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1. In what ways can remote work be a more effective way to work? In what ways is it less ideal? How can those less ideal aspects be addressed or conquered? 2. What technologies have you found useful in your academic work or employment (e.g., social media, e-mail, conference calls, video chats, etc.)? How have they been beneficial? 3. Please share any tips or tricks you have discovered to prepare your home office for working virtually. What helps you to limit distractions and stay engaged at home? 4. What are some challenges of working on virtual teams? What are some effective ways to manage those challenges? Reference video - https://echo360.org/media/07f363fe-da62-4211-a935-f326b9107f79/public / MEETINGS What It Takes to Run a Great Virtual Meeting by Bob Frisch and Cary Greene March 05, 2020 HBR Staff/aristotoo/Getty Images We’ve made our coronavirus coverage free for all readers. To get all of HBR’s content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter. https://hbr.org/topic/meetings https://hbr.org/search?term=bob%20frisch https://hbr.org/search?term=cary%20greene https://hbr.org/insight-center/coronavirus?ab=articlewidget-insightcenter-coronavirus https://hbr.org/email-newsletters?ab=articlewidget-newsletter-coronavirus&movetile=dailyalert / As companies scramble to protect employees from the spreading coronavirus with travel restrictions and remote work arrangements, there’s a distinct possibility that in-person meetings with teams, customers, or suppliers may be canceled for days — or potentially weeks. Under the best of circumstances, as soon as one or two attendees “dial in” to any meeting, productivity starts to suffer.  There’s a long list of reasons. Attendees often interpret virtual meetings as a license to multi-task. Meeting organizers tend to be less careful with the purpose and design of the conversation. And it’s not uncommon for one or two attendees to dominate the discussion while others sit back and “tune out.” But it doesn’t have to be this way. Virtual meetings — even impromptu ones sparked by fears of a contagion — can be run more effectively, using basic meeting best practices and easy-to-use, inexpensive technology. Here are 12 steps you can take to make that happen: 1. Use video. To make people feel like they’re all at the “same” meeting, use video conferencing rather than traditional conference dial-ins. Technology — such as Zoom, Skype, and GoToMeeting — helps to personalize the conversation and to keep participants engaged. 2. That said, always provide an audio dial-in option. Video conferencing can work very well, but it relies on a strong internet connection that may not always be available. People need the ability to participate via audio, but make it clear that video-first is the new norm. 3. Test the technology ahead of time. Nothing kills momentum at the start of a meeting like a 15-minute delay because people need to download software, can’t get the video to work, etc. Prior to a virtual meeting, all participants should test the technology and make / sure they are comfortable with the major features.  And remember, supplier or customer conversations may require your team to familiarize themselves with different software packages. 4. Make sure faces are visible. Video conferences are more effective when people can see each other’s facial expressions and body language. Ask individuals to sit close to their webcam to help to recreate the intimacy of an in-person meeting. 5. Stick to meeting basics. Prior to the conversation, set clear objectives, and send a pre- read if appropriate. During the session, use an agenda, set meeting ground rules, take breaks, and clearly outline next steps (including timing and accountabilities) after each section and at the end of the meeting. 6. Minimize presentation length. The only thing worse than a long presentation in person is a long presentation during a virtual meeting.  Meetings should be discussions. Background information should be provided beforehand. If someone needs to present, use screen sharing to guide the conversation, so attendees can literally “be on the same page.” But prioritize conversation to maximize the time people are looking at each other. 7. Use an icebreaker. Although we’re not big fans of them, it’s important to use every tool to reinforce interpersonal relationships when people may be feeling isolated.  Also, it’s important to know if a participant may have a close friend or relative fighting the virus, so some type of “check in” is in order. 8. Assign a facilitator. It’s usually harder to manage a virtual discussion than an in- person one. It can be helpful to assign one individual to guide the conversation, allowing the other participants to focus on the content. The facilitator can also use a polling system to “take the pulse” of the group on certain questions and ensure that all voices are heard.  The facilitator should also be able to resolve basic questions on the technology being used. / 9. Call on people. Getting everyone to participate without talking over each other is one of the more challenging aspects of running a virtual meeting. To forestall this, we recommend periodically calling on individuals to speak, even by virtually “going around the table” before a decision is finalized. Some software packages even allow attendees to “raise a hand” if they want to. This can help the facilitator drive closure without the risk of excluding an introverted participant’s views. 10. Capture real-time feedback. Gathering and processing high-quality input during a virtual meeting can be challenging, especially since visual cues are harder to read.  