MAINTAINING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN VIRTUAL TEAMS

Abstract

The wave of the tendency to work from home and take virtual participation in the work of companies and organizations, through the web tools that the progress of technology makes available, is gaining more and more momentum and is becoming represented in the everyday life of both smaller enterprises and firms, and giant companies. Whether it is an unintended effect of globalization or its natural developing product, however, what cannot be avoided is the fact that video conferencing, web meetings, and working over the Internet is everyday in business and society. Naturally and additionally, the pandemic with the virus COVID-19 has only strengthened this tendency to work from home, from an isolated environment or through the tools and platforms offered by the Internet and the recent successes of web communication. From the aspect of organizational culture, if the beginning of the 2000s marked a period in which knowledge about organizational culture was placed on a solid foundation, but was still followed by the need to test, delineate and develop them, twenty years later, the phenomenon manifested itself which potentially means a threat to the organizational culture of companies and organizations. The challenge that is set before the organizational sciences is the need to investigate what will be the methods for forming and maintaining the organizational culture among the teams that function in the virtual world. To achieve this, the paper analyzes the characteristics and challenges of the virtual context and virtual teams, perceives proven best practices for strengthening the social element in the virtual world, and connecting these elements with the elements of organizational culture, points to certain conclusions regarding the research problem.