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This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper uses responses from social sciences university students in Romania to highlight issues in virtual team working. Ways that trust is built in virtual teams are examined, together with how the personality trait openness to experience can impact virtual team performance. The questionnaire data findings reveal that experiencing trust and leadership-based challenges made the students less willing to work as a virtual team, and less confident that such a team would perform well. Those who were most open to experience were most critical in highlighting the downside of working in virtual teams.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Face‐to‐face (F2F) teams form and function differently than computer‐mediated (virtual) teams. The social processes associated with effective team work are different in F2F and virtual teams. These differences affect the ability of groups of people to successfully form a team that can function effectively. This study found that computer‐mediated teams differ significantly from F2F teams along important group style dimensions as measured by the Group Style Inventory (GSI).

While some modern organisations have established “virtual work teams”, which are said to be comprised of people who are geographically separated and who work across boundaries of space and time using computer driven communication technologies, it is also true that many organisations remain structured around conventional face‐to‐face teams. Increasingly, the conventional face‐to‐face team is endeavouring to increase its productivity by utilising some of the technology and characteristics of the virtual team. In fact, it may not be practical any longer to draw a distinction between conventional face‐to‐face teams and virtual teams, due to the invasive nature of technology throughout most modern organisations.

Virtual reality, virtual space, virtual organizations, virtual teams; the word “virtual” is today’s organizational buzzword. One of the fastest‐growing, high‐tech office trends today is “virtual teams”. These teams cross time, space, and cultural boundaries and do so effectively with the use of technology. This paper will look at the changing nature of work, give a definition of virtual teams, discuss the qualities needed for successful virtual team membership, and view the communication challenges existing for virtual teams in the twenty‐first century.

This paper is the first of a three part series in which the authors identify best practice for implementing virtual teamworking to aid concurrent engineering. Part 1 examines how five key texts on virtual teamworking contribute to an understanding of how to introduce virtual working to enable concurrent engineering. It develops a structure for comparing and contrasting the texts for this purpose. In Part 2, four general areas of concern are identified from these texts. The authors suggest five other issues, derived from other texts and practical experience important to concurrent engineering involving the supply chain. Part 3 then synthesizes the key elements of a methodology for introducing virtual teaming in a design and manufacture supply chain utilising concurrent engineering.

The paper seeks to discuss virtual working, technology utilisation and how technology can be used to enhance human interaction rather than replace it. It is often the fabric of virtual human relationships that remains sadly neglected. This viewpoint paper aims to stimulate a more comprehensive debate about how to work effectively with and through others in our virtual world.

Working closely with global corporations, the author studied both permanent and project‐based virtual teams. Through observation and diagnostics, a comparison of the effectiveness of these teams was made against that of traditional co‐located teams.

Many businesses attempt to treat virtual working in the same way as co‐located working. The human impact and implications of virtual working are not fully understood or dealt with. The cultural retention of practices and policies that are relevant to co‐located traditional work but often counter‐productive for virtual working can result in tensions, conflicts and the ultimate disengagement of the workforce.

This paper offers a sample of the pragmatic tips and approaches the author's organizations brings to its clients. The most practical outcome of reading this paper is the recognition that virtual working has some subtle and key differences that need to be understood and managed by all those involved.

This paper is intended to be thought‐provoking for executive leaders, leaders, human resource professionals, change management agents and – most importantly – members of virtual teams.

The purpose of this article is to share with readers details of this consortium's multicultural virtual teaming project implementation and the lessons learned from experiences of the participating students and professors.

To establish a preliminary relationship, virtual student teams exchange e‐mail messages with team mates at participating universities that provide introductions for each member of the team. Each team member uses these individual introductions to write a brief paper that introduces all team mates. Next, the students virtually interview one another to obtain answers to culture‐specific questions for each culture that is represented on the team. In some courses, this information is analysed using Hofstede's four dimensions of culture: power distance, individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity versus femininity.

Based on participants' experiences in these virtual teaming projects, the following recommendations are presented: emphasise relationship building; solicit widespread input for planning; and balance individual control with shared objectives.

These cultural virtual teaming projects proved to be valuable learning experiences for both the students and faculty who were involved.

We conceptualized the novel phenomenon of COVID-induced virtual teams and its implications and provided researchers with the required information on how to conduct a phenomenon-based study for conceptualizing novel phenomena in relevant ways.

This article stems from phenomenon-based and, thus, theory-building and grounded qualitative research in the German industrial sector. We conducted 47 problem-centered interviews in two phases (February–July 2021 and February–July 2022) to understand how team members and team leaders experienced COVID-induced virtual teamwork and its subsequent developments.

Empirically, we found COVID-induced virtual teams to be characterized by a high relevance of shaping positive team dynamics via steering internal moderators; crisis is a novel external moderator and transformation becomes the key output factor to be leveraged. Work-from-home leads to specific configuration needs and interrelations between work-from-home and on-site introduce additional dynamics. Methodologically, the phenomenon-based approach is found to be highly suitable for studying the effects of such novel phenomena.

This article is explorative. Thus, we advocate further research on related novel phenomena, such as post-COVID-hybrid and work-from-home teams. A model of how to encourage positive dynamics in post-COVID-hybrid teams is developed and lays the groundwork for further studies on post-COVID teamwork. Concerning methodology, researchers are provided with information on how to conduct phenomenon-based research on novel phenomena, such as the COVID-induced virtual teams that we studied.

Companies receive advice on how to encourage positive dynamics in post-COVID teamwork, e.g. on identifying best practices and resilient individuals.

In a country such as Germany that faces labor shortages, our insights might facilitate better labor-market integration for those with care-work obligations and international workers.

We offer a first conceptualization of a relevant novel phenomenon, namely COVID-induced virtual teams. We exemplify the phenomenon-based approach as a suitable methodology that serves to build relevant theory using active categorization.

This paper explores how consulting can contribute to the success of virtual teamwork. Based on an introduction to the concept of virtual teams, the potential of virtual teamwork for consultants and clients is outlined. Central questions are: “For which reasons do virtual teams deserve additional attention by business leaders?” and “What kind of services can be offered by consultants that cannot be performed by the client organisation itself?”. The paper finishes with a discussion of the qualifications and resources consultants should possess if they wish to consult on virtual teamwork, highlighting the broad range of requirements and the need to accumulate extensive experience.

This chapter seeks to identify the challenges faced by virtual teams and offers solutions to meet those challenges. Basic underlining concepts behind virtual teams are provided along with the most popular forms of virtual teams. Organizational, crowdsourcing, and peer production/online communities are the most common forms of virtual teams. Understanding these basic concepts will help HRD and HRM professionals to develop virtual teams that are suitable for middle- and low-skilled workers. The chapter also presents the various types of communication technologies used in virtual along with the pros and cons associated with each type.