Perception of virtual team's performance: A multinational exercise

Multinational companies are beginning to adopt a “virtual teams” strategy, due to the benefits of cost reduction and performance improvement. On the other hand, Managers and measurement systems are not adapted to this concept due to barriers to manage virtual teams. Barriers such as: language, culture and time zone are becoming key enablers for high performance teams. This paper intends to test a developed methodology to assess the perception of the performance of virtual teams by applying it to a global virtual environment. Tools as questionnaires, focus groups sessions and operations strategy planning techniques were utilized in this research aiming to measure the level of comprehension of such performance measures in different teams and identify factors that may improve their performance. This methodology was applied on 3 sites, in different countries and under the same management guidelines. The impact of subjective items as behavior over performance measurement systems is evident. Lack of clear communication, language barriers, miscomprehension of the objectives and cultural barriers negatively increase the impact of behavior on performance measurement. The identification and correction of these items is crucial for the success of a team.