a discussion and future guidelines.

2           WHAT IS NEED FOR EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL TEAM?

A review of the literature shows the factors that influence the effectiveness of virtual teams are still ambiguous (Ale Ebrahim et al., 2009d). Most of the accepted challenges of an effective virtual team working, focus on ensuring good communication among all members of the distributed team (Anderson et al., 2007). For example, Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999) found that regular and timely communication feedback was a key to building trust and commitment in distributed teams. A study by Lin et al. (2008) suggests that social dimensional factors need to be considered early in the virtual team creation process and are critical to the effectiveness of the team. Communication is a tool that directly influences the social dimensions of the team and in addition performing the team has a positive impact on satisfaction with the virtual team.
For teams moving from co-location to virtual environments, an ability to adapt and change can be a long process riddled with trial and error scenarios. This process is seen as necessary to encourage effective virtual teams (Kirkman et al., 2002). Despite weak ties between virtual team members, ensuring lateral communication may be adequate for effective virtual team performance. In terms of implementation, lateral communication in both virtual context and composition teams can be increased by reducing the hierarchical structure of the team (i.e. a flatter reporting structure and/or decentralization) and the use of enabling computer-mediated communication tools (Wong and Burton, 2000).
Malhotra and Majchrzak’s (2004) study of 54 effective virtual teams found that creating a state of shared understanding about goals and objectives, task requirements and interdependencies, roles and responsibilities, and member expertise had a positive effect on output quality. As criteria, effectiveness ratings were Hertel et al. (2005) collected from the team managers both at the individual and at the team level. The results of the field study showed good reliability of the task work-related attributes, teamwork-related attributes, and attributes related to tele-cooperative work.

Shachaf and Hara (2005) suggest four dimensions of effective virtual team leadership:

1. Communication (the leader provides continuous feedback, engages in regular and prompt communication, and clarifies tasks);
2. Understanding (the leader is sensitive to schedules of members, appreciates their opinions and suggestions, cares about member’s problems, gets to know them, and expresses a personal interest in them);
3. Role clarity (the leader clearly defines responsibilities of all members, exercises authority, and mentors virtual team members); and
4. Leadership attitude (the leader is assertive yet not too “bossy,” caring, relates to members at their own levels, and upholds a consistent attitude over the life of the project).

Bal et al.  (2001b, 1999) by observation and interview identified 12 elements for effective virtual team working. As illustrated in Figure 1. The Bal and Gundry (2001b, 1999) model are used as the basic framework in this paper.

2.1         Virtual team working: technology point of view

2.1.1        Selection:

Simple transmission of information from a point A to a point B is not enough; the virtual environment presents significant challenges to effective communication (Walvoord et al., 2008). Being equipped with even the most advanced technologies is not adequate to make a virtual team effective, since the internal group dynamics and external support mechanisms must also be present for a team to succeed in the virtual world (Lurey and Raisinghani, 2001). Information richness seemed to be the most important criterion for technology selection; and the greatest impediment to the effectiveness of virtual teams was the implementation of technology (Mikkola et al., 2005). Virtual teams are technology-mediated groups of people from different discipline that work on common tasks (Dekker et al., 2008). So the way the technology is implemented seems to make the virtual team outcome more or less likely (Anderson et al., 2007). Table 1 matrix assists the virtual team facilitator in choosing the suitable technology based upon the purpose of the meeting.

2.1.2        Location:

Virtual team allowed organizations to access the most qualified individuals for a particular job regardless of their location and provide greater flexibility to individuals working from home or on the road (Bell and Kozlowski, 2002). Table 2 shows the relationship between tool, time and space in virtual teams.

2.1.3        Training:

Suggestions for the training of remote managers and virtual team development can be found in (Hertel et al., 2005). The results of Anderson et al. (2007) systematic lab study confirmed many of the observations, including explicit preparation and training for virtual teams as a way of working collaboratively. Fuller et al., (2006) indicated that in the case of computer collective efficacy, computer training related to more advanced skills sets may be useful in building virtual team efficacy. Hertel et al. (2005)suggested that training led to increased cohesiveness and team satisfaction.

2.1.4        Security:

Virtual team working to involve exchange and manipulation of sensitive information and data through the Internet therefore, security is always an important issue of concern (Bal and Teo, 2001b). Team leaders should identify the special technological and security level needs of the virtual team and their team members (Hunsaker and Hunsaker, 2008).

2.2         Virtual team working: people point of view

2.2.1        Team selection:

One of the key factors which distinguish successful teams from unsuccessful ones, is team selection (Ale Ebrahim et al., 2009d). Virtual teams can be designed to include the people most suited for a particular project (Bell and Kozlowski, 2002). Besides making sure that the project is clearly defined, outcome priorities and a supportive team climate are established. Virtual team needs to select members with the necessary skills (Hunsaker and Hunsaker, 2008). Selection of virtual team members is particularly difficult because of the geographical and organizational separation involved (Bal and Gundry, 1999).

2.2.2        Reward structure:

Developing a fair and motivating reward system is another important issue at the beginning of virtual teamwork (Bal and Teo, 2001a, Hertel et al., 2005). Virtual team performance must be recognized and rewarded (Bal and Gundry, 1999). Lurey and Raisinghani (2001) in a survey in an effort to determine the factors that contribute to the success of a virtual team, found that reward  systems ranked strongly among the external support mechanisms for virtual teams.

2.2.3        Meeting training:

Comparing teams with little and extensive training, Bal and Gundry (1999) remarked a significant drop in performance as both teams went live using the system. However, the latter then improved its performance at a faster rate than the former. Training is a key aspect that cannot be neglected in team building. Virtual team members need different types of training compared to ordinary teams. The training includes self-managing skills, communication and meeting training, project management skills, technology training, etc. (Bal and Teo, 2001b).

2.2.4        Specify an objective:

While direct leadership strategies are possible in conventional teams, members of virtual teams might be managed more effectively by empowerment and by delegating managerial functions to the members (Hertel et al., 2005). Such an approach changes the role of a team manager from traditional controlling into more coaching and moderating functions (Kayworth and Leidner, 2002). Virtual team leaders should identify commonalities among members early on, while focusing the team on achieving key performance objectives (Ale Ebrahim et al., 2009d).

2.3         Virtual team working: process point of view

2.3.1        Alignment:

The company’s processes need to be re-aligned with the capabilities of virtual teams contrary to face-to-face teams. This involves an understanding of the virtual team processes and the existing processes (Bal and Gundry, 1999). However, the key elements in knowledge sharing are not only the hardware and software, but also the ability and willingness of team members to actively participate in the knowledge sharing process (Rosen et al., 2007).