Use a phone-based survey tool like Poll Everywhere to collect on-demand feedback from attendees on specific topics in real time. Keep the polling open, separate from the videoconference to avoid disrupting the conversation. Participants will need clear instructions on how to use the system and practices, but groups get the hang of it very quickly and it’s well worth the effort. 11. Don’t be afraid to tackle tough issues. Meeting virtually is a learned behavior, and you’ll be amazed how much you can get out of it once you and your team begin to be comfortable working this way. It may seem natural to wait to discuss tough issues until everyone is in person, but that may not be an option. So don’t shy away from controversial topics. 12. Practice once or twice while you’re still together. Hold your next staff meeting virtually, with each executive sitting in their office and hooking into the meeting with no assistance. After the meeting concludes, gather and debrief about the experience.  What went well, and what didn’t?  How can you evolve your virtual meetings to make them as productive as when you meet in person? Not being able to work together in the same room with colleagues may become a major challenge in the next few weeks. To make virtual meetings work, you might need to adjust how your team conducts them.  But a small investment in preparedness now could have a huge impact if that time comes. / If our free content helps you to contend with these challenges, please consider subscribing to HBR. A subscription purchase is the best way to support the creation of these resources. Bob Frisch is the managing partner of the Strategic Offsites Group, a Boston-based consultancy. He is also the co-author of Simple Sabotage (HarperOne, 2015), the author of Who’s In The Room? (Jossey-Bass, 2012), and four Harvard Business Review articles, including “Off-Sites That Work” (June 2006). Cary Greene is a partner of the Strategic Offsites Group, a Boston-based consultancy, and co-author of Simple Sabotage (HarperOne, 2015) and the Harvard Business Review article “Leadership Summits that Work” (March 2015).  He writes frequently for HBR.org. Related Topics: Managing People This article is about MEETINGS  Follow This Topic Comments Leave a Comment Post Comment 17 COMMENTS Eileen Dowse 16 days ago https://w1.buysub.com/servlet/ConvertibleGateway?cds_mag_code=HVR&cds_page_id=238054&cds_response_key=I91NWEB3&ab=articlewidget-subtout-coronavirus https://hbr.org/search?term=bob%20frisch&search_type=search-all http://strategicoffsites.com/?utm_source=HBR&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=HBR_Blog http://www.simplesabotage.com/ http://whosintheroom.com/ https://hbr.org/2006/06/off-sites-that-work https://hbr.org/search?term=cary%20greene&search_type=search-all http://strategicoffsites.com/?utm_source=HBR&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=HBR_Blog http://www.simplesabotage.com/ https://hbr.org/2015/03/leadership-summits-that-work https://hbr.org/topic/managing-people https://hbr.org/topic/meetings MANAGING COLLABORATION How to Manage Virtual Teams Dispersed teams can actually outperform groups that are colocated. To succeed, however, virtual collaboration must be managed in specific ways. BY FRANK SIEBDRAT, MARTIN HOEGL AND HOLGER ERNST TEAMS ARE THE typical building blocks of an organization: They provide companies with the means to combine the various skills, talents and perspectives of a group of individuals to achieve corporate goals. In the past, managers used to colocate team members because of the high levels of interdependencies that are inherent in group work. Recently, though, more and more companies are beginning to organize projects over distance, with teams increasingly consisting of people who are based in dispersed geographical locations, come from different cultural backgrounds, speak different languages and were raised in different countries with different value systems. Over the past 10 years, various studies have investigated the differences in performance of colo- cated and dispersed teams, quietly assuming that members of the latter never meet in person and members of the former work together in the same office throughout a project. But dispersion is not COURTESY OF SAP SUMMER 200 THE LEADING QUESTION What do managers need to know about virtual teams? FINDINGS 10The overall effect of dispersion (people working at different sites) is not necessarily detrimental but rather depends on a team's task- related processes, including those that help coordi- nate work and ensure that each member is contrib- uting fully. 1,Even small levels of dispersion can substantially affect team performance. 01-When assembling a virtual team, managers should carefully consider the social skills and self-sufficiency of the potential members. 