Learning to work in distributed global teams

International teamwork is one of the core components of network organizations. A set of studies was conducted to observe how students learned to work in globally dispersed virtual teams. Nineteen teams of three to seven graduate students, who resided in 13 different universities in nine different countries, were observed for five weeks. Many teams had members separated by a 16-hour time difference. Students were challenged to push the limits of electronic mail by collaborating on unstructured tasks with people they would never meet face-to-face. Students learned a variety of collaboration, socialization, and global communication skills while accomplishing difficult work.>