The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved with research and
development (R&D) programs and employed virtual teams to create the greatest competitive advantage from
limited labor are increasing. Global and localized virtual R&D teams are believed to have high potential for the
growth of SMEs. Due to the fast-growing complexity of new products coupled with new emerging opportunities of
virtual teams, a collaborative approach is believed to be the future trend. This research explores the effectiveness
of virtuality in SMEs’ virtual R&D teams. Online questionnaires were emailed to Malaysian manufacturing
SMEs and 74 usable questionnaires were received, representing a 20.8 percent return rate. In order to avoid
biases which may result from pre-suggested answers, a series of open-ended questions were retrieved from the
experts. This study was focused on analyzing an open-ended question, whereby four main themes were extracted
from the experts’ recommendations regarding the effectiveness of virtual teams for the growth and performance
of SMEs. The findings of this study would be useful to product design managers of SMEs in order to realize the
key advantages and significance of virtual R&D teams during the new product development (NPD) process. This
is turn, leads to increased effectiveness in new product development's procedure
Nader
Ale Ebrahim holds a PhD degree in Technology Management from the Department of
Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of
Malaya. He holds a Master of Science in the Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Tehran with distinguished honors. He also has over 19 years of
experience in the establishment of the R&D departments in different
companies, heading projects as the project director and project coordinator and
implementing knowledge based system in the R&D department. His current
research interest focuses on E-skills, Research Tools, Bibliometrics and
managing virtual NPD teams in SMEs’ R&D centers. His papers/articles have
published and presented in the several journals and conferences.
Virtual Teams
New Product Development
Survey Finding
Small and Medium Enterprises
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