9 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 63 MANAGING COLLABORATION only a matter of degree; it is also a matter of kind. Most teams are dispersed on some level. They can be spatially separated (from "across the hall" to "scat- tered worldwide"), temporally separated (spanning different time zones), configurationally uneven (for example, five members in one location and two in another) and culturally diverse. And as past research has repeatedly shown, even the smallest degrees of dispersion, such as working on different floors in the same building, can greatly affect the quality of collaboration.' In our own study, we have investi- gated the performance of 80 software development teams with varying levels of dispersion, including those with members in different cities, countries or continents. (See "About the Research.") Such geo- graphically distributed teams have commonly been referred to as "virtual" teams, 2 but that label is some- ABOUT THE RESEARCH We studied 80 software development teams from 28 labs worldwide (including labs in Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India and the United States). The labs varied in size (employing between 20 and 5,500 software developers), and each team contained up to nine members. Our research included those software devel- opment projects that were completed within 12 months prior to data collection. A total of 392 managers, team leaders and team members participated in the study, and data from multiple respondents were used to ensure the validity of results and to overcome common method bias. To measure geographic distribution, we used the descriptions provided by team leaders to identify each member's office location. We then calculated a dispersion index taking into account the following factors: (1) miles between team members, (2) time zone difference, (3) number of locations per team, (4) percentage of isolated team members and (5) unevenness of membership across sites. To assess team performance, managers were asked to evaluate the teams with respect to effective- ness (in terms of product quality, reliability, usability, customer satisfaction and so on) and efficiency (in terms of adherence to preset budget and schedule constraints). thing of a misnomer, because these groups are very real with respect to the work they can accomplish. We found that virtual teams offer tremendous op- portunities despite their greater managerial challenges. In fact, with the appropriate processes in place, dispersed teams can significantly outperform their colocated counterparts. The Bright and Dark Sides of Dispersion A team's level of dispersion is neither preordained nor fixed; rather, it is an organizational design pa- rameter that companies can set and adjust. When making such decisions, managers should take into 64 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW SUMMER 2009 consideration the various pluses and minuses of sep- aration. (See "The Pros and Cons of Dispersion.") Not surprisingly, several studies have found that collaboration across distance is more difficult than in a colocated environment. Potential issues include difficulties in communication and coordination, reduced trust, and an increased inability to estab- lish a common ground. In contrast, proximity tends to promote more frequent communication and the development of closer and more positive interper- sonal relationships. Indeed, the regular physical presence of coworkers improves people's feelings of familiarity and fondness, and frequent informal in- teractions serve to strengthen social ties. Conversely, physical distance decreases closeness and affinity, which then leads to a greater potential for conflict. Distance also brings with it other issues, such as team members having to negotiate multiple time zones and requiring them to reorganize their work- days to accommodate others' schedules. In such situations, frustration and confusion can ensue, es- pecially if coworkers are regularly unavailable for discussion or clarification of task-related issues. On the other hand, dispersion potentially has substantial advantages. First, in order to accom- plish increasingly complex activities such as research and development, companies (particu- larly larger ones like IBM, General Electric or SAP) tend to cluster their competencies in different cen- ters of excellence, which are often scattered geographically although part of an international corporate network of operations. SAP Aktienge- sellschaft, for instance, has its global headquarters in Walldorf, Germany, but has built up large R&D centers in India, China, Israel and the United States in order to reduce costs and leverage their global know-how in software engineering. Within each of these competence centers, the depth of expertise tends to be very strong, while the diversity of func- tional backgrounds is relatively weak because of specialization. Managers can take advantage of this organizational structure by assembling employees from different locations in such networks to create a team that can optimally integrate the different pools of expertise to perform a particular task. 3 Second, companies can take advantage of the increased heterogeneity that is inherent in the na- ture of dispersed teams. Virtual teams tend to SLOAN REVIEW. M IT.EDU incorporate higher levels of structural and demo- graphic diversity than do colocated teams, and both types of diversity can be highly beneficial. 4 Structural diversity is a direct consequence of hav- ing team members from multiple locations associated with different business units and re- porting to different managers. Such diversity can be highly valuable for teams, because it exposes members to heterogeneous sources of work expe- rience, feedback and networking opportunities.5 In addition, virtual team members are often di- verse in nationality. Although such diversity may complicate team dynamics, it can also enhance the overall problem-solving capacity of the group by bringing more vantage points to bear on a particu- lar project. 6 Performance of Dispersed vs. ColocatedTeams Most past studies have found that dispersion hurts performance. 