Abstract

By using a computer network, geographically distributed people with common goals can communicate and collaborate their work efforts across time and space barriers. These groups has been called "virtual teams" (Geber, 1995). The virtual teams are used to support various kinds of collaborative efforts ranging from routine, mundane works to complex, creative works (Geber, 1995; Snizek, 1995). Because the virtual teams can bring together the right mix of people who have the appropriate set of knowledge, skills, information, and authority to solve difficult problems quickly and easily, they are receiving considerable attention from knowledge workers (Boldyreff et al., 1996; McGuire, 1996). These knowledge workers are characterized as highly qualified individuals who need to make decisions under non- routine, unstructured, and uncertain environments (Knight et al., 1993). As the numerous benefits and advantages of the virtual teams in increasing effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge workers becomes widely recognized, organizations face a new challenge in coping with their new organizational structure (Davidow & Malone, 1993). The challenge is to turn the scattered, diverse knowledge of their knowledge workers who are working in a virtual team into a well-structured knowledge repository (Spek & Spijkervet, 1996; Wiig, 1993).

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