2.3.2        Meeting structure:

Proximity enables team members to engage in informal work (Furst et al., 2004). Virtual team members are more likely to treat one another formally, and less likely to reciprocate requests from one another (Wong and Burton, 2000). Shin (2005) argued that lack of physical interactions and informal relationships decrease the cohesiveness of virtual teams. Formal practices and routines designed to formally structure the task, was reported to lead to higher quality output of virtual teams (Massey et al., 2003). The physical absence of a formal leader exacerbates the lack of extrinsic motivation (Kayworth and Leidner, 2002). In virtual teams that rarely meet face-to-face, team leaders often have no choice but to impose a formal team structure. Synchronous written documents helped virtual teams overcome challenges associated with spoken language, and this enabled teams to overcome challenges associated with asynchronous and lean written communication (Shachaf, 2008).

2.3.3        Performance measurement:

Kirkman and Rosen, et al. (2004) study on performing virtual teams, shows a positive correlation between empowerment and virtual team performance. High-performance teams are differentiated by passionate dedication to goals, emotional bonding among team members and identification, and a balance between unity and respect for individual differences (Ale Ebrahim et al., 2009d).

2.3.4        Team facilitation:

Team members must have crystal clear rules and responsibilities. The rule should be accountable and visible. Virtual team members may feel less accountable for results under lack of visibility circumstances. Therefore, explicit facilitation of a virtual team takes on heightened importance for team working. Temporal coordination mechanisms such as scheduling deadlines and coordinating the pace of effort are recommended to increase vigilance and accountability (Massey et al., 2003).

3           NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND VIRTUALITY

Product development is defined by different researchers is slightly different ways, but generally it is the process that covers product design, production system design and product introduction processes and start of production (Johansen, 2005). New product development (NPD) has long been recognized as one of the corporate core functions (Huang et al., 2004). The rate of market and technological changes has accelerated in the past years and this turbulent environment needs new methods and techniques to bring successful new products to the marketplace (González and Palacios, 2002). Particularly, for companies with short product life cycles, it is important to quickly and safely develop new products and new product platforms that fulfill reasonable demands on quality, performance, and cost (Ottosson, 2004). The world market requires short product development times (Starbek and Grum, 2002). Therefore, in order to successfully and efficiently get all the experience needed in developing new products and services, more and more organizations are forced to move from traditional face-to-face teams to virtual teams or adopt a combination between the two types of teams (Precup et al., 2006). Given the complexities involved in organizing face-to-face interactions among team members and the advancements in electronic communication technologies, firms are turning toward employing virtual NPD teams (Badrinarayanan and Arnett, 2008, Jacobsa et al., 2005, Schmidt et al., 2001). New product development requires the collaboration of new product team members both within and outside the firm (Martinez-Sanchez et al., 2006, McDonough et al., 2001, Ozer, 2000). NPD teams are necessary in most businesses (Leenders et al., 2003). In addition, the pressure of globalization competition companies faced increased pressures to build critical mass, reach new markets, and plug skill gaps , NPD efforts are increasingly being pursued across multiple nations through all forms of organizational arrangements (Cummings and Teng, 2003). Given the resulting differences in time zones and physical distances in such efforts, virtual NPD projects are receiving increasing attention (McDonough et al., 2001, Ale Ebrahim et al., 2010). The use of virtual teams for new product development is rapidly growing and organizations can be dependent on it to sustain competitive advantage (Taifi, 2007). So, virtual teams provide valuable input for new product development (Ale Ebrahim et al., 2009c).

4           PRIMARY MODELS AND HYPOTHESES

We adapted from Bal and Gundry (2001b, 1999), a new primary model with respect to the requirements of the company in determining the appropriate design tools and methods for an effective new product development in virtual teams (Figure 2).

4.1         Hypotheses

Clearly, throughout a review of the existing literature, there remains a gap with respect to the requirements of the company in determining the appropriate design tools and methods for an effective new product development in virtual teams. This research proposes the following hypotheses in order to collect the requirements:

H1. Technology is positively related to process in virtual teams.
H2. Technology is positively related to the knowledge workers in virtual teams.
H3. The process and knowledge worker is positively correlated in virtual teams.
H4. There is not any significant difference between the origins of virtual teams.

5           RESEARCH METHOD AND DATA COLLECTION

To test the hypotheses, we conducted a web-based survey mainly conducting Malaysian and Iranian Manufacturing companies, in a random sample of small and medium enterprises. A survey was developed to collect the data. A Likert scale from 1 to 5 was used. This set up gave respondents a series of attitude dimensions. For each dimension, the respondent was asked whether, and how strongly, they agree or disagree to each dimension using a point rating scale. The questionnaire was emailed to the managing director, R&D manager, the new product development manager, project and design manager and appropriate people who were most familiar with the R&D activities in the firm. The rapid expansion of Internet users has given web-based surveys the potential to become a powerful tool in survey research (Sills and Song, 2002, Ebrahim et al., 2010). Denscombe (2006) findings encourage social researchers to use web-based questionnaires with confidence and the data produced by web-based questionnaires is equivalent to that produced by paper-based questionnaires. Other authors highlighted the data provided by Internet methods are of at least as good quality as those provided by traditional paper-and-pencil methods (Gosling et al., 2004, Deutskens et al., 2006). Invitation e-mails were sent to each respondent, reaching 1500 valid email accounts, with reminders following one month later. 240 enterprises submitted responses, for an overall response rate of 12%. Table 3 presents respondent demographics (missing data deducted). The survey limited to the sample size and sample population in the specified regions.

Variable	Frequency distribution N (%)
Gender	Male	202 (85.6)
	Female	34 (14.4)
Country	Iran	136 (56.7)
	Malaysia	74 (30.8)
	Others (Developing)	15 (6.2)
	Others (Developed)	15 (6.2)
Age group	Up to 21	2 (0.9)
	21-34	103 (44.6)
	35-49	101 (43.7)
	50-64	23 (10.0)
	Over 65	2 (0.9)
Job Roles	Managing director	51 (22.7)
	R&D Manager	25 (11.1)
	New Product Development Manager	27 (12.0)
	Project Manager	43 (19.1)
	Design manager	7 (3.1)
	Others	72 (32.0)
Main Business	Automotive/vehicle and components	89 (37.1)
	Electronic products and components	30 (12.5)
	Fabricated metal products	13 (5.4)
	Electrical machinery, apparatuses, appliances, or supplies	12 (5.0)
	Machinery/ Industrial equipment	9 (3.8)
	Home appliances	12 (5.0)
	Pharmaceutical or Chemical products (including cosmetics, paints)	4 (1.7)
	Paper products	4 (1.7)
	Plastic products	3 (1.2)
	Food and Food packaging	1 (0.4)
	Instrumentation equipment	4 (1.7)
	Textile	2 (0.8)
	Oil & Gas	11 (4.6)
	Education	14 (5.8)
	Others	32 (13.3)

6           ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

For reliability analysis, Cronbach’s Alpha (Cronbach, 1951) was employed to measure internal consistency of each construct. A reliability test was carried out to ensure the research finding have the ability to provide consistence results. As shown in Table 4, all the items with Cronbach’s α greater than 0.6 were included in the analysis and the rest omitted from analysis. In general, the reliability of the questionnaire’s instruments is acceptable.