7 Often, dispersed teams fail to per- form important processes effectively and are therefore unable to realize their potential. But given the fact that virtual teams have become an increasing reality for many companies, it behooves managers to understand how to maximize the benefits of dispersion while minimizing its disad- vantages. Thus, our research investigated two fundamental questions: (1) When do virtual teams outperform colocated ones? and (2) how should companies manage dispersed teams? To answer these questions, we studied software development teams from 28 different labs in countries includ- ing Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India and the United States. From that broad sur- vey, we found that the key drivers of performance are certain crucial team processes that, for exam- ple, help coordinate work and facilitate communication among members. In fact, we found that virtual teams with such processes can outperform their colocated counterparts, and that was true even for colocated teams with the same high levels of those processes. In general, team processes can be classified into two categories: task-related - including those that help ensure each member is contributing fully; and socio-emotional - including those that increase the cohesion of the group. Our study found that SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU THE PROS AND CONS OF DISPERSION Virtual teams provide a number of benefits but incur certain costs. Companies need to manage them in specific ways that take ad- vantage of the opportunities while minimizing the liabilities. "* Heterogeneous knowledge resources "* Utilization of cost advantages "* Access to diverse skills and experience "* Knowledge about diverse markets "* "Follow the sun" working * Language differencesA• . Cultural incompatibilities •Difficulties establishing"common ground" "* Fewer synchronous face-to-face interactions "* Good teamwork more difficult to achieve those processes that are directly task-related are the most critical for the performance of dispersed teams. Specifically, virtual teams that had processes that increased the levels of mutual support, mem- ber effort, work coordination, balance of member contributions and task-related communications consistently outperformed other teams with lower levels. (See "The Importance of Task-Related Pro- cesses;' p. 67.) Moreover, dispersed teams that had high levels of task-related processes were notably able to outperform colocated teams with similar levels of those same processes despite the physical separation of their members. In other words, the overall effect of dispersion is not necessarily detri- mental but rather depends on the quality of a team's task-related processes. That said, dispersion carries significant risks: Those teams with poor task-related processes suffered heavily with in- creased dispersion. The bottom line is that the quality of task-related processes appears to be a sig- nificant factor in deciding whether dispersion becomes a liability or an opportunity. Beyond task-related processes, organizations must also ensure that team members commit to the overall group goals, identify with the team and ac- tively support a team spirit. In other words, social-emotional processes are important too. Espe- cially in teams with physically dispersed members, interpersonal differences are a greater threat to the team's social stability because of the greater difficulty in resolving conflicts across geographic boundaries. Such difficulties can, in turn, demotivate members from contributing fully, thus jeopardizing team SUMMER 2009 MITSLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 65 MANAGING COLLABORATION performance. Social processes that increase team cohesion, identification and informal communica- tion can prevent that by helping to establish and maintain interpersonal bonds that enable a group to better cope with conflicts. In our study, we found that social processes were able to boost the perfor- mance of virtual as well as colocated teams. We had no indication, however, that virtual teams with favorable socio-emotional processes outperformed colocated teams with similar levels of the same pro- cesses. Our belief is that, although socio-emotional processes were not a differentiating factor, they likely facilitated more task-related processes (and hence indirectly enhanced the performance of virtual teams) through, for instance, increased knowledge transfer and better resolution of team conflicts. The Dos and Don'ts of Managing Dispersion To boost the performance of its teams, a company needs to implement the appropriate mechanisms for boosting both socio-emotional and task-related processes. Particularly for virtual teams, managers need to pay special attention to task-related pro- cesses that will capitalize on the specialized knowledge and expertise of such groups. The fol- lowing key lessons can help companies maximize the performance of their virtual teams: SMALL DISTANCES MATTER In general, team performance tends to drop with increasing member dispersion. But sometimes even a low level of dispersion (namely, members working on different floors in the same building) can have a surprisingly large effect, especially with respect to a team's efficiency. High Effectiveness Team Performance Efficiencv Low Same Same Same Same Same Same Different Floor Building Site City Country Continent Continent Dispersion Don't underestimate the significance of small distances. Our research shows that performance is noticeably lower for teams with people located in the same building but on different floors when compared with teams where all members are on the same floor. (See "Small Distances Matter.") This was true regarding both effectiveness (that is, the quality of team output) and efficiency (in terms of time and cost). Interestingly, teams with members in the same building but on different floors also performed worse than teams with greater degrees of dispersion, including those that had members spread