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Overcoming Barriers to
Knowledge Sharing in
Virtual Teams
§
BENSON ROSEN STACIE FURST RICHARD BLACKBURN
GlobeCOM, a leading developer of telecommuni-
cation support systems, is headquartered in New
York with major offices in Brussels and Singapore
and satellite operations in over 100 other coun-
tries. 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 five
continents.
GlobeCOM’s Glax70 virtual team coordi-
nates 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, Chi-
cago, Singapore, Barcelona, and Brussels, a finance
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 commu-
nicate 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.
To better serve their customers, the Glax70
team works under tight deadlines. For the team to
succeed, team members must develop high levels
of confidence 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
team’s 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 attribu-
tions about other virtual team members’ motiva-
tions can have serious and long lasting
consequences for the team’s performance.
When the Glax70 team was first created, team
members faced a steep learning curve when it came
to identifying each others’ special expertise. Know-
ing a teammate’s background and functional
experience was a good start, but finding 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 calculat-
ing 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 office was charged
with leading the Glax70 team. Sean’s extensive
project management experience made him the
Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 259–273, 2007 ISSN 0090-2616/$ – see frontmatter
ß2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2007.04.007
www.organizational-dynamics.com
§
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.
259
logical choice. However, Sean had only limited
experience with leading a virtual team. A recent
incident highlighted for Sean the unique chal-
lenges 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 GlobeCom’s international reputation
and jeopardized a major account. Detective work
by Sean Phillips revealed that Tal Roth, an engi-
neer based in Tel Aviv had encountered a compat-
ibility problem between the customer’s software
and the Glax70 satellite configuration. Tal
worked frantically to resolve the incompatibility
and sent a detailed e-mail to his teammates for
guidance and assistance. Despite Tal’s heroic
efforts to resolve the system’s 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 incompat-
ibilities 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 team’s 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 informa-
tion 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 hap-
pen magically. Coordination and communica-
tions 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 cer-
tain 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 first objective must be to
build trusting work relationships among team
members so that they will freely share their knowl-
edge, leverage the team’s collective expertise,
anticipate each other’s actions, and feel confident
that all of the team members are making sub-
stantive contributions to Glax70’s success.
INTRODUCTION
While the Glax70 case is fictitious, it does
reflect a composite of information we gath-
ered 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 out-
standing customer service. But, as the case
highlights, virtual teams are particularly vul-
nerable to mistrust, communication break-
downs, conflicts, 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 indivi-
dual and collective knowledge, such as estab-
lishing trust, communicating clearly, and
resolving conflicts openly.
KNOWLEDGE SHARING
All teams, and virtual teams in particular,
must develop mechanisms for sharing knowl-
edge, experiences, and insights critical for
accomplishing their missions. Knowledge
sharing includes the dissemination of existing
knowledge among team members and bring-
ing 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 cap-
abilities. However, the key elements in knowl-
edge 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
260 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
to virtual team effectiveness by promoting
more efficient use of team resources while
reducing implementation errors. Virtual
teams proficient at knowledge sharing
should expect increased cohesion, satisfac-
tion, and motivation among team members.
There are potential risks to team members
for sharing knowledge. For instance, there is
the possibility of providing incorrect knowl-
edge and suffering the embarrassment and/
or subsequent loss of credibility among one’s
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 find that virtual teammates
fail to reciprocate. Effective knowledge shar-
ing in virtual teams requires both motivated
team members and user-friendly knowledge
dissemination mechanisms.
TRANSACTIVE MEMORY
SYSTEMS
A potential advantage of virtual teams is
their ability to digitally or electronically unite
experts in highly specialized fields 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 exper-
tise than teams unable to share such knowl-
edge. 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 collec-
tive team knowledge that individual team
members have developed or acquired,
encoded, stored and can retrieve and that
is potentially valuable to the team. A team’s
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 efficiently by sharing the division
of cognitive labor. In particular, as team mem-
bers 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 knowl-
edge 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
efficiently and productively. Thus, it is impor-
tant 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 vir-
tual teams conducted over the past several
years. Specifically, 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 tran-
scripts from each of these sources to identify
comments pertaining specifically to the chal-
lenges 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 com-
prehensive study of virtual teams supported
by a grant from the Society for Human
261
Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation.
