Study title

The collection includes a total of 274 individual qualitative reports reflecting on each participant's experience of having worked in a global virtual team (GVT) environment through their participation in the VIBu 2019 project. 204 participants — organised in 16 GVTs, dispersed between Austria, Finland, the UK and the USA — took part. Participants were asked to complete two individual reports; one after each VIBu simulation day. Of the 204 participants, 164 submitted a report after the first simulation day, and 110 after the second one. Therefore, a total of 274 reports were collected. Reports were on average two pages long each. Due to confidentiality promised during the data collection process the data cannot be archived.

"Virtual Teams in International Business" (VIBu) is a global online business simulation that joins international learners in a synchronous, shared business operations environment. VIBu forms an international learning experience and is organised by the University of Turku, Finland in collaboration with other Universities around the world with the aim of training participants on how to work effectively in Global Virtual Team (GVT) environments. It involves two full simulation days where globally dispersed participants have to work together synchronously. In 2019, we asked participants to write reflective reports twice during the VIBu simulation in order to collect data that would enable us to study how GVTs are led with an emphasis on how GVT members and leaders react when some members switch teams during the GVT lifecycle. Therefore, of the 204 participants we surprised 28 of them by unexpectedly asking them to switch teams half-way through the simulation. The first set of reports were written before the switch (after the first simulation day), and the second set after the switch (on completion of the entire simulation), so that participants could reflect on it and share their experience.