across a city, country or even continent. In fact, the only teams that fared worse were the inter- continental teams, with a significantly higher level of intercultural diversity and temporal dispersion (spanning many time zones). At first glance, those results might seem odd, but consider. Teams with members in the same building, albeit on different floors, do not usually consider themselves as being dispersed and, hence, may easily underestimate the barriers to collaboration deriving from, for instance, having to climb a flight of stairs to meet a teammate face to face. In contrast, groups that are dispersed across a country or continent are more aware of their situation and may make extra efforts to improve such vital processes as task-related com- munication and coordination. One manager of a leading worldwide software company in our study stated that team leaders regularly underestimate the significance of small distances. They tend to treat team members located on different floors or in an adjacent building as being in direct proximity, failing to acknowledge the negative effects of even such comparatively small distances. A team leader from the same company commented that some- times "colocated" teams spread across his laboratory use electronic communication technologies such as e-mail, telephone and voicemail just as much as globally dispersed teams do - a sign that people might be allowing short physical distances to become larger obstacles than they should. To prevent that from happening, companies such as Cisco Systems, BMW and Corning have designed their office lay- outs to maximize interpersonal interactions. At Cisco Systems Inc:s sites in Germany, for example, only three people have their own individual offices. All of the other 850 employees work in an open-space SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU 66 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW SUMMER2009 environment that provides ample opportunities for "hall talks" and other informal interactions. Emphasize teamwork skills. Clearly, one of the key reasons for organizing a dispersed team is to draw on the superior knowledge that resides in remote lo- cations. But many companies make the mistake of staffing such teams primarily (if not solely) on the basis of people's expertise and availability. Instead, managers must also consider social skills - a major prerequisite for good teamwork - as a much more pivotal part of the catalog of requirements. In other words, it's unrealistic to bring together individuals from different locations with the expectation that they will automatically know how to collaborate in a virtual environment. Groups with increasing levels of dispersion are also progressively more dependent on their level of teamwork, specifically, their ability to perform key processes such as mutual support, com- munication and coordination. In order for virtual teams to achieve their greater potential (and take ad- vantage of their functional and structural diversity), members must first and foremost be able to establish a basis for the effective exchange of their varying ca- pabilities - all of which requires teamwork-related skills as a critical ingredient. Otherwise, the virtual team could very likely perform worse than a colo- cated group. Thus, managers need to consider teamwork skills as a necessary attribute when select- ing the members of a virtual team. Promote self-leadership across the team. Be- yond social skills, managers need to ensure that dispersed teams have broad-based leadership capa- bilities. When a group is closely colocated, an individual leader can more easily detect any defi- ciencies in teamwork and address them with a hands-on managerial style. An interpersonal con- flict, for example, might be resolved by talking in person with the different parties in an informal set- ting. Such an approach is largely nonexistent in virtual teams. Geographic dispersion and cultural diversity make it difficult for any individual leader to ensure that the team is functioning effectively. Even though the advanced use of the latest informa- tion and communications technologies can help, they are no magical panacea for managing people across countries and time zones. "We are often not SLOAN RE VIEW.MIT. EDU THE IMPORTANCE OF TASK-RELATED PROCESSES Teams with a high level of task-related processes (such as those that help ensure each member is contributing fully) outperform teams with a low level. The difference becomes particularly acute the more dispersed the team is. Moreover, virtual teams with high levels of task processes are able to outperform colocated teams with similar levels of those same processes despite the physical separation of their members. That is, the overall effect of dispersion can be beneficial, de- pending on the quality of a team's task-related processes. Task Processes High A Hg Team Performance Task Processes Low Low Low (e.g., Same Floor) Dispersion High (e.g., Different Continent) able to overcome the cultural problems,' admits one team leader in the study. "And onlyvery experienced team leaders can handle these challenges and lead these teams to success." For a virtual team to suc- ceed, members generally need to be aware of the difficulties of dispersed collaboration and find ef- fective ways to overcome those obstacles on their own. This highlights the need for people to be more self-sufficient in how they manage their own work because the team leader is less in a position to help. Consequently, companies that are serious about vir- tual collaboration must target their HR efforts not only at designated team leaders but also at team members so that those