Two of these surveys involved SHRM mem-
bers 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 pro-
gram.
From these sources, we identified and
categorized over 200 written responses per-
taining to knowledge sharing barriers and
suggestions to overcome them. Based on our
content analysis of the survey responses and
interview transcripts, we identified six bar-
riers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams.
Comments reflecting these barriers were pre-
sent 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 bar-
riers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams.
Barrier 1: Lack of Trust among
Team Members
In the virtual team environment, the quan-
tity and quality of knowledge sharing is influ-
enced 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 incom-
petence. Similarly, sharing unsolicited infor-
mation or knowledge with virtual teammates
may be perceived as grandstanding or
overloading teammates with unwanted infor-
mation. 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 inse-
curity about positions and roles.
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 coopera-
tion and collaboration difficult – at least
early on.
In newly formed virtual teams, the least
risky option for knowledge sharing may be
‘‘ask not; offer not.’’ However, this minim-
alist 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 develop-
ment 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 engi-
neer 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 conflicted with
on-site responsibilities and deadlines. Time
constraints and deadline pressures asso-
ciated with local projects represent a second
major constraint to knowledge sharing
within virtual teams. Here are several illus-
trative comments:
Don’t 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.
262 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
263
TABLE 1BARRIERS TO INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE SHARING
IN VIRTUAL TEAMS
BARRIER SPECIFIC PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED
1. Constraints
on building
trusting
relationships
The majority of my team is located in the same office; 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 difficult to pick up the phone and informally talk with someone when you’ve
never met before face-to-face.
The lack of comfort and trust made it difficult to build team rapport across virtual space.
Difficulty knowing the emotions of others through e-mail. No one is quite sure about
the passion of members for particular issues.
2. Time
constraints
and deadline
pressures
Team members have limited time and availability to prepare and/or process all of the
information they receive.
Difficulties 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 sufficient time to devote to virtual team projects.
The difficulty of following-through and responding in a timely way. Otherwise,
you risk non-response being misinterpreted as a lack of commitment or competence.
3. Technology
constraints on
knowledge
sharing
The only way to share written information was through e-mail. A centralized area to
store this information would have been beneficial.
Being on the phone sometimes keeps people from sharing an idea, because they
have to interrupt the flow 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 difficult to project the proper meaning or intent via e-mail.
Time differences make it difficult when working across time zones and work schedules.
Technology problems (e.g., data do not cycle through to different servers; files are
not delivered due to size limits; data are stored improperly or in a different format).
4. Team leader
constraints on
knowledge
sharing
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 reflection on how we work together.
5. Failure to
develop a
transactive
memory
system
We didn’t really know each other’s 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.
6. Cultural
constraints
on knowledge
sharing
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 first 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.
One the one hand, sharing information
takes time. On the other hand, we some-
times feel overwhelmed by all the infor-
mation passed around the team.
Indeed, time pressure becomes a double-
edged sword when it comes to working
virtually. On one hand, asynchronous tech-
nologies 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 mem-
bers are willing and able to spend proces-
sing and responding to the information they
receive may be limited. Heavy demands
from local managers for contributions to
local work frequently exacerbate this pro-
blem, reducing the time available to share
knowledge with and to learn from virtual
teammates.
Barrier 3: Technology
Constraints on Knowledge
Sharing
Survey and interview data revealed a vari-
ety of technology-related barriers to knowl-
edge sharing in virtual teams. In some
instances, team membersreported 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 knowl-
edge 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 difficulty projecting our
intended meaning through electronic
communication. Waiting for clarifica-
tion 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 team-
mates to use it consistently was a chal-
lenge. Most people reverted to old habits
and sent e-mails with long attachments.
Outmoded technology also hinders
knowledge sharing in virtual teams. How-
ever, our survey and interview findings sug-
gest 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 4: Team Leader
Constraints on Knowledge
Sharing
Sean Phillips, Director of the Glax70 vir-
tual team in our opening scenario, recog-
nized the important role leaders must play
in leveraging a team’s 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 dic-
tator and made it clear that member
input was not valued.
