Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 259273, 2007 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. www.organizational-dynamics.

com

ISSN 0090-2616/$ see frontmatter doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2007.04.007

Overcoming Barriers to Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Teams

BENSON ROSEN STACIE FURST RICHARD BLACKBURN
GlobeCOM, a leading developer of telecommunication support systems, is headquartered in New York with major ofces in Brussels and Singapore and satellite operations in over 100 other countries. To coordinate the talents and expertise of personnel around the world, GlobeCOM has established over 50 virtual teams. Virtual teams design customized hardware, create software applications, and support customers across ve continents. GlobeCOMs Glax70 virtual team coordinates customers access to its largest commercial communication satellite. Glax70 team members include engineers in New Delhi, Tel Aviv, and Toronto; marketing managers in New York, Chicago, Singapore, Barcelona, and Brussels, a nance and contracts specialist in London, and software developers in Dallas, Sidney, and Bangalore. As would be expected in a telecommunications company, the team has access to sophisticated communication technology. The team maintains its own web site with chat rooms, bulletin boards, and document archives. Team members communicate via telephone, video conferencing, e-mails, and fax. However, cutting edge technology alone does not guarantee easy communications. While all members have a working knowledge of English, language and cultural barriers frequently lead to misunderstandings, and scheduling interactive meetings is a coordination nightmare.
This study was funded by a grant from the SHRM Foundation. However, the interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Foundation.

To better serve their customers, the Glax70 team works under tight deadlines. For the team to succeed, team members must develop high levels of condence and trust that teammates in other parts of the world, including some they have never met face-to-face, keep commitments, share vital information, and meet agreed-upon deadlines. Does a failure to make a promised entry in the teams web archive mean that a teammate is struggling with a complex issue, under pressure from on-site management to make other issues a priority, or just slacking off? Erroneous attributions about other virtual team members motivations can have serious and long lasting consequences for the teams performance. When the Glax70 team was rst created, team members faced a steep learning curve when it came to identifying each others special expertise. Knowing a teammates background and functional experience was a good start, but nding out who to ask about various complex technical issues, for example, was not always obvious. Early on, Glax70 team members were reluctant to seek advice from teammates who were still strangers, fearing that a request for help might be interpreted as a sign of incompetence. Moreover, when teammates did ask for help, assistance was not always forthcoming. One team member confessed to carefully calculating how much information she was willing to share. Going the extra mile on behalf of a virtual teammate, in her view, came at a high price of time and energy, with no guarantee of reciprocation. Sean Phillips, a senior marketing manager working out of the New York ofce was charged with leading the Glax70 team. Seans extensive project management experience made him the
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logical choice. However, Sean had only limited experience with leading a virtual team. A recent incident highlighted for Sean the unique challenges of building a high performance virtual team. The problem occurred when the Glax70 team missed a critical deadline for bringing a new customer on-line. A mistake of this magnitude damaged GlobeComs international reputation and jeopardized a major account. Detective work by Sean Phillips revealed that Tal Roth, an engineer based in Tel Aviv had encountered a compatibility problem between the customers software and the Glax70 satellite conguration. Tal worked frantically to resolve the incompatibility and sent a detailed e-mail to his teammates for guidance and assistance. Despite Tals heroic efforts to resolve the systems incompatibility, the satellite hookup was delayed by a full week. Only later did Tal learn that his colleague in New Delhi had known about the potential incompatibilities based on a customer site visit the previous month. Unfortunately, upon returning home, the New Delhi engineer had become immersed in another project and forgot to record the potential incompatibility issue on the virtual teams web page. Phillips pondered how such information sharing breakdowns among virtual team members can lead to these catastrophes and how he might prevent these kinds of problems in the future. Incidents such as the breakdown of information sharing among virtual teammates served as a constant reminder to Phillips that synchronizing the efforts of a geographically, culturally, and educationally diverse virtual team does not happen magically. Coordination and communications problems are a daily challenge. Knowledge is not always shared effectively, and many team members still had only a vague idea of who knew what among their teammates. Phillips was certain that unless coordination issues were resolved, his team would never perform to its full potential. His early experiences with the Glax70 team drove home the point that his rst objective must be to build trusting work relationships among team members so that they will freely share their knowledge, leverage the teams collective expertise, anticipate each others actions, and feel condent that all of the team members are making substantive contributions to Glax70s success.
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INTRODUCTION
While the Glax70 case is ctitious, it does reect a composite of information we gathered from interviews and surveys conducted with virtual team leaders and virtual team members over the past seven years. In the scenario, GlobeCOM created a virtual team to combine the talents and expertise of a diverse, geographically dispersed group of employees with the goal of providing outstanding customer service. But, as the case highlights, virtual teams are particularly vulnerable to mistrust, communication breakdowns, conicts, and power struggles. To work at full throttle, the Glax70 virtual team, and others like it, must learn to develop mechanisms to encourage sharing of individual and collective knowledge, such as establishing trust, communicating clearly, and resolving conicts openly.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING
All teams, and virtual teams in particular, must develop mechanisms for sharing knowledge, experiences, and insights critical for accomplishing their missions. Knowledge sharing includes the dissemination of existing knowledge among team members and bringing new knowledge into the team from the external environment. Within virtual teams, knowledge sharing mechanisms include interactions via e-mails, telephone, instant messaging, text messaging, electronic bulletin boards and discussion forums, adapting groupware for document dissemination, and the creation of dedicated team Web pages, often enabled with sophisticated search capabilities. However, the key elements in knowledge sharing are not only the hardware and software, but also the ability and willingness of team members to actively participate in the knowledge sharing process. Knowledge sharing requires that team members respond to inquiries, participate in electronic brainstorming and decision making, post documents, update team web sites, and disseminate ideas among their teammates. Knowledge sharing contributes