individuals can develop the skills necessary to work in a virtual setting. Provide for face-to-face meetings. Periodic face- to-face meetings of dispersed team members can be particularly effective for initiating and main- taining key social processes that will encourage informal communication, team identification and cohesion. A project kick-off meeting, for example, can be used to bring everyone together in one loca- tion for several days so that people can develop a shared understanding of the task at hand and begin to identify with the team. These processes, in turn, SUMMER 2009 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 67 MANAGING COLLABORATION will support task collaboration during the project. The time and expense necessary to provide such opportunities for face-to-face interactions then be- come an investment that can lead to large returns if the virtual team is able to take full advantage of its diverse expertise and heterogeneity. Companies should also remember that informal interactions can be just as important as formal ones - if not more so. One experienced team leader in the study, for instance, asserted that projects should include one essential initial step: "to go out for a beer with all team members in order to establish a common ground before starting the collaboration." Foster a "global culture." Our research suggests that a global mind-set, in which people see themselves as part of an international network, helps provide an environment that is conducive to dispersed teams. Accordingly, managers and team members need to recognize and frame their company as such, commu- nicating the international nature of the organization's operations and markets. Various human resource strategies can help foster that mind-set, including temporary staff assignments at foreign locations and inter-cultural training. Nestl6, General Electric, IBM and SAP - all known for the global reach of their business activities - provide good examples of how to actively foster a global employee mind-set. Manag- ers at Nestl S.A., for instance, are expected to move to another country every three or four years so that they can learn about the specifics of each of those markets and develop a global mind-set from their experiences. Such practices advance the develop- ment of diversity-friendly attitudes and the ability to work in different contexts, which in turn help employees cope with the challenges of distance when working on virtual teams. At General Electric Co., a steering committee oversees the company's global R&D efforts, and employees are assigned to different locations worldwide in order to facilitate the development of an informal network across all four main R&D sites in the United States, China, Germany and India. CONVENTIONAL WISDOM SUGGESTS that the per- formance of teams suffers with increasing levels of dispersion. Because of that, managers have typi- cally viewed dispersion as a liability rather than an 68 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW SUMMER 2009 opportunity. But dispersion can provide substan- tial benefits if companies can take advantage of the diversity and varied expertise of team members at different locations. In fact, our research shows that virtual teams can outperform their colocated coun- terparts when they are set up and managed in the right way. In other words, a company can't just as- semble a dispersed team of top-notch talent and hope for the best; it also needs to ensure that the group has the necessary socio-emotional and task- related processes in place. Only then can virtual teams effectively integrate dispersed knowledge to take advantage of their cultural and structural di- versity, thereby avoiding some of the drawbacks of dispersion while reaping its benefits. Frank Siebdrat is a consultant at the Boston Consult- ing Group in Munich, Germany. Martin Hoegl is a professor and holds the Chair of Leadership and Human Resource Management at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Ger- many. Holger Ernst is a professor and holds the Chair of Technology and Innovation Management at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management. Comment on this article or contact the authors at [email protected] REFERENCES 1. See, for example, T.J. Allen, "Managing the Flow of Technology" (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1977). 2. J. Santos, Y. Doz and P. Williamson, "Is Your Innovation Process Global?" MIT Sloan Management Review, 45 (summer 2004): 31-37. 3. S.D. Eppinger and A.R. Chitkara, "The New Practice of Global Product Development," MIT Sloan Management Review 47 (summer 2006): 22-30. 4. J.N. Cummings, "Work Groups, Structural Diversity and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization," Man- agement Science 50, issue 3 (2004): 352-364; and D. van Knippenberg and M.C. Schippers, "Work Group Diver- sity," Annual Review of Psychology 58 (2007): 515-541. 5. J.N. Cummings, "Work Groups," Management Sci- ence 50, no. 3 (2004): 352-364. 6. D.C. Hambrick, S.C. Davison, S.A. Snell and C.C. Snow, "When Groups Consist of Multiple Nationalities: Towards a New Understanding of the Implications," Organization Studies 19, no. 2 (1998): 181-205. 7. M. Hoegl and L. Proserpio, "Team Member Proximity and Teamwork in Innovative Projects," Research Policy 33, no. 8 (2004 ): 1153-1165. Reprint 50412. For ordering information, seepage 8. Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. All rights reserved. SLOAN REVIEW.MIT.EDU COPYRIGHT INFORMATION TITLE: How to Manage Virtual Teams SOURCE: MIT Sloan Manage Rev 50 no4 Summ 2009 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://mitsloan.mit.edu/smr/