Work in progress — Students and engineers collaborating in global virtual context

This work in progress will present an exploratory case study on how globally dispersed students and practicing engineers collaborate in completing client-sponsored, multi-disciplinary, and multicultural team projects. Literature on global virtual teams study often cites miscommunication as a main cause for ineffective virtual team performance. This work in progress focuses on practices and training on the aspect of communication and trust building in global virtual teams from a sample of two teams. Qualitative data will be collected through various methods: participant observation, direct observation, interviews, and writing samples. Data will be analyzed by following the constructive grounded theory protocol. This work in progress will contribute to the literature on global virtual teams and international engineering education and offer pedagogical implication on how to prepare engineering students to collaborate in professional settings in the global (virtual) workplace.