Virtual Teams: A New Opportunity to Develop a Business

Nader Ale Ebrahim
University of Malaya - Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering

Shamsuddin Ahmed
University of Malaya (UM)

Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid
University of Malaya (UM) - Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture

Zahari Taha
University Malaysia Pahang - Department of Manufacturing Engineering



International Conference on Entrepreneurship Across Boundaries, 2010

Abstract:
Virtual teams give many advantages to organizations, including increased knowledge sharing and improve organizational performance. Virtual teams have altered the expectations and boundaries of knowledge worker’s interactions and make a new opportunity to develop the business. In this paper, we present summary results of an online survey. The online questionnaire was emailed by using a simple random sampling method to 356 Malaysian manufacturing small and medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The findings of this study show that SMEs in Malaysia are gaining to use virtual teams, and it can be concluded that virtual teams provide a new platform for developing the business in SMEs. Based on the study, we suggest avenues for future research that are important to advancing our understanding of virtual team effects on business growth.

Keywords: Collaboration, Virtual Teams, SMEs, Entrepreneurship, Business Development, Survey

SSRN-Virtual Teams: A New Opportunity to Develop a Business by Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Zahari Taha