James McConnell has been newly appointed as the Senior Director of New Product Development in a New York-based multinational manufacturing company. He is informed by his CEO that the company is restructuring to rationalize some of its R&D, IT infrastructure support, product testing, and manufacturing functions by migrating them offshore to other countries. Although there are several factors responsible for this decision, three main reasons provided by the management are the possibility of a 24/7 development cycle as a result of time zone difference, greater availability of talent outside of the U.S., and lower labor costs associated with hiring and utilizing knowledge workers outside of the United States.

The company has some previous experience in international business, but it has been mainly engaged in only sourcing raw materials and components and exporting finished equipment to some countries in Europe and Latin America. The company does not have any experience in working in virtual global teams for new product development work.

The company has decided to locate its R&D facility in Dallas (USA); carry out product testing in Toronto (Canada), have an Information Technology infrastructure support facility in Chennai (India), and the final manufacturing and assembly facility in Guadalajara (Mexico). While each new location will employ local employees, several existing managers and experienced engineers will also relocate from the United States to those offshore locations for a limited period of 6 months to a year to facilitate knowledge transfer and guide local employees. The chief program manager supervising all countries will be located in the U.S. and will report to the CEO.

To be successful, the company will utilize a model in which they will follow the corporate values based on the U.S. culture but will also need to mold their business practices in accordance with the local cultural models in each foreign location. Therefore, they are considering assessing the cultural variability across the countries involved.

Based on what the CEO has learned from his/her industry peers, he/she does understand that the running of the global virtual team is not going to be easy. The company has no prior experience in this virtual mode of high-level product innovation, development, or manufacturing work. Therefore, you have been chosen as their consultant to investigate the idea and prepare a detailed report regarding global virtual teams and their successful operation.

1. What are the rationale and drivers for the recent growth of global virtual teams? What justifications can be given for the company's decision to migrate some product development, testing, IT infrastructure, and manufacturing work to another country? Wouldn't it be easier to manage the entire project if each component was based in the US itself?
2. What are the most likely major opportunities and challenges for this global virtual team?
3. Since the other teams will be based in Canada, Mexico and Russia, what cross-cultural differences are likely to impact the performance of this global virtual team? How would they cause any positive or negative impact on the company's overall business mission? What recommendations should be made for fully understanding and bridging these cultural differences?
4. How would mutual "trust" be a significant potential issue among members of this global virtual team? How to positively address any trust-related issues?
5. Provide some practical guidelines for general best practices for sustaining a high-performance global virtual team.