Factor and variable name		Items	Mean*	Std. Deviation	Corrected Item-Total Correlation	Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted
Knowledge worker (N=218)	Pe1	Working together	4.037	1.029	0.560	0.872
	Pe2	Interaction from inside	3.995	0.912	0.641	0.867
	Pe3	Interaction from outside	3.824	1.001	0.634	0.867
	Pe4	Interact with colleagues	3.982	0.991	0.649	0.866
	Pe5	Online training and e-learning	3.401	1.143	0.597	0.87
	Pe6	Consulting service	3.472	0.998	0.624	0.868
	Pe7	Collaborating and making decisions with co-workers or supplier	3.863	0.943	0.642	0.867
	Pe8	Facilitates cooperation between employees	3.876	0.917	0.651	0.867
	Pe9	Facilitates introduction of new employees	3.553	1.079	0.654	0.866
	Pe10	Facilitates the management of NPD project	3.706	1.014	0.654	0.866
	Pe11	Is used by the competitor	3.106	1.238	0.301	0.893
Process (N=211)	Pr1	Project control (such as Intranet based project status tracking system)	3.64	1.101	0.650	0.928
	Pr2	Project reporting system (such as MS-Project reporting system)	3.82	1.026	0.666	0.927
	Pr3	Making business together	3.648	0.943	0.627	0.928
	Pr4	Reduce traveling time and cost	3.862	1.024	0.722	0.925
	Pr5	Reduces the number of working hours need to solve the task	3.827	1.008	0.725	0.925
	Pr6	Collaborative solutions	3.701	0.916	0.694	0.926
	Pr7	Facilitates data collection in new product development project	3.813	0.952	0.744	0.924
	Pr8	Interact with customers for gathering new product features	3.83	0.973	0.674	0.926
	Pr9	Provide quantities answer	3.384	0.985	0.664	0.927
	Pr10	Generate an easy interpret answer	3.333	0.981	0.642	0.927
	Pr11	Ease of generating reports	3.678	1.028	0.740	0.924
	Pr12	Ease of data entry	3.775	0.937	0.737	0.924
	Pr13	Ability to accommodate multiple users	3.905	1.019	0.667	0.927
Technology (N=218)	Te1	Use internet and electronic mail	4.202	0.986	0.528	0.945
	Te2	Online meeting on need basis	3.535	1.13	0.764	0.941
	Te3	Web conferencing	3.381	1.17	0.778	0.941
	Te4	Seminar on the Web	3.134	1.172	0.742	0.942
	Te5	Shared work spaces	3.507	1.063	0.749	0.942
	Te6	Video conferencing	3.172	1.161	0.737	0.942
	Te7	Audio conferencing	3.221	1.146	0.735	0.942
	Te8	Online presentations	3.453	1.107	0.809	0.941
	Te9	Share documents (off-line)	3.601	1.075	0.637	0.944
	Te10	Share what’s on your computer desktop with people in other locations (in real time)	3.196	1.206	0.577	0.945
	Te11	Do not install engineering software (get service through web browser)	3.179	1.211	0.590	0.945
	Te12	Access service from any computer (in Network)	3.542	1.041	0.688	0.943
	Te13	Standard phone service and hybrid services	3.576	1.07	0.511	0.946
	Te14	Access shared files anytime, from any computer	3.686	1.01	0.625	0.944
	Te15	Web database	3.649	0.995	0.704	0.943
	Te16	Provide instant collaboration	3.595	1.037	0.654	0.943
	Te17	Software as a service (eliminating the need to install and run the application on the own computer)	3.531	1.07	0.666	0.943
	Te18	Virtual research center for product development	3.455	1.078	0.681	0.943
	Te19	Can be integrated/compatible with the other tools and systems	3.688	1.139	0.613	0.944

^*Frequency values - 1: Not important; 2: Slightly important; 3: Important; 4: Quite important; 5: Extremely important
To conclude whether the partial correlation of the knowledge workers, variables were small, the Bartlett’s Chi-square test of sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) was used to measure sampling adequacy (Fathian et al., 2008). Table 5 summarizes the results of KMO, which is 0.878 and significant value for Bartlett's test is less than 0.05, which means there is a good correlation.




An exploratory factor analysis was conducted on eight knowledge worker factors after taking off Pe1, Pe5 and Pe11 which had Cronbach’s α less than 0.6. Using a Principle Component Analysis with a Varimax Rotation and an Eigenvalue of 1 as the cut-off point (Akgün et al., 2008) and an absolute value of a loading greater than 0.5 (Fathian et al., 2008). Factor loading shows only one component extracted. So, all eight items in the knowledge workers can be grouped into a single factor.
The same procedures were performed on process and technology factors. The items and their factor loadings after Exploratory Factor Analysis, Eigenvalue, and percentage of variance, are shown in Table 6, Table 7, Table 8 and Table 9. The 13 process items and the 15 technology items are divided into two different groups, which had an Eigenvalue greater than one.
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.   Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis


Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.  Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

We then try to identify the confirmed factors based on the principle of being concise without losing clarity of meaning. After extracting the factors, items with higher loadings are considered more important and have greater influence on the name of selected reduced factors. The names and contents of the two derived factors on process items are:

1-      Factor FPr1: it consists of items Pr8 to Pr13 which is “Interact with customers for gathering new product features “, “Provide quantities answer”, “Generate an easy interpret answer”, “Ease of generating reports”, “Ease of data entry” and “Ability to accommodate multiple users” respectively. This factor is named “Reports generator” because of Pr11 has higher loading factor (0.783).
2-      Factor FPr2: It consists of Pr1 to Pr7 which are “Project control”, “Project reporting system”, “Making business together”, “Reduce traveling time and cost”, “Reduces the number of working hours need to solve the task”, “Collaborative solutions”, and “Facilitates data collection in new product development project” respectively. Since Pr1 has a higher loading (0.804), this factor’s named “Tracking system“.
Consequently, the names and contents of two derived factors on technology items are:
1-      Factor FTe1: it consists of items Te2 to Te9 which is “Online meeting “, “Web conferencing”, “Seminar on the Web”, “Shared work spaces”, “Video conferencing”,” Audio conferencing”, “Online presentations”, and “Share documents” respectively. This factor is named “Web solution” because Te3 has a higher loading factor (0.862).
2-      Factor FTe2: It consists of items Te12 and Te14 to Te19 which are “Access service from any computer (in Network)”, “Access shared files anytime, from any computer”, “Making business together”, “Web database”, “Provide instant collaboration”, “Software as a service”, “Virtual research centre for product development”, and “Can be integrated/compatible with the other tools and systems” respectively. Since Te17 has a higher loading (0.816) this factor’s named “Software as a service (SaaS)“.
Analysis of the Pearson’s correlations indicated a number of positive relationships between the variables themselves. The knowledge worker had significant associations to process and technology, respectively (see Table 10). The correlations may vary country to the country as illustrated in Table 11 and Table 12. Fisher's Exact Test analysis supported there are no significant differences (p > 0.427) between selected countries in terms of knowledge worker, process and technology in virtual teams.

