Knowledge sharing in global virtual team collaboration: applications of CE and thinkLets

Although a global virtual team (GVT) can provide organizations with increased competitive advantages and greater flexibility due to its unique ability to transcend traditional boundaries of time, locations, and organizational constraints, knowledge sharing in globally dispersed and culturally diverse members also poses unique challenges to organizations wishing to capitalize on diverse knowledge of GVTs. This work, therefore, examines extant literature on collaboration engineering (CE) and thinkLets and further proposes that CE and thinkLets can help organizations develop predictable patterns of knowledge-sharing behaviour and a sense of structure in GVT collaboration. Implications of using CE and thinkLets for organizational practice and research are also discussed in the virtual collaboration context.