FULL VIRTUALITY AS THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL HRM
Matti Vartiainen, Professor, Work Psychology and Leadership, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

Abstract
In the technology-oriented approach, ‘full virtuality’ is defined and measured as the amount, the frequency and the quality of electronically mediated communication. The system-oriented approach relates virtuality to the features of collaborative working environments. The minimum specification of a global group or team is that at least one of its members is in different continent and from a different cultural background. The need to communicate by using collaboration technologies does it a global virtual group or team, and physical mobility of at least one member makes it a global mobile virtual group or team. After definitions of the basic concepts, challenges and opportunities of global virtual teams are shown based on the analysis of secondary data gained from research literature. The analysis shows that not much is known empirically of global virtual teams that could be used  to support global HRM.
Keywords: full virtuality, global virtual team, challenges