Hypotheses	Correlation/P value	Conclusion
H1. Technology is positively related to process in virtual teams.	0.853*	Supported
H2. Technology is positively related to the knowledge workers in virtual teams.	0.773*	Supported
H3. The process and knowledge worker is positively correlated in virtual teams.	0.792*	Supported
H4. There is not any significant difference between the origins of virtual teams.	0.427**	Supported

The mean scores for frequency of use to exchange business information are illustrated in Table 14. E-mail is the most frequently used tool for all teams in Malaysia and Iran. Personal telephone call is second most frequently used tool in selected countries. Malaysian firms used more face-to-face interaction than Iranian ones. On the other hand, team base communication technologies such as shared database, group telephone conference, electronic whiteboard and video conference were not often used. Video conference, although used less than once a month in Iranian samples, are most often used by Malaysian firms. Video conferencing may prove effective in bringing remote members together if made available to the teams, and this might be a fruitful area for future research (Lurey and Raisinghani, 2001). Along with Lurey, and Raisinghani (2001) recommendation, item Te6 asked about the need for video conference as a tool for virtual team and, mean of (N=218) 3.172 was obtained which means it is important for the team members.

All factors are summarized in Figure 3. This new model is based on the Bal and Gundry (1999) model with several adjustments derived from data analysis and survey findings. The model provides an overview of effective virtual teams for new product development in selected developing countries.

7           RESEARCH LIMIT AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

The model for effective virtual teams developed earlier had made an initial attempt to identify the relationships between the knowledge worker, process and technology factors that were seen as the most critical in the literature. The literature review had focused only on published refereed journal and conference papers, so some important studies may have been excluded from this research. Therefore, it is possible that some factors which were excluded from the framework could be important for evaluation of virtual teams. The study was limited to the sample size and sample population. Future research needs to examine the model and verify it by a larger sample of virtual teams from different sectors since this study was limited to manufacturing sector. In a larger sample, it is possible to compare the results between countries more precisely. We have identified twelve new crucial factors, which differ from precedent, for moving from the team working to successful virtual teaming in new product development.

8           CONCLUSION

This paper is a review by the literature and a field survey identifying the key factors that need to be considered in effective virtual teams. These findings provide an important step in studying how virtual team efficacy is formed and what its consequences are in the context of virtual teams. The results of the study indicate that technology and process are tightly correlated and need to be considered early in virtual teams. Along with Bal and Teo (2001b) and Ale Ebrahim et al. (2009d) findings, success in implementing virtual team working is more about the knowledge worker than technology and process. The survey result showed, all eight items in the knowledge workers remain while the rest is reduced into two main factors. Software as a service, web solution, report generator and tracking system in effective virtual teams should be taken into account for leading such a new phenomena. E-mail is the most frequently used tool for all teams in Malaysia and Iran; therefore, a manager of virtual teams should considerably provide an infrastructure for effective communications between team members.
Future research would now seem to be essential for developing a comprehensive study, combining survey with a case study in different size of companies (e.g. multinational companies and small and medium enterprises) and various types of activities (e.g. research and development and new product development). Such a study needs to investigate the model and verify it by a larger sample of virtual teams from different sectors. In a larger sample, it is possible to compare the results between countries more precisely.

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Virtual Teams and Management Challenges

Virtual Teams and Management Challenges

Introduction
Collaboration is becoming increasingly important in creating the knowledge that makes business more competitive. Virtual teams are growing in popularity [1] and many organizations have responded to their dynamic environments by introducing virtual teams. Additionally, the rapid development of new communication technologies such as the Internet has accelerated this trend so that today, most of the larger organization employs virtual teams to some degree [2]. A growing number of flexible and adaptable organizations have explored the virtual environment as one means of achieving increased responsiveness [3]. Howells et al. [4] state that the shift from serial to simultaneous and parallel working has become more commonplace. Based on conventional information technologies and Internet-based platforms virtual environments may be used to sustain companies’ progress through virtual interaction and communication.
This paper provides comprehensive aspects of virtual teams based on authentic and reputed publications, after define virtual teams and its characteristics, addressing virtual environments and relationship with management and employee challenges. Finally conclude that virtual team cannot be successful unless the knowledge and information in the company are effectively captured, shared and internalized by the entity manager. Doing an extensive literature survey, further studies are recommended. Managerial implications on those issues are also discussed.
 Virtual  Teams Definition
This era is growing popularity for virtual team structures in organizations [1, 5]. Martins et al. [6] in a major review of the literature on virtual teams, conclude that ‘with rare exceptions all organizational teams are virtual to some extent.’ We have moved away from working with people who are in our visual proximity to working with people around the globe [7]. Although virtual teamwork is a current topic in the literature on global organizations, it has been problematic to define what ‘virtual’ means across multiple institutional contexts [8]. It is worth mentioning that virtual teams are often formed to overcome geographical or temporal separations [9]. Virtual teams work across boundaries of time and space by utilizing modern computer-driven technologies. The term “virtual team” is used to cover a wide range of activities and forms of technology-supported working [10]. Virtual teams are comprised of members who are located in more than one physical location. This team trait has fostered extensive use of a variety of forms of computer-mediated communication that enable geographically dispersed members to coordinate their individual efforts and inputs [11]. From the perspective of Leenders et al.[12] virtual teams are groups of individuals collaborating in the execution of a specific project while geographically and often temporally distributed, possibly anywhere within (and beyond) their parent organization. Amongst the different definitions of the concept of a virtual team the following from is one of the most widely accepted: [13], ”virtual teams as groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information technologies to accomplish one or more organization tasks”. The degree of geographic dispersion within a virtual team can vary widely from having one member located in a different location than the rest of the team to having each member located in a different country [14].
Advantages and Pitfalls of Virtual Teams
The availability of a flexible and configurable base infrastructure is one of the main advantages of agile virtual teams. [10]. Virtual R&D teams which members do not work at the same time or place [15] often face tight schedules and a need to start quickly and perform instantly [16]. On the other hand, virtual teams reduce time-to-market [17]. Lead Time or Time to market has been generally admitted to be one of the most important keys for success in manufacturing companies [18]. Table 1 summarizes some of the main advantages and
Table 2 some of the main disadvantages associated with virtual teaming.

