Factors Affecting Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Teams

Abstract

The development and use of information and communications technology (ICT) are growing at a rapid speed across the world. ICT has been the cause for new types of work arrangements, such as virtual organizations, virtual teams, teleworking, etc. Virtual teams provide organizations with competitive advantage by enabling them to hire talented people across the world and eliminating the need for physical availability in the office. However, one major issue hindering the productivity of the virtual team is knowledge sharing. The lack of proper knowledge sharing between team members may cause organizations to fail with regards to the implementation of successful strategies. The research into understanding knowledge sharing in virtual teams (VT) in the Middle East is lacking. While such studies have been done in the United States and Europe, the Middle East has been overlooked. In this study, the authors assume that there are some specific behavioral aspects of VT in the Middle East that create the need for specific scientific solutions. Accordingly, this study was conducted in the Middle East in order to gain scientific knowledge on the region’s specificity. The objective of this article is to create a model for the evaluation of the effect on knowledge sharing in virtual teams in the Middle East. For analysis, the selection of companies includes United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based companies in the IT industry whose businesses engage in VT. The results show that the following factors have a direct effect on knowledge sharing in VT: Culture, motivation, conflict, ICT, trust, and leadership. Conversely, the results do not demonstrate that language has any impact on knowledge sharing. The methodology used is as follows: Literature review, survey methods, and structural equation modeling.

Sustainable Virtual Teams: Promoting Well-Being through Affect Management Training and Openness to Experience Configurations

“…Thus, we respond to the call to study how well-being develops in virtual teams [4], with particular emphasis on the role of TWE as a proxy for eudaimonic well-being [3,4]. Considering the digitalization of work and life [7,120,121], especially since the disruption caused by the COVID-19 health crisis [9], there is a need for sustainable teamwork. Moreover, sustainability in virtual environments is still an unfolding topic (e.g., [121]).…”

“…Many of these teams have now become virtual and moved to telecommuting or virtual teamwork, making it possible for employees to work without temporal or geographical boundaries [5,6]. The virtualization of organizational teams took place, initially, because of the broad generalization of information and communication technologies [5,7,8] and, more recently, due to the disruptive digitalization caused by the COVID-19 pandemic [8,9]. In this regard, virtual teams are defined as groups of geographically dispersed members who interact through computer-mediated communication to pursue common goals [10,11] regardless of physical distance, time zones, or other barriers [6].…”

From Stationary to Remote: Employee Risks at Pandemic Migration of Workplaces

“…The concept of remote work is inherently included within various terms such as remote work itself, telework, telecommuting or even virtual working [8] which involves virtual teams with their work specifics and research topics [9,10]. When the location is specified, we also have such forms as, e.g., home-based telework or coworking in telecenters, where employees rent out adequate office space together with colleagues or employees from other companies.…”

Moderating Role of Virtual Teams on the Relation between Cultural Intelligence and Strategic Excellence

“…However, knowledge sharing among virtual team members is just as important as other elements, indeed, it is necessary to achieve team goals (Sénquiz-Díaz, & Ortiz-Soto, 2019;Jarrell, 2020;Hung, et al, 2021;Davidavičienė, et al, 2020).…”