to virtual team effectiveness by promoting more efcient use of team resources while reducing implementation errors. Virtual teams procient at knowledge sharing should expect increased cohesion, satisfaction, and motivation among team members. There are potential risks to team members for sharing knowledge. For instance, there is the possibility of providing incorrect knowledge and suffering the embarrassment and/ or subsequent loss of credibility among ones virtual teammates. When team members feel that their contributions to the team task may be unfairly scrutinized, they may limit the specialized knowledge they share, focusing only on common knowledge. A second risk may accrue to team members who share knowledge only to nd that virtual teammates fail to reciprocate. Effective knowledge sharing in virtual teams requires both motivated team members and user-friendly knowledge dissemination mechanisms.

of cognitive labor. In particular, as team members interact, they should develop insights into the unique skills and special expertise held by their colleagues. Learning who knows what gives members the opportunity to access the individual customized knowledge repositories held by each team member. Thus, individual team members need not be experts on every important team-related issue; they only have to understand who on the team has the expert knowledge needed to answer an inquiry or who can direct them to other sources with the desired knowledge.

IDENTIFYING THE BARRIERS TO KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND TMS DEVELOPMENT

Virtual teams engage in knowledge work of various kinds, including the development of new products, policies, processes, or services. Teams that develop high-quality knowledge sharing mechanisms and a more robust TMS are more likely to accomplish these tasks efciently and productively. Thus, it is important to identify the barriers to knowledge sharing that might arise in virtual teams. We compiled data regarding the barriers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams as well as the best practices for overcoming these barriers from multiple investigations of virtual teams conducted over the past several years. Specically, as part of an ongoing research program designed to understand the sources of virtual team effectiveness, we interviewed virtual team leaders and members in several organizations, including Cendant Mobility Services Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., Sabre Holdings Corp., ARCO, and IBM Corp. We reviewed transcripts from each of these sources to identify comments pertaining specically to the challenges and potential solutions involving knowledge sharing in (global) virtual teams. In addition to interview data, we have conducted three on-line surveys of virtual team leaders and members as part of a comprehensive study of virtual teams supported by a grant from the Society for Human
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TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEMS

A potential advantage of virtual teams is their ability to digitally or electronically unite experts in highly specialized elds working at great distances from each other. Thus, teams that can overcome the perceived risks in sharing member knowledge and develop effective knowledge sharing strategies should better leverage their collective expertise than teams unable to share such knowledge. One way of doing so is through the development of what has been called a team transactive memory system. A transactive memory system (TMS) represents the collective team knowledge that individual team members have developed or acquired, encoded, stored and can retrieve and that is potentially valuable to the team. A teams TMS develops over time and enables team members to quickly locate vital knowledge within this collective, cognitive team data bank. A well-developed TMS allows teams to work more efciently by sharing the division

Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation. Two of these surveys involved SHRM members who shared their experiences with virtual teams in their respective organizations. The third survey involved an international group of managers who were working in global virtual teams to complete their degree requirements in a graduate management program. From these sources, we identied and categorized over 200 written responses pertaining to knowledge sharing barriers and suggestions to overcome them. Based on our content analysis of the survey responses and interview transcripts, we identied six barriers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams. Comments reecting these barriers were present in approximately 83 percent of the 200 responses analyzed. An examination of these barriers should provide a realistic preview of the potential potholes on the road ahead for virtual team leaders like Sean Phillips at GlobeCOM. Table 1 summarizes these barriers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams.

