Virtual Team Leadership and Collaborative Engineering Advancements: Contemporary Issues and Implications

The book is organized in four main sections – Section I: Emerging Issues and Debate; Section II: Virtual Team Leadership; Section III: Collaborative Production and Engineering; and Section IV: Advanced Conceptual and Theoretical Issues. Each section contains several chapters written by experts. In Section I a range of emerging e-collaboration topics are discussed, setting the stage for the next two sections, which are the core sections of the book. Those two core sections then explore in more detail the topics of virtual team leadership, and collaborative production and engineering. The fourth and final section discusses advanced conceptual and theoretical issues related to the topics covered in the previous sections. Most of the chapters in this book are revised versions of selected articles published in the International Journal of e-Collaboration. I have had the pleasure and honor of serving as Founding Editor-in-Chief of that Journal since its first issue was published in 2005.

The contributing authors are among the most accomplished researchers in the world today in the areas of e-collaboration, virtual team leadership, and collaborative engineering. I am most grateful for their hard work in connection with the development of this book, which has been a great pleasure to edit together my colleagues at IGI Global. The blend of conceptual, theoretical and applied chapters found here makes me confident that this book will serve both academics and practitioners very well. I hope that the book will stimulate further research virtual team leadership, collaborative engineering, and related e-collaboration issues. It is also my hope that this book will serve as a valuable source of ideas for managers involved in projects that rely heavily on e-collaboration technologies.

Ned Kock