Advantages	References
Reducing relocation time and costs, reduced travel costs	[1, 19-29]
Reducing time-to-market [Time also has an almost 1:1 correlation with cost, so cost will likewise be reduced if the time-to market is quicker [30]]	[17, 18, 23, 24, 29, 31-38]
Able to tap selectively into center of excellence, using the best talent regardless of location	[1, 22, 24, 26, 39-43]
Greater productivity, shorter development times	[19, 35]
Greater degree of freedom to individuals involved with the development project	[44]
Higher degree of cohesion (Teams can be organized whether or not members are in proximity to one another)	[1, 45, 46]
Producing better outcomes and attract better employees	[6, 20]
Provide organizations with unprecedented level of flexibility and responsiveness	[13, 24, 28, 31, 36, 47-49]
Respond quickly to changing business environments	[21, 35]
Sharing knowledge, experiences	[50, 51]
Enable organizations to respond faster to increased competition	[47, 52]
Better team outcomes (quality, productivity, and satisfaction)	[46, 53]
Most effective in making decisions	[54]
Higher team effectiveness and efficiency	[17, 55]
Self-assessed performance and high performance.	[8, 56]
Cultivating and managing creativity	[12]
Improve the detail and precision of design activities	[57]
Provide a vehicle for global collaboration and coordination of R&D-related activities	[58]

Disadvantages	References
lack of physical interaction	[1, 20, 23, 54]
everything to be reinforced in a much more structured, formal process	[59].
Challenges of project management are more related to the distance between team members than to their cultural or language differences	[60].
Challenges of determining the appropriate task technology fit	[61, 62]
Cultural and functional diversity in virtual teams lead to differences in the members’ thought processes. Develop trust among the members are challenging	[23, 56, 58]
Will create challenges and obstacles like technophobia ( employees who are uncomfortable with computer and other telecommunications technologies)	[7]
Variety of practices (cultural and work process diversity) and employee mobility negatively impacted performance in virtual teams.	[8]
Team members need special training and encouragement	[63]

Virtual and Traditional Teams
Unlike a traditional team, a virtual team works across space, time and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technologies. However, many of the best practices for traditional teams are similar to those for virtual teams [21]. Virtual teams are significantly different from traditional teams. In the proverbial traditional team, the members work next to one another, while in virtual teams they work in different locations. In traditional teams the coordination of tasks is straightforward and performed by the members of the team together; in virtual teams, in contrast, tasks must be much more highly structured. Also, virtual teams rely on electronic communication, as opposed to face-to-face communication in traditional teams. Table 3 summarizes these distinctions [45]. Diversity in national background and culture is common in transnational and virtual teams [14].

Fully Traditional Team	Fully Virtual Team
Team members all co-located.	Team members all in different locations.
Team members communicate face-to-face (i.e., synchronous and personal)	Team members communicate through asynchronous and impersonal means.
Team members coordinate team task together, in mutual adjustment.	The team task is so highly structured that coordination by team members is rarely necessary.

In particular, reliance on computer-mediated communication makes virtual teams unique from traditional ones [16]. The processes used by successful virtual teams will be different from those used in face-to-face collaborations (FFCs) [20]. In an innovation network resembling a “traditional” organization, the innovation process is more restricted by location and time. In other words, the innovation process mostly takes place within the framework of physical offices and working hours. In virtual organizations, individuals’ work is not restricted by time and place, and communication is strongly facilitated by IT. Such a product development environment allows a greater degree of freedom to individuals involved with the development project [44]. Hence multinational companies (MNC) are more likely to become tightly integrated into global R&D network than smaller unit [64]. Distributed teams can carry out critical tasks with appropriate decision support technologies [65].
Physical Versus Virtual
Pawar and Sharifi [66] study of virtual versus collocated team success and classified physical teams versus virtual teams in six categories. Table 4 summarizes these differences.

Activity	Physical teams nature	Virtual teams nature
Nature of interaction	opportunity to share work and non-work related information	the extent of informal exchange of information is minimal
Utilization of resources	Increases the opportunity for allocation and sharing of resources	each collaborating body will have to have access to similar technical and non-technical infrastructure
Control and accountability (over and within the project):	the project manager provides the Context for ongoing monitoring of activities and events and thus enhances their ability to respond to requirements.	The collaborating bodies were accountable to the task leaders and the project coordinator who had limited authority to enforce any penalties for failure to achieve their tasks
Working environment	they encountered constraints accessing information and interacting with others outside the collocated team within the company	Sometimes not able to share ideas or dilemmas with other partners.
Cultural and educational background	members of the team are likely to have similar and complementary cultural and educational background	the team members varied in their education, culture, language, time orientation and expertise

Lurey and Raisinghani [59] base on virtual teams survey in 12 separate virtual teams from eight different sponsor companies in the high technology found that, organizations choosing to implement virtual teams should focus much of their efforts in the same direction they would if they were implementing traditional, co-located teams.
Management Challenges
More and more companies are faced with the necessity to get the knowledge and expertise they require in different projects from different domains and areas [67], therefore, people from different companies often need to work together to bring the entire knowledge and experience that are needed for the success of a new product, process or service. Virtual teams represent a large pool of know-how which seems to be a promising source of companies’ growth. At present, except for open source software, little is known about how to utilize this know-how [68]. Hence manager of enterprises should establish a connection between different departments and companies through virtual team stand on information technology. Based on a time scale, Figure 1 presents significant innovations that have had an impact on operation management (OM) [69]. Over the past decade, the developments in communications, primarily based on ICTs, have created a new platform for OM to connect enterprises and customers in a seamless information network.
The continuous rapid growth in project information volume as the project progresses makes it increasingly difficult to find, organize, access and maintain the information required by project users [70]. This particular problem can be highlighted in two cases document management on site and Information management at the facilities management stage [70]. Dealing with multiple, cross functional people and teams highlighted managing challenge. Manager of virtual team should overcome the managing conflict [49, 62, 71-74] , cultural and functional diversity in virtual teams [16, 23, 42, 43, 56, 58, 75-78] and mistrust among the team members [1, 50, 79-81].


Conclusions
Since cross functional and virtual work teams are dealing with complex problems, it makes sense that cross functional virtual management teams are needed to support them. Problems from one team can pollinate widely on to other virtual teams. Management must define the escalation path to resolve virtual, cross functional issues. While reviewing the previous study refer to Table 1 and
Table 2, it’s believed that the advantages of working on the basis of virtual teams far outweigh the disadvantages and firms cannot be successful unless the knowledge and information in the company are effectively captured, shared and internalized by the entities virtual team members.
This paper has provided an extensive review of literature and related resources covering the theme of virtual teams and management issue. Clearly there is a considerable scope for extending this study to specify filed such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and relationship with virtual team. Further research has to be done on this topic to fully understand the influence of virtual team on company practically. There is considerable literature on distributed and virtual teams. The coverage includes management challenges, technology enablers and organizational and multi-cultural challenges. However, limited work has been directed towards exploring and analyzing the existing inter-relation. Therefore future research shall be aimed at shifting away from investigating virtual teams separately to the formation and development of a collaborative system which can support a dispersed team effectively. Keeping virtual teams in company growth processes, operating innovatively, effectively and efficiently is of a high importance, but the issue has poorly been addressed simultaneously in the previous studies.
Managers of company should invest less in tangible assets, but more in virtual team to generate knowledge, and increase employees’ creativity to stimulate incremental innovations in already existing information technology that will directly generate their future competitive advantage.
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Virtual R&D Teams: A potential growth of education-industry collaboration