Trust is still not high. There is a great deal of insecurity about position and roles on the team. There was a lack of comfort and trust among team members, making cooperation and collaboration difcult at least early on. In newly formed virtual teams, the least risky option for knowledge sharing may be ask not; offer not. However, this minimalist approach to communications reduces opportunities for virtual team members to have useful conversations, identify common interests, and engage in self-disclosure; all important elements in building trust. Virtual teams risk creating destructive cycles, where limited communication slows the development of trust, creating a major barrier to knowledge sharing and TMS development and even more limited communications.

Barrier 2: Time Constraints and Competing Deadline Pressures

Referring to the Glax70 example, an engineer in New Delhi became overwhelmed with work pressures at his local site and failed to share critical information with his virtual teammates. We heard from many virtual team participants that commitment to a virtual project often conicted with on-site responsibilities and deadlines. Time constraints and deadline pressures associated with local projects represent a second major constraint to knowledge sharing within virtual teams. Here are several illustrative comments: Dont underestimate the time it takes to compose and share knowledge virtually. Time is a major issue. No one has a ton of extra time to devote to the virtual team project. The virtual project is only a small part of each of our jobs. Time to stay involved is critical.

Barrier 1: Lack of Trust among Team Members

In the virtual team environment, the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing is inuenced by the levels of trust among team members. Asking for information and sharing information with teammates can be risky. Without the ability to observe reactions of virtual teammates to requests for information, virtual team members may fear that such requests might be seen as indicators of incompetence. Similarly, sharing unsolicited information or knowledge with virtual teammates may be perceived as grandstanding or overloading teammates with unwanted information. Several comments illustrate the importance of establishing trust early in the virtual team development process: Initially there was a lack of comfort, rapport, and trust on our team. At the beginning interpersonal trust was not high. I sensed a high level of insecurity about positions and roles.
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TABLE 1
BARRIER 1. Constraints on building trusting relationships


BARRIERS

TO INFORMATION AND IN

KNOWLEDGE SHARING

VIRTUAL TEAMS
SPECIFIC PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED

 

 

The majority of my team is located in the same ofce; members at remote locations feel left out. Teams that have not met face-to-face and do not feel like a real team. It is difcult to pick up the phone and informally talk with someone when youve never met before face-to-face. The lack of comfort and trust made it difcult to build team rapport across virtual space. Difculty knowing the emotions of others through e-mail. No one is quite sure about the passion of members for particular issues. Team members have limited time and availability to prepare and/or process all of the information they receive. Difculties arise in keeping team members attention. It is so easy to multi-task and get distracted by local, on-site demands. Projects typically represent only a small part of members jobs, so team members lack the sufcient time to devote to virtual team projects. The difculty of following-through and responding in a timely way. Otherwise, you risk non-response being misinterpreted as a lack of commitment or competence. The only way to share written information was through e-mail. A centralized area to store this information would have been benecial. Being on the phone sometimes keeps people from sharing an idea, because they have to interrupt the ow of conversation, and people tend not to like to do that. Electronic communications are not always clear and often require verbal follow-up. It is sometimes difcult to project the proper meaning or intent via e-mail. Time differences make it difcult when working across time zones and work schedules. Technology problems (e.g., data do not cycle through to different servers; les are not delivered due to size limits; data are stored improperly or in a different format). Our team leader had a philosophy that everyone should be able to do anything, so individual talents, backgrounds, and strengths were not typically considered or leveraged. Leaders failed to insure that everyone was on the same page. Team members were biased toward independent action. The designated team captain became unwilling to listen to members suggestions. She became more of a dictator and then did not communicate with us at the end of our project. Lack of management/leadership support for any reection on how we work together. We didnt really know each others strengths or special knowledge unless they volunteered this information when an appropriate task came up. We could have done a better job up front of discussing strengths of each member and expectations in terms of response time. There are varying levels of experience on our team. Sometimes assumptions are made that everyone shares the same background and that we speak from that shared background. Team members were from different countries and had different expectations for how and when work would be completed. Team members from certain cultures were hesitant to share ideas and to provide constructive feedback of others ideas. We had a hard time understanding what some team members were thinking and using their ideas because English was not their rst language. Over time, our team started to leave the non-English speaking members out of discussions, because it was just too hard and too time-consuming to overcome the language barrier.

