Article Published in proceeding of IWIC’09, February 20–21, 2009, Palo Alto, California, USA. ACM Who Shouts Louder: Power Dynamics in Virtual Teams Niina Nurmi 1 , Petra Bosch-Sijtsema 2 , Anu Sivunen 3 , Renate Fruchter 4 1 & 3: Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Work Psychology and Leadership P.O.Box 5500, FI 02015 TKK niina.nurmi@tkk.fi anu.sivunen@tkk.fi 2 & 4: Stanford University, Project Based Learning Laboratory Civil and Environmental Engineering 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 petra@petrabosch.com fruchter@stanford.edu ABSTRACT This paper studies the power dynamics in globally distributed virtual teams as a function of proximity to headquarter, management, and other team members, and its relation to cultural diversity, such as language, work practice, attitude, and behavior. Despite the increasing attention to multi-cultural collaboration, power dynamics in global virtual teams is hardly discussed in research. We use a qualitative, interpretive research method to study four virtual teams from three globally distributed companies in the electronics and software industry in Asia, US, and Europe. Our findings indicate that close proximity to headquarter, management, and team members, and access to information, knowledge networks make local conditions visible, increase power and access to power, and provide more career opportunities. Cultural diversity, specifically language, work behavior and attitude, as well as local organization culture lead to power tension and conflict. Keywords Virtual teams, power dynamics, distance, proximity, cultural diversity INTRODUCTION My reaction [to distant management power problem] usually is that I start shouting louder. The problem is that we are still such a European centered organization and the US office is so distant that many people think that US projects are not in such a hurry and they concentrate on their local priorities [in headquarters]. So that’s why I have to shout loud if I want my project tasks to be delivered. (Global Project Team 1 - GPT 1, Sub team leader, Boston, US) More and more corporations engage multi-cultural, globally distributed, virtual teams. Such teams consist of individuals located in many different countries or geographical areas with a common goal, carrying out interdependent tasks, using mostly technology for communication and collaboration [1, 18, 21, 27]. Research mentions that global virtual team members face different challenges from their counterparts in traditional teams [27]. The lack of proximity, face-to-face communication, spontaneous interaction, and the cultural (national and organizational) and language differences affect collaboration and communication in global virtual teams [e.g. 2, 13, 27]. According to Zakaria et al. [27] global team members experience information overload, social isolation, and uneven power distributions. The uneven power distributions can be perceived as the domination of one group over another within a team. Hornett [16] studied power in virtual teams and found that power was described by team members as being outside the virtual team in authoritative positions, resource allocations, and decisions on projects and technologies. In organizations power is thought to rest with managers with supervisory responsibilities over employees [7]. In these studies, power is perceived as a social construct in which the perception of manager’s power is likely to influence subordinates attitudes and behavior. We perceive power in social relationships as the determination of the behavior of one social unit by another [11]. Dynamics of power result from the social interactions and the available power bases which can be used to influence the external environment. Power relationships and dynamics are a difficult topic to study, and even more so in global virtual teams. Global virtual team members are not always in proximity of their superior or headquarters. Consequently, power dynamics might be perceived differently when team members are not in close proximity to leadership and visibility of the team member and their local work conditions is limited. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Cultural Diversity and Power Global virtual teams differ in national, cultural and linguistic attributes [27]. An important feature of these teams is connecting people working and living in different geographical areas with their own set of business conditions, cultural beliefs and history. Individuals from