Virtual R&D Teams: A potential growth of education-industry collaboration

Introduction
With the advent of the global economy and high-speed Internet, online collaboration is fast becoming the norm in education and industry [1]. Information technology (IT) creates many new inter-relationships among businesses, expands the scope of industries in which a company must compete to achieve tcompetitive advantage. Information systems and technology allow companies to coordinate their activities in distant geographic locations [2]. IT is providing the infrastructure necessary to support the development of new collaboration forms among industry and education. Virtual research and development (R&D) teams represent one such relational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide organizations with unprecedented levels of flexibility and responsiveness [3-4]. Virtual teams give many advantages to organizations, including increased knowledge sharing [5] and improve organizational performance [6]. Virtual teams have altered the expectations and boundaries of knowledge worker’s interactions. Many R&D organizations and teams currently use a specialized knowledge portal for research collaboration and knowledge management [7]. Hence, the move towards a virtual world is becoming ever more relevant to industry and education as organizations outsource activities across national geographic boundaries [8].
The purpose of this study is to extend the research finding of virtual R&D teams in small and medium-sized enterprises to industry-education collaboration. The further outline of this paper is as first, discuss the different aspects of virtual teams and its relationships with SMEs, and then briefly explore the research methodology. Following, elaborate on the empirical findings and finally, analysis the data and conclude the paper.
Aspects of Virtual Teams
Definition of Virtual Team
Gassmann and Zedtwitz [9] defined “virtual team as a group of people and sub-teams which interact through interdependent tasks guided by common purpose and work across links strengthened by information, communication, and transport technologies.” Different authors have identified diverse definition [10]. Reference [11] developed one of the most comprehensive and widely accepted definitions of virtual teams: “virtual team is the small temporary groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed knowledge workers who coordinate their work, predominantly with electronic information and communication technologies in order to accomplish one or more organization tasks.”
Benefits and Pitfalls of Virtual Teams
The availability of a flexible and configurable base infrastructure is one of the main advantages of agile virtual teams [11]. Virtual team may allow people to collaborate with more productivity at a distance [12]. Virtual teams reduce time-to-market [13]. Lead time or time to market has been generally admitted to be one of the most important keys for success in manufacturing companies [14]. A potential advantage of virtual teams is their ability to digitally or electronically unite experts in highly specialized fields working at great distances from each other [15]. Virtual teams are enlightening and managing creativity [16] and useful for projects that require cross-functional or cross boundary skilled inputs [17].
As a drawback, virtual teams are particularly weak at mistrust, communication and power struggles [15]. Cultural and functional diversity in virtual teams leads to differences in the members thought processes [18]. Virtual teams will not totally replace conventional teams. Although virtual teams are and will continue to be an important and necessary type of work arrangement, they are not appropriate for all circumstances [19]. Hence, the complexity of management and coordination to choose the best collaboration tools will increases.
SMEs and Virtual Teams
SMEs need to focus on core competences for efficiency matters; they need to cooperate with external partners such as an educational institute to compensate for other competences and resources. Reference [20] found that managers of SMEs should invest less in tangible assets, but more in those areas that will directly generate their future competitive advantage (e.g., in R&D to generate knowledge, and in their employees’ creativity to stimulate incremental innovations in already existing technologies). The combination of explosive knowledge growth and inexpensive information transfer creates a fertile soil for unlimited virtually invention [21]. While, it is widely known that many big corporations have already invested in the information technology (IT) as they have come to realize the advantages and the competitive edge they will gain from IT. It is believed that SMEs, without investing heavily in total solution systems, can still benefit from the available information technology [22]. Virtuality has been presented as one solution for SMEs aiming to increase their competitiveness [23]. The SMEs are one of the sectors that have a strong potential to benefit from advances of virtual teams and the adaptation of new collaboration modes [24].
Methodology
Data for this research is gathered from the desk study and survey in Malaysian and Iranian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A web based questionnaires is designed and distributed between manufacturing SMEs. The rapid expansion of Internet users has given web-based surveys the potential to become a powerful tool in survey research [25]. Reference [26] findings encourage social researchers to use web-based questionnaires with confidence and the data produced by web-based questionnaires is equivalent to that produced by paper-based questionnaires.
The main sampling target was managing director, R&D manager, new product development manager, project and design manager and appropriate people who were most familiar with the R&D concern in the firm. A Likert scale from 1 to 5 was used. This set up gave respondents a series of attitude dimensions. For each dimension, the respondent was asked whether, and how strongly, they agree or disagree to each dimension using a point rating scale. Based on collected data some interpretations of the current situation of SMEs to employ virtual R&D teams are developed. Statistical methods and analysis are carried out to examine the SMEs readiness for education-industry collaboration.
Data Collection and Analysis
The empirical data has been collected through on-line questionnaires with manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia and Iran. Out of the 3625 companies targeted, 947 responded, 210 completed the questionnaire and the rest were partially-respondents. The response rate was satisfactory since accessing the managers is usually difficult. Table 1 summarized online survey data collection. Although the on-line questionnaire sent to the targeted SMEs in the both countries, only 91 firms were met the criteria of SMEs definition in this research so the rest of responded deducted from analysis.
Table 1 Summarized on-line survey data collection

Total of emails sent to companies	3625
Total responses	947
Total responses / sent (%)	26.1
Total completed	210
Total completed / sent (%)	5.8
Response rate (%)	22.2

A cross-tabulation descriptive statistics employed to find the frequency and relationship between the country and virtual team as illustrate in Table 2. The result shows that in the sample 53.8% of targeted SMEs employed virtual teams in R&D and Iranian SMEs employed virtual teams more than two times of Malaysian SMEs 71.4 and 33.3 percent respectively.
The mean scores for frequency of use to exchange business shows that E-mail is the most frequently used tool for all teams in Malaysia and Iran. Personal telephone call is second most frequently used tool in selected countries. Malaysian firms used more face to face interaction than Iranian ones. On the other hand, team base communication technologies such as shared database, group telephone conference, electronic whiteboard and video conference were not often used.
The last sections of the questionnaire developed to identify the requirements of the SMEs in determining the appropriate collaborative tools. The Likert scale ranged from “1″ for not important to “5″ for extremely important, with “4″ as the neutral point. The Likert mean was 3.31 (Figure 1) on the 5-point scale for demand of “online training and e-learning”. The score is clearly in the direction that, SMEs needs to the education-industry collaboration. Hence, sample SMEs in Malaysia and Iran are enthusiastic over use virtual teams for industry-education collaboration. This empirical study across countries shows a substantial and increasing return to virtual teams in SMEs. New technologies open up opportunities for small firms to expand their collaboration beyond firms’ borders.