2. Time constraints and deadline pressures

3. Technology constraints on knowledge sharing

 

4. Team leader constraints on knowledge sharing

5. Failure to develop a transactive memory system

6. Cultural constraints on knowledge sharing

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One the one hand, sharing information takes time. On the other hand, we sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the information passed around the team. Indeed, time pressure becomes a doubleedged sword when it comes to working virtually. On one hand, asynchronous technologies enable team members to work any time, any place, seemingly alleviating time constraints. However, the same technologies can potentially create information overload any time, any place. It takes time to share and absorb knowledge, particularly technical knowledge, from teammates. The amount of cognitive effort that team members are willing and able to spend processing and responding to the information they receive may be limited. Heavy demands from local managers for contributions to local work frequently exacerbate this problem, reducing the time available to share knowledge with and to learn from virtual teammates.

communication. Waiting for clarication wasted a lot of time. Teleconferences were not effective. Team members were reluctant to interrupt others and many good ideas were lost. Videoconferences were even worse. The lag between picture and voice proved distracting. We created a Web site that could have been valuable, but getting our teammates to use it consistently was a challenge. Most people reverted to old habits and sent e-mails with long attachments. Outmoded technology also hinders knowledge sharing in virtual teams. However, our survey and interview ndings suggest that even the most sophisticated virtual team technology will not solve the problem when members lack the commitment to break old communication habits and fail to put the new technology to use.

Barrier 3: Technology Constraints on Knowledge Sharing

Survey and interview data revealed a variety of technology-related barriers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams. In some instances, team members reported inadequate technology for archiving documents or easily accessing information. In other instances, asynchronous communication media proved to be a barrier to problem solving and decision making. And, in still other virtual teams, the unwillingness of team members to exploit existing technology all but paralyzed knowledge sharing. Participant comments illustrate each of these points: Our virtual team technology consisted of e-mail and teleconferences. It would have been useful to have a centralized area to store documents. We had difculty projecting our intended meaning through electronic
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Barrier 4: Team Leader Constraints on Knowledge Sharing

Sean Phillips, Director of the Glax70 virtual team in our opening scenario, recognized the important role leaders must play in leveraging a teams collective expertise. Surprisingly, many of our written comments portrayed some virtual team leaders as more often obstacles to rather than facilitators of knowledge sharing in their virtual teams. In one case, a respondent depicted his virtual team leader as the antithesis of a knowledge sharing role model, hoarding information and discouraging input from team members. Another virtual team participant stated that her virtual team leader enjoyed the power of withholding information from the team. Here is what others had to say: The biggest obstacle to team success was the team captain, who acted like a dictator and made it clear that member input was not valued.

Our team leader was very insecure and never shared anything he didnt have to. The project leader was situated at our corporate headquarters. He acted as if the only good ideas came from corporate. Suggestions about adapting policies to t local cultures were mostly ignored. Rather than share information openly with everyone, our team leader preferred one-on-one conversations with each of us. Information was distributed unevenly, and we were not always on the same page. Leaders of virtual teams must go beyond simply acting as good role models of knowledge sharing in virtual teams. Leaders must also articulate a vision of collaboration, clarify expectations of how each virtual team member will contribute to achieving the vision, and recognize and reward team members for making the effort to share knowledge. Our survey and interview participants were outspoken in their criticism of virtual team leaders who abdicated these critical responsibilities. Our leader never really stated a vision of the ultimate goal for the team. Roles were never really dened and expectations were never set. I saw no leadership support for collaboration. Knowledge sharing was never a priority. We had too much nger pointing and claims that it is not my job. No one was on the same page. Where was the leadership? Our team leader failed to enforce deadlines for sharing information.