264 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
Our team leader was very insecure and
never shared anything he didn’t 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
fit 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 knowl-
edge sharing in virtual teams. Leaders must
also articulate a vision of collaboration, clarify
expectations of how each virtual team mem-
ber will contribute to achieving the vision, and
recognize and reward team members for mak-
ing 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 defined and expectations
were never set.
I saw no leadership support for colla-
boration. Knowledge sharing was never
a priority.
We had too much finger 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 dead-
lines for sharing information.
Barrier 5: Failure to Develop a
Transactive Memory System
Creators of virtual teams often strive to
maximize functional diversity among team
members. Enlisting marketing, finance, pro-
duction, and engineering specialists to work
together provides virtual teams with the
expertise to complete complex assignments,
as illustrated by the Glax70 scenario. How-
ever, each team member brings to the group
more than technical expertise. Some mem-
bers have a wealth of experience on issues
that cross functional boundaries. Other
members may have unique insights regard-
ing customer preferences in certain geogra-
phical areas. Still other members may have
long-standing relationships with certain ven-
dors, critical to expediting the acquisition of
important team resources. Team members
are likely enmeshed in professional networks
connecting them to a range of expertise out-
side 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 team’s 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
individual’s 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 other’s backgrounds and
expertise.
We had not worked together before. We
had very little knowledge of each other’s
strengths or what special expertise any-
one 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 member’s strengths.
265
We had quite a bit of expertise and
experience from different functional
areas, but this was not obvious to us
at first.
As these comments illustrate, it is at once
overwhelming and inefficient for team mem-
bers to know every detail of every team-
related issue. It is equally inefficient and
often quite frustrating to expend energy
searching for information that might be read-
ily available from a teammate. Worst of all
are errors of omission, where virtual team-
mates fail to communicate critical informa-
tion that would serve to improve the team’s
transactive memory. This was illustrated in
the opening scenario when a critical custo-
mer deadline was missed because vital infor-
mation did not become part of the team’s
transactive memory.
Barrier 6: Cultural Constraints
on Information Sharing
A subset of our interviewees and survey
respondents had actively participated in glo-
bal virtual teams. They offered their insights
on how cultural differences often inhibit
knowledge sharing. Cultural barriers identi-
fied went far beyond the simple misunder-
standing of words across languages to
include cultural differences in the willing-
ness to seek information from team mem-
bers, in ways to structure problems, in
formally or informally archiving data, and
in what constitutes a timely response to a
teammate’s query. Specific examples follow:
My U.K. colleagues are very formal and
document everything. U.S. team mem-
bers 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 Wes-
tern teammates perceive to be indirect
and circular. Moreover, I’m not certain
that the word ‘‘deadline’’ exists in
Arabic.
I have detected regional rivalries. People
tend to protect their own turf by with-
holding information, particularly from
our U.S. headquarters based teammates.
Several of our Asian members are reluc-
tant to ask for information when they
need it. I think they just don’t want to
bother their teammates. We are a
matrixed team. In some parts of the
world virtual team members are inten-
sely loyal to their on-site managers and
less committed to the virtual team’s
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 team-
mates from discussions, opting to ‘‘work
around’’ rather than with culturally diverse
others. Maximizing team performance
requires that team members find ways to
overcome these differences and establish
norms for knowledge sharing that transcend
cultural differences.
OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO
KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND
TMS DEVELOPMENT
Virtual teams, particularly global, cross-
functional virtual teams, are likely to encoun-
ter many if not all of these barriers to knowl-
edge 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 find
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 sur-
vey questionnaires, we asked virtual team
leaders and virtual team members to share
their strategies and ‘‘best practices’’ for over-
266 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
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-to-
face 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
267
TABLE 2 ‘‘BEST PRACTICE’’ SOLUTIONS FOR OVERCOMING BARRIERS
TO KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN VIRTUAL TEAMS
SOLUTION SPECIFIC ACTIONS
1. Leaders as
shapers of a
psychologically
safe team culture
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.
2. Overcoming
time constraints
and deadline
pressures
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 specific objective,
encourage the member to make such an offer to the full team.
3. Adapt
technology
to virtual
team needs
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 benefit from the use of richer, more sophisticated technologies.
4. Leaders as
knowledge
sharing role
models
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.
