Critical Success Factors in Managing Virtual Teams: Framework and Relationships

The corporate world is changing from boardroom meetings and group gatherings to a virtual team world. Mobile employees who work from home or a remote office are becoming more common. More and more companies are adopting virtual teams because they bring many advantages to organizations and their employees. However, virtual teams carry additional complexity and increase risk of unsuccessful projects in terms of reaching their goals. This paper defines virtual teams, discusses their advantages and challenges, and identifies several success factors to manage virtual teams. These factors are aggregated using a fourdimensional framework. This paper discusses factors from the structural, cognitive, relational, and technological dimensions of the framework and the relationships between them. Finally, relationships between some factors of the four dimensions and performance of virtual teams are analyzed.