duction, and engineering specialists to work together provides virtual teams with the expertise to complete complex assignments, as illustrated by the Glax70 scenario. However, each team member brings to the group more than technical expertise. Some members have a wealth of experience on issues that cross functional boundaries. Other members may have unique insights regarding customer preferences in certain geographical areas. Still other members may have long-standing relationships with certain vendors, critical to expediting the acquisition of important team resources. Team members are likely enmeshed in professional networks connecting them to a range of expertise outside of the virtual team. To function at full potential, however, virtual teams need to develop transactive memory systems enabling team members to tap the expertise, experience, and contacts of their teammates as needed. Yet our survey and interview data indicate that most virtual teams fail to fully exploit the teams collective knowledge. Here are comments that illustrate the lack of fully developed transactive memory systems: Our team leader had the philosophy that everyone should know everything, so individuals talents, backgrounds, and strengths were not well leveraged. I often felt overwhelmed by trying to absorb too much information. We have a large virtual team and have not invested enough time to really get to know each others backgrounds and expertise. We had not worked together before. We had very little knowledge of each others strengths or what special expertise anyone had unless they volunteered it. We had no good maps of what others on the team knew. We could have done a better job up front of identifying each members strengths.
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Barrier 5: Failure to Develop a Transactive Memory System

Creators of virtual teams often strive to maximize functional diversity among team members. Enlisting marketing, nance, pro-

We had quite a bit of expertise and experience from different functional areas, but this was not obvious to us at rst. As these comments illustrate, it is at once overwhelming and inefcient for team members to know every detail of every teamrelated issue. It is equally inefcient and often quite frustrating to expend energy searching for information that might be readily available from a teammate. Worst of all are errors of omission, where virtual teammates fail to communicate critical information that would serve to improve the teams transactive memory. This was illustrated in the opening scenario when a critical customer deadline was missed because vital information did not become part of the teams transactive memory.

I have detected regional rivalries. People tend to protect their own turf by withholding information, particularly from our U.S. headquarters based teammates. Several of our Asian members are reluctant to ask for information when they need it. I think they just dont want to bother their teammates. We are a matrixed team. In some parts of the world virtual team members are intensely loyal to their on-site managers and less committed to the virtual teams success. I understand their situation, but without their prompt input, our team progress slows to a crawl. Cultural differences in communication styles and knowledge sharing norms can fuel tensions and frustrations among virtual team members. In some instances, team members may respond by excluding certain teammates from discussions, opting to work around rather than with culturally diverse others. Maximizing team performance requires that team members nd ways to overcome these differences and establish norms for knowledge sharing that transcend cultural differences.

Barrier 6: Cultural Constraints on Information Sharing

A subset of our interviewees and survey respondents had actively participated in global virtual teams. They offered their insights on how cultural differences often inhibit knowledge sharing. Cultural barriers identied went far beyond the simple misunderstanding of words across languages to include cultural differences in the willingness to seek information from team members, in ways to structure problems, in formally or informally archiving data, and in what constitutes a timely response to a teammates query. Specic examples follow: My U.K. colleagues are very formal and document everything. U.S. team members are much more informal and casual about how they communicate and what they document. My Middle Eastern virtual teammates communicate in a way that their Western teammates perceive to be indirect and circular. Moreover, Im not certain that the word deadline exists in Arabic.
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OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND TMS DEVELOPMENT

Virtual teams, particularly global, crossfunctional virtual teams, are likely to encounter many if not all of these barriers to knowledge sharing. While any one barrier may not represent a major obstacle in the path of team performance, teams encountering multiple barriers to information sharing will nd the journey to success a long and bumpy one. However, forewarned is forearmed. Knowing the challenges ahead, what can be learned from those who have traveled the road before? In our interviews and survey questionnaires, we asked virtual team leaders and virtual team members to share their strategies and best practices for over-

TABLE 2
SOLUTION 1. Leaders as shapers of a psychologically safe team culture

BEST PRACTICE SOLUTIONS FOR OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN VIRTUAL TEAMS
SPECIFIC ACTIONS


Team leader built trust bank accounts for all team members and reminded them when someone did something worth depositing into the bank as good work. Working together face-to-face at least once a month helped to develop trust, and when an e-mail or voicemail tended to be quickly written, the information was not perceived incorrectly. Team leader made sure that everyone had a voice on an issue before moving on. Schedule regular (e.g., weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly) conference calls to ensure team members share information on a regular basis. Set clear objectives with documented due dates on which everyone on the team can agree. If a team member has an idea or can help with a specic objective, encourage the member to make such an offer to the full team. Create a web site where members can post and retrieve information. Provide training on new technologies to ensure that team members are comfortable with and motivated to use those technologies when needed. Monitor e-mail discussions to prevent over-use, particularly when issues become complex and could benet from the use of richer, more sophisticated technologies. Establish agreed-upon rules for participating in the team, including the importance of sharing information and knowledge. Team leaders should model these behaviors. The team leader frequently calls for updates and provides updates of other members work. The team leader ensures that information is shared in a timely manner and encourages conversation. During quarterly visits and monthly conference calls, give everyone the opportunity to speak about his or her own experiences and ideas. Create a spreadsheet or other document with each team members knowledge prole and areas of expertise. To help team members gain knowledge of expertise, ask members for suggestions or support before searching external sources. Send special requests for information to other team members soliciting advice before pursuing external sources for information. Educate team members at the outset regarding possible cultural differences in communication and conict styles among members. If using English-only rules, minimize the use of jargon and colloquialism that might not translate easily. The team leader can talk ofine with subgroups of team members to discuss an issue to insure that all team members fully understand issues and ideas.

