Leaders of virtual teams often talk about having to deal with cultural challenges in their teams. Yet, they have been offered little to help them think systematically about how to adjust their leadership when dealing with such challenges. Things are beginning to change, however. During the recently held International Conference on Information Systems in Montreal, I had the pleasure of meeting Ravi Narayanaswamy, a promising young doctoral student from Clemson University doing research on culture in virtual teams. Ravi is looking at how the culture of team members influences the control mechanisms that virtual team leaders should implement.

In my last post, I talked about outcome and behavior controls. Outcome control is achieved by measuring and regulating the outcomes sought whereas behavior control relies on specifying the procedures or processes to be followed by those working on a project. Outcome and behavior controls are formal controls because of their mechanistic nature. You must be thinking that if there are controls that are formal, then there must be controls that are informal. Well, you are correct about that. Informal controls rely on interpersonal and self-regulating dynamics to control behavior and, depending on what is being controlled, they may be called as clan or self controls. Clan control relies on socialization of members to a set of values, beliefs, and philosophies; abiding members are rewarded informally (e.g., complimented for doing a good job) while non-abiding members may be ostracized. The second form of informal control, self-control, relies on an individual setting her/his own goals for a particular task and then monitoring and rewarding her/his own performance.

According to Ravi’s research (ACM subscription required), both self control and outcome control are needed in virtual teams whose members come from a high individualism culture, i.e., a culture in which ties between individuals are loose and people tend to achieve things individually and assume personal responsibility. Individuals from such a culture, such as those from the US, UK, and Australia, perform better when they are given the liberty to perform their tasks and their task performance is not monitored. Accordingly, self-controls are recommended. However, in addition to self-control, outcome controls are needed in order to make sure that the goals sought by such individuals are properly aligned with project goals. On the other hand, Ravi’s research suggests a mix of clan control and behavior control in virtual teams whose members are from a high collectivistic culture, i.e., a culture characterized by strong interpersonal ties and by collective achievement and responsibility. In such a culture, which exists in countries such as China, the Philippines, and South Korea, people perform better when their values and beliefs are in harmony with those of individuals they are working with and there is reciprocity in interpersonal relationships. To achieve this harmony, clan control is suggested since it helps create shared values and beliefs. Additionally, since employees from collectivistic cultures view their relationship with the employer in moral terms and are motivated to follow rules and procedures, they are more comfortable and perform better when behavior controls are implemented.

So what does this mean for a virtual team leader? If a leader is dealing with a virtual team whose members come from a high individualism culture, here is a partial list of action steps for the leader that I can think of.

• At the project’s outset, specify the team’s mission and goals as well as individual roles, deliverables, and deadlines.
• Let team members create individual plans for fulfilling their roles and meeting their deadlines.
• Review performance and create accountability on individual basis.

If a leader is dealing with a virtual team whose members come from a high collectivistic culture, the corresponding action steps for the leader would be:

• Engage the team members in a discussion in which you offer them the project’s mission and goals as starting points to consider and build on.
• Help the team design its plan to accomplish its goals. This will include the roles of individual members, the milestones to be achieved, and who will be responsible for achieving them and by when. The plan will also include the team’s rules of engagement — the values that the team will live by and the different types of processes (e.g., decision making, communication, and conflict-resolution) it will employ to achieve its goals.
• Engage the team in an after-action review on a regular basis to help it review and fine-tune its performance.

I think Ravi’s research offers us a very good starting point to begin thinking about how to adjust one’s leadership depending on the type of culture represented within one’s team. In his paper, he talks about two other dimensions of culture (power distance and uncertainty avoidance) offered to us by Geert Hofstede, a pioneer in research on culture, and what they mean for controls in virtual teams (see the website of Itim International for more information about different dimensions of culture and where different countries lie on these dimensions). Ravi’s ideas are clearly applicable when a virtual team leader is leading members who are culturally similar. However, the leader of a virtual team may need to be creative when the members are not culturally similar. One strategy for the leader may be to first determine who are the most critical members of the team and see if it is possible to implement controls that are consistent with the culture(s) of those individuals. Surely, we need additional research to help a virtual team leader determine appropriate control strategies in culturally heterogeneous teams.

While the ideas in Ravi’s research await empirical testing, I think this blog is a great place for you to provide feedback about their applicability. Look back into your experience and tell us whether these ideas make sense. Together we may be able to create a better set of ideas about how culture matters in virtual teams.