Management Publications Management 8-1998 Virtual Teams: Technology and the Workplace of the Future Anthony M. Townsend University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
[email protected] Samuel M. DeMarie University of Nevada, Las Vegas Anthony R. Hendrickson Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/management_pubs Part of the Business Analytics Commons, Management Information Systems Commons, Marketing Commons, Operations and Supply Chain Management Commons, Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons, and the Technology and Innovation Commons The complete bibliographic information for this item can be found at https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ management_pubs/55. For information on how to cite this item, please visit http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/howtocite.html. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Management at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Management Publications by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Virtual Teams: Technology and the Workplace of the Future Abstract Managers are challenged to develop strategically flexible organizations in response to increasingly competitive marketplaces. Fortunately, a new generation of information and telecommunications technology provides the foundation for resilient new organizational forms that would have not been feasible only a decade ago. One of the most exciting of these new forms, the virtual team, will enable organizations to become more flexible by providing the impressive productivity of team-based designs in environments where teamwork would have once been impossible. Virtual teams, which are linked primarily through advanced computer and telecommunications technologies, provide a potent response to the challenges associated with today's downsized and lean organizations, and to the resulting geographical dispersion of essential employees.