2. Overcoming time constraints and deadline pressures 3. Adapt technology to virtual team needs 4. Leaders as knowledge sharing role models

 

5. Building a transactive memory system

6. Overcoming cultural barriers to knowledge sharing

coming the obstacles they have experienced in sharing information in virtual teams. Recommendations in this vein are shown in Table 2.

Solution 1: Leaders as Shapers of a Psychologically Safe Team Culture

Interviewees and survey respondents were clear that virtual team leaders have a responsibility to facilitate knowledge sharing

by creating a team culture in which members feel safe to share ideas, offer constructive criticism, and ask other team members for help when needed. As one respondent put it, Leaders must develop team trust through shared visions, passion for the task, face-toface contact and the like. Perhaps even more important, leaders must create a culture in which members are willing to and even encouraged to admit their mistakes. As we have noted earlier, members of virtual teams likely engage in their own
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personal cost-benet analysis with respect to knowledge sharing. They weigh the costs of looking less competent in the eyes of their teammates when they request help. Similarly, they consider the costs of generating defensiveness and hostility when they criticize teammates ideas or offer their own offthe-wall suggestions. These costs must be balanced against team payoffs, including the potential of making better decisions. Strong virtual team leaders create conditions where virtual team members are able to see the net positive value of knowledge sharing. To reap the payoff of better team performance, leaders have to increase the rewards and reduce the costs (or risks) of their virtual team members sharing knowledge with the team. Creating a team culture of psychological safety begins with reinforcing all forms of knowledge sharing within the team. Acknowledgment of novel ideas, encouragement to ask for help when necessary, and stressing the importance of candid, but constructive criticisms of member contributions are all mechanisms for building a psychologically safe culture. One respondent described how the team leader tracked team member responsiveness how much time elapsed between requests for information and answers to inquiries. The leader made special efforts to reinforce timely responses, particularly when the responses included an offer to provide even more help if needed. Some respondents pointed out the availability of new communication software that facilitated anonymous brainstorming and nominal group decision making, two more mechanisms contributing to team psychological safety. In short, effective virtual team leaders provide their teams with a safe venue for knowledge sharing.

block knowledge sharing in virtual teams. First, they recommended that virtual teams adopt rules governing what information should be shared and the format in which it should be delivered. The goal here is to balance the need for disseminating critical information against the risk of creating information overload for teammates. Several respondents described the value of prioritizing information and labeling documents as either Important and time sensitive, Useful, or merely FYI. Others reported creating special templates and formats so that information recipients could quickly absorb the content and evaluate the relevance of the communication. A second approach to coping with time constraints and local demands focused on virtual team leaders negotiating with on-site managers over the level of time commitment each virtual team member could devote to the virtual team assignment. The goal here was to reduce potential role conicts experienced by members over their multiple responsibilities. Respondents also described various project management software programs that proved useful for anticipating information needs at various project stages. They noted the availability of software that enabled team members to set specic short- and long-term deadlines, identify knowledge and other resources needed at each stage, and track progress against project milestones. Because it takes time to both share and digest knowledge in virtual teams, mechanisms designed to help team members mange time effectively should improve team collaboration.

Solution 3: Adapt Technology to the Virtual Team Needs

The most frequently cited recommendation for helping virtual teams improve knowledge sharing focused on providing the right communication technology. Respondents emphasized the need for identifying technology that was simple, userfriendly, and available to all virtual team

Solution 2: Overcoming Time Constraints and Deadline Pressures

Respondents provided a variety of solutions for coping with the excessive time pressures and local demands that frequently
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members. A variety of knowledge sharing support systems was mentioned, including shared web sites, document repositories, electronic bulletin boards, and meeting management programs to support formal knowledge sharing. In addition, respondents indicated the need for chat rooms to facilitate informal communications around tangential team issues, but also to strengthen social bonds among distantly located teammates. They noted that informal communications provided a valuable opportunity for team members to become familiar with each other on both a professional and personal level, building the foundation for a more substantive transactive memory system.

