A conceptual framework for coordination in global virtual teams

Global Virtual Teams (GVT) are proliferating in today's work environment While team diversity and space-time dispersion in GVT allow a range of benefits, they can also pose coordination challenges. However, the study of coordination in GVT has received little attention. This paper develops a framework of GVT coordination by conceptually studying the effect of GVT structure on different types of coordination and the impact of coordination on GVT outcomes. It describes the types of coordination that are required to manage specific GVT structures. Certain forms of coordination e.g., structural coordination and language and culture coordination, are required for specific types of task interdependencies. Team member characteristics bring into play different types of coordination e.g., language and culture coordination, role coordination, relational coordination, and temporal coordination. Collaborative technology accessibility characteristics can affect media coordination. Our conceptual framework also shows the interrelationships among different types of GVT coordination. Two important higher level forms of coordination i.e., task coordination and relational coordination, are likely to affect task-related outcomes and team-related outcomes respectively. The framework can provide a basis for future empirical studies on GVT coordination.