An e-team is a group of individuals who work across space and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology.
Members have complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose, have interdependent performance goals, and share an approach to work for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
Geographically dispersed teams allow organizations to hire and retain the best people regardless of location. An e-team does not always imply telecommuters, or remote workers; individuals who work from home. Many virtual teams in today’s organizations consist of employees working from home and in small groups in the office, but in different geographic locations.
The benefits of an e-team approach are:
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Workers can be located anywhere in the world.
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Virtual environments can give shy participants a new voice.
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Members have less commuting and travel time, so they tend to be more productive.
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Companies gain an increasingly horizontal organization structure, characterized by structurally, and geographically distributed human resources.
There are a few concerns when using e-teams. They frequently operate from multiple time zones, so it is important to make sure there is some overlapping work time. Intra-team communications must be more formal than those of a team that meets in person. Care also needs to be taken to make sure no one is left out of the communication loop just because they are not visible or available. E-teams demand a high trust culture.