Solution 5: Building Transactive Memory Systems

By far the most frequently noted recommendation for constructing transactive memory systems focused on the value of face-toface meetings when virtual teams are rst created. Where practical, face-to-face meetings permit team members to learn rst-hand about their teammates backgrounds, experience, and expertise. For example, one virtual team member reported attending a teambuilding session where team members introduced themselves by giving a brief history of their experiences. Later in the meeting, team members also described their professional afliations and links with other external information sources. By the end of the session, virtual team members came away with a good idea about what and who their teammates knew. Respondents described other strategies for creating transactive memory systems even when face-to-face meetings were not possible. Several emphasized the value of circulating electronic directories, including team members pictures and short biographical sketches. Sharing biographical information highlighting team members educational background, past experiences, and special expertise assists each teammate to learn who knows what, contributing to the development of successful transactive memory systems.

Solution 4: Leaders as Knowledge Sharing Role Models

According to our respondents, leaders who are consistently good knowledge sharing role models encourage team members to follow suit. Early in a teams development, leaders need to clarify norms surrounding expectations for and use of knowledge sharing communication technologies, train members in their use, and continually reinforce and reward members who adhere to agreedupon knowledge sharing practices. Respondents noted that while some team members agreed to archive documents and committed to web site postings, these same team members frequently reverted to their old habits of one-on-one e-mails and phone calls. The result of such behavior is that some team members are literally or guratively out of the loop. Accordingly, virtual team leaders need to virtually walk the virtual talk by consistently using the appropriate technology to improve knowledge sharing. Respondents further pointed to the need for leaders to develop communications routines, such as regularly scheduled conference calls, teleconferences or other forms of electronic meetings. They noted that sharing data and experiences according to a planned schedule keeps all virtual team members updated on goals, priorities, and activities vital to successful collaboration.

Solution 6: Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Knowledge Sharing

Building sensitivity to cultural diversity is critical to knowledge sharing in global virtual teams. Many interviewees and survey respondents emphasized that identifying and addressing cultural differences was a gradual, learn as we go process. Respondents offered partial solutions for overcoming a headquarter-centric bias where the opinions of headquarters-based virtual team members (mostly U.S.-based in our sample) were afforded more value than opinions voiced by teammates located elsewhere around the world. One virtual team
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leader described his efforts to visit team member locations at least once a year, and, where possible, originate a virtual meeting from that site. His visits, while largely symbolic, contributed to the perception that inputs from members at every location were highly valued. Several virtual team leaders talked about rotating the starting times of virtual meetings to minimize the inconvenience for members in different time zones. Several leaders emphasized the importance of paying particular attention to national holidays and vacation periods in scheduling virtual meetings. Another leader recommended rotating responsibilities for setting meeting agendas and conducting the meeting among all virtual team members and locations. Each strategy suggests that there are no second-class citizens when it comes to knowledge sharing among members. Another approach to overcoming cultural differences requires that leaders pay particular attention to virtual team members in countries known to have high power distance cultures. Members situated in high power distance cultures believe that leaders are responsible for telling team members what to do, and team members are responsible for undertaking the assignment without substantive questioning of the rationale for the assignment. These members may be reticent to volunteer information to their leader, since they do not see this as a members responsibility. Members in such cultures may be particularly reluctant to challenge the ideas of other virtual teammates even when they have relevant data to support their opinions. According to one respondent, virtual team leaders must also guard against the tell me what you think I want to hear tendencies which appear to be deeply rooted in certain Eastern cultures. In these situations, team leaders must proactively solicit member input. Several virtual team leaders commented on the importance of knowing the communication styles of virtual team members embedded in different cultures, drawing out some members and reining in others.
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Finally, respondents noted that effective knowledge sharing requires virtual team leaders to overcome cultural differences associated with individualism versus collectivism. One interviewee described her experience leading a virtual team with members from Germany, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States. She explained that team members in some cultures spontaneously shared everything, others shared only information specically requested, and still others withheld information from the group when it helped their local operation gain a competitive advantage. Her approach to overcoming cultural differences in knowledge sharing emphasized the teams superordinate goal of providing exceptional customer service. Molding a common team perspective across cultural boundaries, she reported, was an ongoing process.

