Diferenças sociocomportamentais entre o trabalho em equipes virtuais e equipes presenciais

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating virtual teams within organizations. It was guided by the hypothesis that significant differences are found in the behavioral and social characteristics of the members of these two kinds of teams. The strategy was to match those characteristics as found in attendance and virtual teams with factors such as requirements, difficulties, outcomes and work flow to search for differences, which would they be? and which kind of team would be favored by them?. That hypothesis was investigated under the differentiation of gender and nationality, as the independent variables. The survey was carried out entirely through e-mails by the means of a questionnaire composed by closed and open questions in order to provide data for qualitative and quantitative analysis. The hypothesis was confirmed by the findings not only in the whole group of subjects but also in the two subgroups according to the independent variables. Effectiveness, lower costs and better quality of life were the main results favoring virtual teams although the latter do not apply homogeneously to the several sorts of tasks. Yet, the findings disclosed that hybrid models of teams were seen by the subjects as the ideal form of team-work.