introduction
Welcome to Managing in a Virtual Environment!
Spring 2008, Mini 3, Wednesdays 5:30 - 8:30pm.
This course focuses upon the problems and challenges of managing individuals, groups, and organizations in a virtual or distributed environment. A virtual environment means that work is accomplished by interdependent people performing at different time or places, within or across organizations. As an interface course in the Heinz curriculum (Mgt/IT), this course addresses current topics associated with the new forms of organizing that new technology and accompanying strategic changes promote.
objectives
The goal of this course is to prepare you for working distributed from your colleagues across space, time, or organizations.
By the end of this course you should know the following:
- The task and social challenges of working in a virtual environment.
- The kinds of technology available to support virtual work arrangements.
- The rationale for using virtual work arrangements.
- Unique challenges to working across national boundaries.
- Specific behaviors you can use to build trust, manage conflict, and motivate virtual team members as a manager.
- What a social network is and why this concept is important for virtual teams.
- The importance of knowledge management for virtual organizations, and some ways to motivate contribution to a knowledge management system.