SUMMARY
Over the past decade, a number of wellknown corporations, such as Alcoa Inc., Northrop-Grumman Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Sabre, Chevron Texaco and many others have invested substantially in the creation of knowledge management systems. The goal of these systems is to organize the corporations collective knowledge, expertise, and experience so that employees may easily access this information as needed. Electronic information databases, communities of practice, and expert directories are some of the components of such corporate knowledge management systems. To work efciently and effectively, virtual teams must develop similar mechanisms within their teams for sharing knowledge and building transactive memory systems. In the fast-paced business environment of the 21st century, virtual teams that waste time and resources searching for information that could be easily accessed will likely lose their competitive advantage. Similarly, virtual teams that make costly mistakes or experience costly delays, such as those described in our

FIGURE 1 A MODEL

OF INFORMATION AND IN

KNOWLEDGE SHARING

VIRTUAL TEAMS

opening scenario, can seriously damage their organizations reputation. Based on our survey and interview data with virtual team leaders and virtual team members, we identied six common barriers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams. We also shared the strategies and best practices our respondents had used to overcome these knowledge sharing barriers. Our goal was to provide guidance to those organizations and their members who are or will be relying on global virtual teams to accomplish important work. To this end, we provide a visual summary of our recommendations for

creating the conditions that facilitate knowledge sharing in virtual teams in Fig. 1. Organizations that best maximize the potential of their virtual teams to share knowledge should reap the benets of making better, faster, and more innovative decisions. Moreover, effective knowledge sharing will also contribute to the quality of the virtual experience, the development and growth of team participants, and the organizational commitment from virtual team leaders and members.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
For a comprehensive review of research relating to virtual teams, see the work of Luis Martins, Lucy Gilson, and Travis Maynard in their article, Virtual Teams: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go from Here, Journal of Management, 2004, 30, 805 836. For background reading about the challenges inherent in virtual teamwork, including knowledge sharing, trust building, and communicating effectively, we recommend Cristina B. Gibson and Susan Cohen (Eds.), Virtual Teams That Work: Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effectiveness (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003). For studies of virtual teamwork at Sabre and several other companies from which some of the data in this article were drawn, see Bradley L. Kirkman, Benson Rosen, Paul E. Tesluk, Cristina B. Gibson, and Simon O. McPherson, Five Challenges to Virtual Team Success: Lessons from Sabre, Inc., Academy of Management Executive, 2002, 16, 6779; Stacie A. Furst, Martha Reeves, Benson Rosen, and Richard S. Blackburn, Managing the Life Cycle of Virtual Teams, Academy of Management Executive, 2004, 18, 620; and Bradley L. Kirkman, Benson Rosen, Paul E. Tesluk, and Cristina B. Gibson, The Impact of Team Empowerment on Virtual Team Performance: The Moderating Role of Face-to-Face Interaction, Academy of Management Journal, 2004, 47, 175192. Issues of task and technology t are described in Likoebe M. Maruping and Rita Agarwal, Managing Team Interpersonal Processes Through Technology: A TaskTechnology Fit Perspective, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2004, 89, 975990. For articles detailing the effects of trust in virtual teams, see Sirkka Jarvenpaa and Dorothy Leidner, Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams, Organizational Science, 1999, 10, 791815 and Sirkka Jarvenpaa, Kathleen Knoll, and Dorothy E. Leider, Is Anybody Out There? Antecedents of Trust in Global Virtual Teams, Journal of Management Information Systems, 1998, 14, 2964. Transactive memory systems have been examined in multiple articles by Andrea B. Hollingshead, including: Perceptions of Expertise and Transactive Memory in Work Relationships. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 2000, 3, 257267; and Cognitive Interdependence and Convergent Expectations in Transactive Memory, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001, 81, 10801089.

Ben Rosen is Hanes Professor of Management at the Kenan-Flagler Business School The University of North Carolina. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Industrial Psychology from Wayne State University. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and member of the Academy of Management and the Society for Human Resources Management (Tel.: +1 919 962 3166; e-mail: Ben_Rosen@unc.edu). Stacie Furst is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Organizational Leadership at the University of Cincinnati. She received a Ph.D. in Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests are in the areas of virtual teams, organizational
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change, and human resource management (Tel.: +1 513 556 0176; e-mail: Stacie.Furst@uc.edu). Richard S. Blackburn is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills KenanFlagler Business School. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include creativity and innovation as well as managing in the virtual environment (Tel.: +1 919 962 3162; e-mail: Dick_Blackburn@unc.edu).

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