Engendering creativity in temporary virtual project teams: the case of a product design firm

Although virtual teams have been around for a long time and have become a widespread form of work organization, little is known about creativity in this context. In this chapter, we focus on virtual project teams (VPTs) in particular, which are temporary in character and typically disbanded on completion of the project in question. Driven by our interest to explore how the temporary aspect of VPTs influences creativity, we take the case of a small UK-based product design firm and employ qualitative methods to examine how creativity developed within the lifecycle of a small team that worked as a VPT for the first time. Our findings (a) suggest that creativity is evident, in different forms, throughout the VPT lifecycle; and (b) point to different types of factors engendering creativity in VPTs with no face-to-face communication. We close the chapter with the study’s limitations and implications for theory and practice.