Managing participative diversity in virtual teams: requirements for collaborative technology support

Information systems development has grown to become an area in which organisational performance and satisfying information needs secures primary consideration. As a result, participation has become commonplace in the form of teamwork; autonomous work groups and even globally distributed virtual teams. However the benefits of participation have been contradictory as vested stakeholders may jeopardize the group process and emotional, irrational behaviour may thwart progress. This suggests that there are multiple dimensions of participation that need to be recognised. Once recognised, participation can then be used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of virtual teams. The paper describes this participative diversity through episodes at which aspects of learning took place in a globally distributed virtual team. Following an analysis of interactions on a virtual space, conclusions are drawn with respect to the functionalities required for collaborative technologies.