Table 2 Cross-tabulation between country and virtual teams

			With Virtual Teams		Total
			Yes	NO
Iran	Count		35	14	49
	% within Country		71.4%	28.6%	100.0%
Malaysia	Count		14	28	42
	% within Country		33.3%	66.7%	100.0%
Total	Count		49	42	91
	% of Total		53.8%	46.2%	100.0%

Figure 1 The 5-point scale for demand of “online training and e-learning”
Conclusion
Nowadays, distance between team members or differences in time zones, are not barriers to industry and education collaborations. Using a virtual R&D team’s context as a collaborating environment provides industry management with opportunities to acquire some of the technical skills required for the professional workplace. The paper concludes that virtual R&D teams and industry-education collaboration have much more benefits than disadvantages. In fact, selecting the appropriate sets of communication tools are challenging for the virtual team’s managers.
Above 46% of SMEs in selected countries are still avoiding to use virtual teams. Today’s combative environments dictate a new model of communication as a basic requirement. The SMEs in Iran and Malaysia have to restructure their approach to employ virtual teams. Many SMEs have limited recourses, and it is well-known for their dynamic behavior in contrast the difficulty of diverting skilled personnel from day-by-day activities, to undertake process re-engineering and R&D. Therefore, applying virtual R&D teams in SMEs is a foundation of high growth industry-education collaboration.
Future research would now seem to be essential for developing a comprehensive study, combining survey with case studies in various sizes of companies and types of activities (e.g. research and development and new product development). Such a study needs to investigate a larger sample of virtual teams from different sectors. In a bigger group, it is possible to compare the results between countries more precisely.
Acknowledgment
This study is carried out as a part of funded research by a grant from the University of Malaya (grant No. PS404/2009C), the authors acknowledge this support.

References

[1]           R. Ubell, Ed., Virtual Teamwork: Mastering the Art and Practice of Online Learning and Corporate Collaboration John Wiley & Sons, Inc., June 2010, p.^pp. Pages.
[2]           M. Fathian, et al., “E-readiness assessment of non-profit ICT SMEs in a developing country: The case of Iran,” Technovation, vol. 28, pp. 578-590, 2008.
[3]           A. Powell, et al., “Virtual teams: a review of current literature and directions for future research,” The Data base for Advances in Information Systems, vol. 35, pp. 6-36, 2004.
[4]           N. Ale Ebrahim, et al., “Virtual Teams for New Product Development – An Innovative Experience for R&D Engineers,” European Journal of Educational Studies, vol. 1, pp. 109-123, 2009.
[5]           D. J. Pauleen, “An Inductively Derived Model of Leader-Initiated Relationship Building with Virtual Team Members,” Journal of Management Information Systems, vol. 20, pp. 227-256, 2003.
[6]           S. A. Furst, et al., “Managing the life cycle of virtual teams,” Academy of Management Executive, vol. 18, pp. 6-20, 2004.
[7]           H. J. Lee, et al., “A contingent approach on knowledge portal design for R&D teams: Relative importance of knowledge portal functionalities,” Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 36, pp. 3662-3670, 2009.
[8]           A. Williams, et al., “Virtual environments: lessons from industry transferred to distance-learning education,” in The Queensland University of Technology, Research Week International Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 2005.
[9]           O. Gassmann and M. Von Zedtwitz, “Trends and determinants of managing virtual R&D teams,” R&D Management, vol. 33, pp. 243-262, 2003.
[10]         N. Ale Ebrahim, et al., “Virtual Teams: a Literature Review,” Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, vol. 3, pp. 2653-2669, 2009.
[11]         N. Ale Ebrahim, et al., “Virtual R & D teams in small and medium enterprises: A literature review,” Scientific Research and Essay, vol. 4, pp. 1575-1590, December 2009.
[12]         O. Gassmann and M. Von Zedtwitz, Innovation Processes in Transnational Corporations: Elsevier Science Ltd, 2003.
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[18]         L. Poehler and T. Schumacher, “The Virtual Team Challenge: Is It Time for Training?,” presented at the PICMET 2007, Portland, Oregon – USA 2007.
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WORK TOGETHER… WHEN APART CHALLENGES AND WHAT IS NEED FOR EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL TEAMS

Cite as:  Raval, M. R. R., Ale Ebrahim, N., Ahmed, S., & Taha, Z. (2010). WORK TOGETHER… WHEN APART CHALLENGES AND WHAT IS NEED FOR EFFECTIVE VIRTUAL TEAMS. [Review]. Journal of Information, Knowledge and Research in Business Management and Administration, 1(1), 1-3.

Virtual R&D teams and SMEs growth: A comparative study between Iranian and Malaysian SMEs

African Journal of Business Management Vol. 4(11), pp. 2368-2379, 4 September, 2010     
ISSN 1993-8233©2010 Academic Journals 

Full Length Research Paper

Virtual R&D teams and SMEs growth: A comparative study between Iranian and Malaysian SMEs Nader Ale Ebrahim1*, Shamsuddin Ahmed1 and Zahari Taha2 1Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, 50603, Malaysia. 2Department of Manufacturing Engineering, University Malaysia Pahang, Gambang, Kuantan, Pahang, 26300, Malaysia. *Corresponding author. E-mail: aleebrahim@perdana.um.edu.my. Accepted 13 July, 2010

Abstract

This paper explores potential advantages of using virtual teams for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a comprehensive review on various aspects of virtual teams. Based on the standing of the pertinent literatures, attempt has been made to study the aspects by online survey method in Iran and Malaysia. In both countries, SMEs play an important role in their economies, employments, and capacity building. Virtual R&D team can be one of the means to increase SMEs efficiency and competitiveness in their local as well as global markets. In this context, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the effects of virtuality to the growth of SMEs. The study addresses some differences between two countries in engaging virtual research and development (R&D) teams in their SMEs. It is observed that there is a significant difference between the SMEs turnover that employed virtual team and that did not employ the virtual team. The way for further studies and recommend improvements are proposed.

Critical Factors for New Product Developments in SMEs Virtual Team

African Journal of Business Management Vol. 4(11), pp. 2247-2257, 4 September, 2010     
ISSN 1993-8233©2010 Academic Journals 

Full Length Research Paper

Critical factors for new product developments in SMEs virtual team Nader Ale Ebrahim*, Shamsuddin Ahmed and Zahari Taha Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia. *Corresponding author. E-mail: aleebrahim@perdana.um.edu.my. Tel: +60-17-6140012. Accepted 15 July, 2010

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are considered as an engine for economic growth all over the world and especially for developing countries. During the past decade, new product development (NPD) has increasingly been recognized as a critical factor in ensuring the continued survival of SMEs. On the other hand, the rapid rate of market and technological changes has accelerated in the past decade, so this turbulent environment requires new methods and techniques to bring successful new products to the marketplace. Virtual team can be a solution to answer the requested demand. However, literature have shown no significant differences between traditional NPD and virtual NPD in general, whereas NPD in SME’s virtual team has not been systematically investigated in developing countries. This paper aims to bridge this gap by first reviewing the NPD and its relationship with virtuality and then identifies the critical factors of NPD in virtual teams. The statistical method was utilized to perform the required analysis of data from the survey. The results were achieved through factor analysis at the perspective of NPD in some Malaysian and Iranian manufacturing firms (N = 191). The 20 new product development factors were grouped into five higher level constructs. It gives valuable insight and guidelines, which hopefully will help managers of firms in developing countries to consider the main factors in NPD.

