Bridging space over time: Global virtual team dynamics and effectiveness

Virtual teams comprise an important structural component of many organizations and are particularly important in globally dispersed enterprises. This article reports an intensive study of three global virtual teams within a single organization. Using adaptive structuration theory as a template for organizing and interpreting both qualitative and quantitative data, the authors offer an important view of how effective virtual teams operate. Effective global virtual teams fit their communication patterns to the task, and they generate a deep rhythm of face-to-face communications interspersed among periods of remote communication.