5. Building a
transactive
memory
system
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 member’s knowledge
profile 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.
6. Overcoming
cultural
barriers to
knowledge
sharing
Educate team members at the outset regarding possible cultural differences
in communication and conflict 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 offline with subgroups of team members to
discuss an issue to insure that all team members fully understand issues and ideas.
personal cost-benefit analysis with respect to
knowledge sharing. They weigh the costs of
looking less competent in the eyes of their
teammates when they request help. Simi-
larly, they consider the costs of generating
defensiveness and hostility when they criti-
cize teammates’ ideas or offer their own ‘‘off-
the-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 perfor-
mance, 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 psycholo-
gical safety begins with reinforcing all forms
of knowledge sharing within the team.
Acknowledgment of novel ideas, encour-
agement to ask for help when necessary,
and stressing the importance of candid,
but constructive criticisms of member con-
tributions are all mechanisms for building a
psychologically safe culture. One respon-
dent described how the team leader tracked
team member responsiveness – how much
time elapsed between requests for informa-
tion 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 avail-
ability of new communication software that
facilitated anonymous brainstorming and
nominal group decision making, two more
mechanisms contributing to team psycholo-
gical safety. In short, effective virtual team
leaders provide their teams with a safe venue
for knowledge sharing.
Solution 2: Overcoming Time
Constraints and Deadline
Pressures
Respondents provided a variety of solu-
tions for coping with the excessive time pres-
sures and local demands that frequently
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 infor-
mation overload for teammates. Several
respondents described the value of prioritiz-
ing information and labeling documents as
either ‘‘Important and time sensitive,’’ ‘‘Use-
ful,’’ or merely ‘‘FYI.’’ Others reported creat-
ing 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 conflicts experi-
enced by members over their multiple
responsibilities.
Respondents also described various pro-
ject 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 specific short- and
long-term deadlines, identify knowledge
and other resources needed at each stage,
and track progress against project mile-
stones. Because it takes time to both share
and digest knowledge in virtual teams,
mechanisms designed to help team mem-
bers mange time effectively should improve
team collaboration.
Solution 3: Adapt Technology to
the Virtual Team Needs
The most frequently cited recommenda-
tion for helping virtual teams improve
knowledge sharing focused on providing
the ‘‘right’’ communication technology.
Respondents emphasized the need for iden-
tifying technology that was simple, user-
friendly, and available to all virtual team
268 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
members. A variety of knowledge sharing
support systems was mentioned, including
shared web sites, document repositories,
electronic bulletin boards, and meeting man-
agement programs to support formal knowl-
edge sharing. In addition, respondents
indicated the need for ‘‘chat rooms’’ to facil-
itate informal communications around tan-
gential team issues, but also to strengthen
social bonds among distantly located team-
mates. They noted that informal communi-
cations 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 4: Leaders as
Knowledge Sharing Role Models
According to our respondents, leaders
who are consistently good knowledge shar-
ing role models encourage team members to
follow suit. Early in a team’s development,
leaders need to clarify norms surrounding
expectations for and use of knowledge shar-
ing communication technologies, train mem-
bers in their use, and continually reinforce
and reward members who adhere to agreed-
upon knowledge sharing practices. Respon-
dents noted that while some team members
agreed to archive documents and committed
to web site postings, these same team mem-
bers 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 figuratively ‘‘out
of the loop.’’ Accordingly, virtual team lea-
ders need to ‘‘virtually walk the virtual talk’’
by consistently using the appropriate tech-
nology to improve knowledge sharing.
Respondents further pointed to the need
for leaders to develop communications rou-
tines, such as regularly scheduled conference
calls, teleconferences or other forms of elec-
tronic meetings. They noted that sharing data
and experiences according to a planned sche-
dule keeps all virtual team members updated
on goals, priorities, and activities vital to
successful collaboration.
Solution 5: Building Transactive
Memory Systems
By far the most frequently noted recom-
mendation for constructing transactive mem-
ory systems focused on the value of face-to-
face meetings when virtual teams are first
created. Where practical, face-to-face meet-
ings permit team members to learn first-hand
about their teammates’ backgrounds, experi-
ence, and expertise. For example, one virtual
team member reported attending a team-
building session where team members intro-
duced themselves by giving a brief history of
their experiences. Later in the meeting, team
members also described their professional
affiliations and links with other external infor-
mation 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 mem-
bers’ pictures and short biographical sketches.
Sharing biographical information highlight-
ing 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 6: Overcoming Cultural
Barriers to Knowledge Sharing
Building sensitivity to cultural diversity
is critical to knowledge sharing in global
virtual teams. Many interviewees and sur-
vey respondents emphasized that identify-
ing 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 else-
wherearoundtheworld.Onevirtualteam
269
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 percep-
tion that inputs from members at every
location were highly valued. Several virtual
team leaders talked about rotating the start-
ing 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 mem-
bers 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 particu-
lar attention to virtual team members in
countries known to have high power dis-
tance cultures. Members situated in high
power distance cultures believe that leaders
are responsible for telling team members
what to do, and team members are respon-
sible for undertaking the assignment without
substantive questioning of the rationale for
the assignment. These members may be reti-
cent to volunteer information to their leader,
since they do not see this as a member’s
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 situa-
tions, 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.
Finally, respondents noted that effective
knowledge sharing requires virtual team
leaders to overcome cultural differences
associated with individualism versus collec-
tivism. One interviewee described her
experience leading a virtual team with mem-
bers from Germany, Portugal, Great Britain,
France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United
States. She explained that team members in
some cultures spontaneously shared every-
thing, others shared only information speci-
fically requested, and still others withheld
information from the group when it helped
their local operation gain a competitive
advantage. Her approach to overcoming cul-
tural differences in knowledge sharing
emphasized the team’s 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 well-
known 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 corporation’s
collective knowledge, expertise, and experi-
ence so that employees may easily access this
information as needed. Electronic information
databases, communities of practice, and
‘‘expert’’ directories are some of the compo-
nents of such corporate knowledge manage-
ment systems.
To work efficiently 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
270 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
opening scenario, can seriously damage their
organization’s reputation.
Based on our survey and interview data
with virtual team leaders and virtual team
members, we identified six common barriers
to knowledge sharing in virtual teams. We
also shared the strategies and ‘‘best prac-
tices’’ our respondents had used to overcome
these knowledge sharing barriers. Our goal
was to provide guidance to those organiza-
tions 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 knowl-
edge sharing in virtual teams in Fig. 1.
Organizations that best maximize the
potential of their virtualteams to share knowl-
edge should reap the benefits of making bet-
ter, 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.
271
FIGURE 1AMODEL OF INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE SHARING
IN VIRTUAL TEAMS
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
For a comprehensive review of research
relating to virtual teams, see the work of
Luis Martins, Lucy Gilson, and Travis May-
nard 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 build-
ing, and communicating effectively, we
recommend Cristina B. Gibson and Susan
Cohen (Eds.), Virtual Teams That Work:
Creating Conditions for Virtual Team Effective-
ness (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, 67–79; Stacie A. Furst, Martha
Reeves, Benson Rosen, and Richard S.
Blackburn, ‘‘Managing the Life Cycle of
Virtual Teams,’’ Academy of Management
Executive, 2004, 18, 6–20; 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 Man-
agement Journal, 2004, 47, 175–192. Issues of
task and technology fit are described in
Likoebe M. Maruping and Rita Agarwal,
‘‘Managing Team Interpersonal Processes
Through Technology: A Task–Technology
Fit Perspective,’’ Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy, 2004, 89, 975–990. For articles detailing
the effects of trust in virtual teams, see
Sirkka Jarvenpaa and Dorothy Leidner,
‘‘Communication and Trust in Global Vir-
tual Teams,’’ Organizational Science, 1999,
10, 791–815 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, 29–64. Trans-
active memory systems have been exam-
ined in multiple articles by Andrea B.
Hollingshead, including: ‘‘Perceptions of
Expertise and Transactive Memory in Work
Relationships.’’ Group Processes and Inter-
group Relations, 2000, 3, 257–267; and ‘‘Cog-
nitive Interdependence and Convergent
Expectations in Transactive Memory,’’ Jour-
nal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001,
81, 1080–1089.
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
272 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
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 Hill’s Kenan-
Flagler 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).
273