SMEs; Virtual research and development (R&D) teams and new product development: A literature review

International Journal of the Physical SciencesVol. 5(7), pp. 916–930, July 2010
ISSN 1992-1950 ©2010 Academic Journals  

Review

SMEs; Virtual research and development (R&D) teams and new product development: A literature review Nader Ale Ebrahim*, Shamsuddin Ahmed and Zahari Taha Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia. *Corresponding author. E-mail: nader.ale.um@gmail.com. Accepted 10 June, 2010.

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are indeed the engines of global economic growth. Their continued growth is a major subject for the economy and employment of any country. Towards that end, virtual research and development (R&D) could be a viable option to sustain and ease the operations of SMEs. However, literature shows there has not been a great deal of research into the diverse characteristic of virtual R&D teams in SMEs. This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R&D teams collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the literature review is to provide an outline on the structure and dynamics of R&D collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the rationale and relevance of virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R&D team for SMEs and new product development (NPD) has been examined. It concludes with identifying the gaps and feebleness in the existing literatures and calls for future research in this area. It is argued to form of virtual R&D team deserves consideration at top level management for venturing into the new product development within SMEs. Key words: Virtual teams, small and medium enterprises, new product development, R&D.

Virtual R & D teams in small and medium enterprises: A literature review

Scientific Research and Essays Vol. 4 (13), pp. 1575–1590, December 2009
ISSN 1992- 2248© 2009 Academic Journals  

Review

Virtual R & D teams in small and medium enterprises: A literature review Nader Ale Ebrahim*, Shamsuddin Ahmed and Zahari Taha Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Malaysia. *Corresponding author. E-mail: aleebrahim@perdana.um.edu.my. Accepted 21 December, 2009.

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the driving engine behind economic growth. While SMEs play a critical role in generating employment and supporting trade, they face numerous challenges, the prominent among them are the need to respond to fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid solutions to complex organizational problems. Towards that end, research and development (R & D) aspect deserves particular attention to promote and facilitate the operations of SMEs. Virtual R & D team could be a viable option. However, literature shows that virtual R & D teaming in SMEs is still at its infancy. This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R & D teams collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the state-of-the-art literature review is to provide an overview on the structure and dynamics of R & D collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the foundation and importance of virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R & D team and SMEs has been examined. It concludes with the identification of the gaps in the existing literatures and calls for future research. It is argued that setting-up an infrastructure for virtual R & D team in SMEs still requires a large amount of engineering efforts and deserves consideration at top level management. Key words: Virtual teams, small and medium enterprises, literature review.

Virtual Teams for New Product Development – An Innovative Experience for R&D Engineers

Nader Ale Ebrahim

University of Malaya - Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering

Shamsuddin Ahmed

University of Malaya (UM)

Zahari Taha

University of Malaya (UM)

October 30, 2009

European Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 109-123, October 2009
Abstract:     
New interaction tools such as internet allow companies to gain valuable input from research and development (R&D) engineers via virtual teams. Consequently, engineers also get more expertise in diminutive time frames. Virtual R&D teams present the key impetus to the technology acquisition process. The present knowledge-economy era is characterized by short product life-cycles. Virtual R&D teams may reduce time-to-market, make available a large pool of new product know-how and provide greater flexibilities, which are the key success factors in a competitive market. This comprehensive review contains almost 100 references and covers the recent literature with emphasis on the topic. The review has focused on authentic and reputed publications and extracts the results. This article presents the type of virtual teams and their main features and explains how virtual R&D team can play a prominent role in developing new products. The article is evolved future study guideline and also illustrates how to apply virtual interaction tools and integrate engineers into the innovation process. Management of virtual R&D teams in new product development (NPD) processes in an innovative, effective and efficient is of a high importance, but the issue has been poorly addressed in the previous studies. Findings show that virtual R&D team provides valuable input for new product development and R&D engineers are able to attain virtual experience.
  Number of Pages in PDF File: 15
Keywords: Virtual R&D Teams, New Product Development, Virtual Experience, R&D Engineers
Accepted Paper Series

Innovation and R&D Activities in Virtual Team

Nader Ale Ebrahim

University of Malaya - Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering

Shamsuddin Ahmed

University of Malaya (UM)

Zahari Taha

University of Malaya (UM)

August 11, 2009

European Journal of Scientific Research, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 297-307, 2009
Abstract:     
Innovation plays a central role in economic development, at the regional and national level. In the competitive environment companies are obliged to produce more rapidly, more effectively and more efficiently in new product development, which is a result of research and development (R&D) activities. It is necessary for them to put together different capabilities and services with the goal, through cooperation between suppliers and customers, service providers and scientific institutions to achieve innovations of high quality. Depending on the type of industry, the type of business, the type of innovation and the strategic objectives that have been set, firms will regularly have to modify the way in which their R&D and innovation are organized. Nowadays, shift from serial to simultaneous and parallel working in innovation has become more commonplace. Literatures have shown that collaboration is as a meta-capability for innovation. By a comprehensive reviewing of literature this article after define virtual teams and its characteristics, addressing virtual environment innovation and the relationship to R&D activities. Finally conclude that innovation cannot be successful, unless the knowledge and information in the R&D project are effectively captured, shared and internalized by the R&D project’s virtual team members.
  Number of Pages in PDF File: 11
Keywords: Virtual team, Literature review, Innovation, Research and Development
Accepted Paper Series

Virtual Teams: A Literature Review

Nader Ale Ebrahim

University of Malaya - Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering

Shamsuddin Ahmed

University of Malaya (UM)

Zahari Taha

University of Malaya (UM)

November 6, 2009

Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 2653-2669, 2009
Abstract:     
In the competitive market, virtual teams represent a growing response to the need for fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid solutions to complex organizational problems. Virtual teams enable organizations to pool the talents and expertise of employees and non-employees by eliminating time and space barriers. Nowadays, companies are heavily investing in virtual team to enhance their performance and competitiveness. Despite virtual teams growing prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of team. Hence the study offers an extensive literature review with definitions of virtual teams and a structured analysis of the present body of knowledge of virtual teams. First, we distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams, different types of virtual teams to identify where current knowledge applies. Second, we distinguish what is needed for effective virtual team considering the people, process and technology point of view and underlying characteristics of virtual teams and challenges they entail. Finally, we have identified and extended 12 key factors that need to be considered, and describes a methodology focused on supporting virtual team working, with a new approach that has not been specifically addressed in the existing literature and some guide line for future research extracted.
  Number of Pages in PDF File: 17
Keywords: Virtual team, Literature review, Effective